A Grateful Heart Series

Thanksgiving is unconditional for the believer. We are not to be thankful only because of

blessings, but even in spite of burdens, for life at its worst does not change the most precious

truth for which we are to be thankful, and that is salvation through Jesus. There have been

Christian people who have nothing of great value materially, and they have known nothing

of a Thanksgiving Day, since this is uniquely American, but who never the less have had a

grateful heart.

We need to remember that Thanksgiving grew out of a tragic situation because of people

of God who put their trust in Him in spite of tragedy. Half of the Pilgrims died the first

winter in America. Their crop was so poor they had to ration out 5 grains of corn at a time.

At one point there were only 7 of them who were not sick to help the rest of them. And yet

these are the people who gave us Thanksgiving. Their faith did not waver with the winds of

fortune. They labored 7 years to pay back loans to London bankers where they got the

money to come to America.

Elder Brewster in the early days of Plymouth could set down to a meal of clams and a

cup of cold water, and look up to heaven and return thanks, "For the abundance of the sea

and for the treasures hid in the sand." God prospered the Pilgrims because they had

grateful hearts even in the midst of great difficulties. Gratitude can even grow in the garden

of grief when watered with the showers of trust in God. Robert Louis Stevenson spent most

of life in bed with much pain, and he died at 44, but he saw more to be thankful for than most

healthy people. He wrote, "The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all

be as happy as kings." Sometimes those who are most blest are most blind. They spend

their days in complaining and lose the greatest blessings because they lack a grateful heart.

We want to look at a biblical example of this as found in the account of the healing of the 10

lepers. We see here 3 aspects of gratitude.

I. THE RARENESS OF GRATITUDE. v. 17-18

Here were 10 men in awful misery who experienced the blessing of almighty mercy, and

yet 9 of them never came back to say thanks. If Jesus had only 10 per cent express their

gratitude for a miracle, how much less must he have received for common mercies? How

little does he receive from us for every day blessings? Does he receive more than puddles of

praise for the ocean waves of mercy he causes to splash against the shore of our lives?

Spurgeon said, "If you search the world around among all choice spices you shall scarcely

meet with the frankincense of gratitude." Why is this? Here are a number of reasons:

A. SELFISHNESS. From the minute a person is born he is self-centered. All of life revolves

around a child, and what makes him happy is good, and what does not is bad. You can have

fun with a child doing everything he wants for hours, but then refuse him one thing his heart

desires and he becomes angry and charges you with meanness. It is tragic when adults

exhibit this same ungrateful attitude. Albert Schweitzer tells of how difficult it was to teach

the natives that they had to help keep up the hospital by giving a chicken, a few eggs, or some

bananas. Some of the more savage people came to him after they were cured and demanded

a gift of him. Paul in Rom. 1:21 tells us that one of the causes for the darkness of the pagan

mind and heart was that they were not thankful.

This natural selfishness is a part of the civilized world as well. People with great

abundance are constantly more concerned about what they don't have than thankful for

what they do have. When Andrew Carnegie left a million dollars to a relative that relative

cursed him saying, "Old Andy left 365 million to public charities and cut me off with one

measly million." Such ingratitude seems incredible, but it reveals that the ungrateful heart

loses even the blessings that it does have. I can just imagine that those 9 who did not return

were discouraged within a couple of days. They would be complaining that their leprosy put

them so far behind in their work. They would complain that its hard now to get their crop inon time, or fill that pottery order they had before they got sick. Even a dog will wag its tail

at a kindness shown, but these selfish 9 did not even take the time to say thank you.