Reasons to Give Thanks

This is our final sermon covering the trifecta of a healthy church life and of a healthy Christian life. God commands you individually, and us corporately, to be characterized by unending joy, unending prayer, and unending thanksgiving.

To use the phrases given to us in the ESV, these things should be always, without ceasing, and in all circumstances. In each of those commands, as I said in the past few lessons, in the Greek, the adverb comes first, putting some extra emphasis on it. These things are supposed to be permanent markers of God’s people. Paul also says that they are God’s will for us in Christ Jesus.

Whatever season of life, whatever situation you find yourself in, if you ask yourself, “What does God want from me?” This will always be part of  the answer—rejoice, pray, and give thanks. Today, we give our attention to the third attribute.

One of the tricky and interesting things about being thankful is that it’s not a very easy concept to define. It’s such a basic word and a basic idea that it can’t really be explained well using other words.

How can someone give thanks if they don’t know what it means? I can give money. I can give arguments. I can give gifts. But what does it mean to give thanks?

I looked up the word “thanks” in one English dictionary, and it said that to give thanks is to express gratitude. Well, that gives me a synonym, but what does that mean? What is gratitude?

According to the dictionary I was using, gratitude is the state of being grateful. And again, according to the dictionary I consulted, being grateful means I am expressing gratitude. So, I’m back at a word I’ve already looked up, and that means I’m in an infinite loop.

So, what does it mean to give thanks? What does it mean to be grateful?

Well, to help us have a better understanding of thankfulness and gratitude, let me give you three more words to help. And this is not just to help us understand some aspects of thanksgiving; it is to help us grow in that area of our Christian life.

The first word is awareness. Awareness. In order to be grateful, you have to be aware that someone or something else made something possible. When I open my kitchen cupboard and grab myself a bowl, I can do it automatically without a second thought, or I can do it being aware that someone made that bowl, someone purchased that bowl, someone ensured that it was clean enough for me to use, and someone placed it in the place where I expected it to be. That didn’t all happen on its own. I need to be aware.

The second word we should associate with gratitude is assignment. Awareness and assignment. It’s one thing to intellectually know that someone was responsible for buying me another tube of toothpaste, but the next level is the assignment of that responsibility to another person; in my case, that is my wife. So, in order to be grateful, you need to be aware that things don’t happen all by themselves, and you need to answer the question: Who is the one that made this possible? To whom do I assign responsibility?

We need to recognize that thanksgiving must have a recipient. Thankfulness and gratitude are directional words. They have to be aimed somewhere. It’s not like drawing a picture; it’s more like making a phone call or sending a text message. There is supposed to be a recipient.

Someone might use the word “thankful” in a generic sense, but if there is no object expressed or intended in that person’s heart, he or she is basically saying that they are happy. But happiness and thankfulness are different. They are related, but they are different. Happiness is an internal feeling; it’s inside you. Thankfulness has a direction; it’s expressed outwardly toward someone or something. This second aspect takes an extra moment. It takes a little extra mental energy.

Now, if I sit down at my kitchen table and find that my elbow is sitting on some sticky goo, I am immediately going to be aware that the goo didn’t get there all by itself. Awareness is almost instantaneous. And then, depending on how inconvenienced I am, I am going to try to assign blame. Who spilled something here and didn’t clean it up? So, there’s awareness, and there’s assignment there, but one final aspect is missing.

The final aspect of gratitude is appreciation. Awareness, assignment, and appreciation. Gratitude and thankfulness are positive words because they are the expression of positive emotions. If you feel sad or upset, you might assign responsibility to someone else, and that turns into anger or bitterness or resentment. Those are the expressions of negative emotions.

Thanksgiving is the counterpart to all that. Gratitude is the flip side to anger and resentment. You take a positive emotion, and then you aim it at someone else assigning them the responsibility for whatever it is that you are experiencing. So, you’ve got awareness, assignment, and then appreciation.

Now, as basic as a concept as this might be, it’s not automatic or innate. Most parents know what it’s like to see their little child receive a gift and then want to run off to play with that gift. And so, we try to stop them before they can run away, and we tell them, “Don’t forget to say thank you.” You appreciate this gift; it pleases you, and now you need to recognize that person.

Now, here in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, God tells us we are to give thanks in everything, that’s a more literal translation. He isn’t saying we have to give thanks for every aspect of life. He is saying that in or during every aspect of life, even in the boring or the painful seasons of life, we need to find a way to give thanks. Paul doesn’t explicitly say whom we must give thanks to, but it should be clear enough. We rejoice in the Lord. We pray to the Lord. And we give thanks to the Lord.

In other words, we need to stop and be aware of what we’ve been given, we need to assign Him the credit for providing it, and we need to appreciate both the gift and the gift-giver, which is God Himself. What are the kinds of things that we can be thanking God for? What are the reasons?

Theologically, the reasons we have to thank God fall into two general categories: common grace and special grace. Common grace and special grace. And we’ll be talking about them one at a time.

In theological conversations, common grace is a term used to talk about God’s goodness to all mankind, whether they have trusted in Him through Jesus Christ or not.

Matthew 5:45 says that our heavenly Father makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

Jesus reminds us of that truth in order to encourage us to love our enemies, but that truth also helps us understand more about who God is. God is a God who gives good things to both righteous people and unrighteous people. That is called common grace. It’s a gift that is common to mankind.

Psalm 145:9 says The Lord is good to all, and his mercy is over all that he has made.

All of us, as sinful human beings who fall short of God’s glory and short of God’s mandate for our lives, deserve immediate judgment. But that’s not what happens. Instead, God demonstrated patience and kindness toward us. No matter how bad this world might get, it’s not as bad as what we deserve as sinners.

When Paul and Barnabas preached a message to the Greeks in the city of Lystra, they touched on the same idea—God’s common goodness to mankind. In Acts 14:17, they say, “[God] did not leave himself without witness, for he did good by giving you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness.”

One of the major expressions of God’s common grace, and Paul mentioned it, is food. And along those lines, when you study the words for thanksgiving in the New Testament, you come up with about a dozen references of giving thanks for food.

When Jesus miraculously provided bread and fish for the multitudes, the Bible says that He gave thanks before the food was distributed. At a later occasion, when Jesus sat down with His disciples for their final Passover meal, we are told that Jesus gave thanks for the bread and for the cup.

In Acts 27, when Paul is in a storm at sea, he tells the crew to eat some food. And before they eat, he gives thanks to God. Why? Because God has created a world with the capacity to both nourish us and delight us with food.

God made chickens and cows and onions and garlic and rice and beans and asparagus and eggs and milk and cheese and potatoes, and whatever else you might enjoy. Christians might debate what kinds of foods are best to eat, but what is not up for debate is that we are to enjoy God’s good gift of food with thanksgiving.

In Romans 14 and in 1 Corinthians 10, Paul specifically talks about a disagreement in the church concerning food. Some Christians didn’t have a problem eating meat, even though it might have come from a pagan temple. Other Christians, when the opportunity to eat that meat presented itself, their consciences were stricken. They viewed it as sinful.

Here's how Paul responds in Romans 14:6—The one who eats, eats in honor of the Lord, since he gives thanks to God, while the one who abstains, abstains in honor of the Lord and gives thanks to God.

So, whether you eat a certain food or not, what is the common factor? It is thanksgiving. You can give thanks for your ribeye steak and your carne asada burrito, and you can give thanks for your grilled vegetables or your quinoa salad. Whatever you’re eating, give thanks.

Kids, listen. When your family prays before a meal, that’s not supposed to be a meaningless ritual, like you’re casting some kind of spell. It’s intended to remind ourselves that God has provided the meal, and it’s a time to give thanks. And whether you’re going to enjoy the meal or not, we are called to give thanks for the Lord’s provision.

To the Corinthians, Paul asks rhetorically—If I partake with thankfulness, why am I denounced because of that for which I give thanks? (1 Cor 10:30) In other words, “How can I be accused of sinning with this meal, if this meal is received with genuine thanksgiving?”

There is one final passage I want to mention along these lines, and I’d like you to turn there with me. Go to 1 Timothy chapter 4. First Timothy chapter 4. Before we look a it, I want to read a couple verses from an old Christian hymn.

Some of you probably know it. It’s called “I Sing the Almighty Power of God.” It was written by Isaac Watts and was first published in 1715 in a hymnal aimed at helping children appreciate and be in awe of God as Creator and Provider.

The first verse of the song says—I sing the almighty power of God, that made the mountains rise, that spread the flowing seas abroad, and built the lofty skies. I sing the wisdom that ordained the sun to rule the day; the moon shines full at God’s command, and all the stars obey.

The second verse gives us even more reasons to praise God. It says—I sing the goodness of the Lord, who filled the earth with food, who formed the creatures through the Word, and then pronounced them good. Lord, how thy wonders are displayed, where’er I turn my eye, if I survey the ground I tread, or gaze upon the sky!

God designed this world to be filled with good things so that we would enjoy them and give Him thanks. That’s the purpose of God’s common grace.

Sadly, there are people and groups in this world who, even in the name of Christ, will try to erase or villainize that aspect of creation. They say it’s wrong to enjoy the physical pleasures of this world. we understand that lust and immorality are sinful. But just because a physical aspect of creation provides us with pleasure doesn’t mean it’s wrong or unhelpful.

The Apostle Paul had to deal with those kinds of arguments. Instead of delighting in God’s good gifts, they said, “Oh no! that kind of physical pleasure is not good! We need to abstain!” “Abstain” is a biblical word, but it doesn’t apply to everything that we enjoy.

Look with me at 1 Timothy chapter 4, starting in verse 1—Now the Spirit expressly says that in later times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons, through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared.

So, Paul is talking about false teachers spreading dangerous lies. And what are some of those lies? what are these false teachers saying?

Verse 3—These are false teachers who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth.

Do you know of any religions like that? Do you know of any groups that say staying single brings you closer to God and that we should stop eating certain foods? I’m sure you’ve heard them. Maybe you even heard those kinds of things while you were growing up.

