Social media posts and online ads are famous for their clickbait headlines that promise to help you change your appearance, give you health or wealth, so on. In sharp contrast, the Apostle Paul challenged Christians to become what you are. Now that may sound like a riddle, but today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg explains just what Paul meant and how it's accomplished.
October 3, 1863. It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God, to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon, and to recognize the sublime truth announced in the holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord. We know that by his divine law, nations like individuals are subject to punishments and chastisements in this world. May we not justly fear that the awful calamity of civil war which now desolates the land may be a punishment inflicted upon us for our presumptuous sins, to the needful end of our national reformation as a whole people. What a conception of who God is and his plan for the world. He says, the civil war may be nothing more than the judgment of God.
You would be hard-pressed to find anyone in the administration suggesting that the chaos that is before us today may be an indication of the punishment and wrath of God inflicted upon us in order that we might experience the kind of national reformation necessary. Says Lincoln, we've been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven. We've been preserved these many years in peace and prosperity. We've grown in numbers, wealth, and power as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self- sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us. It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwells in the heavens.
Signed, Abraham Lincoln, October 3, 1863. So here we are this morning, not adrift on the continuum of life, but we are part and parcel of the unfolding plan and purpose of God for this people as well as for the nations of the earth. And it is right and proper for us to consider the fact that God, having redeemed a people for himself, gives to those who are his own people certain distinguishing marks, in the same way that people of various races are identifiable by certain characteristics. People from Scotland, they were asking me last week after John Peebles was here, somebody said to me, So are all the men in Scotland small? The inference being, we've only seen two of you, and you don't amount to much. If we stuck the two of you together, you wouldn't even make one half-decent American. That's the kind of thing they were saying.
We can live with that. We have been a beaten-down people for a long time. But yeah, Scottish men by and large are fairly small. Every so often you find a big ruddy one with red hair and brave enough to wear a kilt, but not many of them. Americans are Americans, identifiable in airports around the world by white tennis shoes and baseball caps, and not much else.
Except lots of luggage. But in the same way that different peoples are identifiable by different factors, so the people of God, says the Bible, are going to be distinguishable by certain features. And when he writes to the Thessalonians, Paul says to them at the beginning of chapter 4, he says, We were writing to you in order that you might know how to live in order to please God, because it is the purpose of God that his people would live to please him.
And as he goes on to give instructions concerning the nature of that, he points out in the portion of Scripture that we read in chapter 5 that some of the distinguishing features of those who are God's children are these. One, in verse 16, they're joyful people. Two, in 17, they're prayerful people. And three, in verse 18, they're thankful people. Now, this is not all that they are. It is the will of God that they should be this. It is God's will that they might be more than this. But at least the people of God are to be distinguishable by a spirit of thankfulness.
Because thankfulness is a mark of grace. Now, what I want to do is think with you just for a moment or two about the way in which Paul tackles this—indeed, the way in which the Bible addresses it. And I want to do so under three words. First of all, the directive.
Secondly, the dynamic. And thirdly, the doctrine. First of all, you will notice the directive, which is here in a phrase in verse 18, give thanks in all circumstances. Be thankful people. The children of God should, of all people, be really thankful.
Why? Because they have so much for which to be thankful. That is why it's not unusual for us to turn to the pages of the Bible and find that it is speaking about thankfulness all over the place. The Psalmist addresses it. Psalm 7.17, I will give thanks to the LORD because of his righteousness.
I will give thanks to you forever, he says. I will give thanks to you in the great assembly among throngs of people I will praise you. We give thanks to you, O God, for your name is near. And then, as it were, he turns to the gathered throng, and he says, Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.
Be thankful unto him and bless his name. For the LORD is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth endures to all generations. So for Paul to issue this directive here is not somehow or another to introduce a new element to the Bible but is simply to add his voice, as it were, to a great chorus that is calling for the spirit of thankfulness amongst those who name the name of Christ. In Ephesians chapter 4, he has pointed out the same thing—that thankfulness is a distinguishing mark of Christian faith.
Not marked by obscenity, he says, or foolish talk, or coarse joking. These things are out of place but rather marked by thanksgiving. In Colossians chapter 2, a verse to which I'll return in a moment, and verse 7, he talks about them overflowing with thankfulness. Overflowing with thankfulness.
The verb there, I think, from memory is perissuo. And it simply means to gush. Some of you like a lot of gravy, some of you don't like too much gravy, some of you like gravy on the side. If you don't like a lot of gravy, the last person you want to see is the sort of gravy maniac coming who loves to make everything on the plate float. It's not a good day unless it all floats. And some of you are smiling and others of you are grimacing.
I can divide you into the floaters and the non-floaters on the basis of your reaction. But that is the word that is perissuo. It is to overflow with gravy. It's going everywhere. It's not that it is just meted out a teaspoonful at a time, a wee drop here and a wee drop there, but rather it comes out of the jug.
Whoo! There it goes, everywhere overflowing. That's the word he uses. He says, the people of God in Colossae, the people of God in Thessalonica, the people of God in Ephesus, no matter what else they're known by, are supposed to be people who, when they overflow, overflow with thankfulness. They're always saying thank you. They're always mentioning things for which they're thankful. There are always things that have happened. There are people they have met.
There are places they have been. And you find them saying all the time, Thank you and thank you and thank you and I am thankful. Oh, and this, of course, is not the thank yous of the little robots of our children that we teach and train how to say thank you. Go on, say what you're supposed to say to Mrs. Jones. And they say, Thank you, Mrs. Jones. And go on and say what you're supposed to say to the postman.
Thank you, postman. And basically, they may have no interest at all in being thankful. They may not be remotely thankful. They are simply doing what they're asked to do in a moment in time.
Anybody can be constrained to that. The sort of propriety of it, the pragmatic benefit of it, is such that we can induce in one another a sense of moral rectitude, which says, you know, why don't we at least give the impression we're thankful even if we're not? After all, nobody was ever upset by people saying, Thank you.
No, it is not that kind of thing. It is a thankfulness that is as a result of a key being turned in the soul of a man or woman, as a result of which they now begin to overflow with thankfulness. Those of you who come from the Anglican Communion or the Episcopal Communion here in America will know that the Anglican Prayer Book provides you not only with prayers of petition and prayers of confession but also provides wonderful prayers of thanksgiving. And I went to it again this week just to remind me of it all, and there is a whole selection on offer here. There is a prayer of general thanksgiving—thanksgiving for the rain, thanksgiving for fair weather, thanksgiving for plenty, thanksgiving for peace and deliverance from our enemies, thanksgiving for restoring public peace at home, thanksgiving for deliverance from the plague or other common sicknesses.
And it's just all here! So that unless, in case the people of God have forgotten that for which they should be thankful, then the worship leader may lead them in prayers and say, You know, here's some things that we ought to be thankful for. Because it is not impossible for us, as believing people, to be thankless. It's just incongruous for us, as believing people, to be thankless.
Now, what would it be that would prevent thankfulness amongst us? Well, I think there's circumstances more than anything else, don't you? Somebody immediately says, Well, I understand what you're saying, but of course you don't know my circumstances. And if you knew my circumstances, then I'm not sure that you would be so prone to reissue, as it were, the directive. Well, notice that your circumstances are actually mentioned in the directive. It says, Give thanks in all circumstances.
That's the rub, is it not? Because not all of our circumstances are immediately conducive to thanksgiving. Some of us have spent these last few days, and they have quite frankly been the loneliest of our lives.
They're the loneliest we've ever spent. We haven't confided that in anyone at all, but the very fact that I mentioned to you now, it reverberates at the core of your being. Others of us have for some inexplicable reason just been overwhelmed by a sense of the lostness of a loved one. And it is crushing upon us, and we have found ourselves reaching and trying our best, with God's enabling, to exercise a spirit of genuine thanksgiving that would be an encouragement to those who have gathered around us. Some of us have met these last few days with a spirit of such disappointment as a result of failure in our lives, and we've come to worship today, perhaps cajoled by a loved one, perhaps dragged here as a result of having found yourself, unfortunately, you say, in the home of somebody who goes to this church, and since they gave you thanksgiving dinner, you have to come to church as well. And there you sit saying, I wonder how long this chap will keep going. Because you were having a wonderful thanksgiving right up until about five or seven minutes ago, and now it's just gone right over the edge. What do you do when the shadows are so long that they cast such a dark emptiness across your path?
Well, what the Bible says here is that God not only gives to us a directive, but he provides a dynamic so that even in the unpleasant and crushing experiences of life, we are going to be enabled to respond in such a way that distinguishes us from those who are thankless and embittered. We have a song that we'll sing next year at this time, All Being Well. We sang this at school in Scotland, and we sang it at church too. Some of you will have sung it, I'm sure.
I just want to read it to you. The opening line is sometimes referred to as the golfer's chorus, we plow the fields and scatter. Some of you with whom I played this year were obviously not taking divots but making contributions to the harvest thanksgiving. We plow the fields and scatter the good seed on the land, but it is fed and watered by God's almighty hand. He sends the snow in winter, the warmth to swell the grain, the breezes and the sunshine, and soft, refreshing rain. He only is the maker of all things near and far. He paints the wayside flower.
He lights the evening star. The winds and waves obey him. By him the birds are fed. Much more to us his children he gives our daily bread.
This is written, incidentally, sometime between 1740 and 1815 by a man by the name of Malthus Claudius, translated by Jane Campbell in the nineteenth century. It concludes in this way, We thank thee then, O Father, for all things bright and good, the seedtime and the harvest, our life, our health, our food. No gifts have we to offer for all thy love imparts, but that which thou desirest, our humble, thankful hearts. And then the chorus, all good gifts around us are sent from heaven above. Then thank the Lord, O thank the Lord, for all his love. We sometimes sing it at grace as well.
When people say, Let's sing the grace, then we would sing that. But you see what a worldview that is, what a view of the world it is. You take your grandchildren out at night, and you look up at the stars. And the children ask you questions that are really metaphysical questions. They're asking you about the universe, and they're asking you about the solar system. And you're not fobbing them off at all. You're actually introducing them to unbelievable truth, when you tell them that God who made the solar system turns the stars on. Indeed, it says he calls them by name, that he is the one who paints the wayside flower. When you look at it and you say, That is immense!
That is amazing! Look at that stuff when you drive along the freeways of some parts of the world, I think maybe in the Carolinas and in California too. And all of that foliage, that beautiful colored stuff, that's up the middle of the freeway.
How come? Apparently, the exhaust of cars helps it to grow. Helps it to grow. Doesn't kill it.
What a freak of evolution, huh? That just while we're gushing all this stuff into the universe, God is painting the wayside flowers and sweeping all our exhaust into the immensity of his purposes. While the directive is clear, he says, be thankful in all circumstances. Notice the dynamic, because the exhortations of the Bible are never there without the enabling of the Bible also. Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.
How are we supposed to do this? Well, verse 23 and 24 help us. May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through.
Now, that word there, to sanctify, means to set apart for God. Let me use an illustration I've used with you before. When Her Majesty the Queen, Elizabeth the Second, makes a purchase of a dwelling in the United Kingdom—or anywhere else, for that matter—Her lawyers take care of the transaction behind the scenes. As a result of a transaction unseen publicly, there is a transfer from the title of the prior owner into the title of the royal family.
