Gratitude (Week 2)
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Thankful for…(week 3)
Thankful for…(week 3)
This morning, I am excited to continue our month of THANKS, as I recognize a group of folks that have dedicated themselves so faithfully. For years, this team of people show up early, stay late, work on things throughout the week to make sure our worship experience and the way we connect with folks is professional and done with excellence. I am excited to acknowledge and thank the folks on our Media Team: Bethany, Jarrod, Bruce, and Jasmin.
Would you encourage them as they come to receive their Thank You Card?!?
TRANSITION
TRANSITION
This morning I want to continue the series we started last week, Growing in Gratitude.
We looked at how gratitude sets the bar for our spiritual growth. I said that Your attitude of gratitude will determine your altitude. We looked at the words Christ used during the Passover with His disciples as He blessed and gave thanks for the bread and the cup. We saw how depending upon God is what allows us to receive His grace whereas self-sufficiency and pride keep God’s arm at a distance.
In contrast to the thanks that Christ gave for the cup is the ungratefulness that will mark people in the last days. Gratitude is not only what opens up God’s ability to continue to work in our lives and see His redemption, but it should be the hallmark of our lives in contrast to those in this world far from God.
I said, “It is not happy people who are grateful; it is grateful people who are happy.” Researcher and Author, Brene Brown talks about how astounding this correlation really is...
RECAP
This morning we are going to take a different look at growing in gratitude and how ingratitude is a devilish work in our lives.
Turn with me this morning to:
1 The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons.
2 Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.
3 They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth.
4 For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving,
5 because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.
Paul makes a correlation betwen demonic activity and ingratitude. Meaning, if you are an ungrateful person or even more so an ungrateful Christian you are living under demonic influence.
LIFE: This sounds a little harsh, but tell me about how you feel when you are around kids who don’t have manners. Maybe it was your kids or someone else’s, but they didn’t use ‘Please’ and ‘Thank You’ and it more than bothered you.
I want us to look at a few things regarding thanksgiving and gratitude. It will help continue to grow in gratitude.
The problem with thanksgiving is not just a human issue but a spiritual issue. There will be these deceiving spirits that can lead to numbness (cold hearted or hard hearted).
The problem with thanksgiving is not just a human issue but a spiritual issue. There will be these deceiving spirits that can lead to numbness (cold hearted or hard hearted).
Paul then shifts the controversy to two topics they could relate to: marriage and food.
HISTORY: We have seen division between the Spirit world and the Material world for centuries. It has been common to view one as noble and holding value for the life after while viewing the other as wordly and only existing for the present. For some, what was material, what was made up of matter, really didn’t matter. It didn’t have the same importance as other spiritual things.
Spirit vs Matter
Spirit vs Matter
During Paul’s day there was a divide (and we can still see it in our day in certain circles) between what is material versus what is spiritual.
Others view certain materials as having spiritual implications. Some carrying negative implications while other bringing positive spiritual energy into our lives. Paul is writing to deal with this idea and notice that our spiritual lives are more effected by what we abstain and partake of in the material world than what we enjoy that God has created and designed us for in this life. There was this belief that certain things can bring evil into your life and thus you must regulate and even abstain from certain things in order to maintain spiritual purity.
This keeps us from full enjoying what God has fully provided. Some Christians don’t get to give the fullest thanks to God that they could and should because they are inhibited by enjoying everything God has given them. If the measure of your spiritual life is more regulated by what you can’t enjoy rather than what you can enjoy unto God then you have been duped. Paul says you are deceived and have bought into a demonic doctrine/theology.
Adam/Eve in the Garden
Let me show you how this lack of gratitude shows up in Scripture as demonic doctrine.
Satan got Eve to question the goodness of God. She was focused on the 1 tree that shouldn’t couldn’t eat from rather than the 1,000 she could. If God was really on your side then…Satan convinces Eve that He just doesn’t want you to be a little god like Him. The devil distracted her from the goodness of God and she saw what she couldn’t have.
Remember, last week how we talked about our tendency to shift our perspective from God’s abundance in our life to the lack we have and experience.
If you live your life in ingratitude and focus on what you don’t or can’t have then you will miss your full potential. The life God has called us to is about abounding in what He does have for us, what He has planned for us.
