Attitude of Gratitude

Berean Baptist on November 27, 2017

What shall I render unto the LORD for all his benefits toward me? I will take the cup of salvation, and call upon the name of the LORD. I will pay my vows unto the LORD now in the presence of all his people. (Psalms 116:12-14)

The phrase “attitude of gratitude” is one you will often hear Bro. Gary Moline use in his offertory prayers. The phrase is certainly biblical and a really good time to use it is just before we give our tithes and offerings. This thought is contemplated by the psalmist in Psalm 116 as he asked, “What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me?”

This is a great question since we are too often prone to ask, “What shall I complain to the Lord about all the problems I have?” This seems to be our primary thought when we go to the Lord in prayer. There is always some trouble that fills our mind so that our purpose in praying is only to lift up our complaints. We ignore prayer unless there is a problem just like many people ignore church until they figure things are so bad they had better resort to church attendance as their last best hope. Prayer is often viewed the same way.

In teaching the model prayer, Jesus said God knows every problem before we have a chance to tell Him. We do not bring Him any information He has not already considered. In fact, He brings many of our trials upon us to teach us to trust Him. The model prayer teaches that before making any petitions we should express glory to the name of God. We do this in several ways, among which is thanking Him for being our benefactor in His providential care of our lives. In this way, we acknowledge His sovereign control and remember we cannot exist a minute without Him.

The psalmist goes on to say how he will show his appreciation for the Lord’s benefits. He knew it is impossible to repay the Lord, but the Lord is not really looking for repayment. His benefits are by His free grace bestowed because of love. This is all the more incentive to show our appreciation. How would the psalmist show his gratitude? He began by thinking of the wonderful gift of salvation. It is hard to imagine anyone saved by God’s grace could be forgetful of this, but this is precisely what Peter described in 2 Peter 1:9. He said some have forgotten they were purged from their old sins. Their sins kept them from God’s favor, and yet it is to the old sins they return. The forgiveness of sin brought us into right relationship with God and turned His wrath away from us. Forgiveness removed all legal claims for punishment. How can we not be grateful for His salvation? What shall I render to God? First, my undying thankfulness for the salvation of my soul.

The second action of the psalmist verifies the first. The demonstration of thanksgiving is obedience to His commands. The Jews expressed their gratefulness by taking vows in which they promised certain acts of service. These vows were to be strictly observed. In like manner, we must strictly observe our vows to God. The first vow is the one made in baptism. Baptism is the acknowledgment of our belief in the atoning sacrifice of Christ. It is also a vow that we have died to our old way of life and we will no longer allow the old life to control us. We are risen to walk in the new life of Christ. In other words, in your baptism you promised to obey Christ as the Lord of your life.

There are also times we make vows that are bargaining chips to receive something from God. We do not need to make these vows but nevertheless if we do, we had better be sure to fulfill them. In Old Testament times, it was good to make a vow. It showed willingness to surrender to the Lord in service. The idea of it was good but the idea became very bad if there was no follow through. The scripture says it is better not to make a vow than to make one and not perform it (Ecclesiastes 5:4-5).

The most important point for today is to show gratitude by honoring Christ with faithful service. No one likes ungrateful people, and neither does God. Stop complaining for a while and show an attitude of gratitude. God is pleased when we remember His abundant mercies.

 

Pastor V. Mark Smith

God’s Providence in a Child’s Conversion

Berean Baptist on August 13, 2017

John Flavel has long been one of my favorite Puritan authors and his masterpiece on God’s providence is one of the first of his books I read. Providence is a very important concept in scripture as it describes how God works all things after the counsel of will and knows how each detail of His creation works together for the blessings of His children. In other words, providence comprehends more than the predestination of God’s people to salvation. It considers His total control of all His creatures to bring about His sovereign purposes. Among its many properties is the confirmation that all things consist by the power of God and that no creature is self-sustaining.

