A Spirit of Thankfulness – Part 1: Thankfulness is a Tool

God, we are very humbled to come before you this morning.

With the ability to be able to worship.

And Lord, we're not ignorant or numb to the fact that whenever we come, there are many

things in our lives that we're dealing with that are difficult and painful and overwhelming.

And so Jesus, we come to you this morning and we lift up Miss Jean to you.

Father, you know the headaches that she's been having and the pain that she's endured over several days.

And so Father God, we pray that you would touch her.

And this morning, we anoint her in the name of God the Father, who created her,

and formed her in her mother's womb, who knew her long before her parents ever knew that she would exist.

And God, you made her in your image to bear your name and to be your witness.

We also anoint her in the name of Jesus Christ, your one and only Son, who died on the cross for her sins.

And many years ago, cleansed her heart and healed her spiritually.

And that's an even greater miracle than the physical healing that she's asking for today.

To be born again is so much more difficult than asking for headaches to be taken away.

We anoint her in the name of the Holy Spirit, who you have sent to dwell in our hearts and in our lives and to work and move within us.

And we pray that you would send your spirit to her now.

And that God, it would remove the headaches and the pain from her.

And Lord, this morning, as these women have come in faith to pray, and we have all gathered in your house,

I pray that your Holy Spirit would be present and powerful in this place.

That God, we would surrender to you and surrender to the leading of that spirit.

Father, we are in debt to the price that you paid for us long ago through your son.

And we pray that all that we do and say would be pleasing and honoring to you.

And that in these moments when we pray and we sing and we break up in your word, Lord, that you would see our hearts

and you would honor our worship and help us to grow and mature in our faith with you this morning.

Father God, we love you and we thank you and we ask this all in Jesus' precious holy name, all God's people said.

Amen.

Thank you.

Psalm chapter 50, verses 14 through 15.

Psalms 50:14–15

The Psalmist received a message from the Lord and he wrote,

Make thankfulness your sacrifice to God and keep the vows you made to the Most High.

Then call on me when you are in trouble and I will rescue you and you will give me glory.

Now, I've been pastor for seven years now and I don't think I've preached the message centered around Thanksgiving yet,

so I figured it was about time.

And I do want us to recognize that thankfulness is something that every follower of Jesus Christ is called to have in our lives

is a spirit and a heart of thankfulness.

It's a sacrifice, it's praise, it's an essential tool for all believers to use as we worship God and as we grow in our relationships with Him.

And this morning, that's what I want to talk to you about, is how thankfulness is a tool.

I brought a couple of tools this morning and I figured since it's been World Series time and it just ended last night,

I'd bring a couple of things to maybe reach a few different people.

So if you play ball and you know, this is a tool.

Now, some of you may say, no, that's a glove, it's a plaything, but if you play ball, you know it's a tool.

And if you're serious about it, you're willing to spend a lot of money on it.

I think I paid about $150 for this glove like 25 years ago.

And because I paid $150 for it 25 years ago, it's still good I could go out and play a game with it today.

You take care of it, you wear it, you use it so much that it becomes a part of who you are.

So that in the moment, whenever you have to use it, it becomes a natural reaction

and it's not something that you necessarily think about or you have to contemplate how to use it.

It is just part of who you are. It's an extension of who you are, that's what it becomes.

And that's what tools are meant to do. So if you don't use them that much,

then they don't become an extension of who you are and you're not very confident with them.

So for those of you who may not be in sports, I love tools and I love to build things and work on things.

And so this is one of my favorite hammers and I keep this in my carpentry box whenever we go work on stuff.

This is one of my favorite hammers to take because I like it, it's a good weight, good size, and it's a good hammer.

But also it's different, it's different than most hammers people have.

Most of you have probably never heard of a Vaughn hammer before, that's what this is.

It's a really good hammer. And I keep this with me because I know it's mine, most people don't have one.

But also I've used it enough that I feel very comfortable with it.

And as a builder, if you use a hammer, you will know like there are some people who can swing a hammer,

about anybody can drive a nail. I also have a friend who was of athletic caliber to play professional sports.

And I've had him come and work with me on some stuff, he couldn't drive a nail to save his life.

And so you can have the best hand-eye coordination in the world, but if you have never used one and you're not practiced with it,

you cannot do it. It's something that it becomes part of who you are.

And when we talk about thankfulness this morning, I'm not going to keep the hammer, I wave it at you.

That's kind of intimidating. I'll put it up for I hurt something or myself.

But as we talk about thankfulness this morning, I think it's really important that we do look at our relationship

with God from a practical standpoint sometimes.

