Sermon: Portrait of Thanks: What Is Christian Gratitude?

Let's pray before we open God's word together this morning.

Father, we count as one of the goodness that you have given to us.

The everlasting goodness is your word. And so we turn this morning to you with humble hearts and with bowed spirits and we pray that you would bring this eternal good word to bear upon our souls. We confess that we are in need of it. We need a voice outside of ourselves and not just any voice, but we need your voice. And so we say speak unto us. Oh Lord, speak unto us and we pray this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen. One Chronicles chapter 29 verses uh,

10 through 18. Uh, this morning it says The holy iner sufficient word of God. Therefore, David blessed the Lord in the presence of all the assembly. And David said, blessed are you oh Lord, the God of Israel, our father forever and ever. Your O Lord is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom oh Lord. And you are exalted as head above all, both riches

and honor come from you and you rule overall in your hand our power and might and in your hand it is to make great and to give strength to all. And now we thank you our God and praise your glorious name. But who am I and what is my people that we should be able thus to offer willingly for all things come from you and of your own. Have we given you for we are strangers before you and Sojourners as all our fathers were.

Our days on the earth are like a shadow and there is no abiding. Oh Lord our God. All this abundance that we have provided for building you a house for your holy name comes from your hand and is all your own. I know my God, that you test the heart and have pleasure and uprightness and the uprightness of my heart. I have freely offered all these things and now I have seen your people who are present here offering freely

and joylessly, joyously to you, the Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel. Our fathers keep forever such purposes and thoughts in the hearts of your people and direct their hearts toward you. The grass withers and the flower fades. Word of God is forever. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Seven or so years ago, uh, the elders were looking at our calendar and said, you know, we have an opportunity at the beginning of the year and thought we would seize this opportunity where we would do what we have come to call a faith focus. And what we do is we just take these four weeks in January at the beginning of the year and we identify something that we feel like, uh, we just want to see more in the DNA more in the life

of the church, maybe something that's missing or something that we want to see, uh, us as a congregation grow in. And so we stop kind of our expositional teaching through a book of the Bible and we just teach through something topically, uh, just uh, during the month of January and then in Sunday evenings we come back and we try and preach through it a little more practically in the evening services. We ask all of our growth groups to do one of the studies

that we put together during the month of January and then we ask all of our ministry leaders to work this through their ministry area during the year. And again, it's all just to try and get a certain topic or subject or thing of the Christian life more in the DNA of our church. And this year our faith focus, what the elders decided on is gratitude and we subtitled it. Thanks be to God gratitude, thanks be to God. Why gratitude?

Because it is often missing and it's too often missing even though gratitude is not simply a part of the Christian life. And part of what I want to argue over these weeks is, is it is it is that it is Christian living. This is what Christians do. We live giving thanks to God where there's gratitude. There's life conversely where there's a lack of gratitude. There's a lack of life. And we could say it this way that the most mature Christians

among us live with the greatest measure of gratitude. Let me define gratitude For us. Gratitude is a spirit of thankfulness lived and expressed in response to a gracious God. This is my definition again, gratitude is a spirit of thankfulness lived and expressed in response to a gracious God. And I want to think about gratitude this morning from this passage. It it, it I think provides a good framework by which to think about gratitude.

It begins with therefore, therefore David bless the Lord in the presence of all the assembly and as has been said throughout the ages when you see it, therefore you have to ask what is it there for? It points back, well what does this point back to? Well, if we were to look backwards and were to look at the beginning of chapter 29 here and we go back to verse two, David makes a commitment there in verse two and the commitment is this to provide

for the house of my God. Well, what is David talking about? Well, Israel has occupied the land and Jerusalem is the capital of Israel and it is in Jerusalem that God has chosen to make his dwelling place with the people of God as they are in the land. And up until this time, as the people of God were moving from place to place, God would dwell with them in their myths and what was called the tint of meeting or the tabernacle.

It was that tint of meeting or the tabernacle that the cloud of God would come down upon and the glory of God would fill that temple, the tint of meeting the tabernacle and it was there that he would dwell with his people. It was in that tent of meeting that the Ark of the Covenant was put and it was there that the priests would go in and that they would offer the sacrifice be for God. It was a tent because the people of Israel were constantly on the move.

