ThanksLiving part 1 - It Starts With The Heart

Message by:
Pastor Terry Crawford
Covenant Church
Shepherdstown, WV

Two Major Benefits of Living a Life of Thanks:

1. It is good for me.
2. It opens the door to God’s power in my life.

BENEFIT ONE: GOOD FOR ME

It turns out, giving thanks is good for your health.

A growing body of research suggests that maintaining an attitude of gratitude can improve psychological, emotional and physical well-being.

Thankfulness doesn’t equal happiness. You can be sad and thankful. Thankfulness can speak to spiritual maturity.

Psalm 69:30-32 (NAS)
I will praise the name of God with song and magnify Him with thanksgiving. And it will please the Lord better than an ox or a young bull with horns and hoofs. The humble have seen it and are glad; You who seek God, let your heart revive.

THANKS TO THE LORD GOD ALMIGHTY

Revelation 11:15-17
The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, and there were loud voices in heaven, which said: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah, and he will reign forever and ever.” And the twenty-four elders, who were seated on their thrones before God, fell on their faces and worshiped God, saying: “We give thanks to you, Lord God Almighty, the One who is and who was, because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign.

Overflow of Tanksgiving

2 Corinthians 4:15-16
All this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day.

BENEFIT TWO: Opens the door to God’s Power

Paul and Silas

Acts 16:25-26
“About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody’s chains came loose.”

Paul and Silas were free before they were free. Bars did not dash their thanks.

Thankfulness starts with the heart.

Give Thanks

1 Chronicles 16:34
Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.

David believed God was good and that God loved him.

Idea of being thankful, grateful, honoring. It was a time of sincere thanks and it looked and felt that way.

Some know how to be sarcastic or cynical, others thrive on it and live in it constantly, That is a heart problem.

DARK AND CONFUSED

Romans 1:21 NLT
“Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused.”

Paul goes on to spell out what happens when we become indifferent to spiritual truth:

1. We refuse to glorify God.
2. We refuse to give thanks to God.

At this point it is helpful to recall Question 1 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism
“What is the chief end of man?” Answer: “To glorify God and enjoy him forever.” Truth demands a response, and the truth about God demands that we the creatures glorify him as the great Creator. When we don’t, we fail in the great purpose for which we were created. It didn’t start with us. It started in the dim mists of the earliest days of the human race when Adam and Eve willfully rebelled against God. They should have glorified God by obeying him, but they didn’t. That was and is the chief sin of the human race. From Eden to your hometown a bent toward disobedience has entered our spiritual genetic code.

Charles Spurgeon preached on this verse, he offered this comment:
I cannot say anything much worse of a man than that he is not thankful to those who have been his benefactors; and when you say that he is not thankful to God, you have said about the worst thing you can say of him.

Thankfulness…

1. Softens a hard heart
2. And combats a cynical world.

The poet Milton, the blind poet, he said that a person with an ungrateful spirit only has one vice, he said because all of the rest of his vices are virtues compared to ingratitude. Every other sin is a virtue compared to the sin of ingratitude.

“Piglet noticed that even though he had a Very Small Heart, it could hold a rather large amount of Gratitude.” ― A.A. Milne, Winnie-the-Pooh

“Gratitude is not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all others.” ― Cicero

“When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude.” ― G.K. Chesterton

“When we learn to read the story of Jesus and see it as the story of the love of God, doing for us what we could not do for ourselves--that insight produces, again and again, a sense of astonished gratitude which is very near the heart of authentic Christian experience.” ― N.T. Wright

“Gratitude is the ability to experience life as a gift. It liberates us from the prison of self-preoccupation.” ― John Ortberg

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