Five Pearls, Part 1

Today on Fellowship in the Word, Pastor Bill Gebhardt challenges you to become a fully functioning follower of Jesus Christ.

What can be like? He says it near the end of verse 2, they will be ungrateful. The prevailing view of man will be they have no gratitude to God at all. They are ungrateful.

That word ungrateful is simply the word thankful with the Greek letter A in front of it, which means not thankful. They are not thankful to God. They have completely forgotten about God. It's easy to forget. It's easy not just for the lost to forget, but for the believer to forget. It's easy to forget what God has blessed you with and not be thankful. Thank you for joining us today on this edition of Fellowship in the Word with Pastor Bill Gebhardt. Fellowship in the Word is the radio ministry of Fellowship Bible Church located in Metairie, Louisiana. Let's join Pastor Bill Gebhardt now as once again he shows us how God's word meets our world. There was a time when Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday, and the reason I thought it was such a great holiday was that it didn't have any of the commercialization or any of the distractions that the other holidays have.

It was kind of pure in its own way. That's not true anymore. Black Friday in America has now become as important to our culture as Thanksgiving is. In fact, some stores are bringing Black Friday to Thanksgiving. We're actually going to start the sales earlier, and pretty soon it'll be Black Friday day.

That's just the way that it'll work. In fact, I think that when you think about Thanksgiving in America, it becomes a little bit perplexing. We no longer thank God like the Puritans did who started the whole thing.

We don't do that anymore. You can thank anybody. You can thank any deity you choose of or no deity if you want to. I imagine some of you, if you want to, you can thank yourselves on Thursday.

You can do that if you'd like, because that's our culture. But that doesn't have any effect on us as followers of Jesus Christ. The Apostle Paul said to the Thessalonians, in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.

He also turned the church of Ephesus. He said, always giving thanks for all things in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. So, biblically, Thanksgiving should be every day for us. We should be people who thank God every day, but I suspect that you don't. You thank Him once in a while, but not that often. Now, you'll thank Him Thursday because somebody has to say something at the table.

But that's not the way it should be. So, what I want to do today is I want to remind you and encourage you to give thanks to God. Would you open your Bibles to Psalm 103. Psalm 103, a psalm of David. And I want you to imagine that we're inviting David to your table, and that David is going to give thanks.

As we all do around the table, just give thanks to God. That's what David's going to do. It is a unique psalm. David speaks to three different groups in the psalm. In verses 1 to 5, he speaks to himself. These are the verses he talks to himself about. In verses 6 to 18, he speaks to the nation.

He speaks to all the other people. And then, verses 19 to 22, he actually speaks to the angels. And he tells the angels they should give thanks. It's an amazing psalm.

In the mood of the psalm, the theme of the psalm is found in those first three words. Bless the Lord. Bless the Lord. Now, please don't misunderstand the word bless. Sometimes Christians get up, well, how can I bless him? He blesses me.

It's not that kind of blessing. This word for bless is the word barach. Barach, a great word in Hebrew.

Barach means to bow a knee before one's sovereign. It means to acknowledge the awesome presence of God. He said bless the Lord. That's what he says.

He's caught up in the moment. Bless the Lord. Oh, my soul.

What a great way to say it. Bless the Lord. Oh, my soul.

And all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord. Oh, my soul.

Forget none of his benefits. Look at verse 20, bless the Lord, you his angels. Verse 21, bless the Lord, all his hosts. Verse 22, bless the Lord, all the works of his. In all places of his dominion, bless the Lord. Oh, my soul.

That's what David is talking about. Lord, I just bow before you. I'm thankful for what you have done for me. I'm thankful for this. But we're not always.

And some of you probably not at all. Hold your place here and go with me to 2 Timothy chapter 3. 2 Timothy 3. Paul's describing what it's like to live on the earth in the last days. What's it going to be like in the last days?

What are people going to be like in the last days? And I want you to see what he says. 2 Timothy 3 and verse 1. Paul says, realize this. I want you to think about this. Realize this. That in the last days, he said difficult times will come.

