One year, I challenged the church folks to reflect on three things: REVERENCE, SOBRIETY, and THANKFULNESS.
I put forth the thought that to neglect or take for granted any one of these three things, both in our personal lives and in the life of the church, will lead to an unsatisfied spiritual walk and spiritual carelessness overall. My challenge was that applying these things would cultivate a vigorous faith, love for God, and pursuit of holiness.
In this blog, I wanted to take a moment to talk about thankfulness.
Why thankfulness? Well, because we are told to be thankful –
- 1 Thessalonians 5:18 In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
- Psalm 100:4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name.
We are created for one thing – to glorify God! Giving thanks unto God is one of many ways to bring him honor and glory. The Westminster Catechism:
Question 1 – What is the chief end of man?
Answer: Man’s chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.
By giving God thanks, we remember him, we remember his kindness, mercy, benevolence, and providence. We remember our redemption, adoption, predestination, forgiveness, and future hope in glory with him!
In a recent sermon, I read by Jonathan Edwards titled – The Wicked Men Useful in their Destruction – he had these very sobering words:
“Consider what a shame it is that you should live in vain, when all other creatures, inferior to you, glorify their maker according to their nature. You who are so highly exalted in the world, are more useless than the brute creation; yea the meanest worms, or things without life, as earth and stones: for all of them answer their end; none of them fail of it. They are all useful in their places, all render their proper tribute to their Creator: while you are mere nuisances in creation, and burdens to the earth; as any tree of the forest is more useful than the vine if it bear not fruit.”
Since mankind -the highest order of God’s creation- was created for one purpose – to glorify God, to do anything less offends him and leads to condemnation.
Paul, under the inspiration of the Spirit, shows in Romans 1 the digression away from the knowledge of God and the subsequent hardening of the heart as it sets its affections on the vain things of the world and self rather than the creator.
Romans 1:21 states, “Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened.”
The command to be thankful and give glory to God falls on all of creation, and as noted in Edward’s quote, all of creation glorifies God according to its nature (See Psalm 19, an excellent example of this), and yet fallen man, because his fallen nature magnifies himself above God.
Paul acknowledges that man has knowledge (limited thou) of God (Calvin called it Sensus Divinitatis = Sense of Divinity), but because of the hardness of heart, refuses to acknowledge him, and as verse 18 states that man will “hold the truth in unrighteousness” and as such further harden their heart. The remainder of the chapter shows the consequences of God for it. God then “gave them up” (24), “gave them up” (26), and then God “gave them over to a reprobate mind” (28)
Given these sobering words and the just condemnation of the wicked, how much more should the redeemed of God give thanks unto him?
We are blessed objects of his grace through the Lord Jesus Christ. By grace, we have been adopted into the beloved, justified freely, and have become beneficiaries of all the promises of God, where once we were without God and without hope in this world, we now have Christ as our hope and sure anchor for life and death.
We have much to be thankful for and may all of his redeemed say amen, and I say amen!
Just a preacher's blog 