In chapter 3 of Flavel’s book, he deals with God’s providence in salvation. Flavel seems enraptured as he expounds on the way God orders all the occasions that bring His people to belief in Him. There are no accidents in our conversion. Each step is carefully planned by God. Of all the good God does for us, nothing compares to His meticulous care to bring us to salvation.

The point of this chapter is the gratitude and the testimony of a Christian because of what Christ has done. And yet Flavel points out that all testimonies are not equal. All experiences of conversion are not the same. Every Christian does not tell the same story or give as much detail in relating what happened in their lives at the time God saved them.

This interested me because I have experienced exactly what Flavel describes. I was saved when I was very young. My father was a Baptist preacher and I grew up in a Christian home. The first place I was taken as a child was to church. My name appeared on the cradle roll of South Broadway Baptist Church when I was just a few days old. There has never been I time when I have not been in church, and at the age of seven I trusted Christ as Saviour. Believe me, that was a long time ago.

If you ask me to provide the details of my conversion, to tell you the sermon, the songs, to relate what happened afterwards, to tell you how I felt—I cannot. I do remember the conviction, but that is all. Because I can’t remember the details, does it mean I am not saved? Surprisingly, I have heard preachers say if you don’t know the day, the hour, and the minute you trusted Christ, then you aren’t really saved.

Your experience of coming to Christ may be different. I have heard many testimonies of people who were in deep sin when they were saved. Some were in drugs, alcohol, adultery, pornography—and each has a very clear recollection of the day God brought them out of those horrible lives of sin. And there lies the difference. I was young and had very little life experiences. I needed salvation as much as anyone, but I don’t have that riveting, interesting, enthralling story that causes people to shout, Praise God! I don’t believe anyone ever said ooh and ah at my testimony.

Here is the point. An exciting testimony is no more proof a person is saved than a dull, vague, boring memory of a child who came to know Christ. In fact, you should pray to God every day that your children end up with a boring story of conversion rather than a spectacular turnaround. When a child is saved, it is the most exciting salvation of all.

 

Pastor V. Mark Smith

The Steps of a Good Man

Berean Baptist on February 15, 2016

The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD: and he delighteth in his way. Though he fall, he shall not be utterly cast down: for the LORD upholdeth him with his hand. (Psalms 37:23-24)

 On the last Lord’s Day, we read the first seventeen verses of Psalm 37. My remarks on this Psalm were about the hardships of the Christian life and how it seems we always fall behind the prosperity of the world. We are encouraged not to despair because this life is as good as it gets for the wicked. Though the evil man may appear to be prosperous, his prosperity is a mirage. He may clutch his title deed to the earth for a while, but soon all he has will be taken away. The earth belongs to God and is the inheritance of the people of God (v. 11).

This Psalm is filled with hope for the troubled Christian, but none is better than the words of verses 23 and 24. Think carefully on this phrase: “The steps of a good man are ordered by the LORD…” These are the most hopeful words you will ever read. They speak of two great doctrines of the faith—God’s divine providence and His sovereign predestination. There is not a step you will ever take that God did not know you would take. He knows because He is the one that puts one foot in front of the other.

When God formed the world by His spoken word, He knew it would be inhabited by a race that He had chosen for His name. The beginning of man was in the predestination of God and we dare not think that after man was created God abruptly relinquished His divine providence. The fall in the Garden was not a surprise to Him and neither was the means by which He would restore all that was lost in that devastating event. If God should have relinquished control at that awful hour, there is not one soul that would ever have hope of redemption. Through the fall, we became completely corrupted. Every faculty of man was radically altered so that we are consumed with sin through and through. This radical corruption is what we call total depravity, and it left man in such a state that we are wholly incapable of looking up to God and helping ourselves in any way. We will not look because we care not to look. The scriptures say we became the enemies of God and of His righteousness. If God should leave us alone in our depravity, we are hopeless because we do not have the power or will to escape it.

