Choosing Thankfulness - Joel Schrock

Good morning. I also want to greet everyone in Jesus' name,

thank you for being here this morning, and thank you

for those thoughts. I think the spiritually lazy and what's

our responsibility does tie in a bit with what we're

going to talk about this morning. I'd like to talk

about something that's impressed me for some time, and it's

something that I think doesn't come naturally, certainly not always,

and that is thankfulness. And I guess for a title,

I'd like to think about choosing thankfulness, think about it

as a choice, not just a habit. We want to

cultivate a habit in our children say thank you. Somebody

gives you something, you say thank you, So that's important.

I believe that's important. But I'd especially like to focus

on choosing thankfulness or gratitude despite our predispositions, genetic makeup,

or life's circumstances, family situation, work, friends, to choose thankfulness.

There's a lot of reasons that we can come up

with not to be thankful, but I think we'll as

we look at this, and it actually says it in

a couple verses, that it is God's will that we

are thankful. We'll get to that later living in a

thankful way. It's not only the right thing to do,

but even secular studies at places like UCLA and Harvard,

and even the Time magazine, for whatever that's worth, have

determined that there are real life benefits to gratitude. They include,

according to some of these studies, improved physical health, better sleep,

decreased inflammation, improved relationships, reduced comparison, eased depression, and others.

So both physical mental, they're acknowledging those parts. And then

there's certainly the spiritual. So it turns out that God

has been right all along. For a long time, people

thought that our brains are wired a certain way and

you really can't change the wiring in your brain. But

more and more, and if we can think about I'm

not going to have a big science lesson here, but

the brain and the mind. The brain is the physical part,

it's actually a physical part of us, and our mind

is maybe more what goes on inside of us, sorry

consciousness and emotions and so forth. It turns out that

thankfulness is a choice, and it turns out that our brain,

the physical part of our brain, and actually be rewired

a by what happens in our mind. I don't know

if any of you've read the book Switch on Your Brain.

I did a while ago. It's been a while. Doctor

Caroline Leaf writes about a study in there that was

being discussed, and this study showed that thinking. So this

shows the positive and negative sides of this. This study

showed that thinking and feeling anger, fear, and frustration caused

DNA to change shape. DNA to change shape according to

thoughts and feelings. The DNA responded by tightening up and

becoming shorter, switching off many DNA codes, which reduced quality expression.

So we feel shut down by negative emotions and our

body feels this too. But here's the great part. The

negative shut down or poor quality of DNA codes was

reversed by feelings of love, joy, appreciation, and gratitude or thankfulness. Now,

I don't want to overly simplify things, and as was

mentioned this morning in devotions, I believe sickness. The inverse

is also true. What happens to our brain can affect

our mind. But I like to focus on on our

part with thankfulness this morning. So there are a couple

verses in the New Testament before we This is maybe

a little bit of an introduction still to the thankfulness

a couple verses that talk about the renewing of the mind.

So you can turn to these if you want, but

we're going to kind of just jump through a couple

verses here. Romans twelve, verse two, familiar verse. Romans twelve,

verse two says, and be not conformed to this world,

but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that

you may prove what is that good and acceptable and

perfect will of God. So notice here you are transformed

by the renewing of your mind. That's a pretty big deal.

And I believe this means spiritually, mentally, and even physically.

Here again, don't want to get off into some ditch

that thinks that you know, we won't have any sicknesses

or diseases because of this. We live in a fall

and broken world. And so that's the reality. But what

goes on in the mind physically affects the brain. Ephesians four,

verse twenty two, Verses twenty two through twenty four, that

you put off concerning the former conversation the old man,

which is crept according to the deceitful us, and be

renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you

put on the new Man, which after God has created

in righteousness and true holiness. Here the old man to

the new man. How does that happen? The renewing of

the mind Verse twenty three, be renewed in the spirit

of your mind. So I believe that a renewed mind

is extremely important, and sometime that'd probably be worth entire

discussion or message. But as I said, I'd like to

focus on how that relates to thankfulness. So there's an

old Greek myth. Now I'll give a disclaimer at the beginning.

Greek myths. Old Greek myths generally include Greek gods and

fantastical creatures which we know don't exist. Not going to

have a lot of detail here, but it's a story

that I believe talks about the human condition as it

relates to things and people and thankfulness. So there was

a wealthy king, an Asia minor, and this wealthy king,

as all wealthy kings, this is sort of what made

them wealthy. He had large amounts of gold, and he

reveled in this gold. He enjoyed this gold, he counted

his goal like the miser he was. In fact, sometimes

if he needed to feel the you know, really feel wealthy,

he would cover himself in the gold. He was obsessed

with gold. Now, for all this, he did have a

soft spot for at least one other thing in the world,

and that was his daughter. His daughter was his pride

and joy. Now, in the course of time and different events,

there was a Greek god that owed him him a

favor because of hospitality that he had shown. And the

king could have one wish, but only one wish, and

he was advised to think carefully about this one wish.

