Well, if you have your Bibles, Ephesians 5-20, Ephesians 5-20, one of my favorite books of the Bible, and you have that, you can stand and we'll read that, Ephesians 5-20. The Bible says, let's read this together, Ephesians 5 verse 20, giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father and the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. And then I have on there also Psalms 100 verse 4, it says this, let's read this together, enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise, be thankful unto him and bless his name.
And then just one more verse, Psalm 30 verse 12, to the end that my, okay, they're not going to read with me. Psalm 30 verse 12, to the end that my glory may sing praise to thee and not be silent, oh Lord my God, I will give thanks unto thee forever. And Father, that is our heart's desire, open our understanding up of these truths of thanksgiving and these minutes to remaining, and Lord help us this year just to finish out reflecting upon the blessings you've bestowed upon us. We thank you in Jesus' name, and God's people said amen.
You may be seated this evening. Well, being thankful is a, is really a godly attribute, it's a godly characteristic of somebody. It's very important. Giving thanks really carries the idea of expressing gratitude and appreciation. And one of the elements that go along with somebody who is grateful is contentment. When somebody is grateful, they are a content person.
It goes hand in hand. The opposite of being thankful is to be unthankful, and one of the ways that that is reflected is somebody who's not content. And whenever you have somebody that's not content, it always rolls into a complaining spirit. And so if you reflect upon your life, it should be a life that is a thankful life, that people get around you they wouldn't hear complaining, they wouldn't hear discontentment, but rather one who is giving thanks. And you know, thanks is really based on perspective. It was mentioned earlier, some things that I preached on, and I'm only sharing with you as I preach things that God has spoken to me about and carved into my life through His Word. But I have found it is not situations and things I always need changed, it's just perspective I need changed. I need to transcend my situation and have a biblical outlook on the things that are going on in my life. And again, one of the questions that are so helpful in life is if you would consider the thing that you think you need to have changed in order to find thanks in life, what if God wanted it to be there?
Would that change your outlook on it? So contentment is again not an issue of situations that need to be always changed, it's a perspective that needs to be changed. Now what does the Bible say about giving thanks? There are actually a hundred and thirty-eight passages that deal with the subject of thanksgiving, so it's going to be a long night.
Like, mercy, mercy! But thankfulness is mentioned in the Old Testament. The word thanks is the Hebrew word toda, and it derives from the verb to praise or to confess, which is the Hebrew word hiadah.
It's very closely related to that etymologically. And so in the book of Leviticus, the Israelites had instituted a thanks offering as part of the sacrificial system. When you read through the Psalms, you see that thanksgiving was a prominent element of worship to God. We think about what we read there in Psalm 100 and verse 4, Psalms 92, 1, It is good to give thanks unto the Lord. Psalm 116, 12, What shall I render unto the Lord for all of its benefits toward me? He concludes in verse 17, I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving.
So thanksgiving was part of the worship of the Old Testament temple. David, when he brought the ark into Jerusalem, he actually appointed certain Levites to minister praise to God. In 1 Chronicles 16 verse 4 it says he appointed certain of the Levites to minister before the ark of the Lord to record and to thank and praise the Yahweh God of Israel, the Lord God of Israel. Now listen to what it says in verse 7 through 9. Then on that day David delivered the first this Psalm to thank the Lord into the hand of Asaph and his brethren.
These were the lead singers, the lead musicians, the ones who would lead the temple choir. Give thanks unto the Lord. Call upon his name. Make known his deeds among the people. Sing unto him. Sing psalms unto him.
Talk ye of all his wondrous works. And that's what we've done tonight. And that's why when we open our service up, we open up with songs. Boy, that was a wonderful song service this morning, wasn't it? And to sing praise and so thankful for Roger and Allison and those guys and Caleb and everybody that's involved in our music team.
Thank you for that. And so praise is to be given to God with thanksgiving. The Jews would have prayers of thanksgiving according to the Mishnah. The standard prayer for food was blessed are you Lord our God King of the universe.
And then they would begin to thank God for all the different elements that would be at the table or whatever God had provided for them. Now the New Testament thanksgiving is tied to the concept of grace. The word thanks in the New Testament is from kairos, the root there.
