This past week, our elementary, middle, and high school students joined with thousands of other Indiana students in taking the ISTEP test. I have not heard a great deal of thankfulness from my two for the test but I sense there has been a great deal of thankfulness for the conclusion of the test. Am I wrong, students?
This got me to thinking about how humorous, and honest, kids are sometimes when it comes to prayer and thankfulness. For example there was the child who was asked to pray before the evening meal one night.
He looked over the table before bowing his head to pray. But instead of praying aloud, he picked up his fork and began to eat.
Puzzled, his parents asked him why he did not pray before his meal. He responded, ‘I already prayed for this food; these are leftovers!’
Slide 1 We are in the third segment of a four-part series, ‘Making Prayer Your Second Language’ and today we focus on the place of thanksgiving in prayer.
Now, one of the issues that we have addressed in this series deals with the attitude we bring to prayer.
Slide 2 For example, if we follow our simple outline of ACTS: (Adoration, Confession, Thanks, and Supplication) we can be in prayer with an attitude that says, ‘God! You’re awesome!’ And in that attitude we are able to truly praise God for who He is.
Then as we move into confession an attitude of humility before God as we admit the truth about ourselves and our condition is an essential attitude for us to receive forgiveness and a clean slate.
But as we move beyond telling God that He is awesome and that we are truly and deeply sorry for our sins, having an attitude of gratitude for what He has done for us is also very, very important.
For what are you thankful this morning? Is there not at least one thing that you are thankful for? In our brief video clip this morning, we are going to be presented with several things to be thankful for. Use it as a time to thank God for what He has done for you.
Slide 3 Video clip from ‘Making Prayer a Second Language’ on Thanksgiving
Slide 4 Our main text for this morning is Psalm 100 and here it is again…
Shout with joy to the Lord, O earth! Worship the Lord with gladness. Come before him, singing with joy.
Slide 5 Acknowledge that the Lord is God!
He made us, and we are his. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.
Slide 6 Enter his gates with thanksgiving;
go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and bless his name.
Slide 7 For the Lord is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation.
Each of these verses contains items to be thankful for, how we should be thankful, and why we should be thankful. Let’s look more closely at them.
Slide 8 ‘Shout with joy to the Lord, O earth! Worship the Lord with gladness. Come before him, singing with joy.’
We are to joyfully and audibly thank God! Thanksgiving is something that cannot and should not be done silently and though we at times do praise God in silence, there is a necessary place for corporate and joyful praise!
Together let’s shout out our praise by saying ‘Amen’ together! Amen means ‘so be it!’ So be it that God is worthy of praise! Amen!
An attitude of joy and gladness is essential to praise. This attitude serves a corrective to the gloom and doom of life.
As followers of Jesus though we have difficult times, we need to spend a great deal of time in thanksgiving to God for what He has done for us.
Slide 9 ‘Acknowledge that the Lord is God! He made us, and we are his. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.’
It never ceases to amaze me that when an actor or actress receives a big award like an Oscar, they spend a few moments thanking others for their support, encouragement, and the ‘Academy for this award.’ I supposed that if I were to win an Oscar for my work on or in a film that I made that required months to film and even several different countries to film it in, I probably would thank a lot of people, the least of which would be my family.
We have something that much greater to be thankful for, however. We have the God who created us and gave us our talent and abilities. He made us! We are his people! He is God! How thankful are we for the truth, the reality that we are God’s people and that is He our God and our Lord, our leader?
Slide 10 ‘Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and bless his name.’
A key part of worship is thanksgiving. God, through the Psalmist, clearly tells us that as we enter the gates (the front doors of the church) we are to do so with thanksgiving and praise. Now, as I think about my experiences on Sunday morning I have to admit that in the hustle and bustle to get not only myself ready but also myself ready for worship, praise and thanksgiving is not often on my mind.
When we get out of bed, get ready for church, get in the car and drive here, get out of the car, and walk up the ramp or steps into this building, are we in an attitude of praise and thanksgiving or some other kind of attitude?
Marjorie Thompson makes an interesting point when she says, ‘As people become hungrier for spiritual nurture, they often become more dissatisfied with their own tradition of corporate worship. Part of the problem is that average person in the pew has little say over how worship is planned, much less over how leaders read, preach, and pray.’
‘How, then, are we to become lively actors in the drama of human worship before God?,’ she asks. ‘How can we become better attuned to God in spite of the foibles of worship leaders, the frailties of worshipping communities, and the inadequacies of our own feelings and judgments?’
She makes several suggestions:
Slide 11
• Revitalize personal worship
• Spend half an hour on Saturday nights or Sunday morning before God assessing our life
Slide 12
• ‘Be prepared to hear God speak’
(Do we believe that God shows up here?)
• Stay focused on the parts of worship that speak to you
• ‘Claim for yourself the freedom to respond to God in worship with the fullness of your heart.’
To enter worship and to pray with thanksgiving and pray in the courts with praise requires us to be personally prepared every time we enter this place of worship with an attitude that we are going to meet with God today.
Slide 13 ‘For the Lord is good. His unfailing love continues forever, and his faithfulness continues to each generation.’
To me this verse gives me a long view that I need to look at from time to time as it assures me that the Lord’s unfailing love and faithfulness are evidences of His desire to be at the center of our lives throughout our lives and those of the generations to come. Times change, people change, but the Lord does not change. God is a constant point of reference in a sea of change.
One of the things that we then need to be thankful for is God’s unfailing love and faithfulness.
Slide 14 As we conclude this morning we are going to practice what I have been ‘a preachin!’
Listed here are ways to practice the language of thanks as part of our very important language of prayer. We are going to spend some time doing the first one as we close today.
Then as part of our prayer time in a few moments, you will have the opportunity to express your thanks to God for the things you listed on your sheet.
Are you grateful this morning? Are you thankful… for what the Lord has done for you?
I am going to play the song’ Give Thanks’ as you write and then we will conclude our service with this song and our prayer time… Let us come to the Lord in prayer…
Sources:
Thompson quotes are from her book, Soul Feast: An Invitation to the Christian Spiritual Life
Mains’ quote is taken from his sermon on thanks that is part of the ‘Prayer as Second Language’ series available from sermonview.com
Power Points for this sermon and this sermon series are not available due to copy write issues.
