Thanksgiving Service: 1 Timothy 4:4-5 - Grateful for God's Goodness

You to take your Bible and turn over with me to 1 Timothy chapter 4.

1 Timothy 4 · chapter mention

1 Timothy chapter 4.

1 Timothy 4 · chapter mention

Since Royal and I have been married, Thanksgiving's always included more than just the meal.

Before the plates are filled, we pause around the table and each one of us offering something that we're thankful for.

And doing that has shaped our Thanksgivings.

It's helped us to realize that the day is about more than a feast.

It's about giving thanks to God, who is the giver of all good gifts.

And over the years, we've been able to share our Thanksgiving meals not only with other believers, but from time to time with those who do not yet know Christ.

And I've noticed something during those times that we have them.

We don't interrupt what we're going to do.

We invite them to join that.

And we'll pause and introduce the day and introduce what we're about to do and ask them to express something for which they're thankful.

And sometimes the table just grows quiet.

And for those who don't know Christ, who don't live with a posture of gratitude toward God, I've come to realize that sometimes pausing and stopping to reflect upon what they should be grateful for is a very unusual and perhaps even uncomfortable thing for them to do.

It's almost as if gratitude is not a common experience of their life.

But for us as God's people, thanksgiving is a regular posture of who we are.

It's not an option.

It shapes who we are.

It is an expression of who we are.

We're thankful people.

The passage that we're going to look at in a moment tells us that even in the apostolic times, there were false teachers who were forbidding the church to do things like marry or to eat particular types of food, things that God had created and that were good.

And Paul reminds Timothy to make sure the church realizes that even in a world filled with deception, God's people are called to receive his gifts with thankfulness.

And as we'll see, Paul's statements are profound.

He says in verse 4 and 5 that we'll look at in a little bit, that everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it's received with thanksgiving, since it's sanctified by the word of God and by prayer.

And just a couple chapters further in, 1 Timothy, chapter 6, verse 17, Paul is telling Timothy to instruct those who are rich in the present age not to be arrogant, but to set their hope, not to set their hope on the uncertainty of wealth, but on God.

1 Timothy 6:17

And he puts this statement into it, who richly provides us with all things to enjoy.

And so tonight, as we prepare ourselves for the day of thanksgiving and for our evening of thanksgiving, here's what I'd like for us to anchor our hearts with: that God's generosity fills every corner of our lives, and that we honor Him when we express our thanksgiving for all those gifts.

As we go through this passage, I want us to notice three things out of it.

And the first is this that gratitude guards our heart.

Gratitude guards our heart.

And Paul begins this chapter with a very sober warning.

Let's take a look at it in verse one.

Now the Spirit explicitly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, paying attention to deceitful spirits and the teachings of demons, through the hypocrisy of liars whose consciences are seared.

They forbid marriage and demand abstinence from foods that God created to be received with gratitude by those who believe and know the truth.

Now notice the distortion here.

Marriage and food, things created by God, were being rejected.

And God's people were told that they ought to reject them.

And instead of receiving them with gratitude, they were to reject them with guilt if they had actually partook.

What a twist of truth this is.

But this is nothing new.

In the Garden of Eden, Satan, tempting Adam and Eve, said, Did God really say?

And wanted to distort the goodness of God, who had given them freely to eat everything from the from the garden, barring one thing, and made them think that, well, all that they had wasn't quite good enough.

In the early church, Gnostic groups taught that the material world was evil, and that physical things and like food and like marriage were suspect and even wrong to do.

And in our day, a number of people are continuing this demonic doctrine.

There are voices, just as Paul talks about here, who tell us that real holiness means rejecting marriage or avoiding marital intimacy altogether, or only having marital intimacy if you have a determined plan to have a child.

Otherwise, you should abstain.

As if God's design for marriage in this covenant-bound relationship was somehow less spiritual than abstinence.

But Paul reminds us here that marriage is a gift, it's not a curse.

And to forbid marriage and to forbid the intimacy within marriage that God allows is not holiness, it's actually heresy.

There are others in our day who preach a diet-driven gospel.

Don't eat this, don't touch that, just like the Colossians say.

And if you do those things, then you will be pure.

Now, obviously eating certain things and not eating other things might make you more healthy, but it certainly won't make you more holy at all.

The scriptures tell us here that food is created by God and is to be received with thanksgiving, and that a meal is more than just fuel.

It's actually grace served to us every day.

There are others that tell us that the physical world itself is evil and anything within it.

And so we are to avoid art and music and recreation, as if deprivation was somehow the key to spirituality.

Now, obviously, sinful people can take those vehicles and turn them into expressions of sin.

But in and of themselves, art and music and recreation are gifts from God.

There are others who say that prosperity is somehow evil.

In our day and age, that seems to be a little more rare.

We have a lot of prosperity preachers, but there is a flip side to that.

There are those who would say that anybody who has any kind of prosperity is wrong.

And I met some of them when I was in Bible college, and uh our preaching class went to Boston Common, and we did some preaching and some evangelism on Boston Common, and I ran into a group called the Have Nots.

Yeah.

