How Thanksgiving Protects Your Contentment

Welcome to the Islands Christian Church podcast.

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Thanks for joining us. So we have been in a series over

the past few weeks, a series that we have called Enough is

Enough, and we've been talking a lot about contentment.

You guys remember this. You've been around for a few

weeks. You remember, You remember this

in week 1:00, we, we said this, that that Paul showed us that

godliness leads to contentment, that when God becomes our

treasurer, when he's first in our life, then we find peace.

And then Week 2, we taught that that commitment is learned.

Paul taught us this from Philippians.

Commitment is learned. It's independent of

circumstances and contentment is rooted in dependence on Christ.

And so today we're asking the next natural question in this

series. And here it is if you're a note

taker. How do we grow and protect

contentment? How do we grow and protect

contentment? So if we if we if we gain it by

godliness by putting God first leads us to contentment.

If we have to learn it and it's independent of our circumstances

and it's through dependence on Christ that leads to

contentment. OK, well, how do we grow and how

do we protect contentment? And Psalm 100 is where we're

going to be today. So if you have your Bibles, go

to Psalm 100 and here's what I want you to hear me say.

This is kind of the bottom line of the whole sermon.

So if you want to hear this and then check out or something,

that's OK You ready? Here's the whole bottom line of

the whole sermon. Here's the thesis, if you will.

Here's the main point. Thanksgiving is the practice

that nurtures contentment. Thanksgiving, giving thanks, is

the practice that nurtures contentment.

Now, Thanksgiving is not something we do after we feel

content. It's a habit that we do which

forms contentment in our heart. So let me say it super clearly,

If you want to be a content person, if you want to be a

content person, like if this is something you're like, man, I've

got a lot of discontent. I'm not content in my life.

I want to be a more content person.

If you want to be a content person, you ready become a

thankful person. It's just that simple, super

easy. That's what grows and protects

contentment. Thanksgiving, the practice of

giving thanks, nurtures contentment.

So Psalm 100 shows us why Thanksgiving is such a powerful

spiritual habit for shaping our hearts toward contentment.

So we're going to read Psalm 100 and we're going to walk through

it a few. We're going to walk through the

verses together and learn what it teaches us.

Psalm 100 verses one through 5. You ready?

The psalmist says shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.

Worship the Lord of the gladness.

Come before him with joyful songs.

Know that the Lord is God. It is He who made us, and we are

His. We are His people, and the sheep

of His pasture enter his gates with Thanksgiving and His courts

with praise. Give thanks to Him and praise

His name for the Lord is good, and His love endures forever.

His faithfulness continues through all generations.

Now there are three clear commands in Psalm 100.

Do you see the three clear commands?

There's verse 2, worship the Lord.

You could say shout for joy as well, but that's encompassed and

worship the Lord. Verse two.

Number one is worship the Lord #2 which is verse 3 #2 which is

verse 3, Know who God is and who you are.

That's the clear command. Know who God is and know who you

are. And then there's a third clear

command, which is verse four and five, Give thanks.

So those are the three clear commands.

Worship the Lord, know who God is and who we are, and give

thanks. Now if you practice those 3

commands, you will arrive to a content heart.

That's what happens. That's where contentment

naturally grows and it thrives. Now for you note takers, let me

say it super simply for you. You ready?

This is how we're going to walk through this passage today.

You ready. Content people worship.

Content people know who and whose they are.

Content people worship, content people know who and whose they

are, and #3 content people give things, content people give

things. So content people worship,

Content people know who and whose they are, and content

people give things. Now, what I'm not saying today

is that you have to be content before you can worship.

I'm not saying that you have to be content before you can know

your identity. I'm not saying you have to be

content before you can give things.

I'm not saying that at all. What I am saying, to be very

clear, is this. Doing these three things

consistently, worshipping, knowing who you are and whose

you are, and giving thanks to God.

