Creating a thankful home part 2

Title: Creating a thankful home pt2

Text: Psalm 129; Matthew 22:36-40; Romans 12:3

D.T God doesn’t create a faulty product

Introduction: As we get closer to Thanksgiving and the greater holiday season, it’s important to remember these holidays are not always happy for everyone. According to the American Psychological association 38 percent of people experience depression during the holidays. One of the biggest contributing factors to depression during the holidays is a lack of self care. The busyness and pressures of the holiday season tend to make self care go out the window, even among those who may routinely be disciplined in maintaining self care. So today’s message in many ways will be a reminder of the importance of self care. We are currently in a series entitled “Creating a thankful home” during this series we will discuss how we can go about creating thankful homes this holiday season. We started the series last week by talking about contentment. Today we talk about the importance of being thankful for us. More specifically we will discuss the importance of being thankful for the person that God made us to be.

Before we get much further, we should first evaluate how we approach the idea of thankfulness. We tend to view thankfulness as a warm fuzzy feeling which is often deeply rooted in emotion. While this is certainly true, it doesn’t paint the whole picture. Thankfulness is also a weapon. Satan will try to make our lives unhappy, and to cement that unhappiness in our lives. Thankfulness is a weapon to help us keep perspective. Thankfulness is a weapon against Satan's degradation of our life This is particularly true of the image of ourselves. Because Satan will attack us, he will attack our worth, he will attack our perception on how others view us, he will attack our productivity, he will attack our self-image, he will attack our ability to provide. Satan will attack our vision for ourselves, and thankfulness is a weapon to fight back.

So how and why do we make sure that we are intentional about making sure we are thankful for ourselves.

Self-thankfulness is mandated.Taking time to be thankful for ourselves is not a request. It’s a command, as a matter of fact, it’s part of the greatest commandment ( Read Matthew 22:36-40

Matthew 22:36–40 ESV

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

The second of Jesus greatest commands are to love your neighbor as yourself, we do a really good Job talking about what it means to love your neighbor, but we struggle when talking about loving ourselves

Know Thyself In Romans 12:3

Romans 12:3 ESV

For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think, but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned.

Paul tells his audience to reflect upon themselves with sober Judgment. Sober judgment is one that takes a sincere look at ones situation’s, gifts, abilities and so on and so forth. Doing something we may not be wired, or gifted to do might allow satan attack you and tell you that your time and abilities are worthless, we cannot give in to the lies of satan, and to ensure we don’t we must first do everything we can to not give him any sort of foothold.If we are to reflect on ourselves with sober judgment, then we must assume the opposite, or antithetical form of Judgment would be drunken judgment. This type of Judgment tells people they are capable of doing things they are obviously not suited to do in their current state. This type of Judgment tells people they can drive, when they are in no condition to do so, this type of Judgment tells the most tone deaf. people in the bar they can sing like Frank Sinatra, and on karaoke night they try. Inebriated judgment sets people up for failure. A popular saying of Socrates was “know thyself” and today I encourage us to do the same, in order to really be thankful for ourselves, and love ourselves in a biblical manner we must know ourselves, and our gifts. I’m not trying to discourage someone from trying something new, or volunteering for something that might challenge them, or stretch them as a person. What I am saying is know yourself, and what your gifts are, and if something is obviously outside of how God wired your gifts, it may not be the worst idea to pass that up.

Know your creator I’ve seen a couple adds on T.V. which enforce the idea of the careful craftsmanship that is put into their product. The Mazda CX-5 add says that “every stitch is a part of them, and all the shapes are a special devotion to craftsmanship” Papa John’s has a add that talks about a chef testing thousands of pizza pans to find that right one, that leaves that special gold brown texture on the edges.Advertisers know people, and they know people want a product that is “wonderfully made” and not some multi produced item from an assembly line. Ultimately we want to know our lives are more than something mass produced on the assembly line.A God assures us that we are so much more in Psalm 139:1:1-16 (Read Psalm 139:13-18

Psalm 139:13–18 ESV

For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them. How precious to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! If I would count them, they are more than the sand. I awake, and I am still with you.

We should strive to know our creator, because our creator knows us. There is another passage that speaks of God knowing the number of hairs on our head, I like to joke that as I get older, God grows tired of counting the hairs on my head, so he takes the liberty of thinning it out a little bit. We are a people of careful design, God designed each and every one of us with care, and detail, and a love for his own craftsmanship.This should be a reassurance for us! That we are fearfully and wonderfully made! And care is given to our design. This should propel us to be thankful for ourselves, because of the craftsmanship in which we are designed. So this tells us, and reminds us to not only be thankful for ourselves for our sake, but to be thankful for ourselves for the sake of God.

Imagine if someone looked at the hard work you’ve put in over your lifetime, all the things you’ve built and cared for, things you put hours of time into caring for, upon seeing it they ask you “What is this worthless garbage?” I Imagine it would make you feel upset, and rightfully so! Now Imagine that the work you do somehow gained the ability to speak to you, and had the ability to disregard your hard work, Imagine how you would feel if it said “I’m not worth the time you spent” A major part of being thankful for ourselves is not only for our own sake, but to acknowledge the hard work our creator put forward in making us. Because God doesn’t make a faulty product. So don’t describe or ascribe his product as faulty. Instead equip the weapon that is thankfulness and let it give you perspective. If we want to create thankful homes, we must start with first being thankful for us.