They didn't have a place, they didn't have a fixity. But now under David's reign as king, they're not only in the land but they're settled in the land under his reign that there is security, there's safety, there's protection, there's a sense of permanency.

And so David desires to build the Lord a permanent house in Jerusalem, a temple. If we go back even further in this book to chapter 17, David laments to himself there in chapter 17. He says this, that he himself has a house and yet the Lord doesn't have a house and he says, I will build the Lord a house and it's a right motive, it's a right desire, but it's the wrong person.

God will sin the prophet Nathan to David there in one Chronicles 17 and Nathan will come to David and he will say, David, you are not to build the house of the Lord, the temple. And we're told why in chapter 28 of one Chronicles. In fact it's David that tells all the officers of the nation. Verse two, chapter 28, God said to me, you shall not build a house for my name, for you are a man of war and have shed blood. God has appointed his son, David's son Solomon,

who will reign after him to build this temple.

David, he accepts this as the will of God, though it's his desire to build this temple. He accepts this as the will of God and yet he goes even a step further and he decides that he is going to himself help prepare for Solomon, his son to build this temple. And so David, out of his own personal wealth, he will gather stone cutters and stones and iron and nails and bronze. We are told in quantities beyond number and cedar from tire

and Lebanon and at the beginning of our chapter we read of further editions of gold and silver and onyx and colored stones and marble. But it's not just David. When the leaders of the nation see David and his, his giving to the building of this temple, they also give, but it's not just them. It is the whole nation that comes out. Verse eight, whoever had precious stones gave them to the treasury of the house of the Lord,

which then leads to this beautiful verse nine, the immediately preceding verse, our verse, then the people rejoiced because they had given willingly for with a whole heart. They had offered freely to the Lord David, the king also rejoiced greatly. This is what leads to the therefore in our passage.

Therefore, therefore what? Therefore in light of all of this free joy filled heart giving to God, verse 10, therefore David bless the Lord in the presence of the assembly,

what led to such free joy filled heart giving to God gratitude.

It's the spirit of gratitude.

What dominated them at this moment was a spirit of thankfulness lived and expressed in return to a gracious God.

I want to look at gratitude through David's prayer here, this blessing that that he prays. It has four parts and these four parts, they, they are telling that they provide a foundation for understanding Christian gratitude. First verses 10 through 13, there's recognition of who God is, recognition of who God is. Verse 10, David notes that God is Yahweh, that he exists. He, he's Yahweh. I am who I am He He calls him them Lord.

He he is Lord. He is king. He is king of kings. This this king of Israel says He is the king over me. He's king of kings. He's sovereign. He, he is the one who is holy without need. Blessed are you, oh Lord, happy in yourself, are you? Oh Lord. Then he notes who God is according to his promises. He's the covenant keeping God not only a sovereign God, a God who is and dwells in glory, but a God who is good, A God who exercises his sovereignty to to bless people.

He calls him the God of Israel or a father. And then that wonderful little phrase, forever and ever. I love that here. Here is the sovereign God, king of kings, Lord of lords, and he's a covenant keeping God. He he's entered into covenant. He's our father. Awe. And it's a father that keeps us forever endeavor.

This is who he is. And then David mentions very attributes of various attributes of God, his greatness, his power, his glory, his victory, his majesty. Let's just take one of those. His power. He says He possesses all power, but as is true of all of the attributes of God, in a very real sense, he doesn't possess them at all because they're indistinguishable from his person. He is what he possesses, they are him and he is them.

Yes, God has all power, but it's more than that. He is all power. That's our God.

And David summarizes in verse 11, all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Here's a sovereign king of a nation recognizing all is God's, everything is his, which is so fascinating in the context. Israel's now established in the land, it's their land. David is king over the people. He's got all of these possessions

and he's saying, ultimately it's not mine. It's not ours. Why? Because God is exalted overhead over all and all belongs to Him. For, from him and through him and to him are all things, all things, everything.

Gratitude begins with a re, with a recognition of who God is.

Second verses 14 through 15, the spirit of gratitude is with recognition of who we are

and you have a sight of God. Almost immediately the reflection is, ah, I'm not him. And that's David's reflection. Verse 15. We are strangers and sojo are days on the earth are like a shadow. We we come and we go, we're we're born and we die. We become and we cease to be, but he doesn't. He just is. I am who I am. He says I exist.

