How to Cultivate a Heart of Thanksgiving

Introduction

In recognition of the coming holiday, I want us to consider the topic of Thanksgiving today.

(Speak on the history of Thanksgiving)

Thanksgiving goes all the way back to 1611 and the Feast of Thanks between the Pilgrims and the Wampanoag (waam·puh·NO·ag) Indians.

The Separatist Pilgrims (who only about half) survived the winter and were given a harvest by God. They saw this as the providence of God upon them, and therefore held a Thanksgiving feast. They invited the Wampanoag Indians to join them.

Later on, Americans would celebrate Thanksgiving Days with both feasting and fasting.

In 1863, Abraham Lincoln would declare a national day of thanksgiving. After some finagling with the date, it would ultimately be settled on the fourth Thursday in November in the 1940s.

(Thanksgiving is Historically rooted in Christianity)

Much like Christmas, but unfortunately, the manner in which people view Christmas is the same manner in which they view Thanksgiving. Very little Christ and very little thanks.

(Speak on the background of the topic scripture used)

The scripture we use for our background today is a very interesting call and response found in scripture. It harkens back unto Ezra 3:11 “And they sang together by course in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord; because he is good, for his mercy endureth for ever toward Israel. And all the people shouted with a great shout, when they praised the Lord, because the foundation of the house of the Lord was laid.”

For the application and sake of time, we did not read a large portion of this psalm because it dealt directly with the history of the children of Israel and their experiences that God had brought them through.

However, we see at the onset of the psalm a repetition call to give thanks unto the LORD. (V1-3) AND THAT’S WHAT I WANT TO DO TODAY, IS LEARN HOW TO CULTIVATE A HEART OF THANKSGIVING.

I want to examine first how Thanksgiving is a Product of Appreciation

I. Thanksgiving is a Product of Appreciation

The giving of thanks is a product of appreciation. You recognize your blessings.

You Recognize Your Blessings

You recognize that you enjoy blessings. This seems elementary, but so many people have such a problem with this.

In order to recognize your blessings, it often requires a change of focus.

It Often Requires a Change of Focus

We deal with many sin & ills in the flesh, the greatest would be our lust.

I’m not talking about (necessarily) a sensual lust, but rather our innate desire for things.

It may be a new car or house

A better job or more pay

Maybe more appreciation

It may be a new watch or purse

Maybe new clothes or shoes

Maybe it’s a new preacher

My point is, we are continually desirous of things either better than we have or that we don't have. And so what that shows us is our focus isn't on the blessings we enjoy, but the ones we do not.

(Ill.) I saw a story about a car named Annie. Her owner's name was Kathleen. She bought the car at 21 years old for $2300 in 1966. She had kept that car as her only vehicle she has ever owned for over 50 years. A local news story had heard of it, and then it ended up getting back to Volkswagen, and they restored it for her. The thing that struck me about her mindset and thought process was when someone asked her why didn't she get a new vehicle. Her response was, "Annie's old, but she's not useless."

I tell you this story because I think it's a really good example of someone who was thankful for what she had rather than desirous of something that she didn't.

You can never truly appreciate your blessings and be thankful for them until you recognize them. And you'll never recognize them if your focus is always on what you don't have rather than on what you do.

Our prayer must be as the psalmist: Psalm 119:18 “Open thou mine eyes, That I may behold wondrous things out of thy law.”

How many Christians have been guilty of seeing the treasures of wealthy people and driving their discontent with what God has blessed them with? (Much like this song "Farther Along"). Yet, the Bible tells us: Proverbs 15:16 “Better is little with the fear of the Lord Than great treasure and trouble therewith.” as well as: Hebrews 13:5 “Let your conversation be without covetousness; and be content with such things as ye have: for he hath said, I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee.”

As the Lord liveth, I would not trade places with Elon Musk. I would not trade places with Donald Trump. I would not trade places with any rich man who knew not the LORD, as knowing the LORD is treasures of far greater wealth this world could possibly provide.

Thanksgiving is a product of appreciation. It is understanding that you have something to be thankful for.

Thanksgiving is a Product of Appreciation (Which requires a change in focus)

II. Thanksgiving Requires an Acknowledgement

… the Source of the Blessings

Now that we have gained the focus of things that we should be thankful for, we must now look to see from whence those blessings came.

Ultimately, the source of all our blessings God.

The Source is God (Jam. 1:17)

James 1:17 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”

This does not say some good gifts and some perfect gifts, but every good and every perfect gift is from above.

