An Attitude Of Gratitude

Introduction

Illustration: The Gratitude Project: How The Science of Thankfulness Can Rewire Our Brains for resilience, optimism, and the greater good by Smith, Newman, Marsh, and Keltner

Researchers define appreciation as the act of acknowledging the goodness in life—in other words, seeing the positives in events, experiences, or other people (like our colleagues). That’s important, but gratitude goes a step further: it recognizes how the positive things in our lives—like a success at work—are often due to forces outside of ourselves, particularly the efforts of other people.

They go on to make the claim that

gratitude encourages us not only to appreciate gifts but also to repay them (or pay them forward), the sociologist George Simmel called it “the moral memory of mankind.”

The authors further write that

Perhaps gratitude can be part of the solution to the problems generated by inequality. Gratitude levels the playing field, because in gratitude, we all realize how much we need each other to provide and secure for us things that we cannot provide and secure for ourselves. None of us is self-made.

As many essays in this book argue, based on research, gratitude can actually be a tool to address injustice, by strengthening the bonds of people battling against it and by helping people see what they owe to those around them.

Grateful people sense that much goodness happens independently of their actions or even in spite of themselves.

Gratitude implies humility—a recognition that we could not be who we are or where we are in life without the contributions of others. How many family members, friends, strangers, and all those who have come before us have made our daily lives easier and our existence freer, more comfortable, and even possible? It is mind-boggling to consider.

By this definition, gratitude has two components. One is an affirmation that there are good things in the world, things from which we’ve benefited. Two is a recognition of where that goodness comes from—the people and things in our life that have conspired to give it to us.

How do I cultivate and/or develop an attitude of gratitude?

Illustration: Giving Thanks Can Make You Happier published by Harvard Medical School

Ways To Cultivate gratitude:

Write a thank-you notes

Thank someone mentally

Keep a gratitude journal

Count your blessings

Pray

Meditate

Transition To Body

King David in our passages of scripture today, realized what the LORD God made it possible

David wants to show his gratitude by building a house for the LORD God

Instead the LORD God will build a name, a house, for King David

(King David’s prayer of gratitude )

Body- An Attitude Of Gratitude Is Reflected When We:

Pray Respectfully Regarding Relationship (with the LORD God)

David reflects Respectfully regarding his relationship with the Lord God

2 Samuel 7:18–20 ESV

18 Then King David went in and sat before the Lord and said, “Who am I, O Lord God, and what is my house, that you have brought me thus far? 19 And yet this was a small thing in your eyes, O Lord God. You have spoken also of your servant’s house for a great while to come, and this is instruction for mankind, O Lord God! 20 And what more can David say to you? For you know your servant, O Lord God!

David prays (went in and sat) before the LORD

David is humble before the LORD God

David serves the LORD God

Illustration: Gratitude Letter Writing

How Gratitude Changes You and Your Brain byJoshua Brown & Joel Wong

In our own research, we have zeroed in on one such activity: the practice of gratitude. Indeed, many studies over the past decade have found that people who consciously count their blessings tend to be happier and less depressed. 

We randomly assigned our study participants into three groups. Although all three groups received counseling services, the first group was also instructed to write one letter of gratitude to another person each week for three weeks, whereas the second group was asked to write about their deepest thoughts and feelings about negative experiences. The third group did not do any writing activity.

Perhaps this suggests that gratitude letter writing produces better mental health by shifting one’s attention away from toxic emotions, such as resentment and envy. When you write about how grateful you are to others and how much other people have blessed your life, it might become considerably harder for you to ruminate on your negative experiences.

Prayer ought also be a letter of gratitude to the LORD God

David reflects upon his pedigree

David reflects upon how far he’s come, correction, been brought by the LORD

(A small feet for the LORD, though probably or nearly impossible for us)

LORD God I thank you for bringing me from being a little shepherd boy to making me the king over your people

LORD God I thank you for protecting from King Saul when he tried to take out my life

LORD God I thank you for keeping me when I was up against the Philistines

LORD God I thank you for fighting every one of my battles

LORD God I thank you for remembering when everybody else forgot about me

Illustration: Like gospel artist Kurt Carr would say:

got so much to thank God for

So many wonderful may blessings

And so many open doors

A brand new mercy

Along with each new day

That's why I praise You

And for this I give You praise

For every mountain,

You brought me over

For every trial, you see me through

For every blessings

Hallelujah, for this I give you praise

Or the hymnist Thomas Chisholm would write over 70 years ealier:

Illustration Great is Thy faithfulness, great is Thy faithfulness

Morning by morning new mercies I see

All I have needed Thy hand hath provided

Great is Thy faithfulness, Lord, unto me

David reflects upon the LORD God’s intentions for David’s future offspring for all perpetuity- instruction for mankind

2 Samuel 7:12–15 ESV

12 When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. 13 He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. 14 I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, 15 but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you.

Jeremiah 29:11–13 ESV

11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans for welfare and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will hear you. 13 You will seek me and find me, when you seek me with all your heart.

1 Corinthians 1:26–31 ESV

26 For consider your calling, brothers: not many of you were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. 27 But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; 28 God chose what is low and despised in the world, even things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are, 29 so that no human being might boast in the presence of God. 30 And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption, 31 so that, as it is written, “Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.”

