People may have one of three possible attitudes about thanksgiving.
1) The first is that it is unnecessary.
Some people are not thankful simply because they think they deserve every good thing they have—and more.
The rich firmer of Jesus’ parable who was presumptuous about his future prosperity was also ungrateful for his past prosperity. As he looked around and realized his land was so productive that he did not have enough room to store all his crops, he decided to build bigger and better barns. After that he would say to his soul, “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry” (Luke 12:19). He did not take God into consideration. Because he gave God no credit for his blessings, he saw no reason to give Him thanks. And because of his thankless presumption, God said to him, “You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?” (v. 20). Within that judgment lay the truth that the farmer could no more protect his possessions by his own power than he had produced them by his own power. The Lord gave, and the Lord took away.
• Not feeling the need to thank God is much worse than ingratitude; it is rank unbelief. This attitude is a form of practical atheism that fails to acknowledge God.
2) A second attitude about thanksgiving is that of the hypocrite.
In another parable Jesus told of a self–righteous Pharisee who stood in the Temple and “was praying to himself, ‘God, I thank Thee that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax–gatherer. I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get’ ” (Luke 18:11–12). As Jesus made clear in the words “praying to himself,” although the man used God’s name, his thankfulness was to himself and for himself. The Pharisee used God’s name only to call further attention to his false piety. And because God had no part in that prayer it was totally worthless. The humble, penitent tax–collector “went down to his house justified,” whereas the proud, self–righteous Pharisee did not (v. 14) Like the rest of his life, the Pharisee’s prayer of thanksgiving was hypocritical sham and pretense.
3) The third attitude about thanksgiving is that of the truly thankful person.
Of the ten lepers Jesus healed on His way to Jerusalem, the only one who returned to thank Him was a Samaritan. But his thankfulness was genuine, and Jesus said to him, “Rise, and go your way; your faith has made you well” (Luke 17:19). The other nine lepers had sought Jesus’ healing only for their own benefit. The Samaritan also sought it for God’s glory (v. 18).
His thankfulness was an expression of his trust in Jesus, his recognition that he was helpless in Himself and that his healing was undeserved and entirely by the Lord’s grace. As a result, he received salvation. That is the thankfulness, the only thankfulness, that pleases God and that the Spirit–filled saint will offer.
In Ephesians 5:20 Paul tells 1) When, 2) For what, 4) To whom and finally 3) How the Spirit–filled believer is to be thankful.
1)When are we to be thankful?—always.
To be thankful always is to recognize God’s control of our lives in every detail as He seeks to conform us to the image of His Son. To be thankless is to disregard God’s control, Christ’s lordship, and the Holy Spirit’s filling. Nothing must grieve the Holy Spirit so much as the believer who does not give thanks.
• When God brings trials and difficulties into our lives and we complain and grumble, we question His wisdom and love as well as His sovereignty.
Just as there are three attitudes toward thanksgiving there are also three levels of thankfulness.
1) The first is to be thankful when we are blessed.
When things are going well or God grants an especially welcome benefit, we are happy and grateful. When getting a job, being delivered from sickness, being reconciled with our spouse, or experiencing other such pleasant things, it is easy to be grateful to the Lord.
Please turn to Revelation 15
It is right to be thankful for blessings, as the Bible continually commands us to be. The song that Moses and the children of Israel sang after being delivered from Egypt (Ex. 15:1–21) was a beautiful and genuine expression of gratitude that pleased the Lord. That song will one day be partly repeated in heaven as a testimony of thanksgiving to Jesus Christ, the Lamb, for delivering His people from the beast (Rev. 15:1–4).
Revelation 15:1-4 [15:1]Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and amazing, seven angels with seven plagues, which are the last, for with them the wrath of God is finished.[2]And I saw what appeared to be a sea of glass mingled with fire--and also those who had conquered the beast and its image and the number of its name, standing beside the sea of glass with harps of God in their hands. [3]And they sing the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, "Great and amazing are your deeds, O Lord God the Almighty! Just and true are your ways, O King of the nations! [4]Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name? For you alone are holy. All nations will come and worship you, for your righteous acts have been revealed." (ESV)
• For us now, thankfulness for blessing is easy and requires little maturity.
• Nevertheless, attention upon benefits, causes them to stand out more clearly, resulting in increased thanksgiving. While it lasts, worries tend to disappear, complaints vanish, courage to face the future increases, virtuous resolutions are formed, peace is experienced, and God is glorified (William Hendriksen: Baker New Testament Commentary. 2004. p.241).