Doing those three things consistently is what forms

contentment in you. Those three things fuel

contentment. They grow contentment.

They protect contentment. So first of all #1 content

people worship. Worship is our response to God.

It's our response to God. It's it's how God forms

contentment in US. It's through you worshiping.

Worship is what naturally comes out of you when you consider the

goodness and the glory of God. It's the most powerful way that

we express our thanks to Him. So when we gather and we sing

and we worship, or when you're by yourself and you're playing

worship music and you're singing to God.

Or to think about what John said this morning.

When you wake up in the morning and the first thing that comes

off your mouth is, wow, God, you are good.

I thank you for being good. That act of worshiping God that

forms contentment in your heart. Listen to verses 1 and 2 again.

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth.

Worship the Lord with gladness, come before him with joyful

songs. And the psalmist isn't just

using poetic language. The psalmist is commanding us

shout for joy to the Lord all the earth.

Have you ever been in nature and you heard all the critters

singing and making noise and, and you're just kind of like the

birds and the crickets? And are you guys ever heard this

before you got them out in nature?

I remind myself when I'm in nature and I'm hearing those

critters make all that noise that you know what?

The frogs and the whatever else that these are the this is the

earth crying out to God. This is the earth shouting that

all things worship the Lord, all things praise God.

And God has invited you to join with all of nature and to

worship him. And here's the thing, you are

commanded to come before God with joy, gladness, and song.

This is what the text says. You're commanded to come before

God with joy, gladness, and song.

Why? Because when we worship and when

we come to God with worship and joy and gladness, follow me

here. That only happens when our heart

is satisfied with God in God. So what I mean is if I come

before God with joy and gladness and I worship him, then I'm my

heart's acknowledging that my God is worthy of this worship,

that my God is enough, that my God has given me joy, my God has

given me gladness. Now you could say, well, what if

I don't have that joy and gladness?

Well, here's the beautiful thing about worship.

It works in the inverse as well. If I come before God and I don't

have the joy and gladness, but I obey the command to worship him,

then what happens? Come on, somebody say this is

true, right? Then what happens is I worship

Him anyway out of obedience. Then God begins to do a work in

my heart, and He brings to my heart joy and gladness.

This is how worship works. I bring to God my joy and

gladness and worship Him. And if I don't have joy and

gladness, I worship Him out of obedience, out of obligation.

And I know we don't like obligation when it comes to our

faith. We're like, oh, I should just

feel it. No, sometimes you don't feel it.

Sometimes you just do it because the Lord has commanded you to do

it. And so you worship him and you

sing to Him. And what we receive is joy,

gladness, because our heart is reminded that we only find

satisfaction in God alone, that He has given us Himself, that He

has given us everything we truly need.

And that what happens is when you worship Him, even if you're

not sure if you believe that or not, your heart begins to be

trained to believe that. Does this make sense?

Am I making sense at all? Worship produces an inner

satisfaction inside of you. And if there is an inner

satisfaction already inside of you that produces worship.

You see how it's circular. It's circular worship.

When you worship God, when you sing to God, when you praise

God, it lifts your eyes off of what you wish you had, what you

wish were different, what you, what you wish would happen.

It lifts your eyes off of that and it turns your eyes toward

God, who is already giving you, giving you everything you need

ultimately in Him. And This is why I worship and

singing to God is so powerful because it not only generates

contentment, but it also preserves contentment.

This is why the discipline of worship is so important, because

if I don't have contentment, it will help bring about

contentment. And if I do have contentment, it

will help preserve that contentment.

When you worship, even when life is painful or uncertain, you are

reminding your heart, this is it.

God is enough. I can trust Him.

He has me. He's got me in his hands.

And you say, well, Stephen, what if I don't feel it?

I have people tell me this all the time.

I just don't feel God. I just, I don't feel content.

I don't feel happy. What if your heart is unsettled

or anxious and you find yourself in a worship setting?