Why? Because of man. He says, for men will be lovers of self. They'll be narcissists. They'll be lovers of money.

They're materialists. He said they'll be boastful and arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips without self-control, brutal haters of good, treacherous, reckless, conceited. They'll be lovers of pleasure, hedonist, rather than lovers of God.

But right in the middle of that, he has one word. What will men be like? He says it near the end of verse 2. They will be ungrateful. A prevailing view of man will be they have no gratitude to God at all. They are ungrateful.

That word ungrateful is simply the word thankful with the Greek letter A in front of it, which means not thankful. They are not thankful to God. They have completely forgotten about God. It's easy to forget. It's easy not just for the lost to forget, but for the believer to forget.

It's easy to forget what God has blessed you with and not be thankful. Go with me now to Mark, chapter 8. Mark, chapter 8. In the beginning of chapter 8 of Mark, the gospel writer talks about Jesus feeding the 4,000. He feeds 4,000. He's already fed 5,000.

That's a very important thing to understand. He's fed 5,000. He's fed 4,000. And then they go to the Sea of Galilee. And then we pick it up in verse 13. It said, leaving them, he again embarked and went away to the other side.

So he's once again going. Now, I want you to see the way the disciples are. These are his disciples. These are the chosen ones.

These represent people like you and me. And they had forgotten to take bread. And they did not have more than one loaf in the boat with them. I'm hungry. I'm just a little bit hungry. I mean, there's 12 of us, one loaf of bread.

How much bread are we going to get here? Now, he was giving orders to them. He's speaking with a tone of voice. And he says to them, watch out. Beware of the leaven of the Pharisees and the leaven of Herod. What's he mean? He says, watch out. The Pharisees are legalists.

Herod is worldly. You better watch out for these people. Now, when the Lord speaks to you that way, you think, listen, not so much. They began to discuss with one another the fact that they had no bread. I'm still hungry.

I know he's talking about some stuff, but I'm hungry. Preoccupied with their own need. That can happen to you and me, too.

Do the same thing. Preoccupied with their own need. Jesus, aware of this, he said to them, why do you discuss the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet see or understand? Do you have a hardened heart? Don't you know who you're with? Haven't you seen what I've done?

You have no idea? He said, when I broke the five lows for the 5,000, how many baskets full of broken pieces did you pick up? And they said, 12.

No one's looking at him now. 12. He said, when I broke the seven for the 4,000, how many large baskets full of broken pieces did you pick up?

And they said, that'd be seven. And he was saying to them, do you not yet understand? How do you miss this? Don't you know who I am? Don't you know what I've given you?

How can you do this? How can you so easily forget what I've done for you? Don't be too hard on the disciples because we act exactly the same way. We forget completely the provision of God.

Let's go back to the Psalm. William Barkley says this, ingratitude is the blindest of all the sins. Ingratitude is the blindest of all the sins because you refuse to see what God has blessed you with. You just refuse to see it.

C.S. Lewis in the Screwtape letter said this, the long, dull, monotonous years of middle-aged prosperity are excellent campaigning weather for the devil. To get you distracted, to get you onto your own needs, your own wishes, your own wants, and you end up forgetting completely what God has provided. That's what Psalm 103 is about.

That's what David is going to do. Gratitude is so important. And it's really important to God. I see this all the time with people in our church that have small children. If you give a small child a gift, they say, what's the parent always say? Tell the man, thanks.

Tell the man, thanks. Kid looks at him, thanks. That's really heartfelt.

Parent makes them, they say, thanks. But we say, when you get a gift, you should be thankful. God says, yes, I've given you a gift. Why aren't you thankful?

There's something else, though, for you and me in this. Joy does not make you grateful. But gratitude will make you joyful. Joy will not make you grateful, but gratitude will make you joyful.

If you're a thankful person, you're a joyful person. So David says, bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul.

