BE THANKFUL
Since Thanksgiving is just around the corner I thought I
would give a lesson on being thankful. We have a song in our song books on page
742 that teaches us this concept. As I read this song to you, I want you to
notice the message that it teaches.
When
upon life's billows you are tempest tossed,
When
you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,
Count
your many blessings, name them one by one,
And
it will surprise you what the Lord hath done.
Are
you ever burdened with a load of care?
Does
the cross seem heavy you are called to bear?
Count
your many blessings, ev'ry doubt will fly,
And
you will be singing as the days go by.
So,
amid the conflict, whether great or small,
Do
not be discouraged, God is over all;
Count
your many blessings, angels will attend,
Help
and comfort give you to your journey's end.
Count
your blessings, name them one by one;
Count
your blessings, see what God hath done;
Count
your blessings, name them one by one;
Count
your many blessings, see what God hath done.
The basic message of this song is that when we feel defeated by the world or we start becoming discouraged, we need to take time out and count all the blessing that God has given us. When we take the time to reflect on all those blessings that God has provided us with, then we will begin to realize that the bad things we are going through are only temporary and not that bad when we look at the big picture. But unfortunately, some people take for granted the many blessing that they have and they lose sight of this and it causes them to easily be defeated and discouraged.
First of all, the majority of people in our nation whether
they are Christians or not have many things to be thankful for especially when we
begin to compare our lifestyles to that of a third world country. Most
However, in the third world countries many of things are not
available for the majority. Some live in mud houses or makeshift houses made
out of straw and other materials, but they don’t have any electricity, so they
don’t have any of those fancy appliances or heat or air and many of them don’t
even have a concrete floor. They certainly don’t have lot of furniture because
their houses are primarily used for sleeping. Many of those in third world
country can’t go grab a bag of Doritos when they get hungry and a lot of times
they only have one meal a day because they don’t have that much food. I was
watching one show about a village in
It doesn’t matter if you are poor or rich you can still be thankful for what you have and you need to realize that you could be worse off. Now that we have looked at what both Christians and non-Christians should be thankful for, lets take a look at what the Bible teaches about being thankful as it relates to Christians.
1 Thessalonians 5:16 Rejoice
always, 17 pray without
ceasing, 18 in everything
give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
Ephesians 5:18 And do
not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the
Spirit, 19 speaking to one
another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in
your heart to the Lord, 20
giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord
Jesus Christ, 21 submitting
to one another in the fear of God.
Paul makes its clear for
us that Christians are to be full of rejoicing and should be thankful in
everything that we do. A Christian should train themselves not to take their
blessing for granted and if you remember from the song we looked at earlier,
when we count our blessing and name them one by one it will help us overcome
any bad event that may happen in our lives. You see, as Christians not only do
we have material things to be thankful for, we also have spiritual things to be
thankful for.
Ephesians 1:3 Blessed
be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with
every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him
before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame
before Him in love, 5 having
predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the
good pleasure of His will, 6
to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He has made us accepted in
the Beloved.
A non-Christian cannot be
thankful for spiritual gifts because they don’t have them. But as Christians
even if all our material blessing a stripped away from us, we can still be
thankful because when we were baptized into Christ, we received every spiritual
blessing that is found in Jesus. However, sometimes even Christians take for
granted the many blessing they have received. I have great example of this in,
Luke
Here we have these 10 men
who are lepers who could not set foot into the temple area in their condition.
There was no cure for leprosy, yet Jesus being full of love and compassion made
these men clean. But only 1 out the 10 came back and thanked God for what had
been done. But the other 9 just took for granted the wonderful blessing they
had received. Today we have to make sure that we are not like those 9 men taking
our blessing for granted. Instead, we need to be like that one, who was a
Samaritan, and give thanks for the many blessing we have been given by God.
Now lets take a look at how we should be thankful
in our prayers. First of all
notice what the writer of,
Psalm 50:14 Offer
to God thanksgiving, And pay your vows to the Most High.