And they used as their verse that Jesus did not have a place to lay his head.

And so they wanted to be just like Jesus and have not a place to lay their head.

And we were told that we were not holy because, well, we were renting an apartment at the time.

And so the idea is if you have material blessings, and somehow you're less spiritual.

Paul in 1 Timothy 6 tells the rich not to be arrogant and not to trust in those things, but to receive them with gladness, with gratitude, and to express themselves with generosity.

That's the antidote.

Gratitude is the right response if you have wealth.

And then there are other others who tell us that we need to be separate from holidays, we need to stay away from certain clothing, we shouldn't join in certain cultural traditions, as if abstinence and human regulations are meant to be the way people should live.

The fullness of Paul's heart pours out here as he tells us that God has given us great things to enjoy, that we have freedom in Christ, that we aren't bound in that kind of legalistic bondage.

And Paul cuts through the noise and says, these are gifts from God.

They're meant to be received for thanksgiving.

So gratitude helps us to keep those distorting voices away.

Notice how subtle this deception is.

It doesn't come right out and say that God isn't good.

It tells us that certain things should be abstained from, as if they were more holy in the practice.

But the follow-on is that it does actually destroy an understanding of God's goodness.

When marriage is forbidden, the picture in this world of Christ and his church is obliterated.

When foods are told to be abstained from, it robs us of the reminder of God's provision for our daily bread.

This distorted teaching doesn't just rob us of our joy, it robs us of our testimony of the fullness of God.

But if this deception distorts, gratitude guards us.

It keeps us anchored in Christ, it keeps us locked in to the one who has provided us all of this.

And when we receive these gifts with thanksgiving, we say every day, this is from our Father, and he is good.

He is good.

Gratitude not only guards us, but it also grounds us.

Take a look at verse 3 and 4.

At the end of verse 3, God created these things to be received with gratitude by those who believe and know the truth.

And here's the grounding sentence for everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.

So Paul counters the distortion of truth with this statement that God has created things that are good, and they are not to be rejected, but received with thanksgiving.

And this echoes Genesis chapter 1, when God looked out on all the things that he had made and he made a pronouncement of them.

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

This is very good.

But here's a deeper thought.

John chapter 1, the scriptures tell us that in Christ, through Christ, all things were made.

John 1 · chapter mention

And so our gratitude that's grounded is grounded in the fact that Christ our Savior, the eternal word, has given us these things and Himself.

Now, note this phrase that God created these things to be received with gratitude by those who believe and know the truth.

Now, listen to this.

Gratitude is more than just saying thank you.

Gratitude is recognizing that the Lord is the source of good things.

And in that we see the Lord's generosity, even in the ordinary.

And the antidote to this false teaching is not just to say, well, we can do whatever we want.

It is actually to receive with thanksgiving the things that God has given you.

Jesus modeled this before feeding the 5,000.

He took the fish and the bread and gave thanks.

Paul lived this out even in a time of difficulty.

In Acts chapter 27, during a storm at sea, he took bread and gave thanks to God in front of the others.

Acts 27 · chapter mention

In the midst of that chaos, his gratitude was a testimony of faith.

Think about shaping the heart of a child, particularly at Christmas time or at birthdays, when you teach the child not only the wonder of receiving a gift, but also to recognize the love behind the gift itself.

And so to be able to say to a child, isn't that a wonderful gift?

Your brother gave that to you.

And some of our most precious family photographs are two boys hugging each other after they've gotten a gift from one another.

Royal and I paid for it, but you know, they got the hug.

But it's fun to see.

We teach them to be grateful for the things that they've received.

And so we can be grounded with thanksgiving.

Eating a meal becomes an act of worship when we receive it with thanksgiving in Christ.

Because before we eat, we look at the food and say, this is from God.

Marriage becomes a testimony of covenantal love when we recognize, even in the mundane, ordinary, day-to-day days, that God has given us this wondrous thing.

Gratitude can be a grounding thing in all of our conversations.

When someone talks to us or teaches us or encourages us or even shares with us a correcting statement, we can recognize that people are involved in our lives for the purposes of good.

And that comes from God.

Gratitude can be grounding even when we take a walk and we notice a sunrise or the crispness of the air in the autumn, the rhythm of the seasons, a reminder of God's artistry and all the changes that we see.

Gratitude can be grounding in our community, in our fellowship.

Just like Al prayed a moment ago, thank you, God, for New Hyde Park Baptist Church, a recognition that the fact that we're God's people together is a gift from him.

Gratitude is grounding in all things, not just the big things of life, but in the routines themselves and even the unexpected moments.

But gratitude not only guards us and grounds us, but it also guides us.

Take a look at verse five.

Since it is sanctified by the word of God and by prayer, nothing is to be rejected if it's received with thanksgiving, since it, the gift, is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.

Now, here's the anchor point that gratitude's not just a feeling, it's rooted in God's truth and it's expressed through prayer.

Scripture helps us understand that all the things that we have are good, and prayer acknowledges our dependence upon Him and moves us to thankfulness for what we've received.

Daniel, in exile, would pray three times a day, and he would also give thanks.

Daniel 6, 10.