This is exactly, in my opinion, when worship becomes even more

important because as the psalmist has said, and as I've

said to you, worship is commanded to you, which means

sometimes we worship before we feel it.

We choose obedience before emotion.

Your emotions will always follow your will.

If you didn't write that down, you missed it.

That was a good one. Your emotions.

We don't believe that. We usually write that down.

So you don't believe it. You think you have to feel

something in order to do something.

You don't. You have to decide something to

do something. You decide to do it and then

your emotions follow that. So people say well I fell out of

love with her, I fell out of love with him.

No, just decide to be in love. Act and and and function as if

you are still in love with them. If you make that decision, guess

what will happen to your emotions?

Emotions always follow will. Emotions always follow will.

When you worship, you are making a decision to choose obedience

before emotion, and when you do, something beautiful happens.

Worship recenters our hearts. Worship awakens trust in God.

Worship creates the joy and the gladness that the psalmist

promises. So sometimes we don't always

have the joy and gladness. Sometimes we get the joy and

gladness through worship. And listen to this.

Worship trains your heart toward contentment.

Worship can generate contentment.

I'm telling you, friend, if you will literally play worship

music throughout your day and sing, and even if you don't,

you're not a singer, maybe you just listen to it.

If you just let it saturate in your heart throughout your day,

you will generate more contentment in your heart.

And a contented heart is not a quiet heart.

It's a worshipping heart. It sings, it rejoices, it

celebrates God, God's goodness, not because your life is

perfect, not because everything is worked out for you, but

because you know God is worthy of worship.

He's faithful. You can trust him.

Content people worship. That's what the psalmist says.

But #2 in addition, content people know who and whose they

are. Content people know know who and

whose they are. Last Sunday after worship, a

friend of mine stopped me right at the door.

And he said, Stephen, I've been thinking a lot this week about

not only who God is, but whose I am, that that I'm, I'm possessed

by God, that he owns me. And he says, I've been

reflecting all week on this identity of, of God claiming me

as his own. It's not about who I am, it's

about whose I am. And you know, he was absolutely

right. He was absolutely right.

And this is exactly what Psalm 100 teaches.

Look at verse 3 again. Know that the Lord is good.

It is he who made us, and we are his.

We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

Here's the deal, guys. The foundation of contentment is

this simple truth. You ready?

Here's the foundation. God is God, God is good.

God is God, and God is good. And because he is God, and

because he has made you, you belong to him.

So God, God exists. You ready?

There's a God. If you don't believe in a God,

that's OK. Like we can work.

We'll work with you, we'll hang out with you, we'll talk with

you. But if you're sitting here today

and you're like, I believe a God exists, then what that means if

they're a God that exists, then that means you are created.

That means you belong to him. That means you are his idea that

he came up with you, that there is a God that's the foundation

and that you belong to him that he made you.

And so identity, your identity. And when I use the word

identity, what I mean especially think about if you're young,

please get this, please get this.

This is the probably one of the most single important things you

can understand about moving through your life.

When I use the word identity, what I mean is yourself regard

how you view yourself, all right, and how you how you

regard yourself. So when I say your identity,

what I mean is when you think about yourself, what do you

think about? So identity or self regard

begins with knowing who God is. That's what it starts with.

It starts with you knowing who God is.

This is why verse 3 of the psalmist says know that the Lord

is God. In other words, know that there

is a God. All right, so your identity

starts with I'm not an accident. I didn't just crawl out of the

primordial mud some millions and millions of years ago.

No, I had was thought of. God thought of me.

He dreamt me up. He made me.

I'm unique and you know all these details, but let me just

tell you for the sake of maybe you don't know.

Your iris in your eye is unique. None.

No one has ever been born with your iris.

No one will ever be born with your iris.

The fingerprints on your hands are unique.

No one's ever been born with your fingerprints.

No one will ever be born with your fingerprints.

You are unique. You are a unique creation,

thought of, dreamt up by God, made by Him and loved by Him.

