The Gratitude Glossary
Genesis 6-9
Good morning! Please turn in your Bibles to Genesis chapter 6.
This morning’s message is called “The Gratitude Glossary.” You guys know what a glossary is, right? It’s basically a list of words that are relevant to a particular subject or hobby. Every hobby or special interest or subculture or profession has its own vocabulary. If you’re a skater, you know all about ollies and halfpipes. If you’re a golfer, you can talk all day about birdies and bogeys and eagles and wedgies… wedges? OK—you can tell I’m not a golfer.
I thought it would be fun to see if you can identify the subject or the occupation just by some of their vocabulary. Take a look at this one, and see if you can figure out what the subject is:
Slide 1 (moviemaking)
Slide 2 (football)
Slide 3 (military)
It seems to be that the more passionate with something you are, the more you develop your own vocabulary to talk about it. And even though an outside observer might think all the words mean the same thing, you know that there are shades of meaning and differences between the terms. For example, you’ve probably been in Bible studies or heard sermons about the different words for love in the Greek language. Maybe you’ve heard that Eskimos have over a hundred different words for snow and ice. It’s true.
The more familiar you are with something, the more you need a specialized vocabulary to capture all the nuances and ramifications of it.
Now, I am passionate about the gospel. One of our core values as a church is that we speak gospel. So when I saw the graphic that is on the top of your listening guide, about the way different people around the world say “Thank you,” I started seeing connections to the gospel. You look at this word cloud, and you see a lot of words that relate back to some big Bible ideas.
So today, as we get ready to celebrate Thanksgiving, and then go right into the Christmas season after that, I want us to develop a gratitude glossary. And we are going to look at one story out of the Old Testament that I think illustrates every one of the terms that we are going to put in our gratitude glossary. It’s a super familiar story—the story of Noah and the ark, so instead of reading the story, I’m going to just hit some key points of it along the way. So let me pray for us, and then we will get into our teaching time from God’s word.
[Pray]
Ok—you guys did such a good job with the intro activity, let’s just keep the audience participation vibe going. I’ll put up a word for “Thank you” from another language, and you can tell me what language it comes from. Then we will unpack the biblical truth we find in each one.
Here’s the first one [Gracias]
Ok—who can tell me what language that is—just shout it out. Good job. You nailed it. It’s Spanish. But some of you might know that the Italian word for “Thank you is very similar to this. Anyone know the Italian word? That’s right. Italians would say grazie.
And both of them relate to a pretty common Bible word. What’s the word? [Grace] Excellent! You guys are really good at this. The Bible word is grace. In Greek, it’s xaris, and the most basic definition is that it means “unmerited, or undeserved favor.” It’s getting something that you don’t deserve.
So how did Spanish and Italian get “Thank you” from this idea? Think about it this way: let’s say this Thursday your family is all at the thanksgiving table, and your ten year old daughter says, “Can you please pass the turkey?” Now—did Libbie help cook the turkey? No. Did she pay for the turkey? No. Has she done anything whatsoever to deserve the turkey that you are passing her? No. So if Libbie says “Gracias” when you pass her the turkey, she is acknowledging that your freewill offering of turkey is an act of… GRACE. See how it works?
Theologians take it one step further. One Bible dictionary says that grace is:
the merciful kindness by which God, exerting his holy influence upon souls, turns them to Christ, keeps, strengthens, increases them in Christian faith, knowledge, affection, and kindles them to the exercise of the Christian virtues
Ok. Now let’s see how this idea shows up in the Bible. The very first time you see the word grace is in Genesis 6. We’ve all grown up knowing the story of Noah and the Ark. But let’s look closely at how the story starts: Let’s look at verse 5:
5 The Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every intention of the thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. 6 And the Lord regretted that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. 7 So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” 8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the Lord.
Now let’s stop there for just a minute. That word “favor” is the word we are looking for. Other translations say “grace.”
Let me ask you something: why did Noah find grace in the eyes of the Lord? A lot of people say it is because of the next verse. Read verse 9 with me:
9 These are the generations of Noah. Noah was a righteous man, blameless in his generation.
Genesis 6:5-9
We think God singled out Noah because he considered him to be a righteous man, blameless in his generation. But if “grace” means unmerited, undeserved favor, then it wasn’t because Noah was such a good person, but because God is a gracious God. There’s a reason verse 8 comes before verse 9. God didn’t show Noah grace because Noah was a righteous man. Noah was a righteous man because God showed him grace!