But he didn't have to think carefully. He didn't have

to ask advice because he knew right away what he wanted,

and that was more gold. So his request, with clearly

no downsides, was that everything that he touches would turned

to gold, and this was to take effect the next morning.

So he went to bed happily dreaming about a world

full of gold. And he woke up in the morning early.

The sun was just coming in his window, and he

was excited to see what would happen. So he reaches

out and he touches his nightstand. Boom turned to gold.

He was elated. He jumped out of bed with his

robe on, and he ran from room to room touching

dinner tables and bookshelves and bathtubs and everything turned into gold.

And finally, out of exhaustion and delight, he sunk down

into his chair, which also turned to gold, and he

called for his servant. He was ready for breakfast, and

as he was waiting, he noticed there were some roses

that were picked from the garden outside. So he reaches over. He's,

you know, just having a good morning. He could have

a good whiff of rose, you know. So he picks

up the rose, shuts his eyes and breathes deeply, and

just smelled something sort of metallic, and he looks in

the rose. It turned to gold and there was no

deep aroma. Well, he thought, uh, you know, a little wistful.

Wistfully thought. He guessed he would have to enjoy roses

without the convenience of touching them in the future. But

that's fine, that's a small cross to bear here. So

he got his plate of food and he absent mindedly

picked up a grape, which immediately turned to gold. Now

he was a little more concerned, and he grabs a

piece of bread, which also turned to gold. Well, at

least he could drink some water, So he picks up

his water cup and the cup turned to gold, got

it to his lips and the water turned to gold.

And now he was quite alarmed, even frightened. And about

that time his daughter comes running in the room to

tell him something, and he reaches down to give her hug,

and she turned into a statue of gold. So, now,

as you can imagine, the king's heart was broken, and

he was panicked, and he begged forgiveness and freedom from

his wish that turned out to be a curse. He

was told to go to the river and wash himself,

cleanse himself. He's put his hands in the river, gold

flowed out of his fingers till it was gone. Now,

the things he touched that turned to gold and immediately

turned back to normal. He had to go back and

put some effort in and touch them again. But he

was so delighted to have his daughter back, to be

able to eat food and smell roses, that he determined

to share what gold he did have he already had

and enjoy what's truly valuable in life. Now, again that's

an old Greek myth, but there's a few lessons to

be learned here. I think, certainly the lesson of thankfulness

and contentment. This man of all men had everything he

could dream of, he could hope for. He had a kingdom,

a beautiful family, a palace, beauty all around him, good food,

and plenty of gold. But even though he had everything

he could reasonably wish or hope for, he wasn't thankful

and contented when given the opportunity for more, and his

lack of living in gratitude led him to a place

of hopelessness and despair. True gratitude, including giving what he had,

was what led this man out of that misery. Now,

going to the Bible, you can turn to Genesis three

if you want, Riada throw a few verses from here. Now.

I used to think that the original sin of man

was pride, and I think that that's true to a

lot of to a great extent, and that the sin

of Lucifer was pride. He rose up and he wanted

to be God. You know, he couldn't. So we talk

about that for just a minute here before this, before

chapter three, Lucifer was a beautiful angel. He was maybe

the most beautiful, glorious, magnificent angel. But that wasn't enough.

The only thing more he could ask for was to

be God, and that was what and that led to

his rebellion. And now he was targeting the image of God.

Adam and Eve were created an image of God. So

Genesis three, going to read the first few verses here

one through six. Now the serpent was more subtle than

any beast of the field which the Lord God had made.

And he said, unto the woman, yea have God said,

ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden.

And the woman said, unto the serpent, we may eat

of the fruit of the trees of the garden. But

of the fruit of the tree which is in the

midst of the garden. God hath said, ye shall not

eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die.

And the serpent said to the woman, ye shall not

surely die, For God doth know that in the day

ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be open, and

ye shall be as God's knowing good and evil. And

when the woman saw that the tree, so look at

the list of things she saw. She saw the tree

was good for food, It was pleasant to the eyes,

and a tree to be desired to make one. Why

she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and

gave also under a husband with her, and he did eat.