What’s the problem with that kind of thinking? It removes things from your life that God created for our good. Verse 4 explains—For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is made holy by the word of God and prayer.

When my kids were younger, and they asked me for some dessert or for a piece of candy, and I said yes, I would sometimes ask them, “Is it good?” And they smiled, “Yes.” And then I’d say, “Do you know why it’s good? Because God is good.”

Clearly there are boundaries for the gifts God has given. But within His ordained boundaries, we are called to enjoy His gifts and give Him thanks.

The common grace of God gives us food to sustain us and delight us. It gives us the joys and intimacy of marriage. It gives us sports to play and to watch. It gives us music and paintings to make and to appreciate. It gives us friendship. It gives us the joy of technology. On a hot day, we feel the relief of the shade or of the air conditioning. On a cold day, we feel the warmth of a blanket or a warm house. All of these are good gifts from God and a cause for giving thanks.

A failure to recognize God and give Him thanks for His grace in our lives is the beginning of both a personal, spiritual downfall and of a cultural downfall.

Jump over with me to Romans chapter 1. This is an important warning for all of us, and it’s an insight into how a culture comes undone before God.

At the end of chapter 1, in verses 29-32, you have a wicked culture in complete rebellion to God. And that’s because verse 28 says God gave them up to a debased mind. They can no longer reason correctly. Their moral compass and their intellectual compass is broken. They’re not even logical, and we see many examples of that in our culture today. People are now denying basic biology.

And what got them into that state is verse 26—God gave them up to dishonorable passions. And the expression of that, according to verses 26 and 27 was homosexuality. Well, how did they get there?

Back up to verse 24. It was because God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity. They cast off restraint and pursued their own desire. But what came before that? What is at the beginning of this societal collapse?

Look at verse 21—For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Stop acknowledging God, stop recognizing Him, stop giving Him thanks, and you are now on the path to futility and vanity. That’s what’s happened in this culture of ours. You get rid of God, you erase Him from people’s minds, and you replace Him with false religion, with science, or with psychology, or with anything else, and eventually the culture will fall apart.

In Ephesians 5:4, we’re told that giving thanks is part of the solution for immorality and lust and covetousness.

So, giving thanks is not a small, incidental thing. It sets the trajectory of your spiritual life; it sets the trajectory of your family; it sets the trajectory of a church; and it sets the trajectory of a nation.

Now, even in the times, when it seems that all the common graces of God can’t come to mind, we as Christians still have reasons to give thanks, and that is because of God’s special grace. This is the second category of reasons to give thanks.

Special grace refers to the special gifts given by God to His children. This is not for everyone, but it’s for those who belong to Him, those upon whom He has set His eternal love.

The truest heart of gratitude is one that recognizes the depth of man’s sin and the sovereign grace of God. Nothing in our salvation is something we have earned or that God owes us, but He has freely given it to us in Christ.

Salvation is not a reward for completing some special task; it is God’s gracious work in your life. Second Corinthians 4 says God shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. Every level of credit you want to give yourself for salvation is a level that you lose gratitude.

Colossians 1 reminds us that God transferred us to the kingdom of His Son. He gave us redemption and forgiveness of sins. You didn’t transfer yourself. You didn’t redeem yourself. God had mercy on you in Jesus Christ. And He will have mercy on everyone who comes to Him.

If you’ve never gone to God in complete helplessness, depending completely on Him, asking for forgiveness on the basis of Christ’s death and resurrection, do it today. That’s God’s will for your life. Surrender to Jesus, the King of kings and Lord of lords. And you will give thanks forever.

As we close, I want to share one final expression of God’s special grace in the lives of is people. As I looked at and tried to categorize the examples of thankfulness in the New Testament, there was one kind of thanksgiving that outnumbered the rest.

The most common example of giving thanks in the New Testament, the most common reason we can give thanks is because of our spiritual family. God has saved us. He’s forgiven us. He has redeemed us. He has made us a new creation. He hears our prayers. He can bring healing. He works in our lives. But the most common biblical reason to give thanks is because of our brothers and sisters in the faith.

Over 15 times, the Apostle Paul gives thanks for the churches and for his coworkers in the faith. He gave thanks for meeting believers in Rome. He gave thanks for the Roman church. He gave thanks for Priscilla and Aquila. He gave thanks for the Corinthians, for the Ephesians, for the Philippians, for the Colossians, for the Thessalonians, and for Philemon.

So, think about this: How often are you giving thanks to God for your brothers and sisters in the faith? You can thank God for saving them. You can thank God for sanctifying them in the faith. You can thank God for the friendship. You can thank God for the way He’s used them to minister. You can thank God that they are going to be perfected one day, and we will all be together forever.

If Paul can give thanks for the Corinthian church, which had all kinds of problems, and the same could be said for most of the other churches, we should be able to give thanks for the Christians near and far, whether things are going great or getting rough. We need to give thanks for one another. This is God’s will for us in Christ Jesus.

God has given us so many good things to enjoy, and He has placed us in an eternal family where we will enjoy a new heavens and a new earth in a new body with our Savior forever. Let’s give thanks in every circumstance.