Sermon Tone Analysis

Giving thanks to God is a daily activity for all who truly love the LORD.

Just as we are to worship God in Spirit and Truth, thanksgiving is always apart of worship.

Thanksgiving and praise go hand in hand.

As we will see today though numerous scriptures thanksgiving is a lifestyle of daily praise, which will show through our actions and attitude.

Which we are calling characteristics of thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Characterizes the Righteous

Eph.

5:3–4 Col. 2:6–7

Sermons from John Piper (1980–1989) (The Enthronement of Desire)

We are to take off the old self of fornication and homosexuality and covetousness and filthiness and silly talk and levity.

And what are we to put on?

THANKSGIVING!

It comes at the end of verse 4:

Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.

Would you have chosen gratitude or thankfulness as the opposite of all these sexual and verbal sins?

Why does Paul?

Here’s what I would suggest is the reason.

If fornication and impurity are driven by covetousness, and covetousness is a deep craving that dominates your life and even leads you to go against the will of God, then it is clear that the opposite experience would be thanksgiving.

If you are overflowing with thanksgiving to God, then you are not dominated and driven by discontentment at what you have been denied.

Gratitude is what you feel when you believe God is for you and not against you.

It’s what you feel when you believe that he gives you only what is good for you and withholds no good thing (single or married!).

It’s what you feel when you trust him, that the tragedies of your life are not evidences of his meanness or his incompetence; but rather that they are the discipline of a loving Father who values your holiness above your fleeting worldly happiness.

That’s why verse 20 goes so far as to say, “Always and for everything give thanks in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to God the Father.”

Thankfulness is apart of the Christian experience.

So this leads us to the second point I want to make reference to and that is thanksgiving will always be a desire of the those who are the righteous.

Thanksgiving Is a Desire of the Righteous

Ps. 30:11–12

The LORD turns mourning into joy “dancing” and exchanges our wretched garments into gladness.

He takes us from darkness to light, from unrighteous to righteous, from perishing to non perishing from enemies of God to sons and daughters of God.

It is in this experience of great grace given and shown toward us that we our glory will sing His praise and can not be silent.

O LORD my God, I will give thanks to your FOREVER!

The desire to give Him thanks is present in the life of those who are made righteous in Him.

Thanksgiving Is Meaningless When Offered Hypocritically

Luke 18:9–11, 13–14

Here we see a Pharisee, a so called religious person, giving thanks to God, yet his thanks is of a hypocritical nature.

Comparing his righteous to others peoples unrighteousness.

Yet the truth is no one is righteous no even one.

We are all sinners in need of a righteous savior.

Don’t be like this hypocrite thinking that simply because he sees himself better than those around him that God must pleased with him.

And so he give some kind of hypocritical thanks to God.

Thanksgiving Is Offered to God

Ps. 100:4–5 Eph.

5:19–20 Col. 3:17