So certainly pride was was involved here. I believe, like

so many things, there's a lot of things connected and

involved Eve, and this is this is maybe the true

story of the of the myth. We talked about Eve,

who's the ancestor of us all Adam and Eve, who

we can we can we can relate to and understand

because that's who we are. She lived in paradise. Eve

lived in paradise. Eve had a personal friendship with the

creator of the universe. Talks about God, the voice of

God coming in the coup of the day to talk

to Adam and Eve. It's a relationship that very few

people had. She was the wife of the only perfect

husband that ever existed. It might be a couple close

ones after, but no perfect one. The garden was beautiful.

There were no thorns, there were no thistles. There was

abundant food, and it was good food. There was no death,

there was no suffering. I believe there was no fear.

But in this moment, with the prospect of something else,

Eve was not truly thankful. She was not contempted. So

imagine if instead of taking the fruit that was forbidden,

she would have in gratitude thank God for everything she

did have, and how that story would be different. Now,

the next book of the Bible, Exodus, contains an amazing

account Exodus in the following chapters of kind of the

negative side of thankfulness again the children of Israel. And

this is interesting because the main theme of this story,

I believe is redemption. You have the children of Israel

in bondage, being delivered, redeemed and going to the Promised Land.

And these people had a very very difficult time living

in gratitude and with gratitude and thankfulness. I'm just gonna

touch on a couple stories really quickly. We're just gonna

kind of hit a couple as you go through. There's

more than this. But even before this impressed me recently,

even before their deliverance from Egypt, the children of Israel

were coming to Moses and complaining and murmuring about things,

and kind of understandably so if you look at what

was going on, so you know, Moses asked to be

able to go to the wilderness to worship with all

the children of Israel, and it was a lot of people,

you know, thought to be up to a couple million,

six hundred thousand footmen plus women and children, so a

lot of people. And Pharaoh says, you're asking these things

because you don't have enough to do. So I'm gonna

stop providing you straw for your bricks. You have to

gather that yourself make the same amount of bricks as before.

And the children of Israel came to Moses and said,

you have made our savor to be abhorred in the

eyes of Pharaoh and in the eyes of his servants,

to put his sword in their hand to slay us.

And they were in a real predicament. But notice this pattern,

and we'll get to this later. Requests of God are

not wrong, but we will find that in the New

Testament the requests are to be made with thankfulness, not murmuring,

not chiding, not complaining. God did respond by sending the

plagues and delivering the children of Israel. Then Pharoh corners

them at the Red Sea. Here's what they said to

Moses right after their deliverance. Right after the plagues. They

said to Moses, because there were no graves in Egypt.

This is chapter fourteen, verse eleven. Because there were no

graves in Egypt, hast thou taken us away to die

in the wilderness. Wherefore hast thou dealt with us to

carry us forth out of Egypt? Why did you deliver

us from our bondage? And then the God miraculously opens

up the sea they walk through in three days journey

from the Red Sea. The water they have is bitter,

and they say in chapter fifteen, verse twenty four, and

the people murmured against Smoses, saying, what shall we drink?

God healed that bitter water. And then in chapter sixteen,

there's no food. We're hungry. And these are all legitimate

requests done in the wrong way. Chapter sixteen verses I

believe it's two and three. I have it written down here. Ah.

And the whole congregation of Israel murmured against Moses and

Aaron in the wilderness and listened to what they say.

And this is kind of a theme. Here would to God,

we had died by the hand of the Lord in

the land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots,

and when we did eat bread to the full. For

we have brought us forth into this wilderness to kill

this whole assembly with hunger. They murmured and said we'd

have been better off while we were full, while we

had enough to eat, if the Lord would have just

killed us in Egypt. And the Lord provided a significant

ongoing miracle of manna, enough to eat for years decades,

And not long after that, all the congregation of the

children of Israel journey from the wilderness of sin after

the journeys according to the commandment of the Lord and

pitched in rough for him, and there was no water

for the people to dream. Wherefore the people did chide

with Moses and said, give us water that we may drink.

And Moses said, unto them, why chide ye with me?

Wherefore do ye tempt the Lord? And the people thirsted

there for water, and they murmured against Moses and said,

wherefore is this that thou hast brought us up out

of Egypt? Why did you deliver us from bondage to

kill us and our children? And are cattle with thirst?

And again long suffering? As ever, the Lord provided water

from Irock. Eventually they get to Mount Sinai, and God

showed them his glory, and God gave the commandments, and

God gave his chapter after chapter after chapter of instructions

for the children of Israel, And I'd like to look

just a little bit at number eleven. This comes right,

as far as I can tell, Numbers eleven happens basically

right after the experience at Mount Sinai, when all the

children of Israel witnessed the glory of God and after

all the miracles that God had done. This is they're

getting fed by manna. They have enough, their shoes aren't

wearing out right that they have the necessities. Not only

did they see God's glory, they had a continual reminder,

now fire by day, cloud by night, leading them. They

had their needs taken care of. Numbers eleven. Going to

read the first six verses and then comment on some

of the rest OF's story. And when the people complained,

and as far as I can tell, I don't know

why they complain, but they complained. It displeased the Lord.

