Untitled Sermon

Intro: So we’ve come near to Thanksgiving, a day known by the food we get to eat and the weight we tend to gain. We celebrate this holiday generally by gathering together with family and friends, and enjoy a large feast together. Many hold tradition to look at it as a day to acknowledge all we are to be thankful for, and in acknowledging this, celebrate with those who have been a part of those blessings. Yet, we also have a common practice now in today’s day that shortly after the time of thankfulness, many leave their homes and families to go prepare for the next day, which is Black Friday–a day where people go shopping to buy more. Black Friday tends to pull the ugly side out of many through selfishness, entitlement, pride, anger, impatience… the list goes on. These same people who act as if buying that flat screen tv for $100 less than its normal price is life or death are typically the people who not even 24 hours before, acted like they had all they needed and were thankful with their families.

The problem we see here isn’t necessarily the good deals we could get the day after Thanksgiving, but the clear distinction that many who celebrate a day of Thanksgiving, aren’t really thankful for much of what they have. We don’t really let ourselves reflect on all that there is to be thankful for because we’re too focused on what we don’t or could have. I’m not here to ridicule us for not taking Thanksgiving seriously enough, but actually to challenge us as Christians to exercise thankfulness all the time! We read in 1 Thessalonians 5:18 that Paul says, “Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.” As followers of Christ, we shouldn’t be waiting for one annual holiday to come around to express gratitude for the blessings in life, but rather; in every place, at any time, in any situation, we are to live a lifestyle of gratitude under the will of God.

What a challenge! How do we be thankful in every circumstance? Today, we’re going to look at 3 ways that we can be thankful to others, but most importantly, to God; no matter what our situation is.

Transition: The first way we’re going to look at matters the most, because without it, the other two may just stem from a sense of obligation, which can derive from impure or selfish motives. The first way to be thankful in every circumstance is to…

Be Thankful Through our Thoughts

To not only be thankful for the blessings we have on Thanksgiving, but to live a lifestyle of thankfulness, we must first learn to have a mindset of thankfulness. We can’t expect to really be thankful people if we don’t fully understand where thankfulness is meant to stem from. With a thankful mindset, believe it or not, it actually leads to a means of combating other issues we face. Rather than just ungratefulness, a thankful mindset welcomes in the peace of God which overpowers anxiety, worry, fear, overthinking, and depression. In Philippians 4:6-7, Paul says, “Don’t worry about anything, instead pray about everything; tell God what you need, and thank Him for all He’s done. Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard our hearts and minds as we live in Christ Jesus.” When we’re facing struggles with fear and anxiety, one of our biggest problems is that our minds are clouded with negativity. We dwell so much on what could go wrong or has gone wrong that we forget the God we serve and all He’s already done for us! The God we serve has provided for us all our lives, even when we didn’t know it, and He’s proven Himself time after time that He’s faithful to His Word and promises, and His Word speaks of how He’s in control, and how He has a plan for our lives. Jeremiah 29:11 says, ““For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope.”” If God has good plans for our future, surely He has a plan that our anxiety and fear try to distract us from. So what do we do? In the midst of our worries, we thank God for everything He has done. We shift our focus to the blessings He’s given us in life, whether through other people, through answered prayer, through prosperous blessing, through anything! Just the fact that He sent His Son to die for us on the cross so that we may have a relationship with Him and be saved is reason enough to be thankful for His goodness. When we shift our focus towards all that we can be thankful for, we have no room left to dwell on the worries and fears of this world.

Transition: When we express thankfulness through our thoughts, we create a mindset and heart of thankfulness inwardly that can then be demonstrated outwardly, which brings us to our next 2 ways. The second way we can be thankful is to…

