TEXT: James 1:26

SUBJECT: Bridled Tongue #9: Thanksgiving

Today, with the help of God’s Spirit, we’ll continue the study we began a couple of months ago. It’s called The Bridled Tongue. You ought to control what you say because, if you don’t, your devotion to God is phony. You may fool other people, you may fool yourself even, but you sure won’t fool the Lord! His religion is not a Sunday morning affair. It changes the whole life—how you think, how you act…and how you speak. Believers should speak differently than others, in church, of course, but also at home, on the job, and everywhere we open our mouths.

In the first part of the study we looked at the qualities of sound speech. Everything you say should be true, kind, wholesome, timely, humble, and brave. But now, we’re on the content—or what we should talk about as disciples of Christ. Last week, we saw that believers should spend a lot of time praising the Lord. Now, we come to a second thing to talk about, and that is thanking the Lord.

What does it mean to thank the Lord? Thanking the Lord and praising Him are very much alike, but they’re not quite the same thing. When you praise God, you tell Him how wonderful He is. But when you thank Him, you tell the Lord how wonderful He is…to you.

In other words, praise is set on God Himself, while thanksgiving focuses on what He has done for us.

Is it important to give thanks to the Lord? Of course it is. The Bible commands you to give thanks. Good men are thankful, most of the time, and when they’re not, they feel guilty about it. Bad people hardly ever give thanks, and when they do, the words are often hollow and the warm feelings are short-lived.

But above all these things, we have the example of Jesus Christ. If you read the Gospels, you’ll see our Lord was often giving thanks. He gave thanks for "the little things of life", such as food and drink. And He gave thanks for the "big things" too, such converting sinners, and raising them from the dead.

No one is more thankful than our Lord and Savior. And that’s telling when you remember than no one seemed to have less to be thankful for than He did. He didn’t have a warm family life; He didn’t have loyal friends; He didn’t have money; He didn’t have a long life or a quiet, peaceful death. Yet this "Man of Sorrows" was also a Thankful Man.

Does God want you to be like His Son? He does. And there’s no better way of imitating Christ than by feeling a warm gratitude to God and putting it into words! Psalm 92:1,

When should you give thanks to the Lord? What did your parents teach you about saying thanks? I was taught to say "thank you" every time someone did me a favor. If someone gave me a birthday present, I said "thank you". If someone let me go first, I said "thank you"…

I assume your parents taught you the same thing. And they were right. If someone does you a good turn, the least you can do is thank him for it.

Now, apply this reasoning to God. How often does the Lord do you a favor? He does you a favor every second of every day. And, if you’re a believer in Christ, He does you a favor every second of eternity! I once heard a man say, "God never did a darn thing for me!" (But he didn’t say "darn"). But think about it: the very breath he used to blast the Lord was a gift of God.

If the Lord is always doing you a favor, it’s always the right time to thank Him for it. And that’s exactly what the Bible says.

If it’s always right to be thankful, then it’s always wrong to be unthankful. There are words we use to describe the ungrateful heart: Proud, envious, discontented and covetous. When the rottenness get into our words, we call it: boasting, slander, whining or murmuring.

Giving thanks to God must not be limited to Special Occasions. It’s not something to do only on holidays, for example, or when God blesses you with a baby, or when you get good news from the doctor or get the job you wanted so badly. These things are included, but they’re only a tiny part of the whole thing.

Thankfulness is an attitude to get and keep and improve on every day.

What should you be thankful for?

Some people are thankful for nothing. They’re so arrogant or bitter that they don’t appreciate anything. They’re ugly, revolting ingrates.

Most people are thankful for something. People who don’t know God often have the funny feeling that "Somebody up there likes me". And, as far as they go, they’re right. Christians go farther than this, however. They often thank the Lord for things like good weather or a happy family or the forgiveness of sins, and so on.

This is very good. But the Bible goes even farther. It says we ought to be thankful for…everything. II Thessalonians 5:18 says,

The everything includes things we all want: good health, happy families, plenty of money, meaningful work, time off, good food, fun times, friendship, laughing children, a warm sun, a cool breeze, and so on.

But that’s not the whole picture. Everything also means the items nobody wants: sickness, unemployment, poverty, loneliness, old age, and death.

