An Example of Thanksgiving
A Sermon by CH(CPT) Keith J. Andrews
All Scripture marked ESV: The Holy Bible : English standard version. 2001 (Ps 9:1). Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.
Psalm 9:1 says:
1 I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart;
I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. (Ps. 9:1, ESV)
This week I have been involved in teaching a class to the entire Battalion on stress management. Through my research earlier in the week, I uncovered a helpful list of stress management techniques from a blog title zenhabits.net. This list of stress helps that are similar to what we normally think of...identify the stressors, get organized, exercise, eat healthy. But, near the bottom of his list the writer, Leo Babauta, wrote this comment;
Be grateful. This might not be as obvious as some of the others, but developing an attitude of gratitude…is a way of thinking positive, eliminating negative thinking from your life, and thereby reducing stress. Learn to be grateful for what you have, for the people in your life, and see it as a gift. With this sort of outlook on life, stress will go down and happiness will go up. That’s a winning formula. (www.zenhabits.net/2007/06/20-ways-to-eliminate-stress-from-your-life/)
We need to be grateful. Gratefulness brings about stress reduction and positive attitudes. He has a very good point; however, he misses a large elephant in the room, but not pointing people to thank God. This idea of gratefulness toward others, is a good thing—but how much could these results be multiplied by giving thanks to a God who literally made all things possible.
We need to be people who give thanks to God.
The passage we are looking at this morning is a psalm of David
All of the psalms are important, but, for me, when I see a psalm of David—I immediately identify with him. I have read the story about the giant, I have read the stories about his battle with Saul, and I have read the stories about his leadership.
When I read a psalm of David I immediately picture David and his worship of God.
I see a man who walked with God. It has been said “David was a man after God’s own heart”.
And David was thankful.
We see David as an example of thankfulness in this passage. We see his thankfulness shine through because
1. He was intentional
David says, “I will thank you, Lord”. David makes up his mind that he will be thankful. He makes a promise to God that he will thank Him.
David makes an intentional effort to give thanks.
Is this uncommon? No.
As we all have heart the teaching of parents tell us to say, “thank you” to those who give a gift, or make a complement.
Emily Post recognizes “Please” and “Thank You” as the two magic words, and she encourages parents to teach these to their children.
One of the accepted rituals and blessings after a wedding, or a graduation, is the writing of “thank you” notes to express the appreciation of the gift and the thought.
My favorite painter is Norman Rockwell. I love to see his paintings of Americans going about there business.
I saw one Rockwell painting the other day that I believe many have seen. It was a picture of a restaurant, beside a busy street. The restaurant was full. The focal point of this busy restaurant was one particular table. On one end there were two men smoking cigarettes staring at the occupants on the other end of the table.
These men look as if they are hard workers, but they also look rough. There is a sense of emptiness in there hearts as look look to the other end of the table and see an elderly lady.
She has her head bowed and her hands folded. Beside her is her grandson, nicely dressed. He too has his head bowed and his hands folded.
They are saying the blessing before they eat their meal.
We say this blessing as an opportunity to say “thank you” for our food.
The discipline of saying grace is not for the purpose of evangelism. Many times this is encouraged for this purpose. But we should not confuse the two.
We should not be out to show anybody anything through our prayers. We are not there to prove a point; we are there to thank the Lord.
But the discipline of saying grace is important because it is frequent and purposeful and can be habit forming.
But saying grace has to do with the attitude of the heart.
A thankful heart truly grateful for the meal about the be received.
We must be intentional about our thanksgiving to God.
We must take the time.
We must make the effort; and
We must make the habit of thanking Him.
We must not take what we have for granted.
We need to take every opportunity to renew your commitment to being thankful, to look around at what you have and thank God who loves you enough to give it to you.
But as we are intentionally thankful, we need to remember David was also:
2. Authentic
David says that he will thank the Lord “with all my heart”.
David is showing his passionate and genuine love for God.
David is not just satisfied with saying “thank you” or merely creating a habit of doing so.
David will thank the Lord will all of his heart.
Authenticity is something that we miss, in this day and age.
Everyone seems to be searching for it, but our society is caught up in fantasy.
Many Americans each season watch the Bachelor pick his bride-to-be. How more shallow can you get?
Television has its way of making everything believable at one point, yet unbelievable at another.
Often we hear of people committing crimes to be like something on television or on the movies.
The violence of television is spilling over into society.
Pornography has cheapened the relationship between a man and a woman to such a disgrace that love as become, in many ways, a quest for lust.
