Greetings in the Name of Jesus and welcome to the PLN Sunday Night Bible Fellowship!
As we've been discussing lately, THANKSGIVING is supposed to be a key part of Christian life. We know this to be the TRUTH because there're a number of New Testament scriptures that make it clear for us and here's a sample:
Ephesians 5:20 - Give thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
Colossians 2:7 - We are to be firmly rooted in Christ, established in our faith and overflowing with thanksgiving.
Colossians 3:17 - In all that we do we are to do it in the name of Jesus giving thanks through Him to God the Father.
1 Thessalonians 5:18 - It is God's WILL for us who are in Christ that we give thanks for everything.
Hebrews 13:15 - Let us continually give thanks to the name of Jesus.
When you first consider these particular scriptures literally and all at the same time, the usual reaction is that it's impossible to express that much THANKSGIVING: Always? Overflowing? In ALL we do? For everything? Continually? It's really clear though what God had in mind for us, isn't it? And yet it seems impossible to actually accomplish it. But friend, God wouldn't be instructing us to do things that are impossible. He doesn't work that way: He wouldn't be telling us to do stuff we're incapable of doing nor would He have had just a half-hearted purpose in mind. No, this is something essential, something powerful; and it's something we can grow into by FAITH. The TRUTH is we really DO need to grow into it because as we've discussed in recent articles, THANKSGIVING is a major means for connecting to God's grace and empowerment in Christ and in ALL areas of life. And as we've also seen UN-gratefulness is a major way to open the door to the destroyer, the same way the Israelites went in the wilderness (Romans 1:21-22, 1 Corinthians 10:10).
Now tonight before we go on, a brief word on how God works under the New Covenant because contrary to popular belief He does NOT decide to bestow or withhold GRACE commensurate with the quality of the THANKSGIVING we express or for any other good work. If He did that it wouldn't be GRACE because GRACE is undeserved. You can't do anything in your own strength to deserve more of God's GRACE. No, the Kingdom works by spiritual laws, by things that happen automatically just as surely as the Law of Gravity works in the natural. The TRUTH is, God's GRACE (His favor) has ALREADY been released and it's available for everyone who'll RECEIVE it, who'll take what's being offered for themselves and use it. GRACE is ALREADY available because of what Jesus accomplished at the Cross and we connect to it by FAITH (Ephesians 2:8). We take hold of His already released GRACE by FAITH that's been strengthened by sincere THANKSGIVING and then we use it to accomplish His purposes in our lives. It's a law of the Kingdom: sincere THANKSGIVING works automatically through our FAITH and connects us to God's GRACE.
The Sacrifice of Thanksgiving
Last week we looked at one of the previous key scriptures for this series that we should look at again in the context of tonight's message. Here's the scripture:
Psalm 50:23 - He who offers a sacrifice of THANKSGIVING, honors Me.
It's God doing the speaking in this scripture (through the writer/musician Asaph) and He's letting us know that our THANKSGIVING is really, really important to Him. He especially approves of it when it's a SACRIFICE. When is our THANKSGIVING a SACRIFICE? It becomes a sacrifice when we're GRATEFUL for the good things of God even when we're experiencing difficult times in other areas of our lives that are competing with God for our attention. It's a sacrifice when the thing we're GRATEFUL about hasn't shown up yet. We know it's been promised, we know it has to be on the way; but it hasn't arrived yet. It's a sacrifice when we're THANKING Him by FAITH instead of by sight (1 Corinthians 5:7). It's a sacrifice when we override our Flesh and insist on agreeing with the Word and insist on being GRATEFUL anyway. In sum, THANKSGIVING is a sacrifice anytime we're genuinely GRATEFUL by FAITH. And He's letting us know that when we do that, we give Him HONOR.
As we consider this, there's another scripture we should look at tonight because not just any THANKSGIVING honors God. It turns out that it needs to be sincere THANKSGIVING:
Isaiah 29:13-14 - Because (My) people honor Me with their lip service and they remove their hearts from Me, and their honor for Me consists of tradition learned by rote...I will (cause) the wisdom of their wise men to perish and the discernment of their discerning men will be concealed.