And the Lord heard it, and his anger was kindled,

and the fire of the Lord burnt among them and

consumed them that were in the uttermost parts of the camp.

And the people cried unto Moses, and Moses prayed unto

the Lord, and the fire was quenched, and he called

the name of the place Taborah because the fire of

the Lord burnt among them three day, three days journey

from Mount Sinai. The people complained, why, we don't know.

But what we do know is that somehow this people,

even though they saw the glory of God, were delivered

from their oppressors and had everything they needed, complained when

they found themselves wondering in the desert. Now back, start

reading in verse four. Right after this, right after some

of them got consumed by fire because of complaining verse four,

and the mixed multitude that was among them fell alive.

And the children of Israel also wept again and said,

who shall give us flesh to eat? We remember the

fish which we did eat in Egypt freely, the cucumbers

and the melons, and the leaks, and the onions and

the garlic. But now our soul has dried away. There's

nothing at all beside this manna before our eyes. So

couple things in this story and it goes on here.

This is the beginning of when God sends a tremendous

amount of quail. So notice in verse four that there

was a mixed multitude. And this turned out to be

a problem, I believe, when all the God showed his

power in Egypt. People beside the Israelites came along with them,

probably some Egyptians, some other people. I don't know who

all they were, but perhaps they weren't part of an

entire group of slaves like the children of Israel, and

perhaps they weren't delivered in the same manner as a

Children of Israel in that sense. Whatever the case, the

Israelites let this worldly influence help them in their journey

of unthankfulness. But it's important to note that we could

say this was this was one more thing that predisposition

their unthankfulness, let's say, but it was still their choice.

It says the mixed multitude fell a lusting and the

children of Israel also is their choice. They chose the

children of Israel, as is mentioned, at everything they needed

to live, plenty of food, but they were tired of

a lack of diversity in their diet. And we could all,

you know, we could all sort of imagine that no meat,

no vegetables. No, some people woun't mind the vegetables, but

they said, we remember the fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, garlics.

They said, our soul is dried away. Was it really

dried away like they they could. They had enough food,

they really did, and it said that. They said, so

think about this. There is nothing here except manna. There's

nothing here except the most amazing miracle of food ever

in the world, right, nothing besides that. And this is

one of the few times where it seems that Moses

would have just been willing to get rid of this problem.

He stood, he stood in the gap, let's say, many times.

But he he said to the Lord, you know in

in Let's see here, He said, wherefore hast thou afflicted

thy servant? He goes on for five verses and says,

you know, are these my children that you're making me

take them? He says, I am not able to bear

this people alone because it is too heavy for me.

And if thou deal thus with me, kill thee. I

pray thee out of hand, if I have found favor

in thy sight, and let me not see my wretchedness.

The Lord didn't really address that nonsense, as far as

I can tell, but he did say, Moses, gather seventy elders,

and we're gonna have a top because Lord is angry

as well. Because and we'll see why here he said.

God said I'm going to send so much meat that

you will not eat it one day, ten days, twenty days.

You will eat it an entire month until in verse

twenty of this chapter, he says, but even a whole month,

until it come out of your nostrils, and it be

loathsome unto you, because that ye have despised the Lord

which is among you, and have wept before him, saying

why came we fourth out of Egypt? Why did you

deliver us from our bondage? Or at least we had

some variety in our diet. And Moses replies, saying, God,

you know there's like six hundred thousand men, close, women

and children here right. Are you gonna kill all the herds?

Are you gonna drain the sea of the fish? What

are you gonna do? And the Lord says is the

Lord's hand waxed short, and he sent a wind, And

there was so much quail that came. It says that

it was a day's journey on every camp, on every side.

Now it says they came around the camp. I don't

know if that means all through the camp, if it

means around the perimeter of the camp. Whatever the case,

there was a lot of quail around a day's journey

each way, which for a large group of people could

be ten miles, but a day's journey could be anywhere

from fifteen to twenty five as I understand. But even

ten miles, that's a significant distance. Says as it were

two cubits high on the face of the earth, So

that's depending on the cubit, but roughly three feet. Everyone

gathered for a day, for a night and another day,

and the least person that gathered the least gathered ten homers.

