Sermon: Seasons of Life and Gratitude

If I have not met you yet, my name is Kevin McKelvy and I work here at University Reformed Church overseeing our ministry to college students and it is my delight and privilege tonight to get to think about God's word with you. So as we come to God's word, would you please join me again in prayer.

Father good shepherd of your sheep, would you feed us tonight by your word? Would you show us wondrous things in your word? Would you give us understanding and enlighten our minds and hearts that we might see more of you, we might see and behold and comprehend more of what it means that you are God and that you are our God? You do this so that we may follow you service and enjoy all the days of our life. Ask these things in the name of your son

and our savior, Jesus Christ, amen.

You have a Bible tonight. I encourage you to turn to the book of Philippians chapter four if you're using a Pew Bible. It's on page 9 82 as we come to God's word tonight. We are continuing our focus through the month of January on the topic of gratitude. Tonight our theme is seasons of life and gratitude. We're gonna spend some time thinking about why gratitude is an important practice in the various seasons of life ranging from childhood to old age.

Before we get to that, I wanna spend a few minutes in Philippians laying a foundation that will allow us to consider the vital role gratitude can play throughout the entire life of the Christian. So if you would listen now Philippians four, verses four through seven. This is the very word of God. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer

and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and and your minds in Christ Jesus.

In these verses, Paul gives a series of exhortations followed by a promise. The first command is a familiar one to those of you who were here this morning. In fact, this morning Pastor Jason read this passage and for a brief moment I thought I might have to write a new sermon. Thankfully uh, all he did was set the table. We heard this morning rejoice always and in our text here, Paul is going to repeat himself and say again, I will say rejoice.

So it's good for us to hear it twice in one Sunday as well. He tells his readers to rejoice, always to be joyful and specifically to find joy in the Lord. This is not a generic positivity, but a joy that is rooted and grounded in God. A joy that is not built upon circumstances which can change but is founded on the unchanging triune God. And so since God does not change, since God is always God, Paul can write to rejoice

in the Lord, always in every circumstance, even in hard providences. As Jason preached about this morning and then to emphasize his point, Paul reiterates his message in an ongoing manner. Again, I will say rejoice or again and again and again and again. Rejoice after urging his readers to find joy in the Lord. Paul next tells them to let their reasonableness be known to everyone. In other translations it will refer to gentleness

or moderation or gracious spirit or forbearance. I did some study this week. One commentator said It is difficult to pin down what this word means with precision. Another said more simply, it is almost untranslatable

one word that didn't show up in any of the translations, but frequently in the discussions around this verse is a word that we don't use very often and I'm a little nervous to try to pronounce magnanimous, which the dictionary defines as loftiness of spirit enabling one to bear trouble calmly to disdain, meanness and pettiness and to display a noble generosity maybe combined. They all help to give an idea of what Paul is saying.

Let your gentleness, your graciousness, your forbearance, your moderation, your magnanimity be evident to all. There is an even keeled nature to this command. Don't get carried away too much by the highs of life or dragged down by the lows, not concerned with your own rights or justice, but entrust yourself to God and seek the good of others. This is what Paul is saying when he says, to let your reasonableness be known to all

and just as in the exhortation to rejoice in the Lord, Paul gives a motive for this command the Lord is near. Now this could mean either that the Lord is with you present in your circumstances or that his return is at hand and imminent the lack of clarity and the truth of both realities may mean that Paul was intentionally ambiguous to allow both to be in the minds of his readers. Be gentle and gracious toward everyone for you know

that God is with you to help and that Jesus is returning and will judge with perfect justice and perfect righteousness

and called people to rejoice and to let their reasonableness be known to all. Paul gives one more command and this time he phrases it both negatively. Do not and positively do. Don't be anxious but do come to God in prayer with your requests in thanksgiving again as with rejoice always and let your re reasonableness be evident to everyone. This command has a universal effect. Do not be anxious about anything but in everything by prayer

and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. We'll come back in a few minutes to think about what it means to not be anxious, but notice that we are to come to God in prayer in everything with supplication bringing our requests to him. Then Paul adds perhaps surprisingly that we are also to do so with Thanksgiving.

