How To Give Thanks

All this week, we will hear a lot about giving thanks. We need to give thanks for all we have. But you will hear little about giving thanks to who. To whom do we give thanks? Our parents? Our forefathers? Our government? Our lucky stars? The fact is everything we have and all that we are, we owe to Almighty God.

Psalm 100

I often wonder why we who live in the United States of America, and have life so good, seem to be so discontent at the same time. How can we have so much of this life’s goods and pleasures, freedoms and privileges, resources and comforts, yet be so miserable?

Perhaps we have too much. I am often overwhelmed by the choices we have in most any given store. When we were in Indonesia, we would pay as much as $10 for a box of Cheerios – If we could find it. That was 20 years ago! We experienced culture shock on our return. we walked into a grocery store and walk down the cereal aisle and were literally blown away by all the choices.

I typed in “breakfast cereal” on a Google search and got over 248 million hits. Wikipedia list almost 700 different breakfast cereals commercially available. Just look at Cheerios, there are over 28 different varieties for Cheerios alone. You can buy cereal in any size box you want. Snack box, Value Size, regular size, Family size, and Giant size boxes of cereal and some breakfast cereals, you can buy them in different size bags.

So many choices, so many privileges, we have so much abundance, yet there is so much unhappiness.

A core problem in American culture – in American Christian culture: Because we have so much stuff, with almost unlimited choices, we have fallen out of touch with God, out of touch with real life, and we live only for the present with no thought about eternity. We have lost our need for God.

Those of us who claim to know Jesus and claim to have salvation, we tend to take that salvation for granted. We are a people with an entitlement mentality. God owes us. We tend to be an ungrateful people and we do not realize and we often forget that God does not owe us our next breath or our next heartbeat.

Remember the story of Jesus healing the ten lepers? Jesus heals them and tells them to be show themselves to the priests as required by Jewish law. Yet only the foreigner returns to give glory to God and to thank Jesus.

Luke 17:15–18 (NKJV) And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, returned, and with a loud voice glorified God, 16 and fell down on his face at His feet, giving Him thanks. And he was a Samaritan. 17 So Jesus answered and said, “Were there not ten cleansed? But where are the nine? 18 Were there not any found who returned to give glory to God except this foreigner?”

The amazing thing is, up to that time, other than a few miracles recorded the in the Old Testament, no one had ever came back from leprosy. Yet in this case, only one gave thanks.

We often do the same things. God heals, God restores, God cleans, and we will pay some lip service to that fact that God did it, but do we really give thanks, do we really give God the glory? So not only do we need to give thanks and glorify God – but how to we give thanks?

In the Old Testament we find a Song of Thanksgiving. It is Psalm 100. It is subtitled “A Psalm of Thanksgiving”. It is an invitation to join together to acknowledge the great things that God has done. Not only does Psalm 100 call us to praise the Lord with thankfulness – but it also describes to us the nature of giving thanksgiving. This morning, I want to show you

5 components of giving Thanks to God. The first component is:

1. JOY

Psalm 100:1 (NKJV) Make a joyful shout to the LORD, all you lands!

Make a joyful shout – is one word in the Hebrew. Has been translated in other places as: Joyful shout, Shout in Triumph, make a loud noise. This is the same word used when Joshua told the people to shout and walls of Jericho fell.

Joshua 6:16b (NKJV) Joshua said to the people: “Shout, for the LORD has given you the city!

We will shout at sporting events, but will we shout because we know God has already won the war. I’ve read the last page of our Bible. Jesus wins and He is coming again soon. That’s something to shout about!

2. Gladness

Psalm 100:2 (NKJV) Serve the LORD with gladness; Come before His presence with singing.