Part Two: When Jesus Said “Thank You”
This coming Thursday, we celebrate Thanksgiving. We love thanksgiving. We love the travel. We love the food. We love the triptophen that makes all the men fall asleep watching football.
How many of you know which President made Thanksgiving a federal holiday? Was it George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, or Franklin Roosevelt? [Cue each entrance]
The answer is Lincoln. George Washington proclaimed a national day of Thanksgiving, but left it up to each state as to when they would observe it.
Roosevelt actually tried to move it. True story. From 1939 to 1941, FDR made Thanksgiving a week earlier so that the holiday shopping season could be a week longer.
In September of 1863, a 74 year old magazine editor named Sarah Hale wrote to Lincoln, urging him to have an annual day of Thanksgiving made a set national holiday. Before that, each state scheduled its own Thanksgiving day at different times. So Lincoln responded with this proclamation:
In the midst of a civil war of unequalled magnitude and severity…peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theatre of military conflict… No human counsel hath devised nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American People. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the Divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquillity and Union.
But if you are a Christian, you have to ask the question, is there only one day a year when you give thanks?
Rejoice always, pray constantly, give thanks in everything; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
Four times Jesus said “thank you”…
1. Jesus thanked God for food (John 6:5-11)
5 Lifting up his eyes, then, and seeing that a large crowd was coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread, so that these people may eat?” 6 He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he would do. 7 Philip answered him, “Two hundred denarii[a] worth of bread would not be enough for each of them to get a little.” 8 One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter's brother, said to him, 9 “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many?” 10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” Now there was much grass in the place. So the men sat down, about five thousand in number. 11 Jesus then took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated. So also the fish, as much as they wanted.
Its remarkable that two of Jesus’ disciples—who had followed Jesus more closely and spent more time with him than anyone else in history, didn’t believe Jesus could provide for them. They had already seen Him change water into wine (John 2), so its amazing to me that they come to Jesus focused on what they don’t have, rather than what Jesus can provide. Phillip does the math, and figures out it would take two hundred denarii to give every person even a mouthful.
I did the math. A denarius is a day’s wage. In Alabama, minimum wage is $7.25 an hour. So before taxes, if you were making minimum wage, you would get $58 a day. So, two hundred days wages, at minimum wage, would be $11,600.
A chick fil a boxed lunch is $5.79 per. So it would cost almost $30,000 to feed just the men in the crowd. So Philip isn’t wrong.
Andrew does a little bit better. He at least gathers some resources: “There is a boy here with five barley loaves and two fish, but what are they for so many.” Interestingly, the word John uses for “fish” here isn’t “icthus,” like in every other gospel, but “opsarion,” which specifically means “small fish,” or even “relish.” So its like a fish spread.
But rather than focusing on what they didn’t have, Jesus thanked God for what they did have. The word translated “gave thanks” is the Greek word eucharisteo, and it’s a compound word: eu meaning good, and charis, which means gift. Jesus recognized that even when what we have doesn’t seem like much, it is still a good gift from God. We can’t produce the rain that waters the crops that produces the harvest for the bread. We can’t create the fish. All we can do is catch them. And some of us aren’t even all that good at that.
Let me encourage you to pray over your meals. I know it sounds legalistic, and maybe even old fashioned. But pray for your meals. Even if you are going through the drive through on the way to grandma’s house this week, pray for your meals. Your kids need to hear you. You need to hear it yourself. It doesn’t matter whether it’s a gas station hot dog or a turkey that’s been smoking since four that morning, give thanks for what you have.
Jesus did.
2. Jesus thanked God for revealing his will (Matthew 11:25; Luke 10:21)
There’s only a handful of Scriptures that explicitly tell us what God’s will is. We’ve already seen one of them—1 Thess. 5:18. Here are the others:
• Matthew 18:14: So it is the will of my Father who is in heaven that not one of these little ones should perish.
• John 6:40: For this is the will of God, that every one who sees the Son and believes in him should have eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day
• 1 Peter 2:15: For it is God's will that by doing right you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.
• 1 Thess. 4:3 For this is the will of God, your sanctification:that you abstain from sexual immorality;
And guess what? That’s it. When you do a computer search for the phrase “this is God’s will,” this is literally all you get. So one takeaway from this sermon is that when God gives you a verse that says, “This is my will,” we should pay attention.
But let’s look at the time Jesus thanked God for revealing His will. I like it from Luke’s account, and I’ll tell you why in a minute, but Jesus says basically the same thing in both Matthew 11 and Luke 10. In Luke 10, Jesus has just sent 72 people out for a preaching and teaching mission. These are not his twelve disciples. They are just regular, ordinary guys. No seminiary degrees. No bible classes. Ordinary folks. And he tells them to go into every town and place he was about to go, heal the sick, and tell them, “The kingdom of God has come near you.” And you know what? They did! In verse 17, they come back and tell Jesus, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name!”
And so Jesus offers up a prayer of thanksgiving to the Father when he hears the report from the 72. Verse 21 says,
In that same hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children; yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.
There are some amazing rarities in this verse. Obviously, its one of only four times Jesus said thank you to God, which is why we are talking about it this morning. But notice the last part of the verse: “for such is your gracious will”—If you are using the English Standard Version, you can add Luke 10:21 to the list of times God’s Word explicitly spells out what God’s will is. God’s will is to reveal His will.
