Give Thanks With a Grateful Heart

Intro; video by Laura Story, Blessings [with lyrics] 4:55 [YouTube]

[Optional intro.] Thanksgiving is often a time when we reflect upon how blessed we are in faith, family and friends. But thanksgiving should be a way of life for the Christian.

We sing the song “Count Your Blessings” as a reminder of how thankful we should be. But if you really look at what you are singing that song tells us to count our blessings in the trials of life.

When up on life’s billows you are tempest tossed, when you are discouraged thinking all is lost, Count your many blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.

So amid the conflict, whether great or small, Do not be discouraged God is over all; Count you many blessings, angels will attend, help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.

Chorus; Count your blessings, name them one by one; Count your blessings see what God has done; Count your blessings, name them one by one; Count your many blessings see what God has done.

Thanksgiving in the good times is easy but to give thanks in our trials and tribulations shows the true character of a christian and that is what God desires from us. Job was a man who had little reason to give thanks for all he was going through and because he didn’t understand why these things were happening to him.

Had Job known that God was using him as a weapon [test] to defeat Satan, he could have simply sat back and waited trustfully for the battle to end. But God wanted Job to grow in his faith and be active in his faith as he does us when trials and tribulations come. So as Job we must give thanksgiving in the bad days as well as the good ones.

In the midst of trials and not so good encouragement from his friends, Job made a statement of thanksgiving to God that we should all consider.

Text; Job 10 12

Job 10:12 NKJV

12 You have granted me life and favor, And Your care has preserved my spirit.

1. You have Granted me Life:

Even though I have lost all my earthly goods, my family, and my wife wants me to curse You and die and I have no idea why these terrible things are happening to me, but You created me, granted me life, and I’m still alive because of You, there must be a reason!

Job 10:8 NKJV

8 ‘Your hands have made me and fashioned me, An intricate unity; Yet You would destroy me.

Intricate unity- complicated but very detailed, a union [image/likeness, Gen. 1:26]

Regardless of all my trials I still have a relationship/hope in the Creator of the heavens and the earth!

Psalm 8:1–9 NKJV

1 O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth, Who have set Your glory above the heavens! 2 Out of the mouth of babes and nursing infants You have ordained strength, Because of Your enemies, That You may silence the enemy and the avenger. 3 When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, The moon and the stars, which You have ordained, 4 What is man that You are mindful of him, And the son of man that You visit him? 5 For You have made him a little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with glory and honor. 6 You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, 7 All sheep and oxen— Even the beasts of the field, 8 The birds of the air, And the fish of the sea That pass through the paths of the seas. 9 O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Your name in all the earth!

Though life is a struggle right now, God chose to have a relationship with me over everything else He created and give me life here abundantly and everlasting!

2. You have Shown me Favor:

Favor is God’s grace that is not deserved but freely given. How could Job give thanks for God’s favor in the midst of his world being turned upside down?

Job had salvation in God and that favor will triumph over all his hardships

Job 13:15–16 NKJV

15 Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him. Even so, I will defend my own ways before Him. 16 He also shall be my salvation, For a hypocrite could not come before Him.

Job knew Christ lived and had redeemed his soul and even if he died from all these issues he was going through, He would live with God

Job 19:25–27 NKJV

25 For I know that my Redeemer lives, And He shall stand at last on the earth; 26 And after my skin is destroyed, this I know, That in my flesh I shall see God, 27 Whom I shall see for myself, And my eyes shall behold, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!

Job knew he had not deliberately sinned to bring these atrocities upon himself, but even if he had, he would be judged fairly by a just God

Job 31:2–6 NKJV

2 For what is the allotment of God from above, And the inheritance of the Almighty from on high? 3 Is it not destruction for the wicked, And disaster for the workers of iniquity? 4 Does He not see my ways, And count all my steps? 5 “If I have walked with falsehood, Or if my foot has hastened to deceit, 6 Let me be weighed on honest scales, That God may know my integrity.

Aren’t you thankful today that you have the favor of God in the struggles of life!!

Romans 8:31 NKJV

31 What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?

Romans 8:1 NKJV

1 There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.

Romans 8:28–30 NKJV

28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. 29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

3. Your Care has Preserved my Spirit:

Care- Loving kindness. The provision of what is necessary for the health, welfare, maintenance, and protection of someone or something.

Preserve- to make safe, watch over, deliver to continue

Job is saying, “Regardless of what’s happening to me I know that You care for me because my spirit is confident in You. Though I do not see You in my trials, nor do I understand them, I know You are here because it is against Your nature to forsake your own.”

Job 1:21 NKJV

21 And he said: “Naked I came from my mother’s womb, And naked shall I return there. The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; Blessed be the name of the Lord.”

Job 2:10 NKJV

10 But he said to her, “You speak as one of the foolish women speaks. Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?” In all this Job did not sin with his lips.

Job 23:10–14 NKJV

10 But He knows the way that I take; When He has tested me, I shall come forth as gold. 11 My foot has held fast to His steps; I have kept His way and not turned aside. 12 I have not departed from the commandment of His lips; I have treasured the words of His mouth More than my necessary food. 13 “But He is unique, and who can make Him change? And whatever His soul desires, that He does. 14 For He performs what is appointed for me, And many such things are with Him.

We might not always understand the moment but we can always trust the Lord!

Romans 8:15–17 NKJV

15 For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.” 16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together.

Romans 8:26–27 NKJV

26 Likewise the Spirit also helps in our weaknesses. For we do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered. 27 Now He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He makes intercession for the saints according to the will of God.

Romans 8:37–39 NKJV

37 Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. 38 For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, 39 nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

2 Timothy 1:12 NKJV

12 For this reason I also suffer these things; nevertheless I am not ashamed, for I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep what I have committed to Him until that Day.

Close;

Blessing Chorus;

'Cause what if your blessings come through raindrops?

What if Your healing comes through tears?

And what if the thousand sleepless nights

Are what it takes to know You're near?

What if my greatest disappointments

Or the aching of this life

Is the revealing of a greater thirst this world can't satisfy

And what if trials of this life

The rain, the storms, the hardest nights

Are Your mercies in disguise?

[Optional ending] True Thanksgiving is an attitude of the heart and it only comes from one who trusts in God whether the times are good or bad. In Psalm 136 there is a phrase that is used 26 times in 26 versus and that phrase is “For His mercy endures forever.”

Lam. 3:22-23 Through the Lord's mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness.

Because God is faithful and merciful to His children we always have reason in Everything to Give Thanks to God with a Grateful Heart! Amen!!