I talk a lot because I think it's very important that the work that God does within our hearts and in our lives is huge.

We always talk about what God's doing on the inside, but also when it comes to pursuing the Lord,

there's a lot of practical things that come into play that we as Christians can use for our benefit and our relationship with God.

And thankfulness is one of those tools that God has given us to use.

When you look at the religious leaders during Jesus' time in the Gospels,

it is said over and over again, they put their faith in the law.

They put their faith in the traditions of the people who came before them and not put their faith in the Messiah.

Now, that was a fault to their own.

But when you look at God's Word, if you simply live according to the laws of God,

there are physical blessings that come with that, right?

There are.

Even if you said, I don't believe in Jesus, but I'm going to live according to the law of God,

there are blessings that come with that.

There are promises that come with that.

And there's a reason why God gave it to the people.

And so as believers this morning, it is so important for the work that God does in your heart and your life to be real and legitimate.

But even in the midst of our walks with Christ, we have to be very careful not to be caught up in putting ourselves in situations and circumstances

where we feel like God is moving in a powerful way.

And there's goosebumps and we feel great and we just feel so energized whenever we leave a worship service or a Bible study

or we listen to the song on the radio that it's not always this how we feel,

but there are some very applicable things we can do in our relationships with God to help us grow.

Thankfulness is one of those tools that God has given us to help us grow in our relationship with Him.

And that's what we're talking about today.

Point number one is thankfulness is a form of faith.

Thankfulness is a form of faith.

This is a practical way that you can exercise your faith in the God that you claim to believe in.

Now, let's be honest.

Most of us in our lives are not particularly 100 percent satisfied with everything that's going on right now.

Let's be honest this morning.

Raise your hand. Okay, participate.

How many of you can think of at least one thing in your life right now that you're not particularly satisfied with that you would like to change or something to be done about it?

Okay, everybody in the room.

And it does not mean that you're not a Christian.

It does not mean that Christ has not worked and moved in your life.

It does not mean that God is not working and moving in your life.

But from a typical just practical standpoint, we are very rarely in a situation where we are 100 percent satisfied with everything that's going on in this physical world.

We live in an imperfect world.

Therefore, our lives are going to be imperfect and we are going to deal with situations that are going to be less desirable constantly throughout our journey on this physical earth.

You got that?

Faith is represented well by thankfulness.

And this morning you are called by faith to be thankful and give thanks to our God who has saved us and paid a very high price for us.

And it takes a great deal of faith to begin praying and to say prayers of thankfulness to God when things are less desirable.

Okay, so you have been called to be thankful for the here and now.

And there are things that are not what they should be.

And yet we are still called to be thankful.

And how do we deal with that?

Well, in 1 Timothy chapter 4 verses 4 through 5, Paul wrote to Timothy.

1 Timothy 4:4–5

Timothy's young.

He's leading a church.

And there's a lot of issues that are going on with his people and Paul's just giving him directions and various things.

Verse 4 through 5 he says, since everything God created is good, we should not reject any of it but receive it with thanks.

For we know it is made acceptable by the word of God and prayer.

So there will be things in our life that come about that may not be desirable.

It may not be something that we welcome in.

It may not be something that we would choose.

But in the midst of life, in the midst of our walks with God, we are called to be thankful.

It is a tool that you are called to pick up and to use and to exercise with to the point where it becomes part of who we are as his children.

And I want to give you this disclaimer this morning that it is okay to identify things in your life that you're not happy with or satisfied with or stuff that is bothering you that you would like to change.

But we have to be very careful because when you look at the rest of the world, people of the world look at and focus on the things that are less than desirable things that they want to change.

That's what they focus on.

The old saying the squeaky wheel gets the grease.

It happens for Christians too.

And everything in our life that squeaks, that's what we want to listen to.

That's what we pay attention to.

That's what we want to put the grease on.

But as Christians, we're called to be different from the world.

We're called to be thankful.

There will be squeaky wheels.

And yes, they're annoying and they need to be dealt with.

But we are called first and foremost to be thankful for what God has done in order to practice so that we can be thankful for what God has done.

What God is going to do in the future.

This is why it's a tool of faith because you're thankful for what God has done.

You believe God has worked and moved in certain ways and you're thankful now and therefore you will be able to be thankful in the future.

Let's be honest.

If you cannot be thankful for what God has done now, even though things are less than there's something over here that's less desirable.

If you can't be thankful now, what makes you think if God did work and move in this situation that you would be thankful then?

Because guess what's going to happen?

As soon as this gets resolved, as soon as God works and moves in this area,

there's going to be something around the corner that's going to be the next squeak.

