Thankful All the Time

1 Thessalonians 5:18

INTRODUCTION

Thanksgiving is coming soon, and we will take time out to be thankful.

We’ll look back on our lives and remember the kindnesses of people to us, of their love and encouragement that gives us the strength to pursue our goals.

We’ll thank God for friends, for life, for comforts, for hope, for salvation, for the gifts of God’s grace.

But when Thanksgiving Day is over and Friday comes, will we go back to being the same people we were before? Will we forget about being thankful?

In this sermon I want to encourage you to become a permanently thankful person, a person whose life just overflows with thankfulness, not just one day in the year, but everyday.

In his letter to the Christian believers in the Greek city of Thessalonica, St. Paul wrote these words: “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

I. We need to learn how to give thanks to God.

A. Every prayer we make should include thanksgiving.

Philippians 4:6: “Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanks giving let your requests be made known to God.”

I’ve been thinking about my prayers, and I realize that almost all of my praying is asking for things.

What would you think of a child whose talk to his or her parents was almost all asking for things?

What would you think of a husband, all of whose conversation with his wife was asking her to do things for him?

God makes gracious promises to hear our prayers and open his hands to bless us.

We’re needy people and God wants us to come to him with our needs and the needs of others.

But prayer is much more than requests.

Prayer is the way we keep connected with God.

Here’s an old preachers’ story. On a normal day in heaven the angels are bringing basketsful of prayers to God.

Most of the angels’ baskets were overflowing.

But there was one angel who always had just a few prayers in his basket.

He was the angel who was assigned to bring the prayers of thanksgiving. But there were never very many of them. Most of the prayers from earth were just more requests.

B. In the Bible God talks to us, but in one book of the Bible it is believers who talk to God.

That is why the book of Psalms is so precious to us.

Read those prayers. Sometimes the psalmists just praise God, admire him, and speak of his wisdom, beauty, mercy, and goodness—like a lover telling his beloved how dear she is to him.

“O God, thou art my God, I seek thee, my soul thirsts for thee; my flesh faints for thee, as in a dry and weary land where no water is…” (Psalm 63:1).

Sometimes the psalmists complain; some psalms are cries of pain: “I am weary with my crying; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God” (Psalm 69:3).

Some of the psalms are full of questions: “How long, O God, will you forget me for ever?” (Psalm 13:1), “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from the words of my groaning?” (Psalm 22:1).

Many psalms are simply meditations in which the psalmist bears witness to what it means to belong to God: “God is my refuge and strength, a very present help in times of trouble…” (Psalm 46:1). “The Lord is my Shepherd; I shall not want…”

Some psalms are simply testimonies to God’s goodness: “Thou anointest my head with oil, my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life…”

Often psalmists do make requests; sometimes they beg God to help them in their troubles. Most of the psalms of complaint and questioning end with an expression of thanksgiving.

But I don’t think that there is any kind of prayer in the psalms that is expressed more frequently than the prayer of thanksgiving.

C. So every day, when you pray, try give thanks to God for something:

Thank God for people in your past who have loved you, blessed you, helped you, encouraged you, or inspired you by their example.

Thank God for opportunities you have had to serve, your successes, people you have been able to help.

Thank God, maybe, even for sorrows and troubles through which you have learned the important lessons that made you what you are.

Thank God for difficulties overcome, struggles in which you have found the strength to prove your loyalty to God.

Thank God for those who have been your mentors—parents, grandparents, teachers, pastors, mentors who showed you the way to God.

I often thank God for the authors of books that have been some of my best teachers.

II. But all of our thankfulness shouldn’t be directed only to God.

A. We also have a duty to express our thanks to people in our lives.

How often to we remember to tell other people how much we appreciate them?

How often do we write letters of thanks and appreciation? A handwritten letter, in an envelope with a stamp on it is something special nowadays.

At various times in my life I’ve received letters from people expressing their appreciation for what I have meant in their lives.

When I taught school, often I would write letters to parents telling they what a pleasure it was to have their child in my class.

I’ll bet some of those letters are still kept—50-60 years later!

I have saved some of the letters of appreciation that I have received that are precious to me. I have some of them here:

A birthday card signed by all the members of my 7th grade class.

A letter from the parents of one of my students expressing appreciation for what I had done for their son.

A letter from a former student thanking me for the encouragement I had given her years before.

A letter from an inmate in the State Prison expressing appreciation for a Bible study I had conducted inside the prison.

A letter from a PTA board expressing sorrow that I was being transferred from their school.

A 4-page letter from a Japanese student who had been a member of a Bible study I led some years before in his high school in Japan.

A letter one of our daughters-in-law sent just before her marriage to our son.

Knowing how much these letters have meant to me makes me realize how much letters I may write can mean to people to whom I owe a debt of gratitude.

B. All the blessings in my life come from God, but most of them come through other people.

I often remind myself that almost everything good in my life has come through someone else—someone’s example, someone’s teaching, someone’s patience…

People need to know that they are appreciated.

Have you noticed how many of Paul’s letters begin with something like this: “I thank God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in all of my prayers for you…” (Philippians 1:5).

So I suggest that when Thanksgiving comes, you thank not only God but also those through whom you have experienced God’s love.

One August when I was 19, after my freshman year in college, I spent a month in a little Bible school that met over a store building in south Chicago. There were only 15 or 20 of us.

One of our teachers was a man named Dudley Sherwood.

I was inspired by Mr. Sherwood’s teaching. He made Bible doctrine come alive for me. He inspired me to learn Greek.

He always took time to answer my questions. He became my friend.

Many years later I remembered what a blessing he had been to me, and I wrote him a letter telling him so.

He wrote me back, and I will never forget one line in that letter. He wrote, “I had always thought that that summer was spent to no great profit.”

I found this in a book I am reading:

A gifted executive, looking back on his career, realized how greatly his life had been influenced as a youth by a certain teacher. He traced her through the school, found that she was retired, and wrote her of his appreciation.

He received this reply:

“I can’t tell you how much your note meant to me. I am in my eighties living alone in a small room, cooking my own meals, lonely, and like the last leaf of fall lingering behind. You will be interested to know that I taught school for fifty years and yours is the first note of appreciation I have ever received. It came to me on a blue cold morning, and it cheered me as nothing has in years.”

A great psychologist and philosopher named William James wrote this: “The deepest craving of human nature is the craving to be appreciated.”

CONCLUSION

Let me leave you with these thoughts:

Thank God, on Thanksgiving Day and every day for life and for the blessings in your life.

Thank God for the people through whom those blessings came.

This is important, not only to the God who loves us, it is also important to you to draw you closer to God.

And don’t forget to thank also the people who are important in your life.

They need to hear what you have to tell them.

We all need to know that our lives have blessed others.