Now if you found yourself in a situation that makes you anxious, I think for most of us it would make sense if someone told us to come to God with our needs instead of simply worrying. But with Thanksgiving, doesn't that come after we bring our requests and he gives us what we asked for?

It seems a little out of place and it is the unexpected nature of this edition that Paul uses to shine a spotlight on the importance of gratitude in the argument that he is making. Nick Edington preached last Sunday on praying with gratitude. I'm not gonna revisit that, encourage you to go back and listen if you missed it. But what I want us to explore tonight is the connection between Paul adding thanksgiving here to our prayers

and what immediately follows. Paul continues after giving these three commands by offering a promise and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your heart and your mind in Christ Jesus by beginning this promise with the conjunction. And Paul is making it clear that it is related to what has just come before He's given these three commands, one oriented toward the self, rejoice one oriented towards others.

Let your reasonableness be evident to all and one oriented toward God. Do not be anxious but bring your request to him in prayer with thanksgiving and now he describes the fruit in the life of the believer who does what he has told them to do. If you will rejoice, let your reasonableness be known and bring your request to God with thanksgiving you will discover that the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your heart

and your mind in Christ Jesus. The picture that Paul is using here of guarding as one of a military unit stationed to guard a city to defend and to protect it, the promise is a peace that will guard your heart. The seat of your feelings will guard your mind, the center of your belief and understanding of God and his world. The peace of God will watch over you guarding your emotions and your thoughts that you might think rightly

and respond rightly to whatever life may bring.

I think that's what Paul is arguing and there's, there's so much that we could say about these verses and we'll come back to them in in some places, but here's what I want us to focus on tonight as it relates to our theme of gratitude, the connection that Paul makes between Thanksgiving and this protecting peace of God. This is not the only place that Paul makes such a connection between thankfulness and peace. In Colossians three 15, he writes,

but the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful scriptures point to a direct correlation between giving thanks and having the peace of God rule in your heart. And so here in Philippians four, Paul argues that coming before God, not simply with our needs but with rejoicing and thanksgiving results in peace and peaceable ness which will be evident to those around you

and which will guard your heart and your mind and as we consider gratitude in various seasons of life. Tonight, I want to zoom in on Paul's argument and dive a little deeper into how this plays out. Here's what I want us to focus on. Gratitude is a vital aspect of the heart. Uh, sorry. Gratitude is a vital aspect of guarding the heart and mind of the Christian with the peace of God or said more simply. Gratitude helps to guard the Christian.

Gratitude helps to guard the Christian and it's through this lens that I want us now to turn and consider different seasons of life. How can gratitude help to guard the heart and mind in various seasons of life? More specifically, what does gratitude guard your heart and mind from at different stages of life? I wanna walk through four different seasons, childhood, youth, adulthood and old age. And as a quick side note,

I'm not gonna give parameters where you fit. You can self-identify, there will certainly be overlap and many of these will apply to people in various demographics, but there are some unique threats at different ages and gratitude provides an important protection against each one. I want us to think about that for a few minutes. I limited myself to two for each season in life, so we'll try to go through these fairly quickly.

Kids, I wanna start with you. I want you to think about a couple of temptations that children are especially prone to. First impatience there is often such a focus on what is next. Can't wait till you can go to bed later or sit in the front seat of the car or get your own phone or drive or be in high school or be done with high school. Can't wait to do whatever it is that kids just a little bit older than you get to do.

It is good to look forward to what is coming to anticipate with eagerness and excitement, but the tendency is that wherever things stand, it isn't enough, can't be satisfied. There's always a next step that you wish was coming sooner. Where you are today seems so boring and confining like the prodigal son in Jesus parable. You are so eager for independence and autonomy that you are tempted to try and hurry this process along

or kids consider a second temptation grumbling and complaining.

In my experience, no reference to my own children. Children are masters of finding reasons to complain. What mom makes for dinner, who you have to sit next to at dinner. The dinner is ready too early and interrupts what you were playing. The dinner is ready too late and you're starving when it's time to go to bed, when it's time to wake up, when it's time to take a bath, when you can't do something you want to do, when you get

to do something you wanna do, but it has to come to an end or complaining because there's nothing to do

like the Israelites in the wilderness. There is almost no limit to what you can grumble and complain about. As I was thinking about this, I was thinking about Exodus 15. The Israelites encounter water that is not very good to drink. We're told they grumble against God.