The Jerry Springer type shows in the afternoon with their twists and turns have legitimized the dysfunctional family—to the disgrace that we don’t call it dysfunctional anymore.
We have lost some of the ability to understand what authenticity looks like.
One of the challenges that I pursue while I’m deployed or in a long field problem is to take that time to write a good love letter to my wife.
One of these days, I will produce a masterpiece of romantic literary art, but I’ve not produce it yet.
I did find, however, that you can go online to download prewritten love letters from the experts in the romantic tongues.
There are several different websites that for $35, you can download thousands of prewritten love letters—all you have to do is to input the names.
Do we do the same thing with God? We hear a good prayer—one that sound very religious and expressive, so we repeat it enough until we can recite it when it is time to give thanks, rather than finding in our hearts the thankful words to express to our God?
During my continuing research of how to write the perfect letter, I have come across letters from historical people including a list of letters from Civil War Soldiers from Digital Library and Archives from the University Libraries of Virginia Tech.
One in particular read like this:
May 10th 1863.
My Dear Amanda,
It has been a long time since I had an opportunity of writing to you, and I gladly avail myself of the present opportunity. I am not certain that I will have a chance of sending this but I will write a few lines any how and try and get it off to let you know that I am among the living.
We have been on a raid into Ms. but I have not time to give you the particulars of our trip.
…I am in hopes that I will get a whole package of letters from you in a few days. I never wanted to see you half as bad in all my life as I do now. I would give anything in the world to see you and the children. I have no idea when I will have that pleasure. We can’t get any news here - do not know what is going on in the outside world.
…How my heart yearns for thou that are so near and dear to me. Goodbye my own sweet wife, for the present. Direct to Little Rock as ---.
As ever your devoted and loving Husband, J.C. Morris. (http://spec.lib.vt.edu/cwlove/jcmorris.html)
This is the honest picture of authenticity. This is how we must approach God.
We must approach Him, thanking him—with all of our hearts.
Pure and authentic.
If we must be authentic and intentional with God, why?
David points to the fact that:
3. God is deserving.
David says, “I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.”.
And David saw the wonderful deeds:
He had victory over his enemies.
He was anointed King of Israel.
He was given opportunity after opportunity to excel.
Not to mention the riches that he was given.
David thanks God because he sees God as the root all of his blessings.
Each year, the Awards shows will grace the TV screens across the country. The Emmy Awards, the MTV Video Awards, the Espys and the Oscars all take center stage as we anticipate the winners of best actor, sports figure, or artist.
Occasionally, you will hear “I would like to thank God.” Typically, a quick comment—but it is there.
We should make God the pivotal person to give thanks for all that we do. We shouldn’t be trite or disrespectful—but have that understanding that God is truly deserving of our thanks for all that He has done for us.
From the dust he created us.
It is him that we have to thank for our every breath.
He has given us food, water, and shelter. He gives us our meals.
He has given us families that we can find love and comfort—that stand with us while we are a million miles away, potentially putting our lives in danger, so that people from another part of the world can be free—families that stand with us through PCS moves and separations.
And beyond that, God has protected us in times of danger. He has provided us victories so that we will be able to make a difference in the lives of the people that live in this area—that we can set the example and help them to live their lives with out fear and that they may have freedom.
And He has given us Salvation. Through his son, who died for us, our debts were paid.
God deserves our gratitude.
Gratitude with all our hearts.
We should all say, “I will thank the Lord”.
One of the biggest ways, we give thanks to God is by responding to him. We respond to him by acknowledging our position before him and our dependence on him.
We are all fallen before Him. We are sinners. The Bible says that the payment of sin is death and by accepting his payment, of sending his son to die on a cross, in our place we can have this debt paid for and begin looking forward and being thankful an eternal life.
One of my guiding principles is from a portion of E.M. Bounds book “The Necessity of Prayer” he writes:
The preacher is not sent to merely induce men to join the Church, nor merely to get them to do better. It is to get them to pray, to trust God, and to keep God ever before their eyes, that they may not sin against Him.
Bounds, E. M. (1999). The necessity of prayer. Oak Harbor, WA: Logos Research Systems, Inc.
And part of getting people to pray, to trust, and to keep God before their eyes is to remind them to respond to God in thankfulness.
In thankfulness, we begin to truly see, what is being done and provide all around us by the loving grace of the Father.
This morning, you can do this you can take an opportunity to respond to Christ by accepting his payment for your sin and to begin a life of thank fullness before him.
Let us pray.
