Oh Thank God!

Nov. 19
Giving Thanks


Two men were walking through a field one day when they spotted an enraged bull. Instantly they darted toward the nearest fence. The storming bull followed in hot pursuit, and it was soon apparent they wouldn't make it.

Terrified, the one shouted to the other, "Put up a prayer, John. We're in for it!" John answered, "I can't. I've never made a public prayer in my life." "But you must!" implored his companion. "The bull is catching up to us." "All right," panted John, "I'll say the only prayer I know, the one my father used to repeat at the table;

“O Lord, for what we are about to receive, make us truly thankful.'"

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Today we are going to talk about being thankful. Thanksgiving is just around the corner and the holiday is not just the kickoff of the Christmas season and lots of great food, but it is a reminder as to how we should be thinking the entire year.

The Apostle Paul wrote two letters to the church in Thessalonica and one of the things that he wrote was to encourage them to give thanks. First Thessalonians 5:16-18 says  “16 Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

Paul is telling us in this passage that it is God’s desire that we would rejoice, pray and be thankful always. So no matter what is going on in our lives God wants us to do these things.

If we are rejoicing, praying and expressing our thanks, it can be really hard to be angry, self-absorbed complainer. To behave in one of these ways will rule out the other just by default.

Now, what does it really mean to be thankful? Merriam Webster defines thankful being “conscious of benefit received”.

Another source says that the definition of the word, thankful, is to be pleased and relieved or expressing gratitude and relief. Most of us know exactly what it means to be thankful.

I recently asked people on Facebook to message me what they are thankful for other than their salvation, God and Jesus.

Here are some of their responses.

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I am thankful for…..
and show photo of girl from paper who is thankful
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Quite often we don’t feel much like being thankful do we? Maybe we lost our job. Maybe we are suffering physically or maybe we have even lost a loved one recently. Life can be difficult and each of these things are reasons we may find ourselves less than thankful.  Yet we have much to be thankful for.

Billy Graham shares a story about a man who had every right to be bitter and resentful, but was not. He tells it like this…

The next footsteps in the corridor, he knew, might be those of the guards taking him away to his execution. His only bed was the hard, cold stone floor of the dank, cramped prison cell. Not an hour passed when he was free from the constant irritation of the chains and the pain of the iron manacles cutting into his wrists and legs.

Separated from friends, unjustly accused, brutally treated—if ever a person had a right to complain, it was this man, languishing almost forgotten in a harsh Roman prison. But instead of complaints, his lips rang with words of praise and thanksgiving!

The man was the Apostle Paul—a man who had learned the meaning of true thanksgiving, even in the midst of great adversity. Earlier, when he had been imprisoned in Rome, Paul wrote, “Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:19-20, NIV).

Think of it: Always giving thanks for everything—no matter the circumstances! Thanksgiving for the Apostle Paul was not a once-a-year celebration, but a daily reality that changed his life and made him a joyful person in every situation.

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As followers of Jesus Christ, being thankful to God for all He has done, is doing, and will do, should be a daily occurrence shouldn’t it?
If a spirit of ingratitude is allowed to grow in our hearts it will put a barrier between us and the God who loves us so much as to sacrifice His only Son for us while we were yet sinners.

If we have an ungrateful heart we will grow to be bitter, selfish and malcontented. As we nurture a spirit of thankfulness in our hearts we will find that we are more content. We will also discover that even in trials, we have a peace and joy that draws us closer to our God.

Not everyone got the memo on that though.

At one point as Jesus was traveling to Jerusalem he encountered a group of ten lepers. They called out to Jesus from a distance as it was their custom to do.

You see at the time those who suffered from leprosy would be required to call out so as to keep others from coming in contact with them. They would shout “leper, leper, leper” if there were others nearby so as to alert them and keep a seemingly safe distance between them.

When they called out to Jesus, however, it was not to alert Him, but to ask for His healing. In Luke chapter 17: 13-14 we read, that “They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”

Jesus responded by saying, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed of their leprosy.

They were healed, free of sores, the disease was gone, they were, good as new.