And yet man is just a mere breath here today, gone tomorrow.

But third verses 16 and 17, and this is where gratitude wells up. There's recognition of what we have received, recognition of what we have received.

Again, the context, the nation of Israel just gave all of these great possessions, gold and silver and onyx and marble. But look at verse 14. David says, all things come from you and of your own. Have we given you verse 16, oh Lord our God. All this abundance that we have provided for building you a house for your holy name comes from your hand and is all your own. He's saying, well, We've given to you, but we've only given what we've received.

It's all yours.

Nothing's ours.

So I want you to think through this with me this morning.

Recogni, recognizing who God is means that we know that all things are his. He created everything out of nothing. He's the creator. All things exist for him and to him, but it's not just that He's the creator of all things. He's the sustainer of all things. All things exist and continue to exist for him. Paul says it this way in Acts 17, he himself, meaning God gives to all mankind life and breath and everything, everything.

Which gets our second point recognizing who we are. And this is not lost on David of all people. He knows who he is. Not only was he created by God for God and thus he's dependent upon God for everything. As Paul said there in Acts 17, everything, it's not just that, but he also knows that he is a sinner who is opposed to God and has been opposed to God.

He will confess that great confession in Psalm 51 where he says in an iniquity was I brought forth my mother's womb. Was I conceived in iniquity against you? You only have I sinned. Oh Lord, David knows himself

and he knows what everyone knows that recognizes who they are. I deserve nothing from the one who has everything.

And yet this is the importance of our third point recognition of what we have received. The this God in his abounding grace to sinners,

gives good gifts over and over in Christ. Our Lord James says this way, every good gift is from above coming down from the father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.

Every good gift Is from him. To look at that passage next week, Paul asked in First Corinthians for this, what do you have that you did not receive? Most importantly, he asked in Romans eight, speaking of the sovereign, gracious, good giving of God, he says, if God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son bega him up for us all. How will he not also with him graciously give us all things, recognition of who God is

and recognition of who we are and what He has freely given to us. All things both for this life and for the life to come. David knows what he has been saved from and he knows what he's been saved to

and it what erupts in him as just a spirit of of gratitude.

It's the old reformed summary of the Christian life. Guilt, grace, gratitude, Chike. Chesterson said it this way. He said, when it comes to life, the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or you take them with gratitude, how do you live?

I mean it. How do you live from day to day? He said, taking things for granted

or is it with gratitude?

When people hear you talk, what would they say comes out of your mouth?

Is it complaint? Is it groaning

or is it gratitude? You who know your own mind and your own heart? When, when you, when you're going through your day from moment and moment, what? What is it? Is it taking things for granted or is it with gratitude? In the words of Chesterton,

when you have a right view of God and you have a right view of yourself

and you reflect upon everything that you've received,

the overflow is gratitude

and it's an overflow. Listen to what Paul says. It's to look like in Colossians two, seven. He says, therefore, as you have received Christ, Jesus the Lord, again, what you have received, oh, and what you have received, therefore, as you have received Christ, Jesus the Lord. So walk in him, rooted in, build up in him, and establishing the faith just as you were taught abounding in Thanksgiving.

A bounding, it's an overflow. You can't keep it in. When you have a right view of who God is and you have a right view of yourself and you have a right view of what you have received in Christ, it's abounding. It overflows

gratitude.

Now, gratitude. It's not living in the world with a pollyannish view. It's not living with a glass half full kind of mindset. It's not looking on the bright side of things that that's not what we're doing. It's different. In fact, I would argue that true gratitude, living a life of gratitude is only something that the Christian can do. Everybody else can do those other things. It's only the Christian that can really live

in a spirit of gratitude. The atheists, the agnostic, the secularists, they, they can't do this. They, they can't give thanks to you. You'll notice that, that when we talk about giving thanks, you're giving thanks to even use it. Our our word does this. We, it's thanksgiving. Thankfulness is, is is given. It's it's extended To And, and it's only the Christian that that extends it to the, the, the proper and, and the right person can

truly have a spirit of gratitude properly. 'cause We alone truly know that everything that we have, everything that we've received it, it comes from the gracious hand of a loving father. We alone know that. And so We alone should look different.

Thankfulness seems like it would be the simplest of things,

yet it's often the hardest of things Because It, it requires crucifying that entitlement mindset.