You, that is yourself regard, that is your identity.

You have to get that first. I am loved by God.

Identity begins with knowing who God is.

Today people say things like, well, I'm trying to find myself.

Have you ever had a friend say that to you before?

Have you maybe ever said that I'm trying to find myself?

Here's what you can tell your friend.

You can say, listen friend, I love you and I want you to find

yourself because here's the deal.

You can never truly know who you are until you know there was a

God who made you and who loves you.

That's where this starts. You must know that first, the

one who made you. And when you know this God who

made you, you learn some stuff that's life changing.

You are His, you belong to Him. So he didn't just make you, but

He, He, you belong to Him. You were created by him.

You were careful by Him. You are claimed by Him.

In other words, he claims you as his own.

This is what the text says. We are his people.

That's what it says. We are his.

It is he who made us and we are his.

We are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

This, this idea that OK, well who am I man?

Who am I? I am owned, loved and possessed

by God. That's my identity.

That's myself regard. We are his people.

We have an identity. The sheep of his pasture.

What does it mean to be the sheep of his pasture?

What that means you have a security and belonging.

You have safety, you're secure, you're safe.

Like this is the reality of your life.

And those three things, identity, security and

belonging, they are the foundation or the soil that

contentment grows up in. In other words, if I know that

I'm not just an accident, that I have an identity that God made

me and loves me, and I know that that I'm safe, that this guy who

made me and who loves me, he's got a plan for me.

He's working things out for my good, that I'm safe.

And if I know that I'm in this pasture that I'm secure, that

whatever comes my way, I can be safe and secure.

If I know these things, that's like, that's like the soil being

broken up and being tended and the soil being fertilized and

being watered and the seed of contentment being planted in

that. And my heart will develop

contentment when I believe these things are true.

Listen to how Jesus said this in John 10, John chapter 10.

John 10 · chapter mention

I'm going to read verses 14 and 15, and then I'm going to read

27 and 30. This is beautiful.

These are the words of our Savior Jesus.

Listen to what he said. Jesus said I am the Good

Shepherd. I know my sheep and my sheep

know me, just as the Father knows me and I know the Father.

Stop right there for a second. This, this is so beautiful to

me. Go back to verse 14 real quick.

I know my sheep and my sheep know me.

I know my sheep and my sheep know me.

Hyphen verse 15, just as the Father knows me and I know the

Father. Whoa, how does the Father and

Jesus know each other? Well, the scripture says they're

one, they're one. They are bound together in one

being. And what Jesus is saying is I

know my sheep and my sheep know me.

Just we have the relationship, my sheep and me.

We have the type of relationship that my father and I have.

I mean, I'm unioned with them. The rest of verse 15 Just as the

Father knows me and I know the Father hyphen, and I laid down

my life for the sheep. Jump to verse 27.

It says my sheep listen to my voice.

I know them and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and

they shall never perish. No one will snatch them out of

my hand. My Father who has given them to

me is greater than all. No one can snatch them out of my

Father's hand. I and the Father are one.

When you're held by Christ, you're safe, when you belong to

Him you are secure, and when He is your shepherd, your life is

guaranteed. What did Jesus say?

He said You, they us shall never perish.

Everybody say perish, perish. You shall never perish.

It just means never wrought, never be done away with it never

disappear. This is a promise right from

Jesus to you. When Jesus is your shepherd,

your life is guaranteed. Here's the beautiful truth of

this. You can't live in God's pastures

and fear starvation. You just can't.

You can't belong to the shepherd and live with a scarcity

mindset. You just can't.

So reflecting on this truth, who God is, I'm made by him.

That's my identity, myself. Regard who we are.

When you reflect on this man, who God is and whose we are, I

belong to him. When you reflect on this, it

nurtures and it protects contentment.

My friend from last week, he was right.

It has a way of growing contentment in your heart when

you reflect on these two truths. There is a God and you belong to

Him. It's who and whose you are.