So the Hebrew toda is the Greek equivalent of eucharistia, which is where we get the English word eucharist from. And the eucharist is just one of the early church words for the Lord's table, the Lord's supper. So they saw the Lord's table, the Lord's supper as a time of giving thanks.
So that's why they called it that. And each of the gospels records Jesus multiplying fish and loaves. And when he would do that, before he broke the bread and began to distribute those things to the people, it says he always gave thanks. So giving thanks was synonymous with praying over the meal. Sometimes people say let's give thanks, and that's biblical terminology. So when you pray, it's God thank you for the food, thank you for the meal.
You're recognizing there is a sovereign God who has provided these things for you. And the Bible says that we are to give thanks for all those things. And the Apostle Paul affirms this in 1 Corinthians 11, 23, and 4. When he had given thanks, he break it and passed out the Lord's table there in 1 Corinthians 11. Thanks was also made before meals. As I mentioned, the Bible tells us to be thankful for the people in our lives. And so thanks is to be a very central part of the Christian life. And what's interesting as well, when you see the scene in heaven in Revelation 4 as well as Revelation 7, you find thanksgiving being offered to God in their celebrations in Revelation 4, 9 when those beasts give glory and honor and thanks to him. And that's repeated in other places such as Revelation 7, 12.
There is offering of thanksgiving. Now secondly tonight, Christians are to live a life of thanksgiving. 1 Thessalonians 5, 18 tells us that there is something that is in the will of God. Sometimes there are things that are known that God wants us to do, like the known will of God.
And other things are like a specific will of God that sometimes are unknown to us. But one thing we know God wants us to do is stated in 1 Thessalonians 5, 18. And it says this, in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
That is a big statement, isn't it? In everything give thanks. It doesn't say for everything give thanks, but in everything give thanks. We should be grateful for the things that God has given to us, what God is doing in certain circumstances. The Bible commands Christians to give thanks.
This is not like optional for us. And so the one way we can do this is to remember the truth of Romans 8, 28. That sovereignty reigns, that God reigns over our situations, financially, physically, relationally, governmentally, nationally, internationally, all these things, we trust God.
And in Romans 8, 28 tells us that we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. And my wife is just finishing up memorizing Romans 8. That is my favorite chapter in the Bible and I'm proud of her for wrapping that off to me today. But I know Alex preached on that this last Wednesday, and if you missed that I would go back and encourage you to listen to that. It was a great sermon.
Don't listen to it while I'm preaching, but some other time. And so because we know that he works all things together for good, even if it doesn't seem like it's good, we can trust that it will produce something good. We've reflected on this many times that if it were not for the pains of our life, most of us wouldn't be here tonight. It is in fact the challenges that have caused us to recognize our own inability to scrape the pride out of our life and to realize we need God more than we understood in the past.
It drives us to him. Now notice the last part of verse 18, it says, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. That statement not only includes verse 18, but it also includes verse 17. First Corinthians chapter 5, I should say verse 16 and 17 say this, rejoice evermore is verse 16.
So if you ever want to memorize a verse, there's another good one. And then it says pray without ceasing. So he says for this is the will of God. Not only is it the will of God that you would be thankful for all things, but that you would rejoice evermore and pray without ceasing. So God's will for your life is that you would have a life of joy. He wants you to rejoice. He wants you to rejoice because you're going to rejoice forever. You're going to be joyful all the time. Like in a thousand years from now, I'm like, how you're feeling?
You're like joyful. I feel really great. And I feel like this forever. I've been feeling like this for a thousand years. I feel absolutely wonderful. You imagine in the day when there is no like having to try to feel good, but you just feel great.
Like I feel as great now and I just don't know how I could feel any better. What are you going to do forever? Feel wonderful and serve God perfectly and not have to deal with the old rag of the flesh. No more sin, no more struggle, no more any of that. And so we are called to a life of joy. We are called to a life of constant prayerfulness to God and a life that is filled with thanksgiving.
