Well, we are in the season of Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving as a Now only designates a day, which is the national is a national holiday. in the United States of America. But it can also Speak of our action of giving thanks, thanksgiving, that is, giving of thanks to God and we need to understand that that's what we do. at Thanksgiving or on Thanksgiving in fact ought to be doing that.
every day of our lives. As far as the holiday of Thanksgiving goes, it is A harvest festival, that is, it comes at the time. after the ingathering of the harvest. That's a common... Celebration in most of the countries of the world, though they don't all call it Thanksgiving, but they normally have a day at the end of the harvest.
in order to pause and to Give God thanks, or those pagan nations to give whatever gods they worship. Thanks for the harvest that has been received. In America, as most of us know, The first Thanksgiving was celebrated by the New England pilgrims that landed in Plymouth Rock. We're at Plymouth Rock, on Plymouth Rock. It is a rock.
Some of you have been there. At Plymouth Rock in Massachusetts in 1620, in the fall of the year, after a very difficult voyage across the ocean and then an incredibly even greater difficult winter, And before that winter was opened, half their number had died. And they went from a little more than 100 in number to down to 50. 51 or 52 in number. But spring came.
And those who were alive I planted crops and the crops grew. God blessed their labors and the Fall came and the crops were harvested and they now Had prospect of plenty for the winter to come. And they designated the time of Thanksgiving. Actually, three days were stipulated for this, and they. Invited the neighboring Indians to come.
They had friendly relations with them. And they came, they brought food. Pilgrims had food. And they celebrated three days of giving thanks to God for His goodness. In sparing those who were yet alive and giving them the provision they needed.
for the winter to come. As I was thinking about this, I Couldn't help but contrast that with what happened to the lost colony that many of you know about. That uh was situated someplace in either Northeastern North Carolina or southeastern Virginia, it's still a little. Murky exactly where they were, but they disappeared. That's why they're called the Lost Colony.
They came prior to the pilgrims. But they are no more. They didn't survive. We don't know what exactly happened to them. God's ways are past our understanding.
We cannot No, we Can only guess, and sometimes that's a bit precarious, but I have to wonder. If God spared the pilgrims who looked like they were going to be similarly extinguished, But if God spared the pilgrims because of their stronger Godward focus. That this was going to be a nation established upon the Word of God. in godly principles, and he spared those early settlers who carried That perspective into their lives and into the founding. of their colony.
Whatever. When we get to heaven, we can ask God about that. particular question. But it is clear, therefore, that the first Thanksgiving was primarily a religious festival. It was a time of feasting.
That's certainly appropriate. You study the festivals, the religious festivals of the old Testament times, and you find that nearly all of them were engaged in feasting as well as times of worship, giving praise and thanks to God, praying to Him. And that's the way the first Thanksgiving was celebrated in the United States, or what was to become the United States of America. It became a well-established custom for for centuries literally. without any particular legal standing.
U.S. Presidents, beginning with George Washington, proclaimed annually a day of thanksgiving for the nation. And that custom was carried on from President to President Until I'm told that that uh president Franklin Roosevelt. Changed the date, which had customarily become the fourth. Um The fourth Thursday of Thanksgiving, and he moved it forward to the third Thursday so that there'd be a little more time between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
It does seem to rush together. doesn't it in our calendars? But the U.S. Congress came along behind him in 1941. And they established the legal holiday of Thanksgiving on the fourth.
Thursday of November. And thus it has been ever since.
So as a legal national holiday, It really is not even a hundred years old. But individual states had actually begun to establish statewide holidays of Thanksgiving. And the states in the Northeast were the first to do so. The very first was the state of New York. In 1830, others in the Northeast followed.
In the South, the first state to establish a statewide day of Thanksgiving was Virginia. in eighteen fifty five. And so today we have a holiday called Thanksgiving, which is Generally considered to be the second of the holidays, the major holidays in our land, Christmas being the first, Thanksgiving being the second, and then you can figure out your own. Uh establishment of priority in the ones that follow. But sadly, as you know, so many people in America today don't think of Thanksgiving as a time to give God thanks.