As soon as God works and moves in your life and he removes sin in your life and he's working in you,

Satan's going to come and tempt you and test you in other ways.

There will always be something around the corner.

When we talk about exercising this tool of thankfulness in our lives,

it's so important to be thankful in the present so that we are able to be thankful in the future

and not only to be thankful in the present but to go ahead and begin to thank God for what he's going to do in this situation

to show that you're ready to receive that and then continue to give thankfulness to him in the future as we go forward.

If we cannot be thankful with what God has done, we're never going to be thankful for what he's going to do.

This is a tool that we have to learn how to use, a tool that we have to learn how to exercise with and become a part of who we are.

Guys, I just want to share with you today, being thankful in all circumstances is one of the rawest forms of faith that you can have as a believer.

When you sit here this morning and we talk about being a Christian and being saved,

it is through faith alone that we are saved.

There's nothing that we can do. There's nothing that we can pay. There's nothing that we can earn in order to be saved.

It is through faith and faith alone and thankfulness is one of the rawest forms of faith.

And as we exercise that to our Heavenly Father, we give him thanks and we give him praise for what he's done.

It opens up the door. It opens up the floodgates to be thankful for more things in the future.

So point number two, thankfulness enables us to worship.

You all came this morning. I don't know why you came, but I hope it's because you come to worship.

And let's be honest again, you and I cannot worship a God that we're not thankful to.

If we are focused on the shortcomings of life and the things that are less than desirable in life,

chances are we are going to be resentful.

And if we're not being thankful to God, if we're not putting that into practice,

and if we're resentful to God, you cannot worship someone that you're resentful to.

You can't love someone that you're resentful to. You can't care for them.

You cannot worship a God that you're resentful to.

But thankfulness opens up the door in the ability for us to be able to gather together and to worship.

If there is no thanks in our life Monday through Saturday, worship will not happen on Sunday.

There has to be an attitude of thankfulness because it opens up the door for us to have access to God.

Now, in Psalm 50, verse 23, this is another Psalm that God has given to whoever wrote it.

Psalms 50:23

And this is the Lord speaking through him.

So this is actually God saying this.

So look at verse 23, it says,

But giving thanks is a sacrifice that truly honors me.

If you keep to my path, I will reveal to you the salvation of God.

Giving thanks opens up the door.

It clears the pathway for us to have access to God.

Now, I want you to think about this today.

I have three kids. I talk about them a lot.

I'll talk about them until they get old enough to know I probably shouldn't talk about them.

Then I'm going to have to stop one day.

But we have three kids, six, four, and two.

And we're in this stage of life where they are regularly telling us what they want and what they need,

which is good. We've taught them to do that.

That can get really annoying, especially when there's three.

And as they're telling us what they want and they need,

very rarely do they ever genuinely without prompting express thanks or gratitude for the things that we do for them.

But when they do, it's like, oh, that's really cool.

We are making a little bit of progress. It's very thin. It's very far in between, but maybe we're making progress.

So if you're young this morning, teenager or whatever, think about this as you deal with your parents.

Your parents are used to you coming up and telling them what you want and what you need, which you should.

You should have that relationship.

But also express gratitude without being asked to acknowledge what they do because it means a great deal.

And if it means a great deal for us as earthly parents, for our kids to just every once in a while say thank you,

to just simply say thank you without being prompted or show appreciation or gratitude in some way,

how much more do you think it means to our Heavenly Father when we have this attitude of thankfulness in our life to thank Him

and to give Him praise for what He has done rather than just constantly coming to Him and saying, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme.

It's a totally different approach, and it means a great deal.

And this is one of the reasons why in Scripture you see so many passages commanding,

calling God's people to come before Him with praise and thanksgiving.

As I was researching passages of Scripture for this series, it was not a matter of trying to dig up passages of Scripture that I could apply to this.

It was a matter of sifting through hundreds of passages that deal with giving thanks

and being thankful that I had to eliminate because there were so many good ones.

And so you have Psalm 100, verse 4. This is one of probably the most prevalent passages we use.

Psalms 100:4

But the psalmist wrote, enter His gates with thanksgiving, go into His courts with praise,

give thanks to Him and praise His name.

As we approach God, one of the greatest callens we have in our life is to first and foremost bring thanks and to bring praise to Him.

This is a tool. It is an act of worship. And yes, it is a matter of the heart because there needs to be something done within you

to kind of like realize, like, I need to be thankful. I need to give thanks to God.

But if this is not something that you put into practice, it's not something that you're going to do.