Leprosy is some nasty stuff. It is an infectious disease that causes one to have serve pale-colored disfiguring skin sores, that may appear as lumps or bumps, and also nerve damage on the arms and legs. You would think that being healed of leprosy would caused them to celebrate with a great amount of joy.

That just wasn’t the case.

Only one of the ten turned around after being healed and came back to give thanks to Jesus. Starting with verse 17 we read, “Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18 Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.”

Have you ever experienced anything like that? I mean not healing someone of leprosy of course, but a situation where you were asked by someone to do something for them and then when you did it, they didn’t even bother with thanking you?

It has been my experience that teenagers can certainly go through stages of just such behavior. I may have even gone through just such a stage myself in my teen years.

Teenagers not withstanding, I suppose that there are other possible reasons that the other nine didn’t turn around to express their gratitude.

Baptist Pastor Charles Brown suggests that the other nine may have had their reasons…
    One waited to see if the cure was real.
    One waited to see if it would last.
    One said he would see Jesus later.
    One decided that he had never had leprosy.
    One said he would have gotten well anyway.
    One gave the glory to the priests.
    One said, “O, well, Jesus didn’t really do anything.”
    One said, “Any rabbi could have done it.”
    One said, “I was already much improved.”

Whatever the reasons were that the remaining nine lepers didn’t join with the one and return to give thanks, I can tell you that it didn’t surprise Jesus. I am sure that before He even granted them the healing He already knew that they wouldn’t be grateful, but you know…He healed them anyway.

That my friends is the kind of Savior we follow. He healed them even when He knew that there would be almost nothing in the way of gratitude shown by those healed. And later, He would die for those same lepers and each of us while we were yet sinners. But that’s just how Jesus rolls.

It sure seems to me that not only were the lepers ungrateful, but it was almost as if they had taken Jesus and His healing for granted.

How often do we take the things in our lives for granted? I can’t begin to tell you the amount of complaining that I hear from people who cross my path or on social media. Originally I was going to tell you that quite honestly much of the complaining is from young people, which is certainly true, but us older folks sure can get on a roll when it comes to ranting about what bothers us.

Not too long ago a campaign to quell complaining began. Rev. Will Bowen of Kansas City preached a sermon in July of 2006 where he encouraged his congregation of 250 to shift their focus from lack to abundance by giving up complaining for 21 days.

Bowen says that is the length of time it takes to break a habit. As part of the effort the church handed out latex bracelets with the word “Spirit” on them. The bracelets were designed to reinforce the idea and at this point more than 5 million of the bracelets have been shipped out worldwide.

At one point I heard an account of a church congregation that had placed an order for the bracelets and when they arrived, for whatever reason, the church leadership complained about the quality of the simple latex bands and returned them. How sad. That church complained about the bracelets that were created to quell complaining.

I have said many times that I would love to take every child I know to Haiti before they turn 18 so that they can see what it really means to be without. I think it would be something that they would never forget. Many of the children in third world countries while they have very little, do have a great deal of joy and happiness in their hearts.

It is really a matter of being happy with the blessings that we have and being thankful for them on a daily basis. Otherwise we will constantly compare our situations to those of others and be miserable when we don’t measure up.

Have a look at this short video.

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SHOES

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That’s a powerful message isn’t it? It says to me, “be careful what you wish for”, but it also says that things will go much better for us if we are content with the blessings that we have instead of desiring the blessings that others have.

Paul writes in Philippians chapter 4 “11 Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. 12 I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. 13 For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.

You see, our level of contentment is directly related to the level of joy and happiness in our lives.  If we are not content with the blessings we already have in our lives whether related to material goods, relationships or our circumstances we will always be comparing our situations to others and looking to get bigger and bigger blessings.

If our focus is constantly on whatever the better thing is, then we will never be happy with what we have and we will always be looking for something else. On the other hand, if we are thankful and grateful on a daily basis for all that we have, we can be content and filled with joy. That joy  however, will never come if we are more into complaining than giving thanks.

Author and breast cancer survivor, Erma Bombeck made the point rather well when she wrote.