And as I understand it, a homer is basically what

you would put on a donkey load, right, so load

up ten donkeys. That was the weakest person. You know,

millions If you do the math, it's millions of donkey

loads of quail. But notice what we do not see

the children of Israel doing, unless I missed it, we

don't see them giving thanks for God giving them more

than what they needed and deserved. They should have fallen

on their faces and thank God for his infinite power,

wisdom and kindness, because the next thing we know, they're

eating and the Lord is angry with them, and he

punished them while they were god going eating good they complained,

they got what they wanted, and they went right into it.

God was unhappy. Few lessons from the story. Believe that

when we see the glory of God, When we experience

the glory of God, there is a greater responsibility on

us to live in gratitude. Another thing I think we

could learn here is do not let do not allow

the influence of the world to taint our thankfulness. When

we have our basic needs supplied, we should certainly love

and thankfulness. And when God gives us more than we deserve,

we should fall on our knees in gratitude. There's a

lot of grumbling in the wilderness. C. S. Lewis said

this about grumbling. Hell begins with a grumbling mood, always complaining,

always blaming others. But you are still distinct from it.

You may even criticize it in yourself and wish you

could stop it. But there may come a day when

you can no longer. Then there will be no U

left to criticize the mood or even enjoy it, but

just the grumble itself, going on forever like a machine.

It's not a question of God sending us to Hell.

In each of us there is something growing which will

be hell unless it is nipped in the bud. And

I know he's taught. He wrote about that in different places,

that that it's not a matter so much of God's

sending us somewhere. It's a matter of if we chose,

if we chose to separate ourselves, why would God force

us into his presence? So what does the New Testament

have to say? Again, We're just going to jump through

a few verses. You can turn to them if you want,

but I'm going to go through them fairly rapidly. In

what circumstances should we be thankful? First? Thessalonians five verse eighteen,

familiar verse says in everything, and I believe some translation

says would say in all circumstances, in everything, give thanks

four as I mentioned earlier, for this is the will

of God in Christ Jesus concerning you, It's the will

of God in everything, no matter what we're facing in life,

no matter what our circumstances are, no matter and I

mentioned this before, our genetic makeup, our family situation, any

of those things, whatever circumstance we find ourselves in, give thanks,

live with gratitude. Philippians four, verse six says be careful

for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving,

let your requests be made known unto God. Here again

we have in everything. But notice this. Do you notice

how the children of Israel worked out supplication of God.

It was by murmuring and chiding and complaining and grumbling

most of the time in the wilderness. This says, in everything,

by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your request be

made known unto God. That is how we let our

requests be made known unto God with thanksgiving. How often

should we give thanks? And for what should we give thanks?

Hijians five, verse twenty, giving thanks always for all things

unto God and the Father, in the name of our

Lord Jesus Christ. And if you back up to verse seventeen,

it says, understanding what the will of the Lord is,

and this is part of that whole list. It is

the will of God that we are thankful. Now I

can kind of make sense out of in all things,

in every circumstance, give things, give things always for all things.

Is a little harder for me to wrap my mind around.

What does that mean for all things? One thing I

read that struck a chord with me is always be

thankful to God for blessings both visible and invisible. So

when we face death, disease, hardships, a budget that won't balance,

there are still invisible blessings that we cannot see in

the moment that we continue to need to give thanks for.

The Apostle Paul wrote many of his admonitions from a

prison cell. There's always a reason to be thankful. There

is always something to give thanks for to whom should

we give our thanks Classians three seventeen. And whatsoever you

do in word or deed, do all in the name

of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the

Father by Him, everything we do and say in the

name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks. Now, whatever all

of this means and doesn't mean, I believe that giving

of thanks should not just become a habit and something

we do, but a way of life and who we are.

Many more verses we could look at, but I'd like

to leave you with this verse two Timothy one, verse seven.

For God hath not given us a spirit of fear,

And Harlem talked about fear this morning, the spirit of fear,

but of power and of love, and of a sound mind.

Now what does that have to do with thankfulness. What

is a sound mind anyway? Well, couple simple definitions. A

sound mind is mentally healthy. But I'd like to think

this one here. I'd like to think on this a

little bit. Sufficient mental capacity to understand one's actions. So

I bring this up to reinforce that thankfulness is a choice.

We have the power of a sound mind enough that

we have the mental capacity to understand the choices that

we make the choice of thankfulness and what it does,

what that does, and what the opposite does. It's an action,

It's something that happens in our mind that is so

powerful that it can change the physical. So again, the

challenge I would leave with you is, let's live our

lives in a way that thanksgiving, gratitude is just a

part of who we are. Thank you. Let's have a