Forget none of his benefits. Who pardons all of our iniquities, who heals all our diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with loving kindness and compassion, who satisfies your years with good things so that, he said, your youth is renewed like an eagle. David is thanking God for the blessings that God has given him.

And these aren't the short-term things. He's not saying, God, I thank you that I'm king. I thank you that I'm handsome. David's very handsome.

I thank you that the ladies like me. He doesn't thank God for anything like that. He's thanking God for something that's much, much more important than that.

Charles Spurgeon, the great pastor, preacher of the last century, said this. Here David begins his list of blessings received, which he rehearses as themes for praise. He selects a few of the choicest pearls from the divine love, and he threads them on a string of memories, and he hangs them about the neck of gratitude. That's what I want to say this morning, the five pearls. David puts five pearls on a string, and he hangs it around the neck of gratitude and says, thank you.

I would pray that's what you would do as well. Here's the first one. He says, who? Notice in every one of these verses starts out who, who, who. Everything is who. He says, who pardons all your iniquities.

Think about that. He pardons all your iniquities, all of them, every single one of them. He will never say to you, I think you've gone too far.

I think that's one too many. He said, no, I've pardoned them all. Just think of your life over the last month. How many sins you've committed just over the last month.

Then think back on your life and some of the things you've done that all of us feel ashamed of. Think of it all. He said, I pardoned them all. I pardoned every single one of those. Look at verse 10. He said, he has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor rewarded us according to our iniquities. He said, for as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his loving kindness toward those who fear him. And as far as the east is from the west, so far he has removed our transgressions from us. Wow.

Think of that. How high is the heavens above the earth? Infinitely high. How far is the east from the west? Infinitely.

There's no distance. He goes, yeah, that's the way this works. In fact, he also says in scripture, I take your sins. I take them to sea. I throw them overboard. And I remember them no more. What an incredible statement.

I remember them no more. Do you realize what kind of effect that would have? I've even said it in the past, but do you ever go back to God to acknowledge your sins and you walk with him and you're using 1 John 1.9 and you want to confess your sins? And you basically come back and say, or I would.

I'd say, God, it's Bill again. And here I am again. I committed the same sin again.

That type of thing. You know what God would say to me? What sin? What sin? I've forgotten it. I have forgotten it. Just think of that.

A hundred times you go back. He says, what sin? I remember it no more. Wow. Steadfast love of the Lord never changes. His mercy has never come to an end.

They're new every morning, new every morning. Great is their faithfulness. It's incredible what God has done. He pardons all of our iniquities.

Amazing. Secondly, the second Pearl, he says, and he heals all your diseases. Oh, what does that mean? He heals all your diseases. Some would say, well, in our prosperity days, that means every disease is healed by God.

It's a promise. Now they realize that that's not true. So they say, well, they'd all be healed if you had enough faith. And if you aren't healed, you don't have enough faith. And that's the only reason. That's heresy. Let me be as honest as I can about that.

That's not what he's talking about at all, and you'll see in a moment why. First thing, by the way, is almost all of us will die of disease. We'll have heart disease.

We'll have some kind of internal organ. We'll have pneumonia when we become elderly. Now, some of us die in accidents. Some of us die of other things. But most of us will die of disease.

There's no exceptions. So if he says he heals all your diseases, that's simply not true. It doesn't ring true at all, because that's not what he's saying. He said, there's a couple of things I want you to understand about that verse.

Here's the first one. When David is writing a psalm, he's writing poetry, a specific kind of poetry, Hebrew poetry. Now, when the Hebrews write poetry, they don't try to rhyme the word at the end like we do in English. They use a tool called parallelism. In other words, you write one line and you write a parallel line underneath it. Those two lines are interpreted together. It's called synonymous parallelism.

In other words, what is said in the first line is reset in a different way in the second line. That's what this is. Now, I want you to understand something here. He says then, who pardons all of our iniquities and heals us from all of our diseases, these two relate to one another.

And in fact, you have to understand, what does he mean about our diseases? What's the antecedent to this? What's he referring to?