Paul says it is a doctrine of demons that shifts our perspective from the many blessings provided to us by the goodness of God enforcing limitations upon our ability for the things we should be able to give thanks to God for.
Paul writes to the Romans:
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness,
19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.
20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools
23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness,
19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.
20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
Romans 1
18 The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness,
19 since what may be known about God is plain to them, because God has made it plain to them.
20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse.
21 For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
22 Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools
23 and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like a mortal human being and birds and animals and reptiles.
24 Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
25 They exchanged the truth about God for a lie, and worshiped and served created things rather than the Creator—who is forever praised. Amen.
The essence of autonomous, evil man is losing sight of giving gratitude to God. “they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him.” During Thanksgiving, God is going to get more prayers and thank you’s than He has heard from some folks all year long. We have lost sight of being grateful.
The essence of autonomous man is the exchange of thanksgiving
Paul says that lack of gratitude is idolatry. Lack of gratitude means that you are worshipping the creature rather than the Creator. Maybe you would say, “I’m tired of having to give thanks to God every time He does something for me.”
LIFE: How would this conversation go with your kids if they came to you and said, “Mom and dad, I am just so tired of having to thank you every time you do something for me.” I know how that is going to go in my house. “Let me help you out then. How about I stop doing things for you so you don’t have to show gratitude for anything any longer?”
They had forgotten God and that is idolatry. God had created all of these things in this world for us to enjoy under His control. And it is the doctrine of demons that turns the Christian life into drudgery and one that you don’t enjoy.
Don’t blame God if you have a consistently miserable life. Blame yourself because you have abandoned giving thanks.
Listen to what Deuteronomy records:
1 These are the commands, decrees and laws the Lord your God directed me to teach you to observe in the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess,
2 so that you, your children and their children after them may fear the Lord your God as long as you live by keeping all his decrees and commands that I give you, and so that you may enjoy long life.
3 Hear, Israel, and be careful to obey so that it may go well with you and that you may increase greatly in a land flowing with milk and honey, just as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, promised you.
4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.
5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.
6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts.
7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up.
8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads.
9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
10 When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build,
11 houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied,
12 be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
13 Fear the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name.
14 Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you;
15 for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land.
16 Do not put the Lord your God to the test as you did at Massah.
17 Be sure to keep the commands of the Lord your God and the stipulations and decrees he has given you.
18 Do what is right and good in the Lord’s sight, so that it may go well with you and you may go in and take over the good land the Lord promised on oath to your ancestors,
19 thrusting out all your enemies before you, as the Lord said.
20 In the future, when your son asks you, “What is the meaning of the stipulations, decrees and laws the Lord our God has commanded you?”
21 tell him: “We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand.
22 Before our eyes the Lord sent signs and wonders—great and terrible—on Egypt and Pharaoh and his whole household.
23 But he brought us out from there to bring us in and give us the land he promised on oath to our ancestors.
24 The Lord commanded us to obey all these decrees and to fear the Lord our God, so that we might always prosper and be kept alive, as is the case today.
25 And if we are careful to obey all this law before the Lord our God, as he has commanded us, that will be our righteousness.”
10 When the Lord your God brings you into the land he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to give you—a land with large, flourishing cities you did not build,
11 houses filled with all kinds of good things you did not provide, wells you did not dig, and vineyards and olive groves you did not plant—then when you eat and are satisfied,
12 be careful that you do not forget the Lord, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.
13 Fear the Lord your God, serve him only and take your oaths in his name.
14 Do not follow other gods, the gods of the peoples around you;
15 for the Lord your God, who is among you, is a jealous God and his anger will burn against you, and he will destroy you from the face of the land.
Have you possibly adopted the doctrine of demons and forgot to live in gratitude? I am talking about a grateful heart, that is an orientation. Possibly the enemy has come in and snuffed gratitude in your heart and life, and it is time to rekindle it in your life again. The enemy of gratitude would love for us to fall prey to worshipping anything other than the great I AM, the provider, the deliverer, the one true God, Emmanuel (God with us).
Duet
Let’s look at the: Priority of Thanksgiving
3 They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and who know the truth.
The most grateful people in all the earth should be those who believe and know the truth. If you know the Lord, have fellowship and relationship with Him, we ought to be the most grateful people around. We know that every good and perfect gift comes from above. Most people want the goodies of God without having to be grateful to God. We want the gift without having to give up anything to include the Giver.