They give thank think of it as a time to Uh watch football. Endlessly. Game after game after game. And a time to watch parades, the Rose Bowl and other parades on television. and a time to feast.
Some people even call it Turkey. Die. Instead of Thanksgiving Day. And it's almost embarrassing sometimes, as I have heard. people on television trying to talk about Thanksgiving and the The thanks that we ought to feel in our hearts, but stumbling all over themselves, to be careful not to mention to whom we are giving thanks.
Just feel gratitude to someone for something and eat your turkey as you watch the football games. But Christians We who know the Lord Jesus Christ recognize. that this is a time first and foremost to give thanks to God. And that's what we want to do. And so, I have for you today what is not necessarily an exposition, it's more of a topical.
sermon as you will see. But I want to show you what are the three steps to proper thanksgiving that I find in the Bible. And they are number one. The right attitude. Number two.
the right response. And number three. The right proclamation. It begins with a right attitude. It begins with something within the heart, within the soul.
We could call it a feeling, we could call it an emotion. But it's more than that, but it is a thankful heart. Gratitude. experienced in the heart. It's interesting that the Greek word, and excuse me for using some Greek words today, but I don't know how to get around it without expressing what I want to get across.
But the Greek word keros, that's found over 150 times in the New Testament. and in almost all of those times is translated grace, Is at least on ten occasions. In the King James Bible, Translated. Thank Or thanks. That may come as a surprise to you.
Kiras. Karis means a gift. One example of its being rendered Thanks, if I have got it here, I think I do. And I have here the New King James, but in Luke 6:32. Jesus said, But if you love those who love you, What and the new King James says what credit is that to you?
For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? and so forth. But the King James, translating that word Kerus found in that text, says, What thank have ye? Or what thanks do you think is due unto you if you love those who love you?
If you give to those that have given to you or you expect to give to you in return. Does that Demand any particular level of gratitude. What thanks do you have for that? Even sinners, unconverted people, will do that much. There's not.
That that's not really a a sense of gratitude as much as it is Selfishness. I'm doing something because I want to get something. Not much thanks involved in that. But God's people should feel thanks. because of what God has done, for us that we recognize.
And that's why In Strong's concordance, this word is. defined in this way. Keras generally translated grace or gift. is, according to Strong, gracious activity. Especially the divine influence upon the heart and its reflections in the life.
including Gratitude. including gratitude. The divine influence upon the heart. That calls forth from us A sense of gratitude in return and If I can refer to Art and Gingrich lexicon, that means dictionary. And he has a number of definitions like an English dictionary.
He numbers them one, two, three, four, five, and so forth.
So I'm just going to pick out a few words over the whole. But it Arden Gingrich. the fine Keras grace. as favor Grace, and then this, thanks. And gratitude.
The Greek word keris includes that idea. We would not, I think, normally couple together The basic definition of grace with that of thanksgiving or gratitude, but the Greek language obviously includes both. in that word That very common word Kerris. And so gratitude is what we're getting at here. Thanksgiving begins with the right attitude.
The Sense of gratitude. the acknowledgment that we have received much that we do not deserve. In fact, we could define it as this. Gratitude is what we owe God. because of the grace that he has bestowed.
undeserved benefit received and the proper response. We sometimes call this the debt. of gratitude. Undeserved Grace, undeserved benefit, undeserved gifts. Call forth from us a recognition Of gratitude, the need for gratitude is a debt.
We have received that which we did not deserve. We have received that which we did not earn. We have received that which is purely a gift. And that, what does that require from us? We can't work for these benefits, they are bestowed by grace, but we can.
Thank the giver. There is this debt of gratitude. that is called forth because of the grace that has been given. And so thanksgiving begins with a proper attitude. An attitude of gratitude.
They Gratitude, attitude, if that'll help you remember it when you leave here today. An inward response to gracious benefits. Received. Hopefully. All of you do have a sense of gratitude to God.
Probably. All of us recognize that the level of our gratitude falls short of probably what it ought to be.