Whether you are lost or saved, if you enjoy a good and perfect gift, it has come from the Lord.

It did not come from ourselves.

Not Ourselves

How many of us have heard the term "self-made man"? There is no such thing. I understand the sentiment and that is through hard work and determination you can achieve success. And there's certainly truth to the notion that slothfulness brings poverty. That's a biblical principle: Proverbs 13:4 “The soul of the sluggard desireth, and hath nothing: But the soul of the diligent shall be made fat.”

However, If not for the grace of God, we would all have nothing. We would have the hell that we deserve.

It's by the grace of God wherein we draw our next breath.

It's by the grace of God wherein we have the strength to do.

It's by the grace of God that we have been placed in this country of opportunity.

The problem with ascribing success unto ourselves is that we have only ourselves to thank!

As far as I know, everyone here has food to eat, raiment to put on. No one is homeless. You all enjoy a multitude of blessings. But all too often, we think they are blessings of our own making because of the hard work or college that we took to earn our degrees and get a successful job. I want you to know emphatically that if not for the grace of God, you would have none of these things!

Our blessings are derived from God, not ourselves.

Not Others

(Ill.) Sometimes, some of you (as well as you possibly could) will tell me after service, "Good message, preacher," or something to that effect. To which my response is typically, "God is good," or "Praise God." The reason I do that is to simply acknowledge that any blessings that came forth through the message certainly did not originate from me, but from God.

Blessings come from God, not others.

(Ill.) I'm thankful that this church supports missionaries. If we didn't support missionaries, I wouldn't be part of this church. However, it's not this church that actually supports the missionaries, but it is God through our church that does it.

You see, God uses people to do His will upon this earth. He always has and He always will. But we need to understand and recognize that any good that we do, it's actually God working through us. And any blessings we receive from the hand or mouths of others is God working through them.

We need to get back to God and understand that He is the source of all of our blessings.

Thanksgiving is a Product of Appreciation (Which requires a change in focus); It Requires an Acknowledgement (Unto God)

III. Thanksgiving Necessitates an Alignment

…of the things in which you have acquired commensurate with the things you believe you deserve

In other words, you are less thankful for things you feel as though you deserve, and more thankful for the things you understand that you don't.

Of Heart and Pride (Ps. 107)

What I mean by that is our giving of thanks will be directly commensurate with the way we feel the blessings we have received are the ones that we deserve.

(Ill.) We will use the illustration of getting a raise from your employer. If I work hard and labor diligently, and my annual review is coming up, I might be expecting a big raise. Then we have the review, and depending on the size of the raise, is how thankful I am going to feel about it. If it's a small raise, I will feel little thanks. If it's a large raise, I'll have greater thanksgiving. But the way in which we feel thankful is related to what we believe we deserve.

This is why I say that true thanksgiving necessitates an alignment of our heart and our pride.

(Do an illustration with myself and a toy figure representing me next to something representing blessings) The only thing that changed was me - my size. Proverbs 22:4 “By humility and the fear of the Lord Are riches, and honour, and life.” - the fact of the matter is we’re all blessed beyond measure, it’s just that a few realize just how blessed they really are.

It's for this same reason that some of the greatest sinners make some of the greatest preachers. Their wickedness had shown them just how small and worthless they really were - and the smaller they were, the bigger God was.

Peter - Cursed and denied Christ to preaching & dying for Christ

Paul - persecuted Christians to converting lost souls to Christ

John Newton - was a slave trading immoral man who God would use greatly in the abolishionist movement and wrote THE quintessential hymn ‘Amazing Grace’

Billy Sunday - went from an alcoholic ballplayer to a hell-fire preacher whose revivals saw souls saved and saloon’s closed

Sam Jones - went from a drunkard to a man that set the south on fire for Jesus

So if we're truly going to give thanks, to the degree in which we should give thanks, we need an alignment on how we see ourselves.

Thanksgiving Necessitates an Alignment.

Thanksgiving is a Product of Appreciation (Which requires a change in focus); It Requires an Acknowledgement (Unto God); It Necessitates an Alignment (Of Heart & Pride)

IV. Thanksgiving Demands an Awareness

To Give Thanks for Everything (1Th. 5:18)

1 Thessalonians 5:18 “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”

In other words, we're to give thanks not only for the blessings and the good things in life, but this means we have to give thanks for the bad things as well.

We're to give thanks for the trials and tribulations that we face.

We are to give thanks for the sufferings we endure.

It's a very strange concept, but there are a few reasons why it's necessary for us to do so.