One chapter earlier in Exodus 14, God had delivered them from the Egyptian army by supernaturally making a way for them through the Red Sea. They had just been rescued from slavery in Egypt handed wealth on their way out. Their firstborn sons were all still alive. They had so much to be thankful for, but instead they grumbled against God how different it would have been if they had brought their needs to God with thanksgiving instead.

And kids, it is so easy for you to find yourself in the same place you have received so much and for it never to be enough and for the next thing you encounter to lead to grumbling and complaining and kids, I want you to hear that gratitude can guard your heart and mind from both impatience and from grumbling and complaining.

What if instead of pining over where you will be, you practiced gratitude and thanksgiving for where you are, for where God has brought, brought you. Just remember the things that you get to do now. What just recently you couldn't wait for.

What if you regularly gave thanks for parents who love you and watch over you who provide a warm home on a cold day and clothes to wear and food on the table day after day after day? What would it look like to thank God for the gift of your brothers and sisters? So often the source of that impatience or complaining to be thankful that you don't yet have to be responsible for paying the bills or fixing the cars that you have the freedom

to just enjoy life. Thankful that no matter what happens, you have a father in heaven who loves you and is for you. It is a lot harder to be impatient or to complain when you remember all that you have to be thankful for speaking to kids. I suspect that many of us could find that to be true in other areas of life.

Now move to youth. Youth consider the danger of self-sufficiency. The strength and energy of youth is a wonderful gift, but it can also lend itself to a dependence upon self. A tendency to not just be confident but overconfident in your own abilities. Forgetting that every good gift you have comes from your father in heaven. This can look a lot of different ways failing to heed or seek the wisdom of God. Acting first and thinking second, neglecting the means

of grace or striving for a work's righteousness rather than resting in the work of Christ or think of the danger of youthful passions. In second Timothy, Paul warns Timothy to flee youthful passions. There are desires bound up in the mind and body and heart of a young person that often come with an extra intensity in which can be very difficult to tame, prideful, ambition, despair, misuse of the tongue, idleness of vain pursuits,

lustful appetites for violence, food, drank sex or even relational acceptance among many others. And again, youth for both self-sufficiency and the passions of youth gratitude offers protection, acknowledging that what you are and have was given to you cuts at the root of self-sufficiency, reminding you that you are dependent in the best way possible, shaped and formed by an all wise creator and redeemed by a spotless savior.

Gratitude also tempers the passions of youth, putting desires into perspective and exposing the allure of temptation for the deception that it is.

The Westminster larger catechism gives an interesting way that gratitude can be used against temptation and youthful passions, which I suspect many of us would maybe not immediately think of. Question 1 67 asks, how is our baptism to be improved by us? They seem like a strange question, how do we improve our baptism? But it's asking how is the Christian supposed to bring their baptism to bear on every on their everyday lives?

And this is the answer that begins this way, the needful, but much neglected duty of improving our baptism is to be performed by us all our lifelong, especially in the time of temptation and when we are present at the administration of it to others. So it's saying we, we should do this all the time, especially when when we watch baptism being administered to others as we did this morning, if you were at the morning services

and especially in times of temptation, and this is what we are to do in those times of temptation or watching it be given to others, we are to give serious and thankful consideration of the nature of it and of the ends for which Christ instituted it. The privileges and benefits conferred and sealed thereby and our solemn vow made therein.

What the catechism is saying is that in moments of temptation, you ought to look back on your baptism with gratitude and thanksgiving, while you consider the nature and benefits and significance of having been baptized.

For those of you who fall into that category of youth who maybe were baptized as an infant or years ago, when is the last time that you reflected on your baptism?

Gratitude can help guard against youthful passions by in moments of temptation, giving thanks for your baptism, for being united to Christ through faith, being cleansed of your sin and set apart for him. This can strengthen you by gratitude to fight against youthful passions and self-sufficiency.