So how do we cultivate gratitude in the soul? And first of all, we need to identify what may be hindering The full expression of gratitude that we should feel toward God. It might, number one, be a lack of comprehension, a fail to fully understand what God has done for us. That, of course, becomes more clear as we study the Word of God, as we learn more about God, as we learn more about ourselves, as we learn more about the enormousness of the gift of His Son, as we learn more about His sustaining us, and so forth. As we learn more, Then we comprehend what we have received, and our sense of gratitude for it will grow, surely.
Sometimes the problem is carelessness. It's not that we don't know, but it's that we fail to. fail to to respond. We're careless. We don't think about these things as we should.
Or A third reason is callousness. a failure to value. The gift of God's Son.
Some of you are like that. And have not yet bowed the knee to Jesus Christ, have not yet acknowledged that you are a sinner in need of a Savior, have not yet. submitted to the Lord Jesus Christ in repentant faith. You have not yet. Felt the weight of your sin to the extent that is necessary that you cry out to God for mercy.
You are callous in that regard. You fail, therefore, to value the gift that God has given in his Son And may God the Holy Spirit, even today, press that truth home upon your heart. and bring you to surrender to the Lord Jesus Christ and then to that true sense of gratitude in your soul. for what he has done. But all of us need to work on cultivating a greater sense of gratitude.
Children sometimes are guilty of not being as grateful to our parents as we should be. Let's cultivate the proper gratitude. Students sometimes are not as grateful to their teachers as they ought to be. It's so easy to isolate one little thing that we don't like. Picky, picky, picky, and make that the main thing, and forget all of the wonderful things.
There is no perfect parent. There is no perfect teacher. There is no perfect anybody but the Lord Jesus Christ.
So, of course, if your focus is upon what's wrong, then you're not going to cultivate the gratitude you need to cultivate. But if your focus is upon look what good. has flowed from this source. Then Your gratitude. will be proper.
Husbands should be grateful to their wives and wives to their husbands. You say, but you don't know what a rascal he is. You don't know what she did. Right back to what I just said. There's always something wrong, but if you focus on that, you're going to only make yourself and your spouse and your home and your family miserable.
But if you will. Give up those Things that irritate you, that's part of the human condition. We trace that back to the garden, to Adam and Eve. There's always going to be some of that. Isn't it interesting how we can see it so clearly in the life of somebody else, but ours, we don't do anything much like that to others, do we?
Surely not.
Okay. Not us. Aha ha, let's get the right perspective here. The things that irritate us about our spouse are probably No greater, and maybe very likely less than the things in us that irritate our spouse, but. Hopefully.
Your spouse doesn't view them the way you do. Let's cultivate gratitude to our husbands and wives. But workers cultivate gratitude to their employers. I know. I know.
Your employer isn't perfect, and some of them are nasty, but there's still some benefit. If there weren't. You'd leave and get another job. You say, I'm looking, I'm looking. All right, but until you do, thank God that you've got.
A paycheck. And ask God to give you a sense of gratitude for that, and on and on it goes. But most of all, Our gratitude is to God, and there's no. imperfection with him. Every good gift, every good perfect gift comes down from the Father above.
with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. There's nothing that we can righteously and rightfully. complain and criticize about him. His ways are perfect. And we owe everything to him.
And so we begin in Thanksgiving with cultivating. a proper sense of gratitude. Inwardly. Yeah. Feel the gratitude.
From the benefits we have received from those around us, but ultimately to God, because everyone around us who has been good to us, from whom we have benefited in some way. has done so because God has placed them in our lives and cause and enabled them Yeah. render that benefit to us. Gratitude. That, I think, is the primary thrust of the song we sang a moment ago.
by Keith Getty. My heart is filled. with thankfulness to him who bore the load and so forth. Gratitude. It doesn't say much about expressing that.
But it says a whole lot about our recognizing and feeling that. I'm looking for the hymn. It's in here somewhere. Here it is. My heart is filled with thankfulness to him who bore my pain.
who plumbed the depth of my disgrace and gave me life again. See, it's rehearsing all the things that God has done for us. who crushed my curse of sinfulness and clothed me in his light. and wrote his law of righteousness with power upon my heart, My heart is filled with thankfulness, verse 2. My heart is filled with thankfulness, verse 3.