The scriptures do not present a God who has abandoned us. We are enabled to come back to Him for one reason—His marvelous grace. In regeneration, He changes our disposition from hostility against His grace to openness to receive His grace. He orders the steps of repentance and faith. If you trust Christ as Saviour, you owe your trust to a sovereign act of the Holy Spirit. You did not change your mind; He changed your mind. Our statement of faith says accurately: “[He] secure[s] our voluntary obedience to the gospel” (Article 7). God’s method leaves Him alone responsible in all ways for our salvation.

With the tremendous costliness of salvation requiring the death of Christ for sin, how can we imagine that God who purchased our redemption with blood should ever let us go? When we fall, God does not cast us off. In the bleakest hour of our deepest despair, God still has His eye on us. He fully intends to raise us again and put us back upon the solid rock. The timing of His lifting is also His alone. We know it cannot be too long because the time of life is nothing compared to eternity. Our long time is God’s short time.

The promise is providentially intact. He sees with His eye but goes much further—He holds with His hands. We know we can never sink too low to be beneath His tender embrace. We often say, “Keep the faith!” We shall because we are kept by the power of God (1 Peter 1:5).

Pastor V. Mark Smith

Is Psalm 23 for You?

Berean Baptist on August 31, 2015

The LORD is my shepherd… (Psalm 23:1a)

 Psalm 23 is probably the most well-known text in the Holy Scriptures. This is a most beloved psalm and has been quoted in almost every conceivable venue where people need hope. Many a soldier has carried it into battle or placed it next to his heart in a frightening foxhole. Hospitals and funeral homes are also often places of recital. There was a time when every school child would learn it and say it as a daily routine. Sadly, those days are mostly gone because of our government’s hatred of all things godly. However, disdain for the Bible does not diminish the spiritual impact made by its words.

Although the psalm is loved and quoted by nearly everyone that claims to be Christian, and by some that do not, the message is not generic and it does not apply to everyone that claims it. It begins, “The Lord is my shepherd…” Is this really true of everyone? Does the Lord direct everyone that claims these words? I remember hearing them at state funerals in the National Cathedral said by political figures that were instrumental in keeping God’s word out of our classrooms and the Ten Commandments out of our courtrooms. These are not people led by God. They are defiant against the one they claim leads them. In times of deep sorrow and distress, they are quoted by those with no intentions of surrendering their lives to the Lord. They are troubled for the moment and they need help, but they have never been led by God nor do they intend to be afterwards.

The one who wrote this psalm had an abiding relationship with the Lord. David was not always obedient and there were times when he sinned greatly, yet the difference between him and other sinners is that he always recognized his sin and he came to God in deep contrition asking to be restored to fellowship. David was a man with a regenerated heart. He knew his God personally and called upon Him affectionately. His relationship to the Lord was never to do as he pleased and live daily as if God did not exist—or only exists for times of trouble. He felt God’s presence on a daily basis and this is why he was easily convicted when his heart was not right.

The last verse of the psalm says, ”Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.” This is a claim that can hardly be made by a false professor. Even while David wrote this psalm, his enemies were planning their next attack. What would motivate him to make this claim? It could only be that his relationship to the Lord and his belief in God’s sovereignty was such that he knew nothing would befall him that was not in the divine providence. This is reflected in the preceding verse as he says, “Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies.” Who can write such words without perfect confidence in God?

Those that have not claimed salvation by grace through faith in Jesus Christ have no right to this psalm. Their claims are not valid though they may quote with all feigned sincerity. God does not stand by anyone that rejects the sacrifice of His Son. The difference is false hope versus good hope. Good hope belongs only to the righteous that have bowed the knee to Christ and received Him as the Shepherd who guides ALL of his life. This is what makes Him the God of your valleys who leads you through to green pastures and beside still waters. You can make the claim “The Lord is my shepherd” only if you have truly committed to follow where the Shepherd leads.

Pastor V. Mark Smith