It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises to Your name, O Most High” (Ps. 92:1).
Do you want the blessings of God? I know I do! First of all, what ways God has blessed you, and then secondly, how you can in turn bless others. This week, let us meditate on the blessings of God that will produce gratitude in us.
Why, it's a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord. It’s a good thing to give thanks because God commands us to give thanks. And it’s a good thing because thanksgiving ushers us into the presence of God, and thanksgiving honors and magnifies God.
Then we can say that thanksgiving produces the peace of God in our hearts. Now today we want to look at several other reasons why it’s a good thing to give thanks to the Lord. It’s a good thing because thanksgiving is an indicator of our true heart condition, of our true spiritual condition.
Don’t worry about anything. Instead pray about everything. Tell God your requests. "6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; 7 and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus" (Phil. 4:6–7).
Psalm 140:13 says, “Surely the righteous shall give thanks to Your name; The upright shall dwell in Your presence.” The person who gives thanks evidences that he has a righteous heart. There are three words that are very important in the Gospel: they are guilt, grace, and gratitude.
You see, the person who knows that he was a guilty, undeserving sinner, deserving of God’s wrath, knows that God has poured out His grace upon Him and by His grace has made him righteous through Christ. That person is going to be a grateful person. The person who’s been made righteous, who knows he has no righteousness of his own, will be a grateful person because he knows he has no hope of ever being righteous apart from the cross and the grace and the love of Christ. So a thankful heart is an indicator of our real heart condition.
The will of GOD:
It’s a good thing to give thanks to the Lord because it’s the will of God.
When we talk particularly with young people who are wanting to know about the will of God. Typically some of us ask these questions about the will of God; “Should I take this job? Should I go to this school? Is it God’s will for me to marry this person? Is it God’s will for me to take this vacation?”
We think about God’s will, in terms of things we do, and places we go, and jobs we have. But when we go to the Scripture and study the will of God, we find out that the will of God is really much easier than we think.
First Thessalonians 5:18 tells us one absolute truth about the will of God. It says, “ In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
I can tell you God’s will for your life, and you can tell me God’s will for my life. God’s will for you and God’s will for me is that in everything we give thanks. In everything.
Evidence of the Holy Spirit:
Then we see that it’s a good thing to give thanks because being thankful is the evidence of being filled with the Holy Spirit. A thankful life, a thankful lips, a thankful heart are the evidence of the Holy Spirit.
Ephesians 5 talks to us about being filled with the Spirit, and then it gives us some of the practical out workings of what it means to be filled with the Spirit. So Paul says in Ephesians 5:18-20, “Be filled with the Spirit.”
Now you can’t see the Holy Spirit. I can’t look at you and see if you are filled with the Holy Spirit. You can’t look at me and see if I’m being filled with the Holy Spirit. So how can we know if we are being filled with the Holy Spirit?
Well, we can know if the things that follow that verse are true in our lives. One of the things that follows that verse is verse 20: “giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
How can I know if I’m filled with the Spirit? If I’m thankful.
You see, when I am filled with the Spirit I can’t whine. I can’t complain. I can’t murmur or grumble. If I’m murmuring or grumbling, then I Can’t say I’m filled with the Holy Spirit. I can’t be filled with the Spirit and be a complainer at the same time.
So a thankful life, thankful lips, the attitude of gratitude, is an evidence that I am filled with the Holy Spirit. Are you filled with the Spirit today? How can you know? Well, one way you can know is, “Are you thankful? Are you walking in an attitude of gratitude today?” If so, that's evidence that you’re being filled with the Spirit of God.
Thankful People are like Jesus:
Then it’s a good thing to give thanks because thankful people are like Jesus.
When we study and go through the gospels we find a number of times where the Scripture tells us that Jesus gave thanks. Jesus was a thankful person, and if you want to be like Jesus, you need to be a thankful person.
1) Listen to a few of these instances when the Scripture says that Jesus gave thanks. In Luke 10 Jesus was praying and the context is that the disciples that he had sent out, seventy of them, to go out and do ministry had just come back. They were so excited about the success of their mission trip.
But Jesus told them that they should be thankful not just because the demons were subject to them, not just because they had power over Satan, but even more because of their relationship with God.
And then He turned His eyes toward heaven and He began to pray to God. And He says in Luke 10, In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the Spirit and said, "I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth [I thank you], that you have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in your sight” (Luke 10:21 NKJV).
