December 27, 2006
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JMac - Thankfulness
Fundamental Christian Attitudes: Thankfulness
Condensed from John MacArthur
In Luke 17 we read about Jesus healing ten lepers and how only one came back to offer Him thanks. Ingratitude is right at the top of God's list of damning sins. We can understand that nine lepers who didn't know God could be thankless. We can understand a world of thankless people. I cannot understand a thankless Christian when we understand what the Lord has done for us. Nor can God understand a thankless Christian. In everything give thanks, God desires that we "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing and in everything give thanks." All three of those sum up God's will for you in Christ Jesus.
"In everything give thanks." It has the idea of being in connection with everything that occurs in life. No matter what the trial we are to find reason to thank the Lord. And as I noted for you, thanklessness is a sin that characterizes the unregenerate, those who know not God.
Believers know God is at work unfolding a divine plan determined by Him for our benefit and His glory. He's leading us to a sovereignly designed goal. "For we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to His purpose." Whatever comes into life should be treated first with joy and now we want to add gratitude. We ought to be thanking God for every blessing, large and small.
Christians today are fussing, fuming, stressed out, disappointed, and depressed about every little thing in their life that doesn't go right. That's a really disgusting sin. Your heart ought to be so overflowing with thanks that it ought to abound to the glory of God. It should be the normal pattern for Christians to be grateful and thankful and overwhelmed with thanks.
In II Corinthians 9 Paul reminds all of us about how great God is and how rich He is and He pours out those riches on those who give. You can't out-give God. Luke says "Give and it shall be given unto you, pressed down, shaken together and running over." You're sowing and He brings in the crop. You're putting something in the cup and He fills it to overflowing. God wants to be thanked. And when He indicts the whole of the fallen human race He says they're not thankful; they don't acknowledge Me as the source of everything. That's one of the reasons He saved you, to add you to the hallelujah chorus and you're going to spend forever thanking Him for it, you ought to start now. When you give He gives back because He wants to hear your thanks.
"Always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, to God even the Father." Constantly always giving thanks. That's what a Spirit-filled person does, they're characterized by joy and they're characterized by thanks. When you're not thankful, the Spirit's not in control.
You say, "Well, you mean to be thankful even for the difficulties?" Have a look at 1 Peter 5:10, James 1:2 , Philippians 4:6, Colossians 2:6-7, and Colossians 3:15. In Acts 16 Paul and Silas were in jail singing praise and thanks to God. What was he thankful for? They were saved. They were God's own.
When Jesus was approaching the cross He said, "I thank You, O Father, for the privilege of serving You." It wasn't easy, obviously, He was going to go through agonies we would never be able to comprehend, but He had a thankful heart. You know, you wouldn't really think that Jesus would need to thank the Father for anything since He was God and since the plan was really equally His. But what a wonderful example it is. He thanked the Father for the privilege of ministry. He thanked the Father for hearing His prayer for power on behalf of Lazarus. He could even thank the Father for the death that He would die to redeem sinners. In fact, in all that was so terrible about His humiliation, He was thankful to the Father.
There are some things that hinder us from being thankful. Maybe you're not a Christian. Maybe you had some emotional experience and nothing more. If you can't find in your heart endless cause for thanksgiving, then maybe you don't have a new life. Maybe you ought to do as 2 Corinthians 5 says, examine yourself to see if you're in the faith.
Second is doubt about God's sovereign power. Why not be thankful for anything if You know God's power is at work in it, God's wisdom is at work in it, God's purpose is at work in it, God's love is expressed through it? If you doubt that, you're going to have a problem being thankful.
Third, selfishness hinders gratitude. "No matter what I've got I don't have what I really want, my will is more important than God's will and I know what I want from me and God ought to deliver." "I want my circumstances different. I want my children different. I want my life different. I want my ministry different. I want my spouse different. I want my job different. I want a lot of things different. I want more of this and less of that." If that's what drives you and you've set your own agenda, then you're going to have trouble. On the other hand, if you say I only want what God wants and I'll believe that God will give me what He wants me to have, then you can be thankful, right?
Fourth, worldliness hinders gratitude. If you're into pleasures, people, places, possessions, pursuits, popularity and prestige, you're going to have trouble being thankful because you're never going to have it all and when you get it you won't have enough.
Fifth, a critical spirit hinders gratitude. You get that by having unrealistic expectations of what you deserve. You get that because you think you ought to control everything and there's some things you can't control, and that bothers you. Don't build that kind of habit. This attitude will corrode your love, joy, peace, and your spirituality...a critical spirit that always criticizes, sees what's wrong with everybody else, what's negative, what isn't the way you want it, what isn't under your control.
A sixth hindrance to gratitude is impatience. God isn't moving fast enough. It's not so much that they want this or that, it's that they want it now. They've got their own timetable. Let God unfold His purposes in His time and be thankful that He knows better the timing that you do.
Seventh is coldness: spiritual lukewarmness, lack of zeal for God, lack of diligence in the Scripture, lack of passion in prayer, lack of interest in worship, neglect of the Bible, wasting your time on trivia, spiritual lethargy, spiritual indifference...that produces a coldness that just kills gratitude. When you spend your time in the Word and you spend your time in prayer, and you spend your time in worship, and you spend your time in service to the King and the Kingdom, it excites gratitude.