Charles Spurgeon grabs this very well. He says, when joy and prayer are married, their firstborn child is gratitude. So when you have joy in prayer, you will give birth to gratitude. But if you don't have joy in prayer, you will not have a life of gratitude, but rather a life of typically complaining and discontentment. And so, I mean, how wonderful is it to be married to somebody who is filled with joy, thankfulness and gratitude and prayerfulness? Anybody want to be married to somebody like that the rest of your life?
Right? And that's the kind of person God calls us to be for them, for them for us in a relationship, as well as a church. People should come here and say, man, that is a thankful church. You know, that is a welcoming body of believers. That is a kind people. They don't seem negative.
They don't seem distracted and bent down by the world. You know, I was so thankful for how God brought us through that season of COVID. And, you know, we opened up the doors soon after that. And after we closed down for about four weeks, when it was right when it started, and then we're like, something's not adding up here.
I don't trust the government anyway. So this is not helping. And, but you, you were plugging in here. And I tell you, it was it was an interesting season because there was a peace and a contentment and a joy and a fulfillment that you could see in the people of God that was just so wonderful. And in the world was just fear and chaos and doubt and dread and isolation and all of that stuff. But God's not called us to such things.
Notice what the next verse in First Thessalonians 519 says right after he says, be thankful for all things. He says, quench not the Spirit. The unthankful, unprayerful and unjoyful life is like a wet blanket. So the message tonight don't be the wet blanket. Nobody likes a wet blanket. You ever go camping?
Wet blankets are not good. I remember me and my family, we never would go camping. We decided to go camping one time down in Tennessee.
Our vacations always were bad. And, you know, my parents vacation for them was like, what project can we do on the house for like two weeks straight and we would kill ourselves, you know, doing some project? I'm like, can we go somewhere? So we go. And after we took vacations, we're like, can we just stay home and work on a project?
I mean, this is less painful. So I remember being in a tent, it started raining. And I just remember waking up laying in water, total water.
And by the end of the night, we're all in this van sleeping together, six of us packed in there, moist, humid, wet. And being don't be the wet blanket. It's not good.
It's not good. There's multiple reasons a blanket can be wet, but don't be the wet blanket. So if God's word says rejoice ever more, pray without ceasing and give thanks in everything. If God who commands this of us is sitting on the throne of our heart, will he not also accomplish that? And so if he's the Lord of our heart, that should be coming out and flowing out of our life. You know, for the Christian, Thanksgiving isn't just once a year, it's all year long. We should be constantly giving thanks. Paul was an example of thankfulness. You know, I think about when the more I spent time in memorizing different books that he's written in chapters and sections of Scripture, he just always talks about Thanksgiving, Romans 1-8, where he talks about first I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all. He opens up that letter to the Romans in Philippians 1-3, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you. Ephesians 1-15 and 16, wherefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and love unto all the saints, cease not to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers.
This is just a constant roll of his tongue. He was constantly thankful for God's people. What's shocking is, I spent about two years preaching through 1 Corinthians and I can tell you, I was just glad to be done preaching through 1 Corinthians. I feel like I'm, you're like playing in the mud all week, you know, studying the truths in 1 Corinthians or just fighting in the church. It was a constant mess in that church at 1 Corinthians. But when Paul writes to them this most stressful body of believers that he had to write four different letters to, two inspired, at least two others that were not, that we know of, listen to how he starts it off in 1 Corinthians 1-4. He said, I thank my God always on your behalf for the grace of God which is given you by Jesus Christ.
Isn't that amazing? I could see him saying, you know what? I got a few things to say to you and then after he lays it all out, you know, but I am thankful for you guys. You know, but no, no, no, he starts off with thankfulness. You know, Jesus also taught we could be thankful in valleys. You know, when Jesus was preaching to Capernaum in Bethsaida and Chorazin and they were rejecting Jesus, these Jewish cities, it's very interesting because he declared that it would be more tolerable in the day of judgment for Tyre and Sidon, these two northwestern cities, these gentile pagan cities that worship the Baal and Estarte, the moon and sun god.