Jesus is giving thanks to God with thanksgiving. “I thank You Father.” He had this intimate relationship with His heavenly Father, and it was a thankful relationship. The specific thing He was thanking God for here was that God has been so kind as to reveal the mysteries of who He is and how He works in simple people like us.
Jesus was thankful that God had revealed Himself to those disciples. So He stopped to say, “Thank you, Father.” Jesus expressed His thankful heart towards our heavenly Father.
2) In John 11 we see Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus. And the Scripture says, “[When] they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying, Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, ‘Father, I thank you that you have heard me’” (John 10:41). I thank You that You have heard me.
“And I know that You always hear me” (verse 42) And then He went on to pray that God would do this miracle so that the people would know that Jesus had really come from God. But before He made His request, He thanked God.
Have you ever stopped to thank God that He listens to you? He listens. And Jesus said, “I thank You that You always listen.” You know we’ve all had the experience of trying to call someone and getting a busy signal, or trying to call and finding that they’re not home and they’re not home and they’re not home. We keep on calling, and we really need something, and they’re not there.
But you’ll never find that true with God. Any time we call, He’s there. He hears. He’s listening. He’s answering.
Then we see Jesus on multiple occasions being thankful and expressing thanks for food, for the simple provision of our daily bread. At the feeding of the 5,000 Jesus took the loaves, John 6, and when he had given thanks he distributed them to the disciples. At the feeding of the 4,000, He took the seven loaves and gave thanks, and then He broke them and gave them to His disciples (see Mark 8:1-10).
Oftentimes saying thanks before a meal is just a routine. But for Jesus it wasn’t just a routine. It was an important part of His life recognizing that every good and perfect gift comes from above and that we are not to partake of something before we have thanked God for it.
Do you thank God for the little things? Do you thank God for the daily things? His provision is so rich, so abundant. When we thank Him, we’re being like Jesus and we’re saying, “Lord, I recognize that You are the source of this gift. If it weren’t for You, I wouldn’t have any of these good gifts.”
Then we see Jesus at the Last Supper in Luke 22. Then He took the cup, and gave thanks, and said, “Take this and divide it among yourselves; 18 for I say to you, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” 19 And He took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to them, saying, “This is My body which is given for you; do this in remembrance of Me. Luke 22:17 & 19
He was thankful even as he was getting ready to go to the cross to lay down His life for the salvation of the world. What was He doing? He was giving thanks. So it’s a good thing to give thanks to the Lord because when we give thanks we’re being like Jesus, who was thankful.
Thanksgiving is the eternal occupation of heaven:
Finally, it’s a good thing to give thanks to God because thanksgiving is the eternal occupation of heaven. Revelation chapter 4 tells us that the living creatures, the angels of heaven, never cease to "give thanks and glory and honor to Him who sits on the throne who lives forever and ever" (4:9, NKJV).
And then in Revelation chapter 11 we read that, The twenty-four elders who sat before God on the throne fell on their faces and [they] worshiped God, saying “We give You thanks, O Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was and who is to come, because You have taken Your great power and reigned” (11:. 16–17).
So what are they doing in heaven today? They’re giving God thanks. The angels are thanking Him. The citizens of heaven are thanking Him. When we give thanks to God, we do two things. We join in with that chorus in heaven. We sing with them. We give thanks to them. And we’re getting prepared for what we will spend an eternity doing in heaven. The thanksgiving we offer here is really just a rehearsal, a practice, for what we will spend all of eternity doing in heaven.
The Masai tribe in West Africa have an unusual way of saying, “I thank you.” They say literally, “My head is in the dirt.” When the Masai express thanks, they literally put their foreheads down on the ground. They want to acknowledge gratitude with humility.
I’m told that members of another African tribe express gratitude by saying, “I sit on the ground before you.“ So when one of them wants to express gratitude to another, he sits in front of the hut of the person to whom he wishes to express gratitude. He just sits there in humility for an extended length of time.
Some of the characteristics of a grateful heart and contrast those with the characteristics of an ungrateful heart. And the first characteristic we see of a grateful heart is that a grateful person is a humble person.
I thank you. My head is in the dirt. I sit on the ground before you. I’m humble before you. A grateful person is a humble person. A grateful person feels a great sense of unworthiness. His heart attitude is, “I have so much more than I deserve.”