STORY: If you are enjoying a house you live in…then there are more than likely beams of wood that line your walls that came from a forest of woods in somebody’s yard, which God caused to grow so you could enjoy your home.
If you can pull out some money from your wallet…then you are enjoying the paper than was printed upon which came from the trees that were planted which God allowed to grow.
IF anybody knows that God is the source of all good it ought to be Christians. We shouldn’t have to be begged or required to have a holiday. It should be a lifestyle of thanksgiving that sets us apart.
20 always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.
i Thess
Turn with me to .
6 Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God.
7 For none of us lives for ourselves alone, and none of us dies for ourselves alone.
8 If we live, we live for the Lord; and if we die, we die for the Lord. So, whether we live or die, we belong to the Lord.
9 For this very reason, Christ died and returned to life so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.
10 You, then, why do you judge your brother or sister? Or why do you treat them with contempt? For we will all stand before God’s judgment seat.
We give thanks to God because He is the central and sum total of our life. When we get up we should give thanks (He has given us another day of life.). Maybe you don’t feel like giving thanks. He has been waking me up for years, and I haven’t been giving Him thanks. You don’t want Him to miss one do you?
Our lives belong to the Lord; He should be our focus.
The classic story is the 10 Lepers.
We looked at it last week, but let’s take another look from an additional perspective.
STUDY
They were so busy enjoying the blessing they forgot the Blesser. They were so busy enjoying the gift of God they forgot the Giver. Whenever you love the blessing more than you do the Blesser it is idolatry. Idolatry is simply worshipping anything more than God.
Many of us are not getting more from God because He is not about to give us more about which we will forget to give thanks.
Are you forgetting to say thanks as a lifestyle? Those who are growing in gratitude the Lord will speak to regularly, but those who are ungrateful have been deceived and live under the guise of the doctrines of demons in the form of idolatry.
NOTICE in verse 4 the PROVISION of thanksgiving.
4 For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving,
And this is in the same passage that is talking about demons. Everything created by God is good. If there is something that is not good then it has been tampered with by the devil or by you. When God creates He testifies that, “It is good.”
Satan wants us to believe that God is holding out on us. If God is holding out on you then it isn’t good. It may look good, taste good, smell good…but...
That Snickers bar taste good but it doesn’t mean you need it!
That pumpkin pie, pecan pie, and chess pie taste great, but it won’t be beneficial for you to eat all of them at this one meal.
Goodness has to do with intrinsic quality not external enjoyment.
Distinction: When the Bible talks about good it speaks of what is beneficial not what is enjoyable. Unredeemed man equates goodness with enjoyment. Did I like it? Did I enjoy it? Did it feel good?
Goodness has to do with intrinsic benefit not merely external enjoyment. Everything God does has benefit to it, and is thus good.
17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.
James 1:
James says: what comes from God to you is like what comes from a father to a child. These are relational gifts. These are things that are beneficial for them if even if they are painful sometimes.
LIFE: Recently, Candi and I had to to get certain vaccinations in order to keep our home open with DCS for kids 6 and under. There are shots that my kids get for their immune protection and not only for the good of themselves but for the good society at large. They don’t feel good at the time, in the moment, but they serve a greater purpose than their temporary comfort.
Everything that God gives to His children is good.
To understand the phrase “shifting shadows” you have to connect it to “the Father of lights”. We can see how this works during this season better than most. We see the shadows cast when the sun begins to set or moving overhead casting a shadow on what it is lighting up.
We call this the immutability of God, meaning He is consistent.
If there is a shadow in your life that means that you have been turning. If you have some darkness in your life then you have been turning. In this Scripture, it tells us that there is no darkness or shifting shadow in God our Father.
How can I not turn when I have a bad day? Or when I lose my job? Or things just derail in my life? I’ll tell you how you don’t turn…by giving THANKS. Despite what is going on in our lives, we don’t stop giving thanks to God. We don’t turn our backs to the sun who is providing the light for us in our life. Even though it may be night time keep facing the sun.
LIFE: Alaska spends half their day during the summer experiencing daylight. They spend half their day during the winter in the dark.
The longer you stay facing God in thanksgiving the longer the light will last in your life. But the longer you turn away from His light and towards the darkness the longer that darkness will last in your life.