Eighth is rebellion. You're in a settled state of outright anger toward God because things didn't go the way you wanted them and it's become a settled state of rebellion. You are angry with God.
We have so much to be thankful for: God's holiness that makes Him perfect and He never makes a mistake, God's goodness and mercy which is always available, which is overflowing and abounding toward us, the gift of Jesus Christ, that unspeakable gift for which we are thankful. All good gifts flow down from the Father of lights, victory over sin and death, divine guidance, complete provision for all our needs, the hope of heaven, the power of the Word and on and on and on and on we go. Lots of reasons to give thanks.
Philippians 2:13, "It is God who is at work in you to will and to work for His good pleasure." And since He's at work in you using all this stuff to work for His own good pleasure, the next verse says, "You can do all things without grumbling...into all things with joy and gratitude."
Father, we thank You so much for Your mercy and kindness toward us. We thank You for the way in which You have consistently demonstrated Your goodness. And, Lord, fill us with thanksgiving. We have to much to be thankful for, even the difficulties, for those we thank You. Lord, we pray that You'll even use the strength of Your Spirit to break patterns of critical spirit, rebellion, worldliness, selfishness, impatience, all those things that hinder gratitude. And may we begin every day by thanking You for being faithful in making your mercies new every morning, by thanking You for all that is ours in Christ, by thanking You for eternal life, the hope of heaven, guidance, direction, truth, trials which humble us, trials which shape us. Give us thankful hearts, You are worthy to be praised, You are worthy to be thanked. It is a sin not to do so, forgive us for that sin and put us in a path of righteousness where we are in everything thankful. In Christ's name. Amen.
Rejoice Always
1 Thessalonians 5:16
1 Thessalonians 5:16 has only two words, a command to "Rejoice always." That might seem ridiculous, but it is precisely what this command expects of us.
Trials test your faith and when you pass the test, you know you're genuine, you. An untested Christian is a Christian who doubts. The longer you live as a Christian, the more trials and troubles you have out of which the Lord not only delivers you, but through which your faith endures, the more you know it's real.
Rejoicing does not depend on positive circumstances. That's the world's joy. People think that what they want and get makes them happy. This kind of never really satisfies because desire never stops. People move from thing to material thing and from partner to partner because the thrill fades. Sometimes you think if you just had this thing, that job or that person, it would be the end of all your desires.
We're not talking about kind of joy. We're talking about supernatural joy, something that comes from God, not from our humanness. We're talking about a joy that is impossible to a non-believer. It's a joy that comes from God. It's a full, spiritual, supernatural joy. It comes from God through Jesus Christ. God only gives it to those who are in Christ. It is the joy that comes through faith in the Savior.
The kind of joy we're talking about is not related to your position in life or your possessions in life. Christian joy is an experience that springs from the deep-down confidence that Christ is sufficient and God is in perfect control of everything, bringing it all to our good in time and eternity.
The character of God makes me rejoice. It is my knowledge of God as Creator and Sustainer of the universe, as ruler over everything, as the lover of my soul, the Redeemer of my life, as the gracious God, as the wise God. God is too wise to ever make a mistake. God is too loving to be unkind to His children. God is too gracious not to overlook my sin. God is too merciful to allow me to be devastated. God is my protector.
Second, the work of Jesus Christ makes me rejoice. Ephesians 1 says I have been blessed with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus. Everything is mine because of His death, resurrection, ascension, intercession, Second Coming and eternal reign. Everything that Christ has done is now doing and will yet do is for my personal benefit.
Third, I rejoice because of the work of the Holy Spirit, who leads me to understand the truth. When the Spirit is my Comforter and my strengthener and the one who helps me, when the Spirit of God guarantees my eternal redemption, I have no fear that my God will fail.
Fourth, I rejoice because God takes all the events, all the actions of all the people in the world all the time, and weaves them together to accomplish His perfect plan. I don't have to control everything in my life.
I also rejoice in answered prayer. John 16:24, "Ask and you shall receive that your joy may be full." I rejoice that God answers prayer. I rejoice as an act of reasonable response to the truth of Scripture. When I spend time in the Bible, (Colossians 3:16), I end up speaking in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, making melody and rejoicing in my heart because of the truth.
The key to rejoicing is to look away from changing feelings and circumstances to the unchangeable God, Christ, the Holy Spirit, the unchangeable benefits and blessings of our salvation and the unchangeable promise of eternal heaven.
In Everything Give Thanks
1 Thessalonians 5:18
Condensed from John MacArthur
1 Thessalonians 5:16, "Rejoice always," is a command that we have discussed. There is another command, "In everything give thanks for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." Just as rejoicing is a duty, so is giving thanks. People who reject God are described in Romans 1:21 as those who did not honor Him as God, or give thanks.