2) The second level of thankfulness is that of being grateful for the hope of blessing and victory yet to come.
The first level is after the fact, the second is in anticipation of the fact. Thanking God before a blessing is more difficult than thanking Him afterward, and requires more faith and spiritual maturity. This second level is where faith and hope begin, because it involves the unseen and the yet unexperienced.
As He stood over the tomb of Lazarus, Jesus prayed:
John 11:41-42 [41]So they took away the stone. And Jesus lifted up his eyes and said, "Father, I thank you that you have heard me. [42]I knew that you always hear me, but I said this on account of the people standing around, that they may believe that you sent me." (ESV)
• Because He knew His heavenly Father always heard and answered His prayers, in total confidence He thanked Him in advance for what He knew would be done.
The believer at this level of thankfulness looks forward to victory before it is achieved, knowing that we will “overwhelmingly conquer through Him who loved us” (Rom. 8:37). Believers look forward even to their own death or the death of a loved one and gives thanks to God, knowing that His grace is sufficient for every sorrow and every testing (2 Cor. 12:9) and that glorious resurrection awaits those who die in the Lord. Believers are to live in hope.
Please turn to 2 Chronicles 20
As Judah was about to be attacked by the more powerful Moabites and Ammonites, King Jehoshaphat proclaimed a fast and prayed before all the people, earnestly proclaiming the Lord’s power and goodness. He acknowledged Judah’s weakness and their sure defeat if the Lord did not help them. He pleaded:“O our God, wilt Thou not judge them? For we are powerless before this great multitude who are coming against us; nor do we know what to do, but our eyes are on Thee” (2 Chron. 20:1–12).
2 Chronicles 20:20-22 [20]And they rose early in the morning and went out into the wilderness of Tekoa. And when they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and said, "Hear me, Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem! Believe in the LORD your God, and you will be established; believe his prophets, and you will succeed." [21]And when he had taken counsel with the people, he appointed those who were to sing to the LORD and praise him in holy attire, as they went before the army, and say, "Give thanks to the LORD, for his steadfast love endures forever." [22]And when they began to sing and praise, the LORD set an ambush against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who had come against Judah, so that they were routed. (ESV)
• Judah thanked God for victory before the battle was even begun.
3) The third level of thankfulness is thanking God in the midst of the battle, while we are still undergoing trouble or testing—and even when it looks like we are failing or being overwhelmed.
When Daniel heard that King Darius had signed the decree forbidding the worship of any god or man but the king himself, Daniel immediately “entered his house (now in his roof chamber he had windows open toward Jerusalem); and he continued kneeling on his knees three times a day, praying and giving thanks before his God, as he had been doing previously” (Dan. 6:10), Though his rife was at risk, Daniel thanked God because God deserved his thanks, regardless of his threatening circumstances.
Even the prejudiced and disobedient Jonah ended his prayer from the stomach of the fish with these words: “But I will sacrifice to Thee with the voice of thanksgiving. That which I have vowed I will pay. Salvation is from the Lord” (Jonah 2:9). Nowhere in the prayer does the prophet ask for deliverance. Instead he praises God for past deliverance, acknowledges his own sinfulness and unfaithfulness, and closes with a declaration of thanks for the Lord’s goodness.
After Peter and some of the other apostles in Jerusalem had been flogged and ordered not to speak again in the name of Jesus, “they went on their way from the presence of the Council, rejoicing that they had been considered worthy to suffer shame for His name” (Acts 5:41).
Please turn to Philippians 1
In his prison cell, probably in Rome, Paul awaited trial and possible execution. While there he wrote his letter to the Philippian church, in which he gave thanks for their faithfulness and for the work God was continuing to do in them:
Philippians 1:3-6 [3]I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, [4]always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, [5]because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. [6]And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ. (ESV)
If we can only thank God when things are going well, our thankfulness is on the bottom rung of faithfulness. If we can thank Him in anticipation of what He will do in the future, we show more spiritual maturity. But to thank God while we are in the midst of pain, trials, or persecution shows a level of maturity that few Christians seem to know but that our heavenly Father wants all His children to have.
Quote: Being thankful is not a Christian option, a high order of living that we are free to choose or disregard. As Joni Eareckson Tada, a quadriplegic author, has observed:
“Giving thanks is not a matter of feeling thankful, it is a matter of obedience.”
