A Prayer of Thanksgiving:
We should always thank God for His blessings, including specific answers to our prayers.
Here now is Gene Getz:
To really understand this particular psalm and
to understand this principle,
we've got to go back and take a look at
the previous psalm, which is Psalm 20.
Psalm 20 was a prayer for King David.
But written by King David for the people of
Israel to sing as King David was
going into battle against the enemies of
Israel. But when we come to this psalm,
Psalm 21, we have another psalm by David.
Written by David, for the people of
Israel to sing, as a result of answered
prayer. And so that's what we see here in
relationship to this principle.
That principle really focuses on thanking God
for specific answers to prayer. And
that's exactly what we see here in this
particular psalm. So, look first of all at
the prayer request going back, now, to Psalm 20, verse 4:
"May He give you what your heart desires" ...
Now, David wrote those words for the
children of Israel to sing for him as
he's going out to battle, as I said a
moment ago. But notice now, if you move to
Psalm 21, here you have praise for the
answer to that prayer, which reads:
"You have given him his heart's desire" ...
Again ,another request that you see in Psalm 20,
going back to verse 5:
"May Yahweh fulfill all your requests."
Now, if you jump to Psalm 21:
"You ... have not denied the request of his lips."
Those are words that, actually, David wrote in response to answered prayer.
So you have a prayer request. A response.
A request. A response.
And we see that as a result of the
penning of this particular psalm. And so,
these two psalms, literally, go together.
And the victory, of course, that he has
here is over his enemies, but for the
glory of God. And it's interesting that
if you take a look at Psalm 20, verse 7. Going back, this was David's
heart. See, he was praying that God would
give him his heart's desire, but what was it? Well he says this:
"Some take pride in
a chariot and others in horses,
but we take pride in the name of the LORD our God."
And that was his motivation. And that
reminds me of the fact that when he was
just a relatively young man.
When he went out to do battle against Goliath.
And you remember what he said to
Goliath. He said, in essence, "You come to
me with your armor, with your spear, your helmet.
But I'm coming to you in the name
of our Lord, our God. For you have
defamed the name of God. The God of Abraham,
Isaac and Jacob." So this was basically
his motivation and the whole focus
of this psalm is to thank God for the
specific answers to prayer. That he was
able to glorify the name of God and have
victory in battle. So the focus here is
really on thanksgiving in answer to prayer.
And I'm reminded, and you'll remember,
the ten lepers that came to Jesus. And
Jesus was on his way to Jerusalem. He was
right on the border of Galilee and
Samaria. And by the way, the Jews avoided
going through Samaria. Not Jesus, but the
fellow Jews did. Cause they didn't want to have
anything to do with the Samaritans. But
here are these ten lepers that are
crying out for healing.
They are saying, "Lord. Lord. Have mercy on us."
And Jesus told them to go to the priests.
And while they were going to the priests,
they were healed. But you know the rest
of the story.
Nine of them didn't show up to say "thank you."
Only one came back. And Jesus asks some
penetrating questions to make a real
important point. And here are those questions:
"Were not 10 cleansed?" Now he's talking
to His disciples and those who are
following. "Were not 10 cleansed?
Where are the nine? Didn't any return to
give glory to God except this foreigner?"
And by a "foreigner," he meant he's a
Samaritan. He's one of the people you
won't have anything to do with. But he
has enough appreciation and thankfulness
in his heart to come back and say "thank you" and to glorify God for His healing.
And that's a powerful story, I think, in
relationship to just saying "thank you."
But there's something that is far deeper
here that Jesus is communicating. You see,
it's one thing to lack gratitude.
It's one thing to fail to say "thank you"
to God. But it's another thing to
actually reject the gift of God.
And Jesus is illustrating that, "Other sheep I
have, which are not of this fold." In other
words, He's saying, "I came first of all to
My own, but they did not receive Me. But
to all those who did," including
Samaritans, "I gave the right to become
children of God." And that's what we see
in John 1:11 and 12. Let me just state
it again, as it was written by the apostle John:
"He came to His own," ... and
there, the "own" definitely refers to the Jews.
"He came to His own, and His own people" ...
"His own people" being who? His fellow
Jews. ... "did not receive Him." Now, many did.