All right, we need to keep moving. Let's turn our attention now to adulthood. In adulthood gratitude guards us against forgetfulness. I wanna return back to the Israelites here for a minute. In Deuteronomy, the Israelites are gathered on the edge of the promised land and Moses recounts God's law to the generation that will finally get to move in and take possession. And this is what God tells them in chapter eight. Take care lest you forget the Lord your God.

By not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today lest when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them. And when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up and you forget the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery,

who led you through the great and terrifying wilderness with its fiery serpents and scorpions and thirsty ground where there was no water, who brought you water out of the flinty rock, who fed you in the wilderness with manna that your fathers did not know that he might humble you and test you to do you good In the end, 40 years they had been wandering and now they come to the edge of the promised land and God warns them, be careful

or you will get into this land and your bellies will be full and you will have built good houses and you'll have enough silver and gold and sheep and goats to feel secure and you will be in danger of forgetting God. This forgetfulness is a danger today as well. Having worked with students over the past couple decades, I have seen this pattern play out. There is an earnestness of faith in youth seeking after God amidst the uncertainty of what will happen,

wondering and praying about where to live and what to study or pursue career wise, how much money you'll make will there be someone to marry and settle down with? What about having kids? And then the Lord provides all of these things and you do settle down somewhere with someone. You have what you were hoping for. Life gets busy and you begin to settle to a comfortable complacency that forgets God despite all that he has done for you,

just like the Israelites, despite all that he had done for them, we begin to forget him on the other end of the spectrum. A danger in adulthood can be disappointment. If forgetfulness can result from arriving at the promised land, there is an equal temptation of being disappointed with where you end up in life. This is often the impulse behind midlife crises. You had hopes and dreams in your youth and 15 or 20 or 30 years down the road you look around

and you wonder what you have to show for it. You become restless. Your career never panned out. Marriage and family isn't what you thought it would be. You aren't who you thought you would be. You don't feel like you thought you would feel. You don't have what you think you deserve to have and time is running out.

So whether life expectations are comfortably met or disappointingly unmet, gratitude can guard your heart and mind. Moses tells the Israelites to fight forgetfulness by remembering recounting that God brought them out of Egypt and slavery guided them through the wilderness with its fiery serpents and scorpions provided water out of rocks and bread every morning. They needed to recount and to be grateful for God's salvation and provision.

And the same is true for those who would guard against forgetfulness or disappointment. Today, remembering with thanksgiving will prevent forgetfulness as you fix your heart and your mind on all that you have. And it will guard against being fixated on what you wish you had. Think of all you have to be grateful for in your salvation having been delivered from your sins, brought from death to life and darkness to light

and add to that all that he has provided on top of your redemption. One of the advantages as we work our way through these seasons of life of getting older is that you have an increasingly large number of years and life experiences to look back upon and to recount and to remember the Lord's provision and faithfulness to you. And as you do so, your heart and mind will be guarded against forgi, forgetfulness and severe disappointment.

Finally on us to consider some of the threats of old age. First anger and bitterness. There is a reason that the grumpy old man or the bitter old woman is a stereotype with age can come. The frustration of having to slow down, having to face certain limitations. Perhaps you feel cast aside and undervalued. Maybe it is small seeds of bitterness or anger that have been accumulating over decades that are allowed to fester and grow until they are large

and firmly rooted in your heart.

Another threat of old age can be the tendency to wish you could go back. This is in many ways the opposite of the impatience of childhood. Do you ever think I would give anything to go back to when my kids were little, when they were still home wishing that you had the physical abilities of youth? It is one thing to look back with fond memory, but it is another to be discontent with what God has for you in the present.

And again, as in every season of life, it is gratitude that leads to a peace that protects against both bitterness and a discontentedness in your present situation. It allows you to delight in what has come before in such a way that strengthens your confidence in where God has you now and what is coming next. Gratitude drives out any thoughts of needing validation from others. Drives out any thoughts of self-entitlement.

Bitterness and anger cannot survive in a grateful heart when you remember who you are in Christ, all that you have received, there is no place for wallowing and self pity or lashing out at those around you.