He said it will be more tolerable for those cities than for you. And then he says this in Matthew 11 25, at that time Jesus answered and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou has hid these things from the wise and prudent and has revealed them on the babes. So in the midst of total rejection, he gives thanks.
Like you would not think that he would respond that way, but that's how in fact he responds to rejection. We should be those who can rejoice in the midst of trials. You know, when he went to the tomb of his friend Lazarus and Mary and Martha, like if you'd been here, my brother had not died. And he says, I am the resurrection in life.
And he has a conversation. He goes to the tomb, he says, roll the tomb away, the stone away from the tomb. And then in John 11 41, listen to how he enters into prayer. Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead was laid and Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, Father, I thank thee. When he's in a place of being rejected, he's thankful.
When his good friend Lazarus and someone he loved, the family he stayed with often, he died. He starts off with prayer and thankfulness. Thankfulness should be a part of our life in the anxieties of our life. One of my favorite chapters in the Bible is also Philippians 4. Paul says here, be anxious.
It's translated as careful in the old King James, but it's better idea of anxiety. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication. And then he says, not only do you take your anxieties and turn them into prayers, but you have to turn them into thankful prayers. It's amazing whenever I sit down with somebody and say, tell me what's really, what you, you know, dealing with and they begin to go through these things. And, and I said, let me ask you a question. When's the last time you were thankful for that?
And most of the time people say, well, never, never been thankful for that. It's an anxiety preacher. I'm anxious over this. This is a worry to me. This is a bother to me.
This is a hindrance to me. And I get it, man. It's hard. Again, in life, there are things we get to be thankful for. You get that new baby born, uh, you know, them little Martin babies are the cutest little kids around, man. All you guys have cute kids.
Don't get jealous. There's baby, but those Martin kids, man, they're just, there's little precious things. They walking around, little Henry's walking around and say, you're going to be able to take your dad one day. His dad does jujitsu and he's like, I don't know. It's like when he's old, you know, he's, he's like, I don't know. He's a real humble kid.
I mean, when I was a little, I'd be like, I take my dad, you know, mouthing off and good little kids, man. The Bible says, don't be filled with anxiety. It says, but rather give thanks. It says, and you enter into the prayer time with thanksgiving and it says, let your requests be made known to God. And when you do that, when you, when you recognize that God is sovereign and it is in fact only when you recognize God as sovereign, that you can be thankful. That's why sovereignty is so essential in the Christian life.
I don't know how Christians survive without resting in that. Sovereignty is the pillow we rest our soul on. The universe is not doing its own thing and men are not in control of everything either, right?
Those would create anxiety in your pastor. If I knew like the world was up to the governments, like you, you mean they're in charge of how everything's going to work itself out? Like God rules over the kingdom of men and I'm like, and I'm good. He wins. He's going to take care of it. He's sovereign over the affairs of men. He's sovereign over salvation, sanctification, the church, everything that goes on. We can rest in him. Doesn't mean we don't have consequences. Doesn't mean we're not responsible.
It doesn't remove human volition and responsibility, but it does mean that we have someone who is ultimately free and we live under that authority. That is a gift beyond measure you cannot calculate. Because of that, it allows us to be thankful and to choose thankfulness when we don't always feel like being thankful. Sometimes we get to be thankful when a baby is born, but sometimes we have to choose to be thankful when someone dies. It's saying, God, I can either be upset for the time I didn't have, or I can praise you for the time I did have.
Those are the two options. So either I live under the burden of God robbed me of this person and that God's not fair to me, or I can praise him because he gave that time and life as a gift in my life to be able to enjoy and treasure. And I know if they're saved, they're with the Lord and I don't have to grieve as others that have no hope. And we rest in that confidence. And so let me wrap up one last major point tonight.
Christians are called to be thankful friends. We must choose that. It'll change your life. It'll change your life. Thirdly, the danger of unthankfulness. The danger of unthankfulness. I could dive into quite a bit of stuff. It's a very interesting study.