Look for the goodness of God because no matter what you are going through it is there. This is how Job was able to say:
15 Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him; I will surely defend my ways to his face.
When Jerusalem is falling apart in the Book of Lamentations, he continued to say, “Great is thy faithfulness.” He kept pointing Himself towards the goodness of God.
So if tomorrow is a bad day, and it doesn’t go the way you wanted it to, give thanks anyways.
STORY: Matthew Henry (born in Wales but was a pastor in England during the late 1600’s and early 1700’s): He recounts a story of being robbed. The thief came up and robbed him. He said loudly as the thief was running away, “I just want to have a moment of thanksgiving.” The thief could hear him as we was wondering away. Matthew Henry began to thank God. First, thank you God that I have never been robbed before. All these years, this is the first time. I want to thank you for your faithfulness. Second, I want to thank you God that he took my wallet and not my life. Finally, even though he took all I had I didn’t have much.
There is always something to give thanks for. In the worst situation, there is always something to be thankful for. We can stay pointed towards the goodness of God in thanksgiving.
17 Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment.
If your trust is in the bank account it is in the wrong thing.
If your trust is in your retirement plan it is in the wrong thing.
If it is in your home…it is in the wrong thing.
If in your relationships…the wrong thing.
Paul doesn’t complain about the rich being rich; he complains about them placing their hope in their riches instead of God.
Your focus should be on God who gave it, not simply on what He gave. The principle of thanksgiving that counteracts the doctrine of demons is to say, “I give you glory and thanks for what you have done, for who you are in my life.”
Let’s look at the: Power of Thanksgiving
5 because it is consecrated by the word of God and prayer.
WORD STUDY: Sanctified, Consecrated
Greek word: set apart, dedicate, section off for God’s special and unique usage.
He already said that everything good is created by God. The question is did it come from God? If it did, it is good and you can receive it.
How do you tell if it came from God?
Can you validate it by the Word of God and say prayer over it? These are the two criteria to distinguish if it is from God.
The Word of God provides the boundaries to distinguish if it was from God or not. Was it obtained legitimately? God will let you get rich without Him, He just says He will also send leanness to your soul. You won’t be happy or satisfied.
PIANO MAN
Ordinary things become extraordinary when they are consecrated.
When you take the good things that God gives and give God the glory that He deserves He touches the ordinary and makes it extraordinary.
When you take the ordinary things and looks at them with a heart of gratitude, and sanctify it, the ordinary becomes extraordinary.
5 When Jesus looked up and saw a great crowd coming toward him, he said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread for these people to eat?”
6 He asked this only to test him, for he already had in mind what he was going to do.
7 Philip answered him, “It would take more than half a year’s wages to buy enough bread for each one to have a bite!”
8 Another of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, spoke up,
9 “Here is a boy with five small barley loaves and two small fish, but how far will they go among so many?”
10 Jesus said, “Have the people sit down.” There was plenty of grass in that place, and they sat down (about five thousand men were there).
John 6
They are looking at a normal problem with normal means. All we have is 200 denari. That won’t even get a number 6 off the menu for these people. Andrew finds some food on the property, but it can’t work. They forgot who they were talking to, and they forgot thanksgiving.
Jesus tells them to have everyone sit down.
11 Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, and distributed to those who were seated as much as they wanted. He did the same with the fish.
The disciples saw what was lacking. They saw what was missing, what they didn’t have, the negative. Jesus saw what God had provided. They were not only fed but had all they wanted. They are in desperate need. Instead of complaining, Jesus gives thanks. Even though it is only 2 fish, 5 loaves…I am thankful for what we have but I want to let you know we need more.
They have more bread and fish than they needed. What did Jesus do? Jesus did one thing: He gave thanks. He sanctified 5 loaves and 2 fish, and they began to duplicate themselves.
EVERYTHING is going wrong in my life. Maybe there is a lot going on but look for the goodness of God. Choose to give thanks. Choose to grow in gratitude.
Let’s give God the praise that is due His name. If you introduce thanksgiving, increase thanksgiving and decrease complaining, your circumstances will change. We don’t want to adopt the doctrine of demons and fall into idolatry.
Let’s decide that we are going to PRIORITIZE thanksgiving and see God’s POWER that is activated through thanksgiving released in our lives. Amen! Are you with me?!?
Those who love God, give thanks.
PRAY