Like, anybody can pick up a hammer and swing it and eventually you might bend that nail over 50 times and you might get it driven in.

But very few people can actually pick up a hammer and then one to two strokes get the nail in without a problem

and move on without even thinking about it. Thanks should not be something that we have to think about.

It should be something that is just part of who we are. It's an extension of who we are.

But you got to put it into practice before it becomes part of who you are.

Does that make sense? Practical.

Point three, thankfulness removes a burden of responsibility.

Now, this is something for me as a Christian.

I had to really God really had to open up my eyes in this early on, you know, one of the things that I was I was raised to do from my parents and from coaches

and things like that is is don't make excuses, take responsibility.

It was one of those things. It's like it does not matter what happens.

It does not matter if you're late. Me and Brandon talk all the time about the train got me.

You know, like we always say if we're late, the train came across, I couldn't get across.

Like it doesn't matter. Like it does not matter what the reason is.

It doesn't matter if there's a 50 car pile up in the interstates on fire to take this drastic responsibility.

We always say I'm in charge and I'm responsible no matter what.

If I didn't make it or if I didn't do it, it's my fault.

And as people, we can fall into that trap from a spiritual sense as well.

And I think it's good for us to take responsibility.

But there comes a certain point in our life where we realize as believers, there are some things that come into our life that we did not do.

Now, there's a lot of times we make decisions.

We commit sins and there are consequences from those things.

But can we also be honest to say there are some people out there who's done a lot dumber things than you've done and they didn't suffer as much whenever you did something.

It's like so we just don't know like we don't know what's going to happen.

And there are things that God ordains for our life at certain times.

There are seasons of our life that God ordains that we are going to endure.

And we're going to have to walk through and you may have made some bad decisions.

You may not.

And the greatest example of that in Scripture is Job.

Job literally loses everything because Satan and God are having this battle of whether or not Job is going to be faithful.

And so God allows him to be tested and Job did nothing.

And everybody who comes in Job's life says, you must have done something.

I didn't do anything.

Well, you must have. Admit that you've sinned. Admit that you do this.

Even his own wife is saying just curse God and die.

You had to do something to curse God and die. I didn't do anything.

There are things and times in our life where God just brings stuff into our life that we are ordained to deal with and walk through.

And when we are thankful and when we have this attitude of thankfulness and it becomes part of who we are,

it removes the burden of responsibility in your life that you are the one who's supposed to pull yourself up by the straps

and work your way out of the situation. Because let's be honest, there's a lot of things in life that we literally have no control over.

Like when it comes to health, when it comes to so many different aspects, so many different things in life, relationships,

there are so many things that we just cannot control. We can't force it. We can't make it happen.

And if God doesn't work and move, it's not going to.

And so for us as believers this morning to have thankfulness in our lives and to say God,

I thank you for what you've done and I'm going to thank you for what you can do because I believe that you can do it.

It removes that burden of responsibility that we have in our lives.

Like I've got to do something about this and it takes that off of you.

It takes that weight off of us and allows God to be God and do what only he can do and to put our trust and faith truly in him.

That's important.

And that puts us into position to allow God to do what only he can do, to have trust and faith in him.

It's a great leap of faith and worship to do that.

And in this life, guys, as we approach God and as we move throughout this physical world,

there's probably some specific prayers that we need to be praying, especially for younger people.

One of the biggest issues that younger people are dealing with is just being satisfied with who they are.

And so just the simple prayer of God, I'm thankful for who I am.

Thank you for creating me to be me.

Just being thankful for you because it doesn't mean that you're perfect.

We've all fallen short of the glory of God.

It's not that we're any better than anyone else, but God has created you to be specifically you.

He lovingly forms you and wove you together in your mother's womb.

You are made in his image and we should be thankful for that.

To say, God, I'm thankful for what I have.

And you may not have every single thing that you need, but you can say, God, I'm thankful for what I have.

I'm thankful for what you've given me because I know you've provided these things.

I know you can provide the other things that I'm in need of.

To say, God, I'm thankful for who you've put in my life.

The people in your life may not be perfect.

They may not be exactly what you think that they should be.

But for whatever reason, God has ordained them to be in your life in this moment and in this season.

And one reason may be so that they can reveal to you the spiritual inadequacies in your life

to help you love them the way that you're supposed to love other people.

And the other thing is, is that they may be that annoying.

And God may have put them in your life so that you can show them love because they need someone to love them.

To be thankful for the people who are in your life.

God, I'm thankful for what you've done in me.

I'm thankful that you saved me.

I'm thankful that you rescued me, that you pulled me up out of my sin and out of my shame.

But there's still work to do.