That's where it begins. In the heart. Gratitude. The first step in Thanksgiving. is a proper sense of gratitude.
But it goes on from there. What's step two? First, the right attitude. Second, the right response. And this is expressing thanks.
to those who have Benefited us in some way, again, culminating in God, the greatest giver. The greatest benefactor. And here we take up another Greek word. I don't think I'll even. No, it it's not.
pronounce it for you.
Well, it's Yuka Resteo. It's used 55 times in the New Testament with its cognicts. But the the prefix is U. And that means well. And the last part.
Karisteo or Karizomai means to give freely. And so this word means to give liberally, to give well, to give freely, to give liberally, to give much. to give in return. And it has the idea of expressing thanks to those who have benefited us. A definition of this word.
is to thank. To give thanks liberally or well, to return thanks. Two, you'll notice this phrase and wonder where it came from. to return grace. How many times have you heard someone at the table say, will you return grace, or will you say grace?
You say, why do they say that?
Well, it's in this. This word actually has Keras in it. I don't know if you caught that. It's a longer word. compound word, but you Keris, oh, it's got cheris in it, grace.
It's got grace as a part of this word, but it's an expanded word with an expanded definition. But it means to say grace or to express gratitude. and the emphasis here is upon our response. First. Our attitude, we've got to get our attitude right.
and feel A sense. of gratitude. But that's not enough. We need to express the gratitude we feel from our hearts. Gratitude must be expressed.
Gratitude needs to go beyond a feeling. beyond an emotion. It needs to be. Expressed. Let's See some examples of this in Scripture.
You'll recognize the first one immediately. Remember the ten lepers that Jesus cleansed? It's in look seventeen.
Now it happened as he went to Jerusalem that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. Then as he entered a certain village, There met him ten men who were lepers who stood afar off. And they lifted up their voices and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. They recognized Jesus, they knew who he was, at least the great healer. They appealed to him for healing.
And he answered, They're prayer.
So when he saw them, he said to them, Go show yourselves to the priest. And so it was, as they went, they were cleansed. And One of them. when he saw that he was healed, returned. And with a loud voice glorified God.
and fell down on his face at his feet giving thanks. And he was a Samaritan. And Jesus goes on to say, Where are the others? Weren't there ten? Where are the other nine?
Now, it would be almost impossible to convince me that the other nine didn't feel any sense of gratitude for being. Cleansed of leprosy, which always is a miserable thing, was a miserable life, and always ended in death. And here they'd been cleansed. They were freed. This disease was lifted from them.
Their whole lives were changed. How could they help but be grateful? But they weren't grateful enough to come back and say thanks. That's a low level of gratitude, isn't it? We say shame on them.
Shame on them. That's what Jesus said. Shame on them. Like he says to us when we Take benefits from God and Yeah. Gratitude to some level for them, but not enough to return thanks to God.
Or from other people. receive benefits and forget to say thanks. The old-fashioned custom of writing thank-you notes was not a bad thing. But for goodness sakes, even if you can't get that far. You can at least express thanks verbally.
You can send thanks by By text or phone or something, let people know that you're grateful for what they did. And if you won't do that much, then you're. Gratitude attitude is pretty slim. It's not really rising to the level of true thanksgiving. Thanksgiving.
needs to be expressed. Gratitude needs to be expressed. Remember what Paul said in Romans 21? He's describing there. The wicked, wicked condition of mankind that's turned its back on God.
He says in verse 20, for since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen. Being understood. By the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Everybody knows something about the one true God. But Here's what he says in verse 21: Because although they knew God, they did not glorify him as God, nor were thankful.
But became futile in their thoughts, in their foolish hearts. were darkened. Lack of expressing thanks, maybe didn't even, in their case, feel thanks. That's a sign of great sinfulness. We tend, I'm sure some tend to think of that as, oh, that's a little thing.