Be Thankful Through our Words

With thankfulness comes the outward expression, which primarily derives through words. We typically express our gratitude through means of saying “thank you” when we acknowledge a blessing in any way, shape, or form. Thankfulness through our words can be more than just a response to a blessing, but also praise in song. I love the story in Acts where Paul and Silas are sitting in prison, chained up or simply preaching the Gospel and casting a demon out of a future-telling woman. In Acts 16, we see that Paul and Silas, after casting out the demon from the woman, were thrown into prison for “illegal practices,” and were being watched by a guard. In this scenario, how easy it would’ve been for Paul and Silas to just complain about their situation. They were obeying God by preaching the Gospel, and this is how they were being treated for it?! Where’s the blessing they’re supposed to receive for obeying God’s will? Yet, in that place, they both were praying and worshiping God. In unpleasant circumstances, they demonstrated their thankfulness to God despite their situations through prayer and praise. Their attitudes led the other prisons to listen in on their hymn singing. And after God brings them a blessing by sending an earthquake to break their chains and open their prison doors, they don’t escape! No one escaped even. The prison guard was so in awe of their attitudes despite their circumstances that he and his whole household got saved and baptized that very night! Through the words of praise, thanksgiving, and the power of God; Paul and Silas were able to demonstrate thankful hearts which led to exemplifying a Christ-like character where others were saved. When we demonstrate our thankfulness through our words, no matter what our circumstance is, we display an attitude that is naturally uncommon because most people respond to negativity with negativity. But as followers of Christ, we’re called by God’s will to be thankful no matter what our situation is, not only for our well being, but for others to see the work of Christ in our lives. If we truly believe in the blessing God has given us through His Son alone, how could we not express our thankfulness through praise! We see Paul and Silas’s situation where they demonstrate thankfulness through words in Acts, but we also see this same attitude all throughout Scripture. We see it with David in the Psalms where he writes down his praises to God despites the situations he was in. We see this with the Israelites every time God would help them against their enemies. We even see this with the prophets despite their persecution for simply doing the will of God. By expressing through our words and through praise our gratitude in what God has done and is going to do, we display that Christ truly reigns in us and that is more than enough of a reason to be thankful!

Transition: We’ve seen how thankfulness can be demonstrated through our thoughts and our words, but we still have one final way. And this is to…

Be Thankful Through our Actions

When we have a thankful mindset, perhaps the best way to demonstrate our thankfulness is through our actions. What does thankfulness through our actions look like? It can be through serving, generosity, giving, loving, going out of your way for others, and so on. When we demonstrate gratitude by our deeds, it reflects a Christ-character that allows others to be blessed by our response to blessing. When it comes to thankfulness through our deeds though, it’s important to keep our motives and intentions in check. It can become easy to find ourselves demonstrating thankfulness through actions for a response from others. When we pay it forward, one could seek to find praise from others, or validation in their good deeds, but then that mindset actually destroys the central purpose of a thankful heart. We’re not being thankful in order to find a response from others, but simply to show our gratitude for what has been done for us and nothing else. We see in Acts 5 the story of Ananias and Sapphira, who sold their property and decided to give some of their money to the church. The problem with these two is their intentions/motives behind their “generous” acts. Instead of giving all of the money they received from selling the property, they only gave part of it. When Peter asked them if that was all of the money from the property, first Ananias told him yes. Ananias was seeking praise from the church. He saw everyone's responses to others who had given what they had to the church, and he wanted the same thing. In return, God struck Ananias dead, and his wife later on for telling the same lie. Whether or not the two were deciding to give the money to the church as an act of thankfulness is not entirely known, but we can see that that couldn’t have been a conclusion because their motives weren’t to bless the church, but rather receive praise for their good deeds. We face the same issue today. Our actions need to line up with pure motives, not to seek validation from others, but only from God. If we’re truly thankful for what He’s done for us, we’ll demonstrate it through our actions without the means to receive more in return. Our actions in thankfulness is a concluding response without the intent to receive more blessing. We can display a character of Christ through our thankfulness demonstrated by our actions when we are acting out of a pure heart in response to the blessings God has given to us.

Conclusion: Through thankfulness, we can combat our negative thought patterns, express our gratitude in praise, be a blessing to others, demonstrate the character of Christ, and so much more because thankfulness is ultimately a means of acknowledgement for the blessings we already have. Thankfulness isn’t something we should just seek to do one day a year through a holiday, but a lifestyle as a whole. We should seek to be thankful everywhere, all the time, regardless of our situation because it’s God’s will for our lives, and now we can see as to why. As Thanksgiving approaches this week, dwell on the blessings God has given you, whether through friends, family, gifts, gestures, words, answers to prayer, or change of character. Let a thankful heart resonate within you so much it pours out into others, in which they may be blessed as well. Let us be thankful this Thanksgiving for the life God has given us, but let’s not just wait for Thanksgiving to be thankful in word, thought, and deed, or stop being thankful after thanksgiving, but learn to be thankful in every circumstance, for this is the will of God for those who follow Christ Jesus.