Content people know who and whose they are.

And lastly #3 content people give things.

Content people give things. Look at verses four and five

again. It says, enter his gates with

Thanksgiving and his course of praise.

Give thanks to Him and praise His name for the Lord is good

and his love endures forever. His faithfulness continues

through all generations. Now, Thanksgiving is not just

something we do when we feel like life is going well again.

Like He commands us to worship. He commands us to know God.

This other command is He commands us to give thanks even

if we don't feel like giving thanks, even if things in our

lives are not going particularly well.

The psalmist gives us 3 reasons to give thanks.

If you just look at the text, they're right out of the text.

Here are the three reasons the psalmist gives us to give

things. Number one, God is good #2 is

love endures and #3 it's faithfulness never ends.

Now, those aren't just general statements.

Those aren't just like, Oh yeah, God is good and you know, he's,

he's faithful to the end and his love endures no matter what.

Those aren't just like, you know, you say that and you're

like, OK, that's kind of nice. God, whatever.

Those aren't just general things we say.

Listen to me carefully. Those are hard truths about the

character of God that are proven as reality through the gospel

message of Jesus Christ. In other words, when we say, oh,

God is good, his love endures, he's faithful to the end.

OK, what does that mean? That means the gospel.

They find their truth, their clearest expression in the

gospel. Because there are times in your

life when you will doubt God's goodness.

There are, there have been in my life.

There are times when you will doubt God's faithfulness.

There are times when you will doubt that his love endures.

And if you ever are wondering, is God faithful?

Is he? Does he actually love?

Does he actually endure? Is he actually good?

That's when you stop and you look at the cross of Jesus

Christ because the clearest and proof, the clearest expression

and the proof of these three ideas that God is good, that is

love endures forever and that is faithfulness to all generation

endures. The clearest proof of that is

the cross of Jesus Christ, the gospel message.

At the cross we see the greatest demonstration of God's goodness

toward his people. At the cross we see a love that

endured. So we see the greatest

demonstration of his goodness. We see a love that endured all

the way to the point of death. It's what Philippians tells us

that he endured even to the point of death, death on a

cross. So we see God's goodness at the

cross. We see God's love that endured

all the way to the death. And listen to this at the cross.

When you look at the cross, you see that God's faithfulness has

spanned across, expands across generations.

Why? Because Christ died 2000 years

ago. And yet the blood of that cross,

the blood of Christ shed on that cross has allowed you into the

family of God. He was faithful even to this

generation. Romans 58 says it so plainly.

You ready? But God demonstrates His own

love for us, and you could say His own faithfulness and His own

goodness in that whole sentence. But God demonstrates His own

love, his own faithfulness, his own goodness for us in this

colon you ready while we were still sinners, Christ did what

for us. Christ died for us.

I mean so so when you're wondering when the psalmist says

God is faithful and God is good and God is his love endures to

the end. When you when you read that it's

not just general statements that finds its truth and clearest

expression in the gospel message of the cross that God put on

display the proof of his love for you that while we were still

his enemies, Christ died for us. So what that means is our

greatest need. Our greatest need is not to

overcome the illness you're currently facing.

Our greatest need is not the financial troubles we're walking

through right now. Our greatest need is not the

health crisis we're dealing with right now.

Our greatest need is not the loss that we've endured.

No, our greatest need is to have our sins removed from us and to

be righteous before God, standing completely innocent

before Him. That is our greatest need.

And the cross of Jesus Christ through the bloodshed on that

cross, removes our sin guilt from us and makes us righteous

before God. That is your greatest need, and

that is my greatest need, our need for forgiveness.

I need to have my sins forgiven. That is the greatest need I

have, and that need has been met.

My deepest fear and your deepest fear.

Dying in our sins, having to answer for our sins, that has

been defeated. Our biggest problem, separation

from God, that has been solved forever on the cross.