The Sincerity of Thanksgiving
The TRUTH is when we first come into the Kingdom of God we're not used to being THANKFUL for anything on a regular basis much less being THANKFUL to God "continually." There's not much REAL gratitude in the World we came out of and our Flesh nature takes credit for almost everything good that happens in our lives. So an attitude of THANKSGIVING, a lifestyle of GRATITUDE is something that has to be learned and like everything else in the Kingdom, the empowerment to do it comes by the GRACE of God. You and I can't be sincerely GRATEFUL to God for anything except by pursuing it in Christ.
We start out after we're born again by attending some church where we typically encounter maybe for the first time a lot of people standing around giving praise and THANKSGIVING as a congregation. Some churches are real quiet and reserved about it while others are loud and boisterous. Either way it is, we try to join in and do what they're doing; and after we've tried that, we might feel better for a while. But as time goes on we sense a lack of sincerity in the room, not everyone but certainly enough to notice. The TRUTH is we don't always feel sincere about it ourselves but we join in until we can "work up" some gratitude. It's not wrong to be THANKING God as a congregation but according to Isaiah 29 it's wrong to be limited to giving lip service and thanking God insincerely out of tradition instead of from the heart either as a congregation or as an individual. And you can be sure God knows the heart of every single person who gives Him THANKS; it's impossible to fool Him with our fake lip service and traditions we've worked up in the Flesh and if we think it impresses Him then we're deceived.
So, at some point there's a decision to be made. The Holy Spirit is working to teach us, to release within us His SINCERITY and the decision is: do we continue to lift up insincere THANKSGIVING whether in church or in our personal time with the Lord or do we begin to focus on being SINCERE about it by trying to connect to what the Holy Spirit is doing? This is an important decision because according to the Scripture, IN-sincerity eventually leads to the loss of wisdom and discernment but SINCERE, from the heart THANKSGIVING will lead to God HONORING us through His New Covenant GRACE with His overflowing heavy richness that we've discussed in previous articles:
1 Samuel 2:30 - For those who honor Me I will HONOR, and those who despise Me will be lightly esteemed.
In order to be SINCERE in our THANKSGIVING we have to focus on the multitudinous mountain of BLESSINGS He's made available to us instead of on all the problems we're facing. We have to cast the anxiety for the problems over on Him (1 Peter 5:7) so we can focus our attention on all the things He's done for us that we didn't deserve. Then we give THANKS but we give THANKS in FAITH believing and not doubting that our THANKSGIVING is truly SINCERE because we're releasing what the Holy Spirit has done in us. By "not doubting" what I mean is that we purpose to not agree with our mental doubts which are natural by speaking them out. No, we cast those thoughts aside and speak in agreement with what the Word says which is that we ARE able in Christ to give THANKS continually. Even when we're sleeping, by FAITH our reborn, regenerated spirit man is THANKING God continually. And as your FAITH grows stronger in this area of life, your natural THANKSGIVING will also grow stronger, become increasingly SINCERE and make it increasingly possible to connect to God's GRACE and victory.
Thanks for dropping by tonight. We'll be looking for you again next Sunday evening, February 26and we hope you'll join us then and each week as we continue to study for a while on the subject of THANKSGIVING. May God bless you and your family with every spiritual blessing (Ephesians 1:3).
Sinners' Prayer
If you've never invited Jesus to be the Lord of your life, you need to and you can do it today just by saying out loud the following simple prayer:
Jesus I declare today with all my heart that I believe in you and that God raised you from the dead. I receive forgiveness for my sins and I ask you to come into my life today and be my Lord and Savior. Thank you for salvation and eternal life.
If you were sincere as you prayed this prayer, God has already come into your life and you are a new creation, a totally new species recreated in His image. Now ask the Lord to lead you to a good faith-based, bible-teaching church where you can be equipped to fulfill your potential in the Kingdom of God.
And, when you get a chance have someone help you look up the following scriptures because they confirm what you've done by saying this prayer today and believing what you said:
Romans 10:9
2 Corinthians 5:17
Ephesians 2:8
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