He's giving gratitude for his routine, even when he was exiled away from home.

The Psalms are filled with thanksgiving prayer.

Psalm 136.

Give thanks to the Lord for his good, his faithful love endures forever.

And so we can begin and end our days with prayer.

We can get up in the morning and say, This is the day that the Lord has made.

Let us rejoice and be glad in it.

And that truth shapes our day.

And at night we can echo in prayer what the psalmist said.

I lie down and sleep in peace, for you alone, Lord, make me to dwell in safety.

The word frames us, and prayer sanctifies the hours and the minutes and the seconds.

We can thank God for our abilities.

When we walk, when we work, when we create, we can remember passages like Acts 17 and verse 28 that says, In Him we live and move and have our being.

And in prayer, we acknowledge that all of our strength, that all of our skill, that all of our creativity are not engendered out of us, but given to us by God Himself.

Gratitude can shape and guide our relationships.

When we read words like Ephesians, when it says to encourage one another, or 1 Thessalonians 5.11, where it says to build each other up.

And it frames us and guides us for how we're to relate with one another, that we have responsibilities of encouraging the growth and development of one another in Christ.

And so whether we send a text or make a call or sit with a family, or we have someone send us a text or give us a call or sit next to us, we recognize in prayer that these moments are gifts from God for the purposes of encouragement and love.

The word again defines what those relationships look like, and prayer invites us to understand God's blessings in them.

And even in interruptions, even in interruptions, the word reminds us that a person's heart plans his way, but the Lord determines his steps.

We can be thankful even in interruptions.

We got a taste of that when Johnny talked about a man he met when he missed his train and got a hold of a person who lived in his area by the name of Fabio.

And all of that turned into a gospel opportunity.

And even when uh Johnny was here with us and walking around in the city, he was texting and sending pictures back to Fabio and saying, This is what I'm experiencing.

And so that interruption was guided by the word that the Lord would move this moment for a purpose.

And prayer had Johnny recognize that God was making him miss a train for the purposes of the gospel.

The word again reframes everything.

It reframes our interruptions, it reframes our relationships, it reframes our abilities, it reframes our very days, it guides us.

And prayer is the opportunity for us to be more aware and more grateful for all of the movements within it.

So we stopped and we have stopped today to pause and to remember that every good gift comes from God.

And so Paul's message is very clear here.

Don't let distorting devilish doctrines rob you of joy.

You have a good father whose generosity fills out every corner of your life.

Everything that he's created is good, and nothing that he's given you is to be rejected, but received with thanksgiving.

Received with the understanding that Scripture gives you of what that is.

And so as we enter into this Thanksgiving week tonight and Thursday, let us cultivate gratitude, not just for the feast that we're about to enjoy, but for the ordinary moments of every day, that morning coffee, that laughter of your children, that work that you do with your hands, that rest that you receive at the end of a hard day.

Remember, gratitude can sanctify the routine.

And just as my family pauses before the plates are filled to give thanks, we as God's people can do that, not just on Thursday, but every day.

Naming thanks is more than a tradition, it's actually a testimony of faith.

Well, we've talked about Thanksgiving as God's people, but we can't leave without remembering the greatest gift that is offered.

The scriptures tell us that the greatest gift that humanity could ever receive is the gift of God of salvation in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Romans 6 tells us that if we want to earn our way to heaven, we'll get our wages.

The wages of sin is death.

But the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

And that gift is received not by our efforts, but by faith.

For it is by grace that you've been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves.

It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.

And so if you've never trusted Christ, today is the day to open your heart to the greatest gift you could ever receive: the gift of eternal life.

And the scriptures say that if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God has raised him from the dead, you shall be saved.

What a beautiful word.

And when you receive him, I guarantee that thanksgiving, despite how hard your life might be, will become the posture of your very soul.

Because the scriptures tell us that a believer cries out, thanks be to God, for his indescribable gift.

And from that moment on, you can join in on what it says here in 1 Thessalonians 5:18.

1 Thessalonians 5:18

Give thanks in everything.

For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Let's pray together.

Father, we thank you for the protecting supply that you give us in helping us to recognize just how great and glorious and generous you are to give us the things that you've made so that we might enjoy them.

And that you, as a father, are filled with delight in the reception of these things with thankful hearts.

Lord, I pray that you'd help us to be more sensitive to the innumerable gifts that we've received from your hand.

And Lord, that we might even be thankful when we don't remember and don't recognize.

We pray, our Heavenly Father, that as we're guarded by those things, that you would ground us in this understanding of who you are, that you are good and all that you made is good.

There wasn't an evil thing on this earth, and you provided it for us.

The variety of all the plants, the diversity of all the landscape, the wonder of the animal kingdom, all for us to see and to behold and to receive and a recognition that you're a God who creates wonderfully.

And Father, we pray also that we might be guided by our gratitude, guided with thankful hearts to recognize every moment of every day, every relationship, every effort, all of the things that fill our moments and our minds, that we would be guided into thankfulness through your your word and through expressions of dependence and thanksgiving in prayer.

And so, Father, we pray that we would be indeed thankful people.

And we pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.