I don't have time to do it tonight because I encourage you, I would only go about 30 some minutes tonight. If it goes 39.59 seconds, yeah, work with that. But when Paul's dealing with the false teaching of eating meat offered to idols, what you find is he keeps saying to them, why are you judging us for things that we can be thankful for? And when we give thanks for it, it's acceptable. It doesn't matter if it's meat, if it's drink, whatever it is, if we give thanks for it, that's acceptable to receive from God. If we eucharisto it, if we give thanks for it, he keeps saying that.
And it's in 1 Corinthians 10, Romans 14, 1 Timothy 4 verse 3 and 4, he says, there will be false teachers he's talking about and he's denouncing them. He said, they forbid to marry and command to abstain from meats, which God has created to be received with thanksgiving. I'm not a vegetarian. I grabbed that piece of steak and I'm like, Lord, I thank you that you nourish this cow. You made that grass grow and I am enjoying the harvest of the field. Y'all with me? Now, if you're a vegetarian, I'm hurting your feelings. I can't apologize.
It's not in me. I give thanks. And he says, which God has created to be received with thanksgiving of them which believe and know the truth for every creature of God is good.
Yes. And nothing to be refused if it be received with what? With thanksgiving. So when you go to the table, not just like the Lord said, but when you go to a table to eat, the idea of sitting down or whenever we eat, we need to pause and say, God, thank you because I have a meal in front of me because you've provided this. We'll take it for granted because we have so much, but I'm telling you in many parts of the world, as Tanisha was talking about over there, we went to Honduras.
I mean, there's places we're bringing them rice and they're so thankful up in these mountains and there's places where they just don't have things like we have and we're so given abundance and we need to make sure we're thankful. Now, being unthankful, the Bible speaks of as being a very un-Christ-like attitude. In Romans 1 21, it says this, that because when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful and their foolish heart was darkened.
They profess themselves to be wise and became fools. Unthankfulness characterizes the unsaved. 2 Timothy 3, 1 says, this know also in the last days, perilous or troubleless times will come. Men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to the parents. And then he says this, unthankful, unholy. Isn't it interesting that unthankfulness is right in all of that?
It's at the very heart of it. I've been going through the book of Ephesians and this also stood out to me. Ephesians 5 3 says, but for an occasion in all uncleanness or covetousness, let it not once be named among you as become a saints, neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor jesting, which is not convenient. And he goes on to tell them, but rather giving of thanks. So what's interesting here is that after he rambles off all of these sins, like don't let fornication, sexual sin, don't let covetousness, don't let idolatry, don't let these things be a part of your life.
And then at the heart of the problem is really an unthankful spirit. So he takes all these sins and he weighs them up against thankfulness. Don't do sexual sin, don't do covetousness, idolatry, don't do all this foolish, nasty talking, but rather give thanks. You would think he would say like repent and be holy or something, but he's like, no, be thankful. Because when you're thankful, I think thankfulness is one of the greatest guards against every other sin.
If you're thankful for your spouse, you won't become sinful in other thoughts and other things in life. If you're thankful for your possessions, you won't become covetous of things. If you're thankful for the things you have, you won't be looking for things you don't have. Does that make sense? So be consumed with thankfulness. I repeat it often, but I love the statement by Charles Spurgeon. He says, contentment is not getting what you want, it's wanting what you have.
Fall in love with everything you have, worship God for what you have. I want to close with the story in Luke 17. It's one of my favorite stories. Jesus is journeying through Jerusalem. There are, through Israel, there are 10 lepers that come to him and they begin to cry out to him.
Jesus, thou son of David, have mercy on us and they're asking him to heal them and they're in a bad situation. Leprosy basically separated you physically from society. You were looked at as the judgment of God upon your life.
You were really in a bad place. It was an incurable situation in that day. Jesus, with the word, heals them. He says, go and show yourself to the priest and he healed them immediately and as they turned they were healed.
What's interesting is what happens next. Luke 17, 15 says, and one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back. And it says, and with a loud voice glorified God and fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks and he was a Samaritan, or what they would view as a massive outsider. So although 10 were healed, only one man turns back, expresses gratitude, worships Jesus for what he's done.
Surprisingly, this guy's a Samaritan. You would think this is like a parable, but it's actually a true story. Now listen to what Jesus says is very fascinating. Luke 17, 17. How does Jesus respond to this? And I want you to know this. He tells them, go show yourself to the priest, right?