What's the subject? Oh, my soul. He's talking about his soul.

Oh, my soul. He's not talking about anything else. He's talking about me, about my soul. He's talking about those soulish diseases that we have. He's talking about a spirit of bitterness. He's talking about all of these different things that attack our character from the inside. He heals all that, and we'll see in a moment just as to how he does it. Sometimes he does it in this life, then sometimes he'll do it at the end.

But the point of it is, he always does it. He heals all of our diseases. The book of Job is a very philosophical book. It's an incredible book to read. And it's because Job suffers in that book unlike any of us have ever even imagined anyone could.

I don't know of anyone, and maybe you don't either, that ever suffered like Job. Remember, he was the most righteous man on earth. He was prosperous. He had 10 children.

Everything was going well. And then through a discussion between Lucifer and God, God said you can do anything you want to him, but you can't kill him. And so what happened to him? He lost all of his servants. They were all killed. That's tragic. Then he lost all 10 of his children.

I couldn't even imagine what that would be like as a parent. 10 children are all dead. He lost 10 children. Then he lost all of his wealth. And then he lost all of his respect within the village itself. He lost it completely. And then he lost his health.

And then he's out on the city dump sitting on an ash heap in ashes and sackcloth with a piece of pottery scraping the sores off his body. You remember that even his wife said to him, she said, curse God and die. Don't be too hard on her. When the scripture says that Job was the most righteous man on the world, he didn't say his wife was the most righteous woman in the world.

It doesn't often work like that. She can only experience life the way she can experience it. She's unique in her own way. She lost 10 children. She lost all her wealth. She lost all the respect that her husband had. She lost everything.

And she said, you should just curse God and die. And then the story of Job is about friends coming and offering all kinds of advice as to why this happened. And Job is struggling.

He's disillusioned. All Job keeps saying is, I just like an audience. I just like to stand before them. I just like to be able to interact with them, just like you and I when we suffer. I want to know why. I just want to know.

That's all. And we know at the end of the book, God comes out of the whirlwind and gives Job the business and Job repents. But in that process, I want you to see how God was healing his soul. Go with me now to Job 23. Job 23. And verse 10, Job's interaction with Eliphaz, one of his friends.

But I want you to see along the process, Job is waking up. He's beginning to get some idea about this. Starting in verse 10, he says this. But he knows the way that I take. When he has tried me, I shall come forth as gold. That's an interesting statement on his part. And by the way, when you read the end of the book, he does come forth as gold.

When the trial is over. But Job's got some insight into this. He said, my foot, he said, has held fast to his path. I have kept his way. I've not turned aside. I have not departed from the command of his lips. I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. Job is beginning to heal his soul.

He's beginning to understand what's going on here. It's a process. Will it always work that way?

Not always in this life, but it will always work that way. What's the end game for you and me? According to Paul writing to the Romans, we will be completely conformed to the image of Christ. Every one of us will be completely conformed to the image of Christ. Every one of us will have the character of Jesus Christ. And you know what that means? All the diseases of our soul will be gone. You see, all of it. He will heal every single one of us.

That's what he is saying here. God heals all your diseases. You've been listening to Pastor Bill Gebhardt on the Radio Ministry of Fellowship in the Word. If you ever miss one of our broadcasts, or maybe you would just like to listen to the message one more time, remember that you can go to a great website called OnePlace.com. That's OnePlace.com, and you can listen to Fellowship in the Word online.

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That's fbcnola.org. At our website, you will find hundreds of Pastor Bill's sermons. You can browse through our sermon archives to find the sermon series you are looking for, or you can search by title. Once you find the message you are looking for, you can listen online, or if you prefer, you can download the sermon and listen at your own convenience. And remember, you can do all of this absolutely free of charge. Once again, our website is fbcnola.org. For Pastor Bill Gebhardt, I'm Jason Gebhardt, thanking you for listening to Fellowship in the Word. ... ... ... ... ...