Cultivating a Heart of Gratitude

Introduction

Happy Thanksgiving! We have a built in week to be thankful every year. And although we should be thankful all year long, think of this week as a reset for your heart. I wanted to begin with our week by thinking about how to cultivate gratitude. I would dare say that gratitude is one of the easiest spiritual practices to cultivate.

Gratitude is one of those practices that doesn’t take a lot of time or effort to do. And because it doesn’t take much time, we think it is minimally important. The only problem is… many of the things in our lives that take a minimal amount of time are maximally important.

For instance, brushing your teeth doesn’t take a long time to do, but if you don’t do it, boy the negative impacts are terrible.

Another example is putting gas in your car. Doesn’t take a lot of time, but if you don’t, you’ll be in a rough spot.

Gratitude is a catalyst for joy, peace, centeredness, contentment, and worship. Ingratitude is a cancer of the soul.

Today, we want a more robust view of gratitude. We want God’s gifts to us to lead us to worship Him - this is where gratitude finds its purpose.

1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 ESV

16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Explanation

What is gratitude?

Sam Crabtree - Gratitude is the divinely given spiritual ability to see grace, and the corresponding desire to affirm it and its giver as good.

Spiritual ability

Gratitude itself is a gift of God. Our relationship with God modifies our ability to express gratitude.

We are thankful in ways that the rest of the world cannot be. We know who the Giver of all gifts ultimately is.

Can an unbeliever enjoy a steak from Malone’s, a brisk walk in the cool October weather, a waterfall, and a sunset. Absolutely!

Can the enjoy it to the extent that a believer can? Yes.

Does their joy terminate on that item. Also yes. Whereas, a Christian eats a steak, feels the october cool, sees the waterfall, and gazes at a sunset, and beyond it, sees a God who is actually the One that life is all about.

Our gratitude is complete and is made complete in the God who only gives good gifts.

A saw a video this week of a man who received a life-saving surgery of a kidney transplant. He had great joy. But his joy was multiplied when his daughter walked into the room showing her scar - that she had given the kidney.

To see grace

Deuteronomy 29:2–4 “2 And Moses summoned all Israel and said to them: “You have seen all that the Lord did before your eyes in the land of Egypt, to Pharaoh and to all his servants and to all his land, 3 the great trials that your eyes saw, the signs, and those great wonders. 4 But to this day the Lord has not given you a heart to understand or eyes to see or ears to hear.”

Gratitude is a spiritual exercise. Once we believe the gospel, we are given gratitude as a way to relate to God.

Common Grace vs. Gospel Grace

Common Grace is that the grace that all people, those who know God, and those who do not, currently benefit.

This includes your home, modern healthcare, your dog or cat who is family to you, your family, the food on your table, the clothes you wear, living in the United States of America, etc.

They are the things that all people benefit whether they are saved or not. And they are a testimony of the longsuffering nature of our God who is gracious to those who are saved and those who are not saved.

However, gospel grace is a deeper, better, and eternal grace. And it is only something that believers see in full.

The desire to affirm it as good

Gratitude means seeing the gifts of your life as good, because God only gives good gifts.

James 1:17 “17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.”

The desire to affirm its giver as good

G. K. Chesterton // “The worst moment for an atheist is when he is really thankful and has no one to thank.

And this brings us to the second point of what gratitude is for a Christian. We have been given a gift that the rest of the world hasn’t - Jesus, the Son of God.

We must have gratitude for the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Henry - Jesus and Santa. Santa brings us presents! What does Jesus bring us? Peace and Hope. “Jesus brings us peace.” What is peace?

“Jesus gets a little peace, and I get a big peace.” Isn’t that the truth of it all? That Jesus lost peace so that we would gain it. That Jesus would take our sins upon Himself, and give us new life in Him.

Romans 8:32 “32 He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?”

We should be a blubbering mess over what we have been given and what we were spared.

We can have gratitude no matter what we have been given, because Christ has given us the most abundant life - in Him!

We have been justified, are being sanctified, and will be glorified. We have been adopted into the family of God.

Barriers to Gratitude and Thankfulness

Complaining/A Critical Spirit

Your complaining is the equivalent of your taking your children to the Grand Canyon and their complaining that their phone has a low battery.

Our redemption changes everything. We have been given a gift far to large to complain about anything else.

So often, we miss the bigness of God in our infatuation with the smallest of everyday things. We rob ourselves of the best that life has to offer by focusing on the smallest of inconveniences.

I heard a pastor say recently that complaining is a lot like throwing up. After you do it, you feel a lot better, but everyone else feels a lot worse. Your complaining steals your joy, but it can steal the joy of others too.

Comparison/Envy

You will never be the wealthiest person in the world, BUT you will also never be the poorest. Therefore, be thankful for what you have, and forget trying to keep up with the person next to you.

So many people lose joy in what they have been given by God by worrying about what God is doing for someone else.

I think about Peter. He betrayed Jesus, and he was restored over breakfast. He experienced the deep and abiding grace of Jesus. And Jesus told him, “you will have hard times ahead.” Do you know what Peter said, “What about John?”

Entitlement - Let me tell you a few of the things you did today.

You got out of a warm bed in part because of a blanket, sheets, and an air conditioner. You had running water for a shower, coffee, tea, and breakfast. You got into a car, came to a church where you can worship freely. You have family and friends that you have met here. This is all made available to you, because of the job you have, because of the education or training that you got that built upon the way you were raised. And you could do none of it without your health. I have just scratched the surface.

Philippians 2:5–7 “5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”

Benefits of Gratitude and Thankfulness

Joy

Shawn Anchor, a psychologist who teaches at Harvard, began a very simple experiment. People were asked to take five minutes a day at the same time every day and name three things they were thankful for. One rule: they had to be specific. “I am thankful for the Thai takeout dinner I had last night.” or “I am thankful that my son gave me a hug before he left for school.”

At the end of one month, overwhelmingly those who practiced gratitude, were happier and less depressed. Within three months, they were still more joyful and content. After the six month mark, they were happier, less anxious, and less depressed.

Contentment - the firm resolve that the presence of Jesus in your life is more satisfying the anything the world can give you.

Few of us need more of anything. Many of us simply need to be thankful and care for the things we have. Some of you are overwhelmed by maintaining everything that you have instead of enjoying what God has given us.

What if I told you that in Jesus you find everything that you have been looking for.

I believe that one of the great bridges of evangelism in our day is contentment. The people around us have been told to chase their dreams and they have achieved them - only to have a gaping hole in the satisfaction of their own lives.

For someone to see the contentment and centeredness that Jesus brings you may very well be the way that they find Him.

Do you say that Jesus is all satisfying yet live as though He is not?

Invitation

Augustine of Hippo / “My Lord, let me remember with gratitude and confess to you your mercies towards me. Soak my bones in your lord, and let them say, “Lord, who is like you?”