(Ill.) I feel as if I've told this story here, but let me tell it again. As I was wrapping the cinderblock columns with wood downstairs, I ended up running a nail through my thumb behind the fingernail. As you can imagine, this was painful. Do you know what the first words were out of my mouth, a half a second after I felt the pain? “Thank you Jesus!”.

It sounds strange thanking the Lord for something like that, and to be honest, I almost surprised myself. However, the truth of the matter was it could have been much worse. I immediately recognized that and thanked God that it wasn't.

(Ill.) If you've seen the movie Courageous, you know that there is a tragedy that happens in that movie. The lead actor's daughter dies in an automobile accident. But the thing that struck me about the pastoral counsel that was given later on to him as he struggled to get through it was, "You can be upset about the time that you will not get to spend with your daughter or you can be thankful for the 9 years that you did get to spend with her."

Ephesians 5:20 “Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;”

We're to give thanks for everything. But then there is another aspect we need to consider, and that is we give thanks for we are aware of His promise.

For We’re Aware of His Promise (Rom. 8:28)

Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.”

We Christians who love God and are called according to His purpose, know that no matter what comes into our life, it is for our good, and to the good of others as well.

Now, either we believe that or not, but if we do believe it, we can most certainly give thanks for everything as the Bible instructs us to do.

We’re Aware of His Promise

Thanksgiving is a Product of Appreciation (Which requires a change in focus); It Requires an Acknowledgement (Unto God); It Necessitates an Alignment (Of Heart & Pride); It Demands an Awareness (That we're to give thanks in everything)

V. Thanksgiving is an Act

It is Giving of Thanks

In other words, it's not simply a feeling. Thankful is a feeling. Thanksgiving is an act.

Do you know how we should give thanks?

Both Private and Public

We should be giving thanks in private.

In my daily prayers, I am very careful to give thanks unto God. I have never attempted to measure the quantity. But if I had to guess, it is possibly the largest part of my prayer is simply giving thanks.

You see, I'm one of those great sinners. I certainly don't claim to be a great preacher, but I know what a great thing it was that Jesus has done for me. It's the reason I have said before and will say again, I believe I am the most blessed man upon earth.

But we should not neglect giving thanks in public.

For a few different reasons.

We are instructed to:

1 Chronicles 16:8–9 “Give thanks unto the Lord, call upon his name, Make known his deeds among the people. Sing unto him, sing psalms unto him, Talk ye of all his wondrous works.”

Psalm 100:4 “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, And into his courts with praise: Be thankful unto him, and bless his name.”

Psalm 35:18 “I will give thee thanks in the great congregation: I will praise thee among much people.”

Secondly, it magnifies God and edifies man:

God certainly cannot help but be pleased when His children give thanks unto Him. And I know that it encourages me, as a Christian, to want to give Him thanks as well when I hear others doing it.

Thanksgiving is an act.

Let me ask you this: Have you been giving him thanks, both publicly and privately, lately?

Here in just a moment, we're going to give an invitation. And you're going to have an opportunity to come to this altar, unashamedly, and give thanks unto the God of heaven for the goodness He has shown unto you.

Conclusion

You may be here today and things have happened in your life and you have a bitterness down inside you. And you might think that you have reason to be unthankful. Let me give you just a few reasons why I believe you should change your mind and attitude. If you believe you have nothing else to be thankful for, let me give you these.

The Past Sacrifice of Jesus

God loved you so much that he sent his only begotten Son to die a cruel death upon the cross of Calvary. He died to pay for your sins. And make no mistake, your sins will be paid for either by Jesus or by you in the flames of hell. Amen.

But God made a way for you not to perish but have everlasting life. Boy, that's something to be thankful for!

The Present Ministration of Jesus

If you are like me, you are not perfect. But I am so thankful that Jesus, when he left this earth and ascended upon high, he did not take ease and rest. But he is right now at the right hand of the Father making intercession for me.

The times when I do mess up, the times when I do sin, I have an advocate that pleads my case and shows that the price for those sins, even still, are paid by Jesus. I'm thankful that I have an advocate!

The Promise of the Coming of Jesus

It's unpopular and rarely mentioned, but I want you to know emphatically that Jesus is coming back. It's like that shirt that you see. Normal's not coming back, but Jesus is! And I must admit, I'm excited at the prospect that I may be alive when I see the heavens open and Jesus stepping out upon the clouds of glory to call His church home!

That promise is something to be thankful for!

Are you thankful, church? Will you give thanks unto the one in which has made every blessing in your life possible? Now is the time, this altar is open.