So the next time you hear a Spanish speaker say “Gracias,” let it be a reminder of God’s grace. It’s more than just “thank you.” When we experience God’s unmerited favor in our lives, let’s call it what it is:
Grace.
Let’s look at the next word in our Gratitude Glossary. Merci Say it with me. And in this language, if you wanted to say “Thank you very much, you would say “Merci beaucoup.” What’s the language?
Right again! It’s French. Now, what Bible word does the word “merci” remind us of? Yep. Mercy. And it means just exactly what you think it means. When you show mercy to someone, you are choosing to not punish them even if they deserve it. So when the French say “Merci,” they are saying, “I deserved to be punished, but you chose not to punish me, so I thank you.”
The Greek word that’s translated “mercy” is eleos, and it means
the outward manifestation of pity; it assumes need on the part of him who receives it, and resources adequate to meet the need on the part of him who shows it.
So for example, if at the end of the 3rd quarter of the Alabama Kentucky game yesterday, Alabama had said, “You know, we’re up 49-3, we think you guys have had enough, let’s just call it a day,” then they would have been showing Kentucky mercy. Instead, they came out for the fourth quarter, the final score was 63-3, and we’re going to remember that when basketball season rolls around.
So if grace is when we get what we don’t deserve, mercy is when we don’t get what we do deserve.
And once again, we can see this in the story of Noah and the ark. I want to highlight just one little phrase in Genesis 7. Jump down to verse 11 and read this with me:
11 In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on that day all the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened. 12 And rain fell upon the earth forty days and forty nights. 13 On the very same day Noah and his sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, and Noah's wife and the three wives of his sons with them entered the ark… 16 And those that entered, male and female of all flesh, went in as God had commanded him. And the Lord shut him in.
God showed mercy to Noah and his family by shutting them inside the ark. Friends, remember that God saved Noah by grace. The world was wicked. The inclination of man’s heart was bent on evil. And Noah was right there with the rest of his generation. He might have been more upright than other people, but if sin is sin, and God doesn’t grade on a curve, then Noah was still deserving of God’s wrath. But God shut him in. God showed him mercy. The ark itself took all the punishment that God poured out on the world because of man’s wickedness, while Noah and his family were safe inside the ark. [POINT THIS BACK TO JESUS.]
So the next time you hear a French speaker say “Merci,” let it be a reminder of God’s mercy. It’s more than just “thank you.” When we are spared from the wrath of God our sins deserve, let’s call it what it is:
Mercy.
And now we come to the third word in our gratitude glossary. Remember, we are looking at the ways to say thank you in different languages. So if you didn’t get either of the first two right, you can make up for it with this one. Are you ready? Ok. What language is this one?
Thank you.
Awesome. Did anyone miss that one? Great. And actually, our English “thank you” has a similar root to the German Danke, the Dutch “bedankt,” Swedish “Tack” (t-a-c-k) and Norwegian takk (t-a-k-k)
Now, this is the part that maybe isn’t so obvious. All of these relate back to the word “think.”
You see, the original expression in Middle English was not “thank you,” but “I think thee.” It originally meant, “I will remember what you did for me” In the New Testament, the word “think” is logizomai, and it means “to reckon inward, count up, or weigh the reasons.”
When we “thank” God, we are really “thinking” God. We are remembering who He is, what His character is, and what He has done for us, and the response is gratitude. Thankfulness.
Let’s see how this shows up in the Noah story. Jump down to Genesis 8:
8 But God remembered Noah and all the beasts and all the livestock that were with him in the ark. And God made a wind blow over the earth, and the waters subsided. 2 The fountains of the deep and the windows of the heavens were closed, the rain from the heavens was restrained, 3 and the waters receded from the earth continually. At the end of 150 days the waters had abated, 4 and in the seventh month, on the seventeenth day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat.
Genesis 8:1-4
In a very real sense, we are only able to remember God or think about him at all because he remembered us first. This doesn’t mean that God had forgotten Noah. It means that he considered Noah. He reckoned that a relationship with Noah—with humanity—was worth it. That in spite of our failures, our brokenness, our sinfulness, that we were worth saving. A few thousand years after this, God would remember humanity again by sending his son to die on the cross for us.