Tell that to God. I don't think he'd agree with you. That's a big thing. That's a big thing. When you're not thankful, particularly to God.
There's something fundamentally wrong. with your life, with your thinking. Remember Ephesians 5.20. one of those texts that talks about being filled with the Spirit. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.
speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. Singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. What is an evidence of the filling of the Spirit? Or maybe a. I should put it this way.
What is an evidence of the influence of the Holy Spirit in a person's heart? One evidence is giving thanks.
So, what would a lack of giving thanks evidence? I'll let you figure that one out. And if you were listening when I was reading through Second Corinthians chapter 9. You notice how many times Paul references The the creation, the the the causing of thanks by the gifts that they were giving. Let me read at least part of that again.
2 Corinthians 9.11. while you are enriched in everything for all liberality, which causes thanksgiving through us to God. He's saying to the Corinthians, your liberal giving to help the impoverished saints of Jerusalem results in their giving great thanks to God. 4, verse 12. The administration of this service or this gift, these collection of all of these gifts from the Gentile churches.
sent to Jerusalem not only supplies the needs of the saints, You say, well, that's why I gave it to supply their needs. Ah, but it even does something more important than that. But also is abounding Through many Thanksgivings to God. And on it goes. The response of the hearts of the Jewish Christians in receiving this help.
To Address their poverty caused primarily by persecution because of their Christian faith. And here comes these gifts from Gentiles, many of whom were also being persecuted, but Probably not to the same degree. And they give. to help the poverty. of the saints in Jerusalem.
And what does that cause? Great. Choruses of thanksgiving raised to God, and that honors God in a wonderful way. Thanksgiving is something more than what we feel. It's what we express, giving thanks.
with our lips. Many of our hymns include that idea. In fact, some of them include both the idea of giving thanks to God and the third one we'll get to in a moment. But Moving from the first one. The sense of heart gratitude, my heart is filled with thankfulness.
Consider just this one of many that we could. Point two.
Now thank we all our God. with hearts and hands. And voices. who wondrous things hath done, in whom his world rejoices. who from our mother's arms Hath blest us on our way, With countless gifts of love.
And still is ours today. What is our response to that? We give him Thanks. The first step. to feel gratitude.
The second step to respond to the giver. with thanksgiving. The third step. I said there were three. The right attitude, the right response, and number three, the right proclamation.
The fullness of Thanksgiving is when we publicly. thank the giver so that others know. of what he has done. That's particularly appropriate in the case of giving thanks to God. We might call this a thankful testimony.
And here again we have a Greek word, sorry. For dabbling in the Greek frequently today. But there's a word here that again Most many of you will recognize But probably never have thought of it being used in this way. It is homo la ghetto. Homo means the same.
We find that prefix in our word homosexual. It has to do with same-sex relationships. as opposed to hetero other other sex. relationships, but homo. Homo And la ghetto is to say or to speak.
We find that word in noun form in logos. In the beginning, was the logos, the word. And the word was with God, and the word was God, Lagos.
Well, la geo was the verb form of that. And when you find it with the prefix homo on it, It literally means to say the same thing. But it is generally translated Confess. In Romans 10, 9, If you will. Confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart.
That God has raised him from the dead, you will be saved. Confess. openly publicly. Declare What Christ has done for your soul. Openly, publicly declare your faith in Jesus as the Christ.
You are, in effect, saying the same thing that God says. That's. how we often understand this word. In other words, you believe the same thing about Jesus that God has revealed about Jesus. You're not believing in another Jesus.
You're not believing in a counterfeit Jesus. You're not believing in a. A wonderful teacher, Jesus, who is not the divine Son of God, who died a vicarious death upon the cross and rose again bodily from the grave, some lesser kind of Jesus. That's not to confess Jesus. in the biblical sense.
You have to confess your faith in the Jesus that God has revealed. You've got to say the same thing about Him that the Bible says about Him. to confess with your mouth, to say the same thing with your mouth. that God says about him But again, this word... has the idea of to publicly praise.