And This is why, as a Christian, you can give thanks to God in

any and all circumstances. Because even when life is hard,

even when the circumstances are painful, God still has not

failed you. He still has not failed me.

Why? Because he's proven his

goodness. He's proven his love.

He's proven his faithfulness in the most decisive way possible.

By giving his Son for you on the cross, He's proved it.

That's why Thanksgiving nurtures contentment, because every time

you give thanks, you're reminding your heart of this

truth. You know what?

Give thanks to God. His love endures forever, His

faithfulness to all generations. God is good heart.

Remember that He proved it on the cross, that He met your

greatest need, that He paid for your sins, that God has been

faithful to you. My sins are forgiven.

My eternity is secure. And whatever happens next, I

belong to him. Do you see how that attitude and

that belief might stir in you? A content heart, a peaceful

heart, a confident heart that all is well, All is well.

Thanksgiving deepens contentment, and contentment

strengthens Thanksgiving. They feed on each other.

They circle with each other. The more thankful you are, the

more content you are. The more content you are, the

more thankful you are. And around and around and around

it goes. And if you sitting here today

and you're not content, start this way.

Start with a bang. The command to be thankful, give

thanks because that starts the process towards contentment.

It's funny to me because the Bible doesn't just teach this,

but modern psychologist and therapist had discovered this

truth that being a grateful and thankful person leads to better

mental health outcomes. They're working hard to discover

all the things that God has already given us.

Gratitude. Content.

People give things not because life is perfect, but because

they remember the cross and they know that in the cross God has

proven His goodness, His love, and His faithfulness.

So giving thanks, it's one of the ways that God grows and

protects your contentment. It's one of the ways it turns

our attention away from what we lack and back to what we can

never lose. God's love, God's goodness, His

enduring love, His unfailing faithfulness.

So let's zoom out. Let's look at the whole picture

of this whole series so far. Contentment begins when we

desire God above all else. That was the first week.

The second week was contentment grows as we depend on Christ's

strength. And this week contentment

becomes a way of life as you practice Thanksgiving to

practice it. So here's your challenge this

week. Every day, I want you to take

John's advice to wake up and let your first words uttered be

thank you. That's the first challenge.

Let the first words this week out of your mouth.

Well, it's Thanksgiving week. This shouldn't be hard to

remember. This week, every when you wake

up, if you need to put a big sign on your lamp or night stand

or something, say, say thank you.

Thank you, Lord. And then when you get your head

together, however many cups of coffee you have to have, I want

you to write three things that day that you're grateful for.

And it could be the cross, could be #1 every day this week, the

cross. And then two other things.

But I want you to write three things you're grateful for.

I want you to make this a habit. This week, it's Thanksgiving.

It'll be easy to remember. It could be friends, it could be

health, it could be family. Three things.

Just jot it down. Three things you're thankful for

every day. Name three things that you

genuinely, genuinely want to thank God for.

Because here's the thing. Your circumstances will not

change by you being thankful they won't.

Your circumstances will continue to be what they are.

But you know what will change? Your perspective of those

circumstances? Your heart towards those

circumstances. As you give things, you will

remember that you belong to God, that He has called you His own,

that your greatest need has already been met in Jesus, that

your shepherd holds your hand securely, and that you have a

home for all eternity in his pasture.

So be thankful, my brothers and sisters.

Thanksgiving is one of God's greatest gifts for nurturing and

protecting a content heart. Will you stand with me?

I'm going to say a benediction over us.

That you receive these words is my prayer for you.

You ready? May the Lord teach your heart to

give thanks in all things. As you practice Thanksgiving,

may the Spirit deepen your contentment, lift your eyes to

God's goodness, and remind you every day of His love shone for

you on the cross of Calvary. May His faithfulness steady you,

His grace carry you, and the joy of belonging to Him fill your

days with peace. So now, my brothers and sisters,

go in strength, the strength of Christ, who is always enough.

I love you, Amen. See you back here next week.

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