God remembered Noah. He remembered his promise to spare Noah and his family. He kept them safe from the storm, and in time, He dried up the water so that humanity could have a fresh start.
And when we remember God, when we “think” God, the only response is to “thank God.”
Here’s the fourth word in the gratitude glossary. To be honest, this was the one that got me thinking about this whole thing in the first place. Just above “thank you” in our word cloud, you see a Greek word in blue. Can you make it out? The word is eucharist. Which means that in everyday language, when you say “thank you to someone in Greek, you are using one of the most biblical, churchy, gospel-y words there is. Eucharist—it’s one of the ways the church refers to communion.
Eucharist, or eucharistos, means thanksgiving. And its used over and over in the New Testament. But unlike “thank you,” which just means “thinking with gratitude about what someone has done for you,” “eucharistos” is a verbal and or visible expression of gratitude. It’s putting your grateful thoughts into action.
Here’s how it shows up in the Noah story. After being on the ark for approximately a full year, what’s the first thing Noah does when he gets off the boat? Put yourself in the story:
For a solid year, you’ve lived inside a dark ship. A ship drenched in the stench and mess of every animal on earth. During this time, you’re tossed around the world by tumultuous winds, rains, and waves. When the Ark finally banks itself on a mountain top, and you can walk out into the fresh air, what do you imagine your first act in this new world will be?
“I swear—if I live to be 950 years old (that was how old Noah was when he died, by the way) I will NEVER take another cruise. I was ssooooo seasick! Those animals were gross! It was just me and my family trying to take care of all of them. It rained for our entire cruise. I want my money back!
Noah walks off the boat, and then (ESV) Noah builds an altar to the Lord.
20 Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar. 21 And when the Lord smelled the pleasing aroma, the Lord said in his heart, “I will never again curse the ground because of man, for the intention of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I ever again strike down every living creature as I have done. 22 While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night, shall not cease.”
(Noah's first recorded act upon leaving the Ark was an act of gratitude.
When listening to or reading this story told, this act of worship is easy to read over. Without close reading, it appears to be a simple practice. But when we do a little more digging, we see it is an extraordinary act of thankfulness.
First, consider the fact that Noah spent approximately 356 days on the Ark. As he walks off the plank, Noah makes a conscious decision that the very first thing he will do is say "thank you" to God. God did not direct him to do so.
? At this time in ancient Near Eastern civilization, God had not given commandments or statutes regarding worship.
? Organized religion and faith practices were still a thousand years away from formation (Exodus 20).
? Noah and his family had been the only followers of God amongst a society of evil heathens (Genesis 6:5-6). Therefore, this was a singular practice to God, not a communal practice of his people.
? Offering a sacrifice of thanksgiving was not a social-religious-economic habit of his day. In ancient Near Eastern pagan worship, when a sacrifice was made, it was offered to appease the gods and keep them happy so that the people would receive good fortune.
Notice how it moves the heart of God. Verse 21 says that when God smelled the pleasing aroma, he made a promise that he would never again destroy the world by water. Even though man’s heart is inclined to evil all the time. Noah’s expression of gratitude—his eucharistos, moved God to make a covenant with Noah.
I think we can all relate to Noah a little bit. We are going through a storm with this pandemic. We’ve been cooped up inside for a long time. We’re not sure what the world is going to be like going forward. We’ve lost a lot this year.
But you know what? We’re still here. The Lord is still with us. And he deserves a visible, verbal expression of our gratitude. He is worthy of our eucharistos—our Thanksgiving. Thanks be to god for his indescribable gifts!
Now there’s one more word in our Gratitude Glossary. The word is obrigado. Anyone know the language? That’s right. Portuguese. When someone in Brazil or Portugal wants to say Thank you, they say “obrigado.” Our English word “obligation” is similar to it. It means that we are bound or obligated to perform a duty. The Greek word is “opheilo” Think about the phrase “much obliged.” I kind of imagine a cowboy saying that while he tips his hat to a lady—“Much obliged, ma’am.” But it’s the acknowledgment that when someone does something for us, we have an obligation to do something in return.
Now, it’s a little weird for us to think about that with God. How can we repay God for the kindness and the grace and the mercy he has shown us? We can’t. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have a part to play. Look with me one more time at the Noah story.
9 And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply and fill the earth.
Genesis 9:1
We have an obligation to fill the world with worshipers of God. We have a duty to tell people of his love.