Illustration: 6578 Thankful After Robbery
It is a striking thing for a person to always be thankful. Matthew Henry, the famous scholar, was once accosted by thieves and robbed of his purse. He wrote these words in his diary: “Let me be thankful first, because I was never robbed before; second, because, although they took my purse, they did not take my life; third, because, although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed.” (Tan, Paul Lee: Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations : A Treasury of Illustrations, Anecdotes, Facts and Quotations for Pastors, Teachers and Christian Workers. Garland TX : Bible Communications, 1996, c1979)
1)When are we to be thankful?—always.
2) For what are we to give thanks?—for all things.
The greatest gift we can give to God is a thankful heart, because all we can give to Him is simply grateful recognition that all we have is from Him. We give Him thanks for all things because He has given us all things and because giving thanks in everything “is God’s will … in Christ Jesus” (1 Thess. 5:18). The Spirit–filled heart sees God’s gracious hand in every circumstance and knows “that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose” (Rom. 8:28).
The spiritual believer sees God’s wise and loving care in the difficulties and trials as well as in blessing and prosperity. We are to thank God for a job even if it is demanding and unfulfilling. We are to thank God for health, even if it is far from being what he would like it to be. We are to thank God even when our dearest loved ones die, saying with Job, “The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord” (Job 1:21).
2 Corinthians 4:15 [15]For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. (ESV)
• The ultimate goal is the glory of God, the means of giving Him glory is thanksgiving, and the reasons for thanksgiving are all the things He has done in the believer’s life. To glorify God is to thank Him no matter how much we may hurt or be disappointed or fail to understand.
As we saw last week, the Spirit–filled Christian is “overflowing through many thanksgivings to God” and continually gives thanks to Him “for His indescribable gift” (2 Cor. 9:12, 15).
As God’s children we are to be thankful first of all for the Lord Himself, for His goodness, love, grace, salvation, and every other blessing He gives. We are to be thankful for blessings and difficulties, for victories and defeats.
The only person who can genuinely give thanks for all things is the humble person, the person who knows that they deserve nothing and who therefore gives thanks even for the smallest things. Lack of thankfulness comes from pride, from the conviction that we deserve something better than we have. Pride tries to convince us that our job, our health, our spouse, and most of what we have is not as good as we deserve. Pride was the root of the first sin and remains the root of all sin. Satan’s pride led him to rebel against God and try to usurp God’s throne. The pride of Adam and Eve led them to believe Satan’s lie that they deserved more than they had and that they even had a right to be like God.
Believers are still subject to the temptations of pride. The only cure is humility, which comes with being filled with the Spirit, since being filled with the Spirit is to die to self. When we cease with selfishness, the consequence is to put Christ and His will above all else. Humility dethrones self and enthrones Christ, and in doing that it thankfully acknowledges that every good thing—including many things that do not at the time seem to be good—are from His gracious hand.
Illustration: A city missionary in London was called to an old tenement building where a woman lay dying in the last stages of a terrible disease. The room was cold and she had nowhere to lie but on the floor. When the missionary asked if there was anything he could do, she replied, “I have all I really need; I have Jesus Christ.”
Deeply moved, the missionary went home and penned these words:
In the heart of London City, Mid the dwellings of the poor, These bright and golden words were uttered, “I have Christ. What want I more?” Spoken by a lonely woman dying on a garret floor, Having not one earthly comfort, “I have Christ. What want I more?”
1)When are we to be thankful?—always. 2) For what are we to give thanks?—for all things.
3) To whom are we to be thankful?—God the Father.
The thanks that we give always, for all things, are given to God the Father. We thank our heavenly Father just as our Lord Himself did on earth. The giver of “every good thing bestowed and every perfect gift” (James 1:17) is the Receiver of every genuine and heartfelt thanksgiving. The beneficent Father is to be thanked for all things because He has given all things.
Even those things that come through others come from God. We should be grateful for what anyone does for us, and we should thank them for it. But thankfulness to others will likely be little more than flattery if we do not acknowledge that the true source of the gift is God.
A mark of the unsaved person is thanklessness to God (Rom. 1:21), but a mark of the Spirit–filled believer is always giving thanks for all things to God the Father.
For the believer:
Philippians 4:6 [6]do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. (ESV)
Believers are to be “overflowing with gratitude” (Col. 2:7) and continually offer “up a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that give thanks to His name” (Heb. 13:15).
