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By Pastor Glenn Pease
Thanksgiving is unconditional for the believer.
We are not to be thankful only because of blessings, but even in spite of burdens, for life at its worst does not change the most precious truth for which we are to be thankful, and that is salvation through Jesus.
There have been Christian people who have nothing of great value materially, and they have known nothing of a Thanksgiving Day, since this is uniquely American, but who never the less have had a grateful heart.
We need to remember that Thanksgiving grew out of a tragic situation because of people of God who put their trust in Him in spite of tragedy.
Half of the Pilgrims died the first winter in America.
Their crop was so poor they had to ration out 5 grains of corn at a time.
At one point there were only 7 of them who were not sick to help the rest of them.
And yet these are the people who gave us Thanksgiving.
Their faith did not waver with the winds of fortune.
They labored 7 years to pay back loans to London bankers where they got the money to come to America.
Elder Brewster in the early days of Plymouth could set down to a meal of clams and a cup of cold water, and look up to heaven and return thanks, "For the abundance of the sea and for the treasures hid in the sand."
God prospered the Pilgrims because they had grateful hearts even in the midst of great difficulties.
Gratitude can even grow in the garden of grief when watered with the showers of trust in God.
Robert Louis Stevenson spent most of life in bed with much pain, and he died at 44, but he saw more to be thankful for than most healthy people.
He wrote, "The world is so full of a number of things, I'm sure we should all be as happy as kings."
Sometimes those who are most blest are most blind.
They spend their days in complaining and lose the greatest blessings because they lack a grateful heart.
We want to look at a biblical example of this as found in the account of the healing of the 10 lepers.
We see here 3 aspects of gratitude.
I. THE RARENESS OF GRATITUDE.
v. 17-18
Here were 10 men in awful misery who experienced the blessing of almighty mercy, and yet 9 of them never came back to say thanks.
If Jesus had only 10 per cent express their gratitude for a miracle, how much less must he have received for common mercies?
How little does he receive from us for every day blessings?
Does he receive more than puddles of praise for the ocean waves of mercy he causes to splash against the shore of our lives?
Spurgeon said, "If you search the world around among all choice spices you shall scarcely meet with the frankincense of gratitude."
Why is this?
Here are a number of reasons:
A. SELFISHNESS.
From the minute a person is born he is self-centered.
All of life revolves around a child, and what makes him happy is good, and what does not is bad.
You can have fun with a child doing everything he wants for hours, but then refuse him one thing his heart desires and he becomes angry and charges you with meanness.
It is tragic when adults exhibit this same ungrateful attitude.
Albert Schweitzer tells of how difficult it was to teach the natives that they had to help keep up the hospital by giving a chicken, a few eggs, or some bananas.
Some of the more savage people came to him after they were cured and demanded a gift of him.
Paul in Rom.
1:21 tells us that one of the causes for the darkness of the pagan mind and heart was that they were not thankful.
This natural selfishness is a part of the civilized world as well.
People with great abundance are constantly more concerned about what they don't have than thankful for what they do have.
When Andrew Carnegie left a million dollars to a relative that relative cursed him saying, "Old Andy left 365 million to public charities and cut me off with one measly million."
Such ingratitude seems incredible, but it reveals that the ungrateful heart loses even the blessings that it does have.
I can just imagine that those 9 who did not return were discouraged within a couple of days.
They would be complaining that their leprosy put them so far behind in their work.
They would complain that its hard now to get their crop in on time, or fill that pottery order they had before they got sick.
Even a dog will wag its tail at a kindness shown, but these selfish 9 did not even take the time to say thank you.
Shakespeare was right when he said, "Blow, blow thou winter wind!
Thou art not so unkind as man's ingratitude."
B. THOUGHTLESSNESS.
It may not be that they purposely did not return.
Maybe they stopped to think of the giver, but then got their minds focused on other things.
This is another form of selfishness because it leads us to forget the source of our blessings.
These 9 had some real faith, for they took Jesus at His Word and went to the priests.
They wanted help and they believed Jesus could help.
They called on Him for mercy and He heard them, and when the crisis was over they no longer thought about their need for Him.
Think and thank come from the same root word, and thoughtlessness leads to thanklessness.
So many cry out to God in emergency situations, and then they forget Him when the emergency is over.
But even the righteous are in danger of being thoughtless.
The Psalmist says to himself, "O bless the Lord O my soul and forget not all his benefits."
Jesus gave us the Lord's Supper to keep us reminded that His sacrifice for us is the center of our Christian faith.
Physical amnesia is seldom heard of, but spiritual amnesia is as common as the cold, and we need to pray that we can escape being infected with this germ.
The poet put it,
Forget him not whose meekness
Forgiveth all thy sin:
Who healeth all thy weakness
Renews thy life within.
II.
THE RESPONSE OF GRATITUDE.
v. 15-16
Let us be thankful that one did respond to the grace of Christ and return to thank Him and praise God.
Jesus was doubtless disappointed in the other 9, but how it must have delighted His heart to see this one return.
Jesus does not bless because He wants to be thanked.
He blesses because He cares.
Even if none had responded Jesus would have healed them.
He healed them out of compassion for their need.
God's grace is poured out on millions who never thank Him.
He makes the sun to shine and the rain to fall on the unjust as well as the just.
Jesus died for the ungodly, even though masses of them will never accept His sacrifice.
God must love an express that love whether man responds or not, but it is this one responding that delights the heart of God and makes it all worth while.
At age 72 industrialist Charles Schwab was taken to court on a petty lawsuit by a young man he had tried to help.
The young man was only out to get some easy money and notoriety.
After Mr. Schwab finished his testimony he asked if he could speak a few words.
Permission was granted, and he said, "I am an old man and I to say that 90 percent of my troubles have been due to being good to other people.
If you younger folk want to avoid trouble be hard-boiled and say no to everybody.
You will then walk through life unmolested-but" and a smile came across his face, "You will have to do without friends and you won't have much fun."
The Christian is to show love and mercy because it is being like Christ and not because he looks for gratitude.
Luther said, "He who would be a Christian must learn to remember that with all his benevolence, faithfulness, and service he will not always reap gratitude, but must also suffer ingratitude.
But this should not move us to withhold help and service to others."
We can be thankful if we even get a 10 percent response, for that is all Jesus got.
If we examine the response of this one who returned we see that it was basically praise.
Praise is voluntary, and it comes from the heart because the heart cannot hold it back.
It reveals the true nature of the person.
Jesus never asked them to come back and praise Him, but here was a man who did not live by the letter but by the spirit.
The other 9 obeyed the letter of the law, but they did not have a heart of gratitude.
Spurgeon felt that Christians ought to have praise meetings as well as prayer meetings.
All 10 of them prayed but only one was most blest because he also praised.
Spurgeon said, "I chide myself sometimes that I have wrestled with God in prayer, like Elijah upon Carmel, but I have not magnified the name of the Lord, like Mary of Nazareth."
Only one came back, and every believer should be among that minority that always comes back with a grateful response.
It is easy to request, but hard to return in thanks.
Charles E. Jefferson said, "If Christians would praise God more the world would doubt Him less."
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