So that's just a glimpse of how gratitude can guard your heart and mind in various seasons of life. Countless others we could have mentioned. Want to go back now to Philippians four, and I want to consider one more enemy that gratitude can guard you from, which I think has relevance for all ages. The temptation to anxiety, Paul's command is to not be anxious about anything but to bring everything to God with our requests.

And thanksgiving. For many of you, maybe most of you, I don't have to paint a picture of what anxiety looks like. You know that all too well. You may be anxious about health or relationships or the culture or the future. You may be anxious about things you know or maybe about the unknown. You feel out of control and fearful. And in all of this, Paul says, bring your needs to God and thank him and the peace of God will reign where anxiety

threatens as you thank God for who he is. You remember that he knows all things he controls and governs all things he sustains, provides, protects and preserves a heart and a mind filled with gratitude for who God is and what he has done will have little room to be anxious.

So gratitude helps to guard the heart and the mind of the Christian in all seasons of life. Guards against impatience, complaining, self-sufficiency, youthful passions, forgetfulness, disappointment, bitterness and discontent. Not to mention doubts, jealousy, greed, rebellion, selfishness, and any number of other vices that would seek to assault God's people.

Before we conclude, I want to very briefly consider one more question about how gratitude guards the Christian. When a guard is set around a city, it has a twofold purpose. One, as we have already explored, is to repel those who would seek to attack and destroy. The other is to provide safety and security so that what is within the guard is protected and may thrive and flourish. We've already considered what gratitude guards against,

but I want to take a minute to consider what gratitude protects and promotes in the heart and mind of the Christian. That which is allowed to flourish within the protection of gratitude could again be a very long list. But let's just look at three things that Paul points to in Philippians four. First gratitude protects joy. It says where Paul started the command to rejoice. The heart and the mind of the Christian is rightfully full

of delight, gratitude guards and feeds such joy. Second, that strange word, magnanimity. We already talked about the complexity of this idea, but a practice of gratitude guards this self forgetful attitude which is bent towards the love of those around you. In many ways, this is simply a description of what Paul has said early in Philippians where those who are seeking to follow Christ should consider others better than themselves.

And third, gratitude protects peace. This is the very fruit of gratitude, which Paul says will protect, protect the heart and mind of the Christian, the peace of having been reconciled to your creator, knowing that your eternal home has been secured and is being prepared for you. The peace of knowing who he is and what he has done and who we are. Because of that,

all three of these things are protected and nourished. They are guarded and allowed to flourish within the confines of gratitude. And imagine what the guarding and flourishing of just these three fruits could mean for various seasons of life. Seems to me that it would protect and promote a carefree and wonderfilled childhood, a youth marked by zeal and vigor, a contented and faithful adulthood and a growing into old age with grace and wisdom.

So as we consider gratitude, consider what it guards against. Consider what it protects and nourishes want to leave you with a couple questions.

What is a particular challenge that you face in your present season of life? What are some things you could intentionally bring to the Lord in Thanksgiving that would help to guard you in that area?

What is a specific virtue of mind or heart that you want to cultivate in your current season of life? How might gratitude help to secure and grow that in you?

This morning, pastor Jason stated that sanctification is tied to thanksgiving in many ways. Tonight is simply an unpacking of that coming to God with thanksgiving will guard your heart and mind from ungodliness and will create a secure environment in which holiness can blossom.

Certainly this is a discipline worth continuing to cultivate in your life, in whatever season you find yourself in, you join me in prayer.

Father, we come before you tonight meaty and thankful. We are thankful that you have made us thankful that you have saved us, that you have revealed yourself to us. Thankful that we can meet together, thankful that we can consider your word, thankful, that you have provided Abundantly for each and every one of us. And needy. Lord, we we need your grace. We have material needs. We have physical needs, most of all. Lord, what we need is more of you.

We need you to help us to see with eyes of faith and gratitude. We need you to help us to remember, to recount, to rejoice. We need your peace to guard us. We need your grace. And so Lord, we ask that you would grant your grace and peace to your people. Would you cultivate in us a spirit of gratitude and would you grant us your peace? Surpasses all understanding might guard our hearts and our minds. We ask these things in the matchless name of Jesus Christ

and.