The Gratitude Glossary

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.