In the Old Testament we see a sacrificial system of sin offerings as reminders of sinfulness, need for forgiveness, need for atonement, need for cleansing, need for penitence and need for righteousness. There was also a system of thank offerings, reminders that the people continually needed to be thankful to God for providing their spiritual and physical needs, and and that they needed to be thankful to maintain a right relationship with Him.
Now as Christians, we no longer have a sacrificial system. We have only one ongoing ceremony (baptism is a onetime ceremony) and that is the Lord's table, which combines both elements. We need the constant reminder of our sinfulness. We need to deal with that sinfulness and be brought to penitence and confession. We do that by remembering the one sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. The same Lord's table becomes for us a celebration of gratitude. Remembering how sinful we are causes us to offer up thanks to God.
No matter what it might be, eucharisteo applies, that is the giving of thanks for everything with no limits or confines. Everything should precipitate an attitude and an expression of thanks to God. Thanklessness is a characteristic of people who are outside the Kingdom of God. The unsaved man tries to manipulate the world around him to satisfy, and when he can't, he is bitter and disappointed. He thinks that things are a matter of luck and of manipulation so he works tries to force into reality the things that he wants. If we get the pleasures we long for, then we rejoice and then we're thankful. If we don't, we don't rejoice and we aren't thankful.
The believer operates in a completely different realm. We can rejoice always because of what we know to be true about God and His plan for us and we can be thankful for everything for the very same reasons. Since we know that all things are being worked together by God for our eternal good, we can be thankful for everything. There is nothing outside the all things that are working together for good because God is making that happen. Because God is working all things for our good, there is cause for joy and gratitude.
To live a righteous life means to be characterized by incessant gratitude because it means that you have a grip on the goodness of God, that you're swept up in what God is doing in your life. You have a God-ward focus, and that's the essence of righteous living and godliness. As Colossians puts it, let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, and be under the control of the truth and the Spirit of truth.
It is normal for us to give thanks. When you're under the control of the Word of God and the Spirit of God, when they dominate your thinking and your life, the first thing that happens is joy that comes out in praise and then it's followed by and companion to gratitude. So you will always give thanks for everything in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, to God even the Father, you'll be thankful for everything.
What are we going to be like when we're perfect? What are we going to be doing in heaven? We're going to spend all eternity expressing the purest joy and unending gratitude. That is the essence of spirituality, a person who cannot be overcome by circumstances or disappointment in this world because they're so filled with the Spirit and controlled by the truth as to be incessantly thankful.
In Philippians 4:6 somebody might say, "Well what about when trouble comes?" Well he says, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God." You've got some problems that could create anxiety for you, don't be anxious about it, just start praying, but be thankful in the process. Even though things are bad, it is not outside the plan or discipline of God, the perfecting of your life through suffering.
What are the motives for gratitude? God's character, God is almighty, He's working everything to your good. God is holy. He is perfect. He never makes a mistake. We're reminded to give thanks to the One whose name is holy, flawless judgment.
Another motive is God's goodness and mercy. He's so merciful toward us and so gracious toward us and so good to us that we have every reason to believe that even in our pain and our suffering He has good intentions.
The Bible goes on to be thankful for divine guidance, to be thankful for victory over sin, to be thankful for victory over death, thankful that God will supply our every need. How thankful we should be for the teaching of the Word of God.
We also are commanded to "Pray without ceasing." "Rejoice always," because everything is under the control of God. "In everything give thanks," because everything is under God's control, everything is worked out, it's all working together for good to them that love God and are called according to His purpose, because we have a sovereign God, because we have a sovereign Lord, because we have a sufficient Christ, because we have a powerful resident Holy Spirit, because we have all things that pertain to life and godliness, all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies, and on and on. Because we have received from Him justification, sanctification, the promise of glorification, because everything we need in this life is ours and all that He has promised us in the life to come we will receive. We have an unassailable promise, we have an inheritance that is laid up for us that is incorruptible that fadeth not away, and some day we will receive. Everything is planned. Everything is settled. We have nothing to worry or be anxious about. In everything we give thanks.
How do our prayers fit into God's plan? If God is sovereign do we still need to pray? This is not an easy question to answer, but I know that God is in absolute control of everything so that my joy is unhindered. God is in control of everything so that my gratitude never ceases. God effects His purposes through the prayers of His people. You can't be saved without believing, even though God is the one who saves. Sinners can't be saved unless they hear the truth. They can't hear the truth unless they have a preacher, right? So God has an eternal plan to save a redeemed humanity but the plan works through the faithful preachers, through the witnesses.
God works His plan but not apart from the intercession of His people. His purpose unfolds through the prayers of His own beloved people. So I would suggest to you that you pray without ceasing, that you respond to the promptings of the Spirit of God.
We have reason for unceasing joy, unceasing gratitude and unceasing prayer. All three are God's will in Christ Jesus.
Does that mean we have to give thanks for EVERYTHING??
Thanks for this, Bruce! These aren't your grandkids, I assume. The little fellow looks soooo proud of himself. I felt the same way when we decided to put water in the sandbox and sand in the swimming pool way back when. What a supreme feeling of accomplishment! Grownups just don't have a clue.
The paint picture is even better than this old classic about why kids should not have markers.