Why should you be thankful for these things? Because they’re good for you. Note carefully, I didn’t say they’re fun or pleasant or pain-free. I also didn’t say it’s easy to see how they’re good for you. It’s never easy and, most of the time, it’s impossible to understand. But good for you, they are. Because God says so. He says,

We don’t know how bad things are good for us, how the death of a loved one is better than his recovery, how losing a job is better than keeping one. We cannot explain it, and so we have to take God’s Word for it. And be satisfied with that alone.

I don’t want to leave this heading on such a downer. And so, let me go on to tell you what you ought to be most thankful for. Believers ought to be supremely thankful for Jesus Christ!

Thank Him for His Humiliation. Would you become a worm to save other worms, and be stepped on in the process? Nobody would do that. But Jesus Christ did more than that! The difference between man and worm is far less than the difference between God and man. Yet God became a Man to save you from your sin and misery. And to do it, He was suffered something a lot worse than being stepped on. He died the most painful, exhausting, humiliating death the sadistic mind ever came up with: Crucifixion.

Thank Him for His Exaltation. Three days after the cross, our Lord rose from the dead. And Peter says that it wasn’t He alone who came to life, but we have a part in it too. We are "Born again unto a living hope through the resurrection of Christ". In other words, when He came to life, His people did too. A few weeks after the Resurrection, He ascended into heaven. By doing this, He cleared the way for us, so that we too would go to heaven when we die. Ten days later, He poured out His Spirit, which did us a world of good. For example, it:

• Makes the People of God international—and not Jews only.

• Gives us a deeper sense of God’s love and nearness.

• Equips us to promote God’s cause in the world.

• Gives us confidence to die. For the Holy Spirit is the Security Deposit for the whole of our salvation.

The Second Coming awaits. Believers are often terrified by this while unbelievers laugh about it. It should be the reverse! We should be laughing about it! The Second Coming at an appalling prospect for the unsaved, but for God’s People, it’s a Vacation, a Party, a Wedding, and a Coronation all rolled into one.

We have so much to thank God for. But especially what He has done for us in Christ, what’s doing for us in Christ, and what He will do for us in Christ! We cannot improve upon Paul’s outburst,

Do you want to give thanks to the Lord? And to do it more sincerely and more often than you have? If you do, good, that’s half the battle! Wanting to! But let me offer some advice on giving thanks.

In the first place—and negatively-- think about the ugliness of ingratitude. Have you ever known a real ingrate? Maybe he’s a spoiled teenager or a bitter old man or a woman nobody can please. Does that person look attractive to you? Not to me! I can think of nothing uglier than ingratitude. It looks bad on others; it looks bad on me; it looks bad on you. Think about that and maybe you’ll become more grateful.

The others are all positive. Remember, everything you have is a gift. Life itself is the gift of God. And so are the happy things that come with it. Maybe you’ve earned money by working harder than others--and smarter too. Good for you! But, remember, you worked with the life, energy, intelligence, and opportunities God gave you. Everything you have is a Gift, James 1:17.

Also Remember, everything you have is a gift of grace. That means, the good things of life are not yours because you deserve them! You don’t! Nobody deserves them; no one earns the favor of God! They’re not given because of what we are; they’re given because of what He is!

In the fourth place, spend time with people who are grateful and steer clear of those who aren’t. Nothing will stir up a spirit of envy or discontent faster than being with people who have rotten attitudes. This is not always possible, of course, but as much as it lies in you, do it.

Next, you should practice giving thanks. This means you should give thanks whether you feel like it or not. And by giving thanks, you often become thankful. Try to thank the Lord in your own words, but when you can’t—when you’re so dull or confused or "out of it", that you can’t come up with thankful words, I recommend you read written prayers.

Now some folks recoil from the suggestion as though it always leads to vain repetition and empty words. It may do that, of course, but often it has the opposite effect. Martin Luther often used written prayers; so did John Calvin; the English Reformers did too. And so did George Whitefield. And, for what it’s worth, I do that at times. When I feel dead in my prayer life, I’ll fetch the Prayers of Lancelot Andrewes off the shelf, or maybe The Prayers of John Bradford or even some of the things in The Book of Common Prayer. Now, I wouldn’t want all my praying to be from a book, but devout prayers read aloud often warm my heart to offer some of my own.

Finally, pray for a spirit of thanksgiving. Have you ever asked the Lord to make you thankful? If you haven’t, maybe that’s why you’re not. And if you have, I can only say, keep up the good work. And God give you the answer you’re looking for. For Christ’s sake. Amen.