Now, it hazard a guess. There's none of us in this room that believes that we are entitled to everything. There's limits to our entitlement mindset.

It's much more subtle for us

when we believe we deserve, it's impossible to have gratitude. But when we truly believe we deserve nothing, it's impossible not to have gratitude. Our problem is a subtle problem. Our problem is that we tend to think we deserve a little bit of what we've received. We deserve a little more than what we now enjoy or we deserve a little better than what we have. But, but again, when, when you have a right view of God

and a right view of yourself and a right view of all that you've received,

then even that subtle entitlement gets.

But when you have any of those components wrong, when you have a wrong view of who God is or an incomplete view or a just a, a degree off view, or you have a wrong view of yourself or just a degree off about yourself, then what happens is it's grace that gets dashed.

The gospel gets upended.

But when we rightly see who God is and who we are, then all, all that we have is rightly recognized as all of grace from a good God. All.

When it's all a gift, the path of life opens up as one of continual gratitude.

And the psalmist says in Psalm 23, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. It's with this mindset.

No matter what comes, no matter what I'm taken through, no matter what man does to me, goodness and mercy follow me all the days of my life.

You say you don't know what I'm going through. I wanna look at that in two weeks, going through hard providences and having gratitude. But do you know that even being kept in the midst of hard providences, that's his goodness and mercy following you all the days of your life.

It's a gift. But do I have that I've not received?

Do I enjoy That's not an overflow of his enjoyment. And it's not just what I have or what I've enjoyed, but that I still am. Sin has not swallowed me. Satan has not sifted me. The world has not swayed me. Death cannot slay me. Whatever I have, whatever I am, it's a gift from the hands of a gracious God,

it's grace.

So that I can say as we confess from the catechism, I'm, I'm not my own, but belong body and soul and life and death to my faithful savior, Jesus Christ. Christian living is a life lived in gratitude from moment to moment, from season to season, over an entire life

and into eternity.

I'm receiving what I should not from God,

but you have to seek after it in Christ.

That spirit of

Elizabeth Elliot said this. She said, thankless children, we all are more or less comprehending, but dimly the truth of God's fathomless love for us, which leads finally to verses 18 and 19, David's request of God to live in thankfulness.

He says, oh Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel are our fathers. Keep forever such purposes and thoughts in the hearts of your people and direct their hearts toward you. What purposes, what thoughts does he have in mind? He, he wants to be dominated by and he wants the people of God to be dominated by this free joy filled heart, giving thanks to God, a spirit of gratitude, and not just in a moment, not just at this moment where they're collecting all

of these things for the temple. He wants it to be ongoing.

And so we he's seeking after it. He's praying for it.

Sam Crabtree said it very well, commenting, he said, A heart of thankfulness is an entry point where to enter God's gates with thanksgiving, enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name, Psalm 100, verse four, after entering, he said, we don't stop, but keep on keeping on and giving thanks. Not out of raw duty, but out of amazed hearts.

Ha, all that I enjoy you seek it. You, you pray for it. You live it. How do you seek it? By reminding yourself of who God is, reminding yourself of who you are and all that he's given you. You pray for such a spirit and then you intentionally live it throughout the day. You're, you're looking for moments here and there to reorient your heart and your mind that so often is beaten down by the complaining spirit of others, by the world,

by our adversary who wants to make you disgruntled by our own flesh, on our own sin. And so throughout the day, you, you have to be seizing moments over and over and over just to offer for thanksgiving.

We alone can give him proper things.

My favorite things about, about being a pastor is the unsolicited gifts I get on Sunday mornings from the children in the congregation. Uh, they will come up and they will give me a drawing that they did or some sermon notes that they took or some doodles that they've made on the page that that only they can really understand. But they try and explain it to me. And there's seldom a Sunday that I don't go home, that I don't have one in the inside of my

suit jacket pocket. And so next time I put on that coat, I usually pull it out and remind myself of that. It is a blessing to me. It encourages me. I always thank the children.

But here's what I know. That gift, that good gift ultimately came from above.

Yes, those children bless me, but ultimately it was God. Yes, the sun shines and warms our face on a good spring day, but it's God's blessing through the sun.