And I draw again on Arndt and Gingrich. and I pick out some of the words out of their lengthier. definition And they say this word, homo la geo, means to agree. We agree with God with what he said. When it comes to our sins, We stop defending them, stop justifying them, stop excusing them, and we say the same thing about them that God says.
That's what it means to confess. We agree, we admit, we confess, but this. Declare publicly and praise. That's all part of that same word. And so we read in Hebrews thirteen.
Therefore, let us go forth to him outside the camp bearing his reproach. For here we have no continuing city, but we seek the one to come. Therefore, Hebrews 13, 15, therefore by him Let us continually Offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to His name. What kind of sacrifices to new covenant? believers bring to God.
We don't bring an animal sacrifice. They all pointed to Christ and he's already come and that's behind us now. What do we bring?
Well One of the most important things we can bring is the fruit of our lips. The public Declaration of God's grace as it has touched our lives, a testimony. of what God has done for us. That's what we find in Philippians chapter 2. That at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow.
And every tongue Confess, that's it, homo la geo. Say the same thing that God says. Every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father, the confession of our lips. a proclamation of praise. Testimony.
I would hope when we gather on Tuesday night in our praise service. We'll have so many people. Jockeying to have a turn to give a testimony of praise that we won't. have time for a tenth of them. We often have more than we have time for, but sometimes It's kind of slow.
Rolling. And I would hope that your understanding, now being enlarged, would cause you to say, I. Value the opportunity to publicly praise God for what He has done. That's the culmination of my thanksgiving. Yes, the right heart attitude.
I'm grateful. The right response, I thank God to Him individually in my prayers, but the public proclamation to others of what He has done: Praise Him, praise Him, Jesus, our blessed Redeemer. Sing, O earth. His wonderful love. Proclaim.
That's the idea. There's a wonderful illustration of this. In the Old Testament book of 2 Chronicles. It's in chapter 32. I'm just going to relate it to you.
But verse 32 is the sobering one. It says in verse 32, No, verse 25 is a sobering one. Chapter 32, verse 25. It says but Hezekiah. did not repay according to the favor shown him.
For his heart was lifted up, Therefore wrath was looming over him. And over Judah, and Jerusalem.
Now let me give you the background for that. Hezekiah was one of the good kings of the southern nation of Judah. The northern kingdom, Israel, had no good kings. The southern nation, Judah, had some good kings and some bad kings, and Hezekiah was one of the best. as we evaluate him.
in comparison to others. David probably would be the greatest. and best, but even he sinned shamefully.
Solomon would be another king counted as a good king before God, but again, at the end of his life, he. He strayed far from God's commands for him. Hezekiah, likewise, was an exemplary king for most of his life. It's a shame that so many of them lived. Lives of obedience and faithfulness to God until almost the end, and then fell and.
ruined their testimony at the end. That happens A lot. We see it in the Bible. We see it a lot in real life, how sad it is. Oh, pray, pray, pray that that doesn't happen to you or to me.
But Hezekiah was a good king. He reigned during a difficult time of decline in the nation of Judah. Decline in every way, spiritual decline being the greatest decline, but economic decline. Military decline, they were having difficulty. But Hezekiah, a good, godly king, stemmed the tide to a great degree.
And in doing so, he renewed the worship of God. At that time, Assyria was the greatest. Empire. It preceded the Babylonian Empire. And the The king of Assyria at that time was a man named Sennacherib.
And he came down against Israel and publicly insulted. Yahweh. Of all the things that you don't want to do, is publicly in salt The Lord God Almighty. He did that. And Hezekiah prayed for deliverance.
And when The people of Judah woke up the next day. What did they find? 185,000 corpses of Assyrian soldiers lying dead. That must have taken quite a while to bury that But And Sennacherib kind of hobbled back to his capital and was was hurting pretty badly and his own sons murdered him. And the Assyrian Empire quickly collapsed, and the Babylonian Empire took its place.
Hezekiah was, we might say, a. A kingpin in that whole process of seeing the mighty empire of Assyria defeated, and yet he did it without anybody in his army lifting a sword. He did it by prayer to God, and God answered prayer, and God came to their Aid. What a wonderful. event.