God doesn’t play guessing games with us. He doesn’t just reveal his will to wise people with PhDs in New Testament Greek. In fact, this verse seems to say that God deliberately hides his will from “the wise and understanding,” and revealed it instead to simple people. People that, when God tells them to do something, they do it.
One more rarity in Luke 10:21: this is the only time in the entire New Testament that it says Jesus rejoiced, or was full of joy. And what made Jesus rejoice? It was when unlearned, ordinary people did what He told them to do.
Wouldn’t you love to know Jesus was rejoicing over something you did? Wouldn’t it rock your world if you knew Jesus was thanking God for you? Then obey Him! Take him at his word!
God’s will doesn’t have to be a mystery. Its not a secret body of knowledge that is only unlocked by years of study and meditation. God reveals his will to people who are doing what they already know to be God’s will.
God doesn’t play hide and seek with us. He makes His will known to us. Let’s thank Him for that.
Jesus did.
3. Jesus thanked God for hearing His prayer (John 11:38-44)
The third time Jesus said “thank you” is one of the most famous episodes from Jesus’ life. It’s when He raises Lazarus from the dead. Read with me verses 38-44:
38 Then Jesus, deeply moved again, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it. 39 Jesus said, “Take away the stone.” Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, “Lord, by this time there will be an odor, for he has been dead four days.” [By the way, I love this in the King James—“Lord, by this time he stinketh”]
40 Jesus said to her, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?” 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.” 43 When he had said these things, he cried out with a loud voice, “Lazarus, come out.” 44 The man who had died came out, his hands and feet bound with linen strips, and his face wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, “Unbind him, and let him go.”
Whenever we read about Jesus praying, it raises questions in our minds. I had a child ask me one time, “When Jesus prayed, wasn’t that just like talking to himself?” It’s a good question. One of the things you don’t see in this prayer is any of the things we usually build into our prayers to let God off the hook if He doesn’t answer the prayer the way we want him to. Often we are so worried about God’s reputation that we build little loopholes into our prayer like, “Oh God, if it be thy will…”
Jesus didn’t need to do that, because he already knew God’s will on this matter. So instead, he simply says, “Father, thank you for hearing me.”
And then notice this—jesus goes on to say, “I know that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing around.” If you have ever wondered if it is appropriate to pray in public, here is your answer. I’ve actually heard some people argue against public prayers because Jesus said in Matthew to go into your closet to pray. And it is true that we don’t make a show of prayer. But that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t show people how to pray.
Jesus thanked God for hearing him. Then he made a great statement of faith: “I know that you always hear me.” Now, is that just Jesus that has that assurance, or is that all of us? Its all of us! One of the amazing privileges of being a child of God is knowing that God hears our prayer. Listen to these promises from God’s Word:
• And this is the confidence that we have toward him, that if we ask anything according to his will he hears us. (1 John 5:14)
• 1Peter 3:12, The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are attentive to their prayer
God hears us whenever we ask something according to His will. (And if you are unsure if something you are praying for is in accordance with His will, go back to point #2.
Now, maybe you look at 1 Peter 3:12 and wonder if you are righteous enough for God to hear your prayers. Well, if you are a Christian, you have been made righteous by the blood of Jesus. Romans 5:1 says, Therefore, since we have been declared righteous by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.
Let’s thank God that He hears our prayer!
Jesus did.
4. Jesus gave thanks at the most difficult time of His life (Mark 14:17-26)
Let’s look at the last time Jesus gave thanks. And it truly was the last time. It was the night before Jesus would be crucified. Jesus was gathered in the upper room with his disciples, for what would be his last meal. We read in Mark 14:
22 And as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.” 23 And he took a cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank of it. 24 And he said to them, “This is my blood of the[c] covenant, which is poured out for many.
Now, just in case you had some doubt about whether or not Jesus fully understood what was about to happen to him, look at the verses that immediately precede this:
17 And when it was evening, he came with the twelve. 18 And as they were reclining at table and eating, Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, one of you will betray me, one who is eating with me.” 19 They began to be sorrowful and to say to him one after another, “Is it I?” 20 He said to them, “It is one of the twelve, one who is dipping bread into the dish with me.
So not only was Jesus aware that he was about to be crucified, but he knew that one of the men with whom he had been closest had betrayed him. It must have been excruciatingly difficult to sit at that table. And yet Jesus was able to give thanks for the bread and the wine.
How could he do this? I think there’s a couple of reasons. One, Jesus knew the end of the story. Hebrews says that it was for the joy that was set before Him jesus was able to endure the cross. He knew Friday would be the darkest day in history, but that Sunday was coming! And we can trust that God has a plan for us as well. That He never fails us. His plan is always for His glory and for our good. And not one of his promises will fall to the ground unfulfilled.
But I think the other reason jesus was able to give thanks on the most difficult day of his life was that he was in the habit of giving thanks every other day of his life as well. We’ve been talking about how to keep our thankful tank full, and that’s it. When we give thanks for our daily bread. When we give thanks that God reveals His will to us. When we give thanks to God for hearing our prayer, it becomes a mindset. We are commanded to give thanks when its easy so that we are able to give thanks when its hard. Keep in mind that on the first thanksgiving, the pilgrims were coming off a year in which they built nine times as many coffins as they did houses. Yet they gave thanks.
Abraham Lincoln proclaimed a national day of “Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens” in 1863, at the height of the Civil War.
Three conclusions:
• When God reveals His will, pay attention!
• When Jesus sets an example, follow it!
• When life is normal, we must give thanks, so that when life isn’t normal, we can give thanks.