• The word gratitude comes from the same root word as grace. If we have experienced the grace of God, then we ought to be grateful for what God brings to us (Wiersbe, Warren W.: The Bible Exposition Commentary. Wheaton, Ill. : Victor Books, 1996, c1989, S. Eph 5:20).
Illustration: 6577 Thankful For Unusualness
Dr. Alexander Whyte of Edinburgh was famous for his pulpit prayers. He always found something to thank God for, even in bad times. One stormy morning a member of his congregation thought to himself, “The preacher will have nothing to thank God on a wretched morning like this.” But Whyte began his prayer, “We thank Thee, O God, that it is not always like this.” (Tan, Paul Lee: Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations : A Treasury of Illustrations, Anecdotes, Facts and Quotations for Pastors, Teachers and Christian Workers. Garland TX : Bible Communications, 1996, c1979)
4) How are we to be thankful?—in the name of Jesus Christ.
To give thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ is to give thanks consistent with who He is and what He has done. We can give thanks always and for all things because no matter what happens to us it will turn out not only for our ultimate blessing but, more importantly, for His ultimate glory.
Putting everything that we have seen up to this point together is this last statement. We are not to thank God for things that He despises. When a drunker driver kills another person, we praise God for His presence in the midst of such terrible events and for His redeeming purposes which can bring light out of darkness (R.C. Sproul. The Purpose of God: Ephesians. Christian Focus Publications. 2002. p. 128).
• This has all occurred and been enabled though Christ.
Were it not for Christ, it would be foolish to be thankful for everything, because apart from Him all things do not turn out for good. For those in Christ, the good things and the things we think are bad, all have a part in God’s conforming us to the image of His Son.
• Thank and think come from the same root word. If we would think more, we would thank more (Wiersbe, Warren W.: The Bible Exposition Commentary. Wheaton, Ill. : Victor Books, 1996, c1989, S. Eph 5:20).
A person who is not a Christian does not have Christ interceding on their behalf at the right hand of God or indwelling their life. They do not have the promise of heirship in God’s family and citizenship in God’s kingdom—or any other of the wonderful promises of Christ. They do not have the indwelling of the Holy Spirit and cannot have His filling. They cannot be thankful for everything because everything they do, they do not give a reason for thanks. They see only the present, not eternal glory.
The mature Christian, the Christian who is filled with the Spirit, becomes thankful as Christ Himself was thankful. Jesus was continually saying thanks to His Father. Before He multiplied the loaves and fish to feed the four thousand, “He gave thanks and broke them, and started giving them to His disciples to serve to them” (Mark 8:6; cf. Matt. 15:36). As mentioned above, He gave thanks before He called Lazarus from the grave (John 11:41). Even as He instituted the Lord’s Supper, in anticipation of His soon–coming crucifixion, He thanked His Father for the bread that would become a memorial of His sacrificed body (Luke 22:19).
Please turn to Philippians 2
Jesus was ridiculed, despised, scorned, rejected, spat upon, blasphemed, beaten, and finally crucified. Yet because of His great humility He always gave thanks in all things. He deserved glory but received humiliation, deserved love but received hate, and deserved honor but received dishonor. He deserved praise but received scorn, deserved riches but received poverty, and deserved holiness but was made sin on our behalf. Yet He never lost His thankfulness to His heavenly Father:
Philippians 2:7-8 [7]but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. [8]And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. (ESV)
We deserve humiliation, but in Christ we receive glory. We deserve to be hated but instead are loved, and deserve dishonor but receive honor. We deserve scorn but are given praise, deserve poverty but are given riches, and deserve sin’s curse of death but are given righteousness and eternal life. For what can we not give thanks?
Illustration: 502 Mankind’s Greatest Debt
Winston Churchill paid a great tribute to the young men in the Royal Air Force who guarded England during the war, saying, “Never in the history of mankind have so many owed so much to so few.”
The Battle of Bastogne represents one of the bloodiest action in World War II. A monument there pays tribute to the heroism of the US 101st Airborne Division: “Seldom has so much American blood been shed in the course of a single action. Oh, Lord, help us to remember!”
But when thinking of the cross of Christ, we can say: “Never in the history of the universe has mankind owed so much to One.”( Tan, Paul Lee: Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations : A Treasury of Illustrations, Anecdotes, Facts and Quotations for Pastors, Teachers and Christian Workers. Garland TX : Bible Communications, 1996, c1979)
(Format Note: Outline & some base commentary from MacArthur, John: Ephesians. Chicago : Moody Press, 1996, c1986, S. 255)