What a wonderful testimony. But then he grew sick. And he realized he was on his deathbed, and he cried out to God and asked for an extension of his life. And God Heard and answered again and said, I'm going to give you 15 more years. and performed a miracle as a sign to demonstrate that that would take place.
And after all of that... We read what I read to you a moment ago in verse 25. But Read the verse before. You'll get it all in context. In those days Hezekiah was sickened near death.
And he prayed to the Lord. And he, God spoke to him and gave him a sign, but verse 25, Hezekiah did not repay according to the favor shown him, for his heart was lifted up. He didn't thank God. That's incredible. He's about to die.
He prays for healing. God heals him. God gives him 15 more years. And yet he doesn't return thanks. to God.
The King James. translates this. He rendered not again. according to the benefit done unto him. He didn't give God thanks.
The new American standard Translates, he gave no return. for the benefit he received. He did not give God thanks. Here's a man who fell under the judgment of God now because of what he did. Not because he fell into immorality like David with Bathsheba, not because he murdered someone like David with With Uriah.
Not because he was a thief and took things that did not belong to him. Not because he desecrated the priesthood and tried to offer sacrifices which were reserved for the priests, like some of the other kings did. No, his great sin was he failed to give God thanks. You call that a little deal? God calls that a big, big deal.
Big. Deal. No gratitude. No thanks. No praise Why?
The text tells us. Because of pride. Incredible. Hezekiah did not repay according to the favor shown him, for his heart was lifted up. His heart.
was lifted up. He was proud. He began to think that he was responsible for these successes. How could he think that? He didn't lift a sword, and 185,000 Assyrians were slain.
He began to take credit for the things that he had done. He had cleansed the temple and restored the priesthood and the sacrifices. Good for me. He had reinstituted the Passover and the other festival days. The greatest Passover under his reign since the days of Samuel, we are told.
And he was pretty proud of himself for that. He destroyed the idols and the high places.
Some of the other kings destroyed the idols and returned with a worship. To to the temple in Jerusalem. But very few of them destroyed the high places. We read again and again. He did these good things, but did not destroy the high places.
But Hezekiah destroyed the high places. He went beyond what almost any other king of Judah did. And his heart was lifted up with pride, and I guess he took the attitude: God's lucky to have a king like me on the throne. Look at all the good that I have done. And he thought he had a special position with God.
And he quit giving God thanks. And therefore we read, was wrath upon Judah and Jerusalem because of this. God's judgment fell upon the whole nation. Hezekiah was not only responsible for judgment upon himself, but judgment upon the whole nation because of his In gratitude. and unwillingness to give God thanks.
And The next king, his son, Manasseh, turned out to be the worst king of Judah. From one of the best to the absolute worst. more wicked in some ways than Ahab. The the wicked king of Israel. And folks, that's what In gratitude, leads to If we don't Catch it.
before it progresses. It leads to pride and discontent and self-centeredness. and ingratitude. Is there a remedy? Yes.
Yes, there is. Look at Verse 26 of this same chapter, 2 Chronicles 25. Then Hezekiah humbled himself for the pride of his heart. He and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, so that the wrath of God did not come upon them in the days. Of Hezekiah.
He did humble himself, and God pulled back on the level of judgment that he had declared. They were worthy of receiving. But he did not give God thanks when he should have, and oh, what a calamity that was. And so thankfulness, thanksgiving, to be a full-orbed thanksgiving is three steps, right? Number one, the right attitude.
Which is? Gratitude? Number two, The right response. Which is Giving Individual thanks. And number three, the right proclamation, which is proclaiming to others.
what God has done. For mercies so great What return shall I make for mercies so constant and sure? I'll love him. I'll serve him. With all that I have, as long as my life shall endure.
Shall we pray? O Father, deliver us from ungrateful hearts. Deliver us from pride that thinks we are responsible for the good things that you have done in us and through us. Give us, O Lord, humble hearts of grateful praise. And may we be quick to thank you and to praise you before others.
to give you the glory that is due unto your name. As we ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. Yeah.