An estimated 1.5 million people are living today after bouts with breast cancer. Every time I forget to feel grateful to be among them, I hear the voice of an eight-year-old named Christina, who had cancer of the nervous system. When asked what she wanted for her birthday, she thought long and hard and finally said, "I don't know. I have two sticker books and a Cabbage Patch doll. I have everything!" The kid is right.

How often do we really have everything, but we don’t see it that way?

Isn’t it interesting that the things that we desire the most, and are the most important to us, most often are the cause of our anxiety, and unhappiness?

Quite often our unhappiness is a result of our attitudes toward our circumstances. As I said before, if we are thankful for all that we have and have been blessed with, each time our circumstances change for the better OR the worse, the happiness and joy will remain.

There are several places in scripture where we are reminded to be thankful for the blessings in our lives and to direct that thankfulness toward God. It is a good habit to get into because it then carries over into our dealings with others.

In Psalm 107 king David writes in verses 8-9, Let them give thanks to the LORD for his unfailing love and His wonderful deeds for mankind, for He satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.

We see that in this passage that we are not just thanking God for what He has done in the past but also the things that He continues to do as He satisfies the thirsty and the hungry.

Sure we should give God praise and thank Him on a daily basis for all that He has done, is doing and is yet to do, but a direct result of giving thanks like that is that we will appreciate the circumstances in our lives. And if we appreciate the circumstances, and each blessing, we will always have more joy and happiness than if we take the things in our lives for granted and are continuing to look for more.

Being thankful is a decision each of us must make. I cannot decide that you will be thankful, it is up to you, but it does make a difference. Things look much better to us when we view our world through the lens of thankfulness and gratitude.

Andre Deutsch tells this story…In Budapest, a man goes to the rabbi and complains, "Life is unbearable. There are nine of us living in one room. What can I do?"

The rabbi answers, "Take your goat into the room with you."  The man in incredulous, but the rabbi insists. "Do as I say and come back in a week."

A week later the man comes back looking more distraught than before.  "We cannot stand it," he tells the rabbi. "The goat is filthy."

The rabbi then tells him, "Go home and let the goat out. And come back in a week."

A radiant man returns to the rabbi a week later, exclaiming, "Life is beautiful. We enjoy every minute of it now that there's no goat -- only the nine of us."

The way in which we view the life we live and the circumstances that we encounter will make all the difference as to whether or not we enjoy the time we’ve been given. Things are always better if we are thankful for what we have. The world would have us believe that we should always be looking for something better, we should never be content with our place in life. That attitude can quickly change if we are faced with losing it all.

Dana Keeton told this story in The Democratic Union of Lawrenceburg, Tennessee:

The sun had just risen on a hot August day in 1944 in the small village of Plelo, in German-occupied France. The 15-year-old boy did not know why he and the other citizens of Plelo had been lined up before a firing squad in the middle of the town square. Perhaps they were being punished for harboring a unit of Marquisards, the French underground freedom fighters. Perhaps they were merely to satisfy the blood lust of the German commanding officer who, the evening before, had routed the small group of Marquisard scouts. All the boy knew was that he was about to die.

As he stood before the firing squad, he remembered the carefree days of his early childhood, before the war, spent roaming the green of the French countryside. He thought about all he would miss by never growing up. Most of all he was terrified of dying. How will the bullets feel ripping through my body? he wondered. He hoped no one could hear the whimperings coming from deep in his throat every time he exhaled.

Suddenly, the boy heard the sound of exploding mortar shells beyond the limits of his little village. Quickly rolling tanks could also be heard. The Germans were forced to abandon the firing squad and face a small unit of U.S. tanks with twenty GI's led by Bob Hamsley, a corporal in Patton's Third Army. A Marquisard captain had asked Hamsley for help. After three hours, fifty Nazis were dead, and the other fifty were taken prisoner.

In 1990 the town of Plelo honored Bob Hamsley on the very spot where dozens of the town's citizens would have died if not for him. The man who initiated the search for Hamsley and the ceremony honoring him was the former mayor of Plelo, that same 15-year-old boy. He had determined to find the man who saved his life and honor him.

It's hard to forget your savior.

Neither should we forget ours.