Yes, I'm thankful just stopping this morning, found myself stopping and listening to you just sing this morning, thankful for your singing. And yet it's God that gave you those lungs. It's he that gave you that breath. It's he that's making your heartbeat. It's he that has given you a spirit to engage. It's he that has blessed you with his spirit. It's he that has given us words. It's he that has given us melodies. It's he that holds together this piano that has keys

and strings and it's he.

Every good gift comes from above.

We always have reason, always have reason to respond to our gracious good God with gratitude.

I was encouraged this week reading different authors on gratitude. One of the most encouraging to me was reading Nancy DeMoss Wilmuth. Uh, one of the stories she was telling, she was reflecting on 2020, which was a hard year for all of us. She was saying not only was it going through Covid for her, but her husband Robert was diagnosed with two unrelated cancers, melanoma and non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. She says over 10 months he was struck over a hundred times

by needles, had 16 blood transfusions, three surgical procedures, three biopsies, eight scans, six chemo treatments, two hospital stays, two trips to the emergency room and countless doctor appointments. And so Nancy being the godly woman she is, she decided that she and Robert, as he began a new round of chemo treatment, that they would begin what she called a gratitude wall.

So she went out and she bought a bunch of brightly colored post-it notes and she put a stack of post-it notes, these brightly colored post-it notes in a basket with some pins and put them in their sunroom. And they made a commitment that every day at the end of their day, they would write down two or three things in that day that they were thankful to God for. And they would post it on the wall. She said, said Some were simple, it was sunny.

It was only, it only took one stick to draw blood. Today a friend dropped off a meal today, she said others were more consequential. There was no nausea today. It was a good night's sleep. Today, the, it was a negative test result that came back today. And as the days passed, the room began to fill with these brightly colored post-it notes, hundreds papering the wall of that sunroom. Can't you see it?

A bright reminder as you said that God is good and we have far more reasons to be thankful than to worry, grumble or be afraid. She said this, we resolve that we would be thankful for each day he gave us. And that if and when harder days came as they did, we would give thanks for them too. Post-it notes for the 21st century version of the Ebenezer Stone.

So much to be thankful for.

It's all the gift life is to be all gratitude.

Such a good way to begin the year thinking like that.

'cause we all need a little heart tuning here. So much to be thankful for

was this week reminded, uh, by Sinclair Ferguson. Uh, and I'm gonna have us do something that is abnormal for us, uh, this morning. But I was listening to him this week about something else and he commented that when he was in a Wesleyan Methodist Church one day that they stood up on the first Sunday of the New Year and they recited what was called Wesley's renewal prayer. It it used to be the tradition in the Methodist

and Wesleyan churches that they would do this on the first Sunday of the new year. It's a wonderful little prayer or kind of confession that think sets a good tone for living a life of gratitude as we start the new year. And so I'm gonna ask you, uh, to stand with me this morning. I'm gonna ask Ben to put it up there and I'm gonna ask you to say this with me this morning

and let me read it to you first so you know what you're praying before you pray it. And then we will pray it together. Wesley had written this, I'm no longer my own, but yours put me to what you will place me with whom you will put me to doing. Put me to suffering. Let me be employed for you and laid aside for you, exalted for you, or brought low for you. Let me be full. Let me be empty. Let me have all things. Let me have nothing. I freely

and heartily yield all things to your pleasure and disposal. That's a man that knows what he's been given. And now, oh, glorious and blessed God, father, son and Holy Spirit, you are mine. And I am yours. May it be so may the covenant, which I've just made here on earth, be confirmed in heaven.

Would you do it with me this morning? I am no longer my own but yours put me to what you will place me with whom you will put me to doing. Put me to suffering. Let me be employed for you or lay aside for you, exalted for you or brought low for you. Let me be full. Let me be empty. Let me have all things. Let me have nothing. I freely and heartily yield all things to your pleasure and disposal. And now, oh, glorious and blessed God, father's son

and Holy Spirit, your mine, and I am yours. May it be so and may the covenant, which I have just made here on earth, be confirmed in heaven. Our Father, we are truly grateful. You are such a giver of good gifts. You have given us all things in Christ, and we have a right view of you, a right view of ourselves, a right counting of the blessings that we have been bestowed with. And we pray that we would live as living sacrifices

to you, that there would be a spirit of gratitude that truly overflows our lives in every respect that you might receive the praise and the glory. Such a gracious good God deserves. And we pray all of this in the strong name of Jesus. Amen.