It's not that the work's done, you're just thankful for what he's done so you can be thankful for what he's going to do.

And to sit down and pray.

And when you pray, say, God, I'm thankful for all this, but I'm thankful for what you haven't done.

Because I believe in you.

I trust in you.

I know that you are going to do more.

In Colossians chapter 3, verses 16 through 17,

Colossians 3:16–17

says, let the message about Christ and all its richness fill your lives.

Teach and counsel each other with all the wisdom he gives.

Sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God with thankful hearts.

And whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.

Everything that we are called to do as believers, everything from encouraging one another to walking with Christ to worship,

it all centers around giving thanks to God for what he has done and what he will do.

And when you start talking about this idea, this tool of giving thanks,

it's not just for saying, oh, God, thank you for what you've already done.

It's opening up the doorway for God to do more.

Because Jesus said, for those who are entrusted with little or faithful with little, even more will be given, right?

They will be entrusted with more.

You ask yourself this morning, what do I really believe about God?

What do I really believe about Jesus? Do I really believe the things that he said?

And if you can be entrusted with being thankful with little,

then you can be entrusted with being thankful with more.

But if you're not thankful for the little bit you have, why would we ever expect for God to give us more?

And in our rational minds, we think, well, if God would do this, then I would be thankful.

But no, God does not operate the way the world does.

God moves in different ways, and he calls us to different things in the rest of the world.

And thankfulness is a wonderful tool that we must learn to use and wield in a way that it becomes part of who we are.

And this morning, I feel like there's probably a lot of people in the room,

a lot of people in our church who are dealing with situations and circumstances in life where it's less than desirable.

Like there is something burdening you or your family.

And it's really hard to be happy, really hard to be thankful right now.

And to just make that commitment in your life, say, God, I don't understand this. I don't know why.

I'm not happy, but I'm going to be thankful.

I'm going to choose to give you thanks and to praise anyway.

And when you look at Colossians 4, verse 2, as Paul wrote to the church,

Colossians 4:2

and he said, devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart.

And as I was getting ready this week and writing the sermon and digging through all these passages,

one of the things that really kind of shocked me about this is that thankfulness was not a fruit of the Spirit.

You know, it's like you think about the fruits of the Spirit and all the many wonderful qualities that the Holy Spirit gives us

thankfulness was not one of them.

It's not like God's just going to magically like, there you go. Now you're thankful.

It's a commitment. It's something that we have to devote ourselves to.

As Paul wrote in Colossians 4, too, devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart.

Thankfulness is something that you devote yourselves to. You commit yourself to it.

It's a decision that we have to make in our life. It's not going to come naturally.

Just like you pick up a tool, you pick up a glove, you pick up whatever it is that you want to make the analogy for.

It's not going to feel natural when you begin to do it.

But if you do it enough, eventually it comes to the point where it almost feels unnatural not to have it with you.

You ever catered around something long enough and one day you forgot it and all of a sudden you spend the rest of the day feeling naked?

Yeah. I mean, think about it. Like there's stuff that you have with you every day and all of a sudden, like for whatever reason, you forget it.

It's like, I feel like I'm missing something. It's like God has created you and I to be that way.

God has created you and I to be able to function in a way that we can adapt and learn and grow and we do something so much that your muscles have memory to know what they're supposed to do.

You don't even have to think about it. You don't have to ponder it. You don't have to force it.

It eventually becomes part of who you are. And thankfulness is one of those tools that God has given us.

That you have to devote yourselves to. You have to put it into practice. You have to use it in a way and use it so regularly that eventually it will become part of who you are.

It will become a natural instinct to be thankful. But in the beginning, you have to devote yourself to the practice of giving God the thanks and praise that he deserves.

And I think many of us would be very surprised at what those things will do as they lead into growing our relationship with the Lord.

It will grow and grow and grow. Let's pray together. Father God, thank you again for this beautiful and wonderful day and thank you for the men and women who are in this room.

And Father, I pray this morning that you would speak into their hearts and lives and that you would call them to make the decision to be devoted to being thankful for all the many good things that you've placed in their lives.

Lord, we're not ignorant. We don't want to pretend that there's nothing wrong. We're not trying to fool anyone or fake the world to think that our lives are perfect.

There's plenty things in our lives that are not what we would like them to be.

But Lord, help us to be thankful for what you've done so that we can be thankful for what you will do.

And Lord, when you work and move in those situations that we have right now that we need you to work and move in, that we'll give you thanks and move on to the next thing through faith.

Father, we love you today and we ask all this in Jesus' name. Amen. You're dismissed. Thank you, guys.