If you go to the day of Pentecost, most of the
church were all Jews. Of those 3,000
that believed on that first day. They were God-fearing,
Grecian Jews from all over the
Roman Empire. But as a nation, they
rejected Him. And that's what this is
referring to. "But to all who did receive
Him," ... And by the way, and not by the way,
it's important. It's not incidental. This
included the Samaritans. And that
includes every one of us.
Jesus said, "Other sheep I have, which are
not of this fold." That is, of the people
of Israel. And that other reference, to
"other sheep," is all of the Gentile world.
And so that's what Jesus is talking
about here. "He came to His own, [and] His own
people did not receive Him. But to all
who did receive Him, He gave them the
right to be children of God, to those who
believe in His name."
The Samaritan came back and said "thank you."
And then Jesus said, "Where are the other nine?"
Now, it's really interesting because
some believe that when he came back--
this Samaritan--it says he was praising God.
In fact, loudly. He was praising God and
thanking God for his healing. And then
Jesus said something very interesting.
He says, "Your faith has made you well."
Now, what does that mean?
Well, the fact is, He had healed all 10 of them.
They were already well. The one came
back in his wellness. But Jesus said,
"Now your faith has made you well."
Probably meaning totally: body, soul,
spirit. You are now a child of God. And
God brought healing into his life
because of his faith and his response to
that healing. So we have a beautiful
illustration here of how important it is
to thank God for answered prayer.
That's the focus of this psalm from David.
And here's a question for reflection and response:
Why is it so easy to forget to thank and praise God for His blessings, which in
reality is to take the credit ourselves?
Or at least, reflects our ungratefulness.
As I was reflecting on
that question myself, in my own life.
I thought, you know, it's really interesting
that we we can do this to other people.
This is sort of a natural tendency, is to
forget, even what other people do for us.
Even to want to take credit ourselves
for things that other people have done
for us. And that, simply, is pride.
I remember talking with a young man one
time that I was saying, "Look, I will help
you with this and together we can
work on this." And he just simply said,
very openly, "I want to do this myself.
And I want it to be my project. And I
don't want you to be a part of it."
That's what he was saying. Now, basically what he
was saying is, "I want the glory for what
I'm going to do. I don't want to
associate with anyone else."
And by the way, he was a Christian.
And that is selfishness. That's really
being ungrateful. I got a phone call just
recently. And a guy called me for a
favor. And in the process he said, "Oh by
the way, I'm so embarrassed, Gene. I'm
asking you for a favor but I forgot to
say "thank you" to you. And the fact is, I
sent him, as a free gift, the
Life Essentials Study Bible. And he was
embarrassed because he said, "Wow, you sent
me that as a gift. And it's kind of an
expensive gift." And I'm glad I did. But he
said, "Boy, here I am, back asking you for
something and I haven't even said 'thank' you for what
you did.' " And of course, I didn't hold that
against him because I've done that
myself. You know, we tend to forget. Even
with each other. But the most important
thing is, we should not forget God and
for what He has done for us. We have
short memories. And I believe this is
what God is saying to us through this psalm.
And I, personally, find it very
helpful to write down my request.
Recently I was sitting, getting ready to
get up, and speak and teach in a church.
And as I was sitting there. And I try to do
this when I've got moments during
worship--as I'm waiting--is take out my
prayer journal, and write down some
specific prayers. Right there. Before I
get up to teach. And I was doing that. And I
remember what I wrote down--as I reflect
now--in terms of God's presence. That He
would use me. Give me liberty. And then I
got up to speak. Well the interesting
thing is, the next day I was going
through my journal. And I read what I
prayed about the day before. But I hadn't
stopped to say, "Lord Jesus, thank you for
answering that prayer." And I read what I
wrote and then I thought about the
answer to that prayer. And right there,
I wrote, "Thank you, Lord, for hearing my
prayers." Specifically. Now, I need that
reminder. And I'm just simply saying that
I think one thing we can do, is to keep
records of our prayers. And then keep
records of how God answers that prayer
so that we can say "thank you." That, I
believe, is what this psalm says to us,
which is verified in the rest of the
Bible. This principle to live by.
So let's just review that as we close:
We should always thank God for His
blessings, including specific answers to our prayers.