You got healed. You may have not hugged your wife for 10 years. I mean, you get leprosy in that day. You go home, you don't touch them anymore, physically ever. So you may have not touched your family for years. You would have seen them only from a distance. It was a living death they called it.
It's the worst kind of anything that could happen to you. Some of these men would have longed so greatly to go and their life was transformed. It was a supernatural, miraculous, the greatest thing in their life.
But something happens to one of the guys where he's so overwhelmed and it's in fact a guy who is a Samaritan. And what's interesting is he knew Jesus would have been a Jew. So he knew for Jesus to heal him would have been more grace. Like you're being more kind to me because I'm not a Jew.
I'm an outsider. Like if the other guys were Jews, he could say, you know, I could see him healing them, but for me? So the guy turns around and look, Jesus says this in Luke 17, 17. And Jesus answering said, where are, we're not 10 cleansed, but where are the nine? Well, that's interesting because you told them to go show themselves to the priest.
But now you're thinking like, why aren't they here? And he said this, there are not found that returned to give glory to God save this stranger. Jesus calls this man falling down giving thanks as giving glory. When we come to God, I wonder what God thinks when we don't worship him like we should.
And in this story, only 10% returned to give him glory. He doesn't command them to do it. It's one thing if he says, Hey, you guys need to come, you know, worship before me a little bit. Give me thanks, right? It's expected that you would respond that way.
Like how could you not? You are so wanting to get on with your life that you forget to worship. I wonder if that happens to us that we want to go on with our life so much that we forget to stop, give thanks and worship. You say, but I wasn't cleansed of leprosy. No, we were cleansed of something much worse. His was a physical illness.
Ours was a spiritual one. Infinitely worse. I wonder if Jesus in the morning will look at us and say, we're not 10 cleansed, but where are the nine? Are you part of the 10% or part of the 90%? Are you somebody who says, you know, I just, it's hard to find time. It's just, you know, my mind, my time's busy and this and that. And I get it. I get it. I'm not trying to push that down. I get that man.
Life can be pressing. Get it. You got kids on you. You got time. You got to be there at work. Stuff can happen.
Somebody sick. I got all that. Sometime in the day, he's worthy for us to stop, get on our knees and humble ourselves before him and say, God, I just need to stop and give you things. I've been struck once again by my sinfulness and by the grace that covered me. And I have to worship you. World, you're going to have to wait because Christ must be worshiped. These other guys had things they had to get on to do.
This man had other things he had to get on to do, but it had to wait. Thanksgiving was a priority, wasn't it? And I think in our life, ask yourself, am I a thankful person? Would your parents say you're thankful, kids?
Would they? Would your children say you're thankful, parents? Would your co-workers say you're thankful?
Would those around you, your family? I think as we reflect upon this, you know, think being thankful is something we get to do. It's not something we have to do. We get to be thankful.
I think we should have to, but it's like, how could we not? So whether at an altar or whether at your seat tonight, this would be a good time just to humble your heart before God and say, God, there's just some things I need to be thankful for. And in the morning when you wake up, God, I just want to be thankful for these things. And if you struggle with thankfulness, if you struggle with worry and anxiety, if you struggle with some of the things, then go to Philippians 4, memorize verses, start verse number 4. This is a guy who wrote this chapter when he was in a prison cell. Rejoice in the Lord for all things, and again I say rejoice, and he goes through, memorize verse 4 all the way through 13. Just do the whole chapter, do the whole book, it's great. But just sink those truths into your heart.
Just love them. And when you begin to think differently, you'll begin to live differently. When the truth comes in, the truth comes out, right?
Let's be like the 10 percent. I pray that God looks down upon Zenia and says, where is worship coming from in that city today? You know, that pumpkin almost went off. You see that?
Good thing I kick about like the bingles kicker does. But let it be when God looks down upon this city and upon our lives that He would see people that are giving Him thanks, giving Him praise. That should, let's not wait until we get to heaven. Let's make a little bit of heaven on earth, all right? Let's all stand this evening.
