ThanksLiving part 2 - It Starts with the Heart

Message by:
Pastor Terry Crawford
Covenant Church
Shepherdstown, WV

First it starts with the Heart

Psalm 69:30-32 (NAS)
I will praise the name of God with song and magnify Him with thanksgiving.

Gratitude glorifies God and is good for us.

We talked about who to magnify but we didn’t go into how to magnify, or how to live a life of thanks. 

John Piper said 

“All the good works and discipleship we do is weariness of the flesh if
yourheart is not amazed by the grace of God
and your mind is not gripped by the truth of God
and your sense of right and wrong is not permeated by the justice of God
and your faith is not resting in the power of God
and your imagination is not guided by the beauty of God
and your life is not steadied by the sovereignty of God
and your hope is not filled with the glory of God

Matthew 15:8
“‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

Before we get to the how to, I want to preempt it with what thanks is not. I do this for the men of the church and realists out there.  Giving Thanks is not a …
1) Sign of weakness
2) Sign of ignoring reality

Some view any outward show of thanks to someone else, even God is a show of weakness.  There is this “we didn’t get here without my hard work” mentality and if I lift anybody else up or give them any gratitude, then we’re soft.  Real men don’t say I’m sorry and don’t throw thanks around in front of others.

Hebrews 13:15
15 Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that openly profess his name.

We give thanks with our lips through…
Prayer

Start out every prayer with Thank you.  Enter his gates with Thanksgiving.

Psalm 100:4-5
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.

Thank you for another day, I will rejoice and be glad.

Exercise:  Sometimes just pray thanks and nothing else.

Ephesians 1:15-16
For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all his people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.

We give thanks with our lips through…

Praise/Worship/Song

Psalm 100:1-3
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with 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, the sheep of his pasture.

Psalm 95:2-3
Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song.  For the LORD is the great God, the great King above all gods.

Ephesians 5:19-20
Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

We give thanks with our lips through…
Professing

Hebrews 13:15 HCSB
Therefore, through Him let us continually offer up to God a sacrifice of praise, that is, the fruit of our lips that confess His name.

“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

It takes practice to “continually” offer God thanks.