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Pray Respectfully Regarding Relationship (with the LORD God)

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Pray Retrospectively Recalling Redemption (through the LORD God)

Additionally, David prays retrospectively regarding Israel’s redemption

2 Samuel 7:21–23 ESV

21 Because of your promise, and according to your own heart, you have brought about all this greatness, to make your servant know it. 22 Therefore you are great, O Lord God. For there is none like you, and there is no God besides you, according to all that we have heard with our ears. 23 And who is like your people Israel, the one nation on earth whom God went to redeem to be his people, making himself a name and doing for them great and awesome things by driving out before your people, whom you redeemed for yourself from Egypt, a nation and its gods?

A retrospective (from Latin retrospectare, "look back"), generally, is a look back at events that took place, or works that were produced, in the past.

The term is also used in software engineering, where a retrospective is a meeting held by a project team at the end of a project or process (often after an iteration) to discuss what was successful about the project or time period covered by that retrospective, what could be improved, and how to incorporate the successes and improvements in future iterations or projects. Retrospective can be done in many different ways.

In agile development, retrospectives play a very important role in iterative and incremental development. At the end of every iteration a retrospective is held to look for ways to improve the process for the next iteration.

Outline of text: vv21-22

God’s promise

God’s own heart

God brings about greatness in order to make his servants know it

God is great

God is incomparable

Power of Gospel Proclamation

NIV Life Application Commentary citation:

David is the legitimate anointed one who suitably rules God’s people because he is the Immanuel figure; God is with him.

Illustration: Our transcendent LORD God

Immanuel Kant was a German philosopher and one of the central Enlightenment thinkers.

Transcendentalism- a system developed by Immanuel Kant, based on the idea that, in order to understand the nature of reality, one must first examine and analyze the reasoning process which governs the nature of experience.

Transcendentalists advocated the idea of a personal knowledge of God, believing that no intermediary was needed for spiritual insight. They embraced idealism, focusing on nature and opposing materialism.

Finally, David receives a revelation from the Lord God.

{

Pray Respectfully Regarding Relationship (with the LORD God)

Pray Retrospectively Recalling Redemption (through the LORD God)

}

Pray Resolutely After Receiving Revelation (from the LORD God)

2 Samuel 7:27 ESV

27 For you, O Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, have made this revelation to your servant, saying, ‘I will build you a house.’ Therefore your servant has found courage to pray this prayer to you.

Courage to ask for what seems impossible in prayer because of what the LORD God has revealed

The LORD God gives good gifts

Matthew 7:7–11 ESV

7 “Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. 9 Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? 10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? 11 If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!

Revelation Not revealed by flesh and blood

Matthew 16:13–20 ESV

13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. 19 I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” 20 Then he strictly charged the disciples to tell no one that he was the Christ.

Ask resolutely

James 1:5–8 ESV

5 If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God, who gives generously to all without reproach, and it will be given him. 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For that person must not suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Transition To Close: Alvin Straight’s journey to see his brother

Illustration: The Straight Story (Disney, 1999), written by John Roach and Mary Sweeney (based on the story of the real-life Alvin Straight), directed by David Lynch

The Straight Story (based on a true story) chronicles a seventy-three-year-old man’s pilgrimage to mend a broken relationship with his brother, Lyle, whom he hasn’t seen or spoken to in over ten years.

When Alvin Straight learns that Lyle has had a stroke, he determines to visit him and make things right. Alvin hitches a makeshift trailer to his 1966 John Deere riding lawn mower and sets out on a five-hundred-mile trip. He camps out in fields and backyards made available by hospitable people he meets along the way. Slowly but surely, Alvin perseveres and reaches his brother. He steers his riding mower down a dirt road and finds a run-down wooden shack.

Alvin climbs off the mower, shuffles slowly toward the house, and calls out, “Lyle! Lyle!” There is no response. The look on Alvin’s furrowed face gives evidence to his fear.

Perhaps he’s too late maybe Lyle has died in the six weeks since he began his journey. After a lengthy pause, a voice from inside the shack calls “Alvin? Alvin?”

Lyle appears at the front door holding on to a walker He invites Alvin to join him on the porch, where they silently sit. Alvin nervously looks at his brother, while Lyle studies the riding mower and makeshift trailer.

Obviously overcome with emotion and gratitude, his eyes puddle as he asks, “You came all this way on that—just to see me?” Alvin’s face twitches, betraying his emotion. His eyes, too, are tearful. He smiles and simply says, “Yep!” Lyle’s face speaks for his heart. He is humbled by his brother’s grace.

LORD God traveling with his people, not at home

2 Samuel 7:4–7 ESV

4 But that same night the word of the Lord came to Nathan, 5 “Go and tell my servant David, ‘Thus says the Lord: Would you build me a house to dwell in? 6 I have not lived in a house since the day I brought up the people of Israel from Egypt to this day, but I have been moving about in a tent for my dwelling. 7 In all places where I have moved with all the people of Israel, did I speak a word with any of the judges of Israel, whom I commanded to shepherd my people Israel, saying, “Why have you not built me a house of cedar?” ’

Close: May the Good LORD Bless you & Keep You!

Numbers 6:24–27 ESV

24 The Lord bless you and keep you; 25 the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; 26 the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. 27 “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”

Isaiah 53:5 ESV

5 But he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed.