Gratitude 101: Jonah 2:8-10

Introduction

Today we are beginning a new sermon series on gratitude. We will talk about what gratitude is and what it is not. It seems only fitting that we dive into gratitude as we are in November, the month of Thanksgiving. But, while thanksgiving and gratitude are closely related, they are not the same thing. We will discuss this as well. For now, I’d like to share with you a story that I heard recently...

A priest, a minister, and a rabbi wanted to see who’s best at their job.

So they each go into the woods, find a bear, and attempt to convert it.

Later they get together.

The Catholic priest begins: “When I found the bear,

I read to him from the Catechism

sprinkled him with holy water. Next week is his first communion.”

The minister says “I found a bear by the stream, and

preached God’s holy word. The bear was so convicted that he let me baptize him.”

Both the Catholic priest and the minister look down at the rabbi, who is lying on a hospital bed in a body cast.

“Looking back,” the rabbi says, “maybe I shouldn't have started with circumcision.” I am just grateful to be alive!

Gratitude vs. Thanksgiving

As it is National Gratitude month, we can take the time to remember all the things to be thankful for. We celebrate the change in the weather as the heat and light of summer recede, leaving us with cooler days and nights. Our physical beings register these changes and cause us to become more reflective as we head toward the Thanksgiving holidays and beyond.

The Oxford Dictionary defines the word grateful as “showing an appreciation of kindness.” This is where the difference lies with the word thanks; being thankful is a feeling, and being grateful is an action.

It’s easy for us to look around the Thanksgiving dinner table and say that we are thankful. We are surrounded by family, friends, and food and in that moment in time, we’re currently experiencing that warm, fuzzy feeling that comes with a holiday gathering; we’re thankful for the moment. We may feel thankful for the presence of others in our lives, and happy that everyone is well since the last gathering. However, gratitude goes much deeper than this. It is a state of being, where you feel a sense of appreciation that comes from deep within. It penetrates all the way to our souls. We are at peace with the world, and appreciate that state of affairs deep within. The feeling of calm these thoughts and emotions bring to mind we find fulfilling.

For what are you grateful? What gives you an inmost peace and satisfaction that gives you strength for each day?

Let’s look to the Scriptures to help us better understand where we may find gratitude and some found it where they least expected it.

Will you please stand for the reading and the hearing of God’s Word this morning:

Jonah 2:8-10 (NIV)

“Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love for them. 9 But I, with shouts of grateful praise, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. I will say, ‘Salvation comes from the Lord.’”

10 And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

And may glory be to God for the reading and the hearing of His Word this morning, you may be seated.

Jonah is a picture of someone who’s just been through his own battle of sorts, choosing to go his own way only for God to bring Jonah back into His will inside of one of the darkest and smelliest places that one can imagine; it looked really bad for Jonah and yet he was still standing, as God protected him and brought him through it.

From the dark and smelly place as he was being tossed around, Jonah came to his senses and found soul gratitude as he turned back to God. He gave shouts of grateful praise as he vowed to follow God for the the rest of his days. He realized that the only one who could save him was God and with that, he was vomited up onto the beach. I’m sure that the word vomit is on purpose. I’ve never heard of someone having a pleasant experience with that particular bodily function.

Here’s the paradoxical part for me. He found gratitude inside of the whale. When he was at his worst and surely no one else wanted to be around him because he probably literally stunk to high heaven, he felt that inner sense of peace and fulfillment found in gratitude that can only come from God.

I believe that their is a message for us today. When we are at our lowest. When it seems like things could not get any worse, often it is then when we find the inner sense of gratitude found in God the most.

Or perhaps it’s easier to find gratitude in the rear view mirror of difficult circumstances. We may look back sometimes and say, “God, you were with me, it looked like I was going down, it looked like the end, it looked like I was finished, it looked like there was no way out, but you were with me through it all, and brought me through it.”

How many of you have a story like that in your life, where you were going through some of the deepest, darkest chapters of your life, and it looked bad— it looked like you were at the end of your rope, and you wouldn’t even be here today if it wasn’t for the grace of God?

When we recognize the God who continually is with us in the belly of the whale of life and we look back and realize how he continually brings us through, we find soul gratitude. Even more than that, we deepen our trust in God so that the next time difficult circumstances come our way, we have enough trust in God to say, “God, I don’t necessarily want to be here right now, but I know that brought me through the last one and you’ve got this! With a grateful heart for who you are and how you love me and those dear to me, thank you that you will see me through.”

Erin and I are grateful for all God has done for us, the miracles, and the difficulties, the times of blessing and the hard times, we’re grateful for all of it.

Like this scripture says we lift up shouts of grateful praise to God as we realize that salvation comes in Him alone.

At five weeks old, when Paxton was dealing with a condition that they said initially was “a failure to thrive”, we left our doctor’s office and later Vidalia hospital and headed down to Memorial here in Savannah. He had paloric stenosis surgery. They funny thing was that the doctor in cowboy boots who did the surgery said in describing the procedure, “Yeah, we do this all the time. We take the stomach out and...” I don’t remember much after that, but I do remember well, “We take the stomach out.” I don’t have much professional medical experience, but I’m pretty sure Pax is one in a million in having his stomach literally removed from his body. While it was all fine in the long run, it caused us both to feel emotions because of our child that we had never felt before. We were grateful for this little bundle of joy God had given us and scared to death at the same time. We put Paxton in the hands of God and the doctors as they rolled him into the operating room.

Gratitude is a lot like that. You’ve heard it said that we all take things for granted. Maybe that’s because we often don’t realize what we’ve really got until our lives take difficult and unexpected turns and we find soul gratitude.

Jesus’ momma, Mary, tapped into a deep sense of gratitude when she realized that she would be the mother of our Savior.

In Luke 1: 46-49 she says, “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me— holy is his name.” This is another example of everlasting-deep within her soul-gratitude than can only be found in Jesus!

Maybe you find yourself in conflict right now and feel that you cannot be grateful or thankful. In the middle of the Civil War, President Lincoln proclaimed, “I do therefore invite my fellow-citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the Heavens.” Notice that he set aside the day that every November would become our modern Thanksgiving in the United States. He also did it to the glory of God. During a time of turmoil and unbelievable hardship, he invited everyone to find gratitude and thanksgiving with God as the benefactor. I believe that God is inviting us find a spirit of gratitude and thanksgiving many times in spite of our circumstances. Maybe the larger message is to find the silver linings of life in the midst of everyday problems, no matter how big or small.

Allow today to be a day where you stop the busyness of your everyday life and you take inventory. Allow yourself many moments this month to cease doing more and start being in the presence of Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. As you do, you will find gratitude… that sense of inner peace that is not just found in your head or heart, but that touches all the way down to the depths of your soul!

Today, we are grateful for our Saints… those people who are no longer with us but who have made a profound impact upon our world and in our lives.

These people touched each of us, and many of us would agree that we did not know truly what we had until we began to thank God for them after their time in Heaven had begun.

This past year, Erin lost her brother, Nathan. While he had cancer and is in a better place, I will always remember how Nathan loved his nephews and had a tic tac for them every time that he saw them. I am grateful for Nathan. I am even more grateful that Nathan knew Jesus and is with Jesus today.

As I walked down the Sunday School corridor of our church, I was reminded of White Bluff’s own Nathan… Nathan Bailey. The youth room was dedicated in 2009 in loving memory of Nathan. The inscription reads, “Nathan was a gift from God who brought love and laughter to everyone he met.”

Today is a day to honor those who have died. But let me challenge you with this. Allow each day to be a day where you are grateful for the gift each person is to you. Further, and this is a pretty big challenge, take the time to let them know how you feel about them. Share your sense of gratitude for them so that they can have gratitude in their heart for you as well.

My grandfather was part of the Greatest Generation. They didn’t say “I love you” very much. I always wanted to hear him say it. So one day I said over the phone, “Granddaddy, I love you.” He said, “I love you son.” I’ve never felt more gratitude for a moment in my life. I can still tell you where I was and the car I was driving in Statesboro, Georgia.

Gratitude resonates all the way down to our souls.

If you feel empty today, ask Jesus to come into your heart so that the salvation soul gratitude that only He can give can become yours today. Notice what happened to Jonah when he turned back to God. God was always there with His arms wide open, Jonah just had to turn in God’s direction. If you once want to feel soul gratitude from the joy of your salvation in Jesus, turn back to Him right now.

Whether you would like to commit your life to Jesus for the first time today or to recommit your life to Christ, with gratitude in our hearts, let’s pray the Salvation Poem together.