Once the royal family has taken title of the place, then the royal family sets in motion the transformation of that dwelling in order that it might be a fit habitation for Her Majesty in which to spend time. Now, the analogy breaks down at several points, but at least it holds here. When the Lord Jesus Christ comes to rule and to reign in a life, he dispatches, is it where, if I may say so Christly, the Holy Spirit in order to produce the clean-up operation necessary, an ongoing cleansing operation, whereby Christ then may dwell in faith within that being—namely, my life. And so it is that the work of God in bringing me to Jesus then enables me to be what Jesus desires for me to be. So when the directive comes, I want you to be thankful in all circumstances, and the response comes, How am I supposed to do that? The answer then comes, switching from Thessalonians to Philippians 2.12, it is God who is at work in you, both to will and to do of his good pleasure. You see? But I don't feel thankful.
That's not the question. God enables us to thankfulness. But my circumstances are so bad and so gloomy, we understand that. But it is God who is quickening us from within, saying even through our tears, even through our pain and our disappointment, the loss of a business, the collapse of a relationship—whatever it might be—come, ye thankful people, come, and raise this song.
How? By God's enabling. You see, the cry of ethics is simply this. Be what you are not. The call of Christianity is to become what you are. Now, let me illustrate that by the verses I said I'd return to in Colossians chapter 2. Colossians chapter 2 and verse 6. So then, says Paul, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord… Now, let me ask you a question this morning. Is that a familiar phrase to you?
Let me ask you this. Have you ever received Christ Jesus as Lord? You see, the call to thankfulness is not a call which is issued, as it were, Paul going out onto the streets and gathering up a crowd of people and saying to them, Listen, I think that since you live in such a nice place and you seem to be fairly well put together, I think you all ought to be a far more thankful group of people than you are. Now, go on and try and be far more thankful than you've been. And why don't you try and be a little cheerier as well? Be joyful. And have you ever tried praying?
Have you ever tried meditation? Try that as well. And go on with you now and see if you can do much better than you've been doing. But that's the call of all kinds of religion.
And that, you see, is what many of you have only come as far as. Because you are not Christians. And the reason I point this out to you this morning is because it is so crucial. Why is it that so many people are absolutely stalled at this time of year?
I'll tell you why. Because the directive comes to them, but there is no dynamic within them. They are not Christians. They do not have the power of Christ within them. They have never received Jesus. They do not know what it means to bow beneath his lordship. All that they have done is assimilate various religious ideas, and they have added them then to the package of their existence. And so what you have is some kind of ethical call. And so they've come through these last few days, and they haven't been particularly thankful at all.
And when they got into the church on the Sunday morning, if there isn't some alien and stranger haranguing them about the fact that they ought to be thankful when thankfulness is the last thing from their minds, and you say to yourself, there's no way I'm going to be thankful. No, there isn't. You're stuck. You're absolutely stuck. You're stuck with self-pity. You're stuck with any endeavor to try and pull yourself out of the spirit of debasement. And I want to tell you that unless you receive Christ Jesus as Lord, you have no dynamic with which to be able to fulfill the directive.
Did you ever consider that? You're listening to Truth for Life. That is Alistair Begg with a message he's titled Thankfulness, a Mark of Grace.
We'll hear the conclusion tomorrow. Our mission here at Truth for Life is to teach the Bible with clarity and relevance. Our desire is to reach as many people as possible through this daily program and all of our free online teaching, hoping that many will come to know and believe in Jesus. That's the mission you're partnering with when you join us at Truth for Life. We are a 100% listener funded ministry, so as you look to the end of the year, would you kindly remember Truth for Life in your year-end giving plans? We rely on your support to finish 2024 with the funds needed so that we can press on for another year of ministry in 2025. You can make your donations securely at truthforlife.org donate or call us at 888-588-7884. And if you'd rather mail in your year-end donation, write to us at Truth for Life, Post Office Box 398000, Cleveland, Ohio 44139. When you give, we'll say thanks by inviting you to request a family Christmas devotional titled Promises Made, Promises Kept. This book presents a fun way for the whole family to focus together on the true meaning of Christmas. Thanks for joining us today. As we're finding out genuine gratitude isn't merely driven by good habits or self endeavors, tomorrow we'll find out how we can become truly thankful people. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
Whisper: medium.en / 2024-11-26 06:17:57 / 2024-11-26 06:27:14 / 9