When we pray, we
shouldn’t just pray for what we want, we should also spend time in our prayer
thanking God for what he has done for us because we certainly didn’t deserve
it. A good example of the right way and wrong way to approach God in prayer is
found in the parable of Lk. 18:10ff (read and elaborate) Jesus being our master example often gave
thanks to Father for what he had done. For instance, when Jesus had went to
where Lazarus had been dead for 4 days he begin to pray,
John 11:41-Then
they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying.
And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, "Father, I thank You that
You have heard Me. 42
"And I know that You always hear Me, but because of the people who are
standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent
Me."
Notice Jesus gives the Father
thanks for hearing his prayer and that is certainly something to being thankful
for. How many times have you thanked God for the avenue of prayer? This is
another one of those blessing that we can easily take for granted if we are not
careful. Of course this is just one example because when we pray we should
express our thanks for every aspect our lives.
Philippians 4:6 Be
anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with
thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which
surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ
Jesus.
So clearly we can see
that we should be thankful in our prayer life for everything we have received.
Another thing we should be thankful for is when
the good news of Jesus Christ is spread and souls are won for God.
1 Thessalonians 2:13 For this
reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received the word of
God which you heard from us, you welcomed it not as the word of
men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in
you who believe.
Paul was ecstatic and
very thankful that the gospel was being spread and accepted by people as the
truth and he was also very thankful that many who accepting this truth were
being set free from the bondage of sin. We can also see this in,
Romans
It is so wonderful to see
someone become a Christian and be set free from their sins and we should be
thankful for such things and rejoice in them. One reason we should be so happy
for those that are saved is because it is what God desires.
2 Peter 3:9 The
Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but
is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all
should come to repentance.
1 Timothy 2:3 For
this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, 4 who desires all men to be saved
and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
Since it is God desire,
it should be our desire and it should be thankful when He gets what He desires
and we can see that there is great
rejoicing in heaven when a lost sinner comes home.
Luke 15:4 "What
man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses one of them, does not leave the
ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one which is lost until he
finds it? 5 "And when he
has found it, he lays it on his shoulders, rejoicing. 6 "And when he comes home, he
calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, 'Rejoice with me, for
I have found my sheep which was lost!' 7
"I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one
sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.
This
parable teaches us that when a soul is saved that the whole host of heaven
rejoices and this certainly tells us that we should be thankful for the
spreading of the gospel and for those who hear it and obey it. This would also
include those who have fallen away and have been restored through repentance. However, sometimes Christians are not
thankful when people are lead to repentance because in their mind they don’t
think certain people deserve it or because they doubt the sincerity of that
person. We have an OT example of this with Jonah. We all know that God ask
Jonah to speak to the people of
Jonah 3: 4
And Jonah began to enter the city on the first day's walk. Then he cried out
and said, "Yet forty days, and
You see Jonah had the
attitude that the people of
The last thing I want to talk about this evening
that we should be thankful for is the gift of Christ.
Paul talking in regards
to Jesus says this,
2 Corinthians
Boy, if there is anything
we should be thankful for, it should be for the wonderful gift we received
through Jesus Christ. Without him our lives would be void of any spiritual
blessings. Without him we would be eternal lost. But thanks be to God for
bestowing his grace upon us through His only begotten Son. The reason Paul
describes this gift as indescribably is because mankind could not save
themselves and for God almighty to love us enough to give us such a wonderful
gift is indescribable.
Romans 5:7 For
scarcely for a righteous man will one die; yet perhaps for a good man someone
would even dare to die. 8 But
God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners,
Christ died for us. 9 Much
more then, having now been justified by His blood, we shall be saved from wrath
through Him. 10 For if when
we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much
more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. 11 And not only that, but we also
rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received
the reconciliation.
We
should give thanks to God for this wonderful gift every single day of our
Christian lives. Notice what else Paul says in,
Romans
You see Jesus has
delivered us from sin and He will make it possible for us to overcome the
grave.
1 Corinthians
Because of this wonderful
gift of Jesus we can overcome sin and the grave and through Jesus we have the
hope of eternal life in heaven. So surely we can see the importance of
following the advice of the song I read to at the beginning of this lesson.
Count
your blessings, name them one by one;
Count
your blessings, see what God hath done;