Another characteristic of grateful hearts is compared to ungrateful hearts. A grateful heart is God-centered and others-centered; whereas, an ungrateful heart is self-centered. A grateful person is God-conscious and other-conscious, but an ungrateful person is self-conscious.
Grateful people tend to thank and talk to other people. I can remember when we were growing up my dad telling us, “When you’re talking to people, make sure and ask them questions about themselves and don’t talk about yourself, because people don’t want to hear you talk about you.”
Well, a grateful person is thinking about others, interested in others. But ungrateful people tend to focus on my needs, my feelings, my desires, my hurts, my rights, how I’ve been treated, how I’ve been neglected, how I’ve been failed, how I’ve been wounded, how my parents wronged me.
An unthankful person is full of himself, and his whole world revolves around himself. He seldom pauses to consider the needs and the feelings of others. He’s selfish.
Ungrateful people as a result typically are demanding people, but grateful people are free to be giving and caring because they’re centered on God, and they’re centered on others, not on themselves.
Grateful people who are God-centered and others-centered are loving people who want to bless others. But ungrateful people, because they’re self-centered, they’re bent on, "What will please me? How can I be satisfied?"
Then I want us to see another characteristic of a grateful heart compared to an ungrateful heart. A grateful heart is a full heart while an ungrateful heart is an empty one.
You know how little we may actually have compared to others because a grateful person feels like he’s full, because he’s grateful. No matter how much a person may in fact have, if he’s not a grateful person, he’s going to live with this constant sense of emptiness.
I picture an unthankful person as being something like a container with a hole in it, and all the blessings that are in it just leak out. It may be full of blessings, but they don’t stay. They leak out because the person doesn’t have a grateful heart, so that person always feels like they’re empty. Their heart is empty; whereas, the grateful person has an unlimited capacity to enjoy God’s blessings no matter how few or how many they may be.
Let me tell you this: Nobody has few blessings from God. We all have many, many, many blessings from God. But unthankful people always feel empty because their blessings are leaking out through those holes of ingratitude.
A Sense of Fullness:
The ungrateful person can’t enjoy the blessings he has. He’s going to feel empty. But the grateful person even in the midst of heartache and loss is going–to feel full.
There’s a great illustration of this principle in the book of Philippians. The book of Philippians is really a rather lengthy thank-you note written from the apostle Paul to express gratitude to the believers in Philippi for what they had done to minister to Paul’s financial and material needs while he was traveling around and planting churches, and Paul wrote a thank-you note.
He says in Philippians 4:15-16, Now you Philippians know also that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church shared with me concerning giving and receiving but you only. For even in Thessalonica you sent aid once and again for my necessities.
Paul’s writing to say, “Thank you,” to express gratitude. Now having expressed his appreciation for their latest gift, Paul who is sitting in the heart of a Roman prison while he’s writing this letter and is deprived of all but the minimum necessities, he makes what I think is a remarkable statement.
He goes on to say in Philippians 4:19, “I have all, and abound: I am full” (KJV). Where was Paul? He was in a Roman dungeon? And he’s saying, “I have all and I abound; I am full”? How could he think of himself as full in that situation?
What we would have been thinking in that situation—about all the things. But Paul had a thankful heart. So even when he was missing some blessings the people would consider pretty important, he felt full. Because a thankful person always has a sense of fullness. Who but a very thankful person could have responded to those circumstances with overflowing gratitude, and saying "I have everything I need; I am full; I have all; I abound"?
In fact, Paul believed that God’s goodness and God’s blessings were so abounding, that he goes on in the next verse to reassure the Philippians that there’s enough for them as well. He says "And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus. (Philippians 4:19 NKJV). Not only is there enough for me sitting here in my prison, but there’s enough for you. In your place of loneliness, in your place of loss, in your place of financial need, in your place of struggle, you can be full–if you have a grateful heart.
So do you have a sense of fullness? or emptiness as you look at your life these days? Could you say with Paul, “I am full, I abound; I have all”?
You see, Paul didn’t have it all, in terms of creature (created) comforts. But I’ll tell you what he did have. He had Christ. And Paul said, “If I have Christ, I have everything.”
Do you have Christ? Do you have His grace? His grace is greater than the comforts of this world and that God has poured out in your life? Amen.
