How many things does the Christian have to be thankful for? Not thankfulness directed towards anybody, but to God. Let us start with God: He is full of truth and so thank God we can trust Him. He is full of love and so thank God we can trust He will not hurt us. He is full of power and so thank God we can trust nothing will defeat or stop His love towards us. He is full of justice and so thank God we can trust He will always do what is right. He is full of mercy, grace, and forgiveness; thank Him that He has given us what we do not deserve. He is unchanging and so thank God that all of these things will be the case tomorrow, next year, and forever. He is faithful and so thank God we can trust He will always do what He says He will do. He is sovereign, and so thank God that He is in control and nothing can stop His plans. He is full of salvation. Thank God because in Jesus Christ we receive new life and the rest of these things from God.
Thank God because we see the beauty of His creation all around us. Thank God because we taste so many wonderful foods and drink. Thank God because we hear the wonderful melodies and sounds of music, birds, laughter, our children, and sometimes, silence. Thank God that we can feel a cool breeze and the touch of a loved one. Thank Him that we can smell a cooked meal, flowers in bloom, and fresh air. Thank God, even, that if one of these senses do not work in this life, we will certainly have it to its greatest capacity in the kingdom of God when we are raised to that place with new and glorified bodies.
In a world filled with all that is contrary to God, that is full of sin, fear, and death, thank God for light in the darkness. Thank God – this one is hard, I think, for Americans to process – for a home, even if it’s a one room apartment for a family of eight, because it protects us from the cold, heat, rain, bugs and animals, and those that might mean us harm. Thank God for every meal and drink that keeps us from suffering starvation or thirst. Thank God for any clothing at all that keeps us warm, protects our feet, and hides our nakedness. Thank God for our police-force that protects us from those that would do us harm. They are, “A minister of God to you for good” (Rom. 13:4).
Thank God, again, for salvation in Jesus Christ. Thank Him that, even now, we do not have to fear what the evils of this world may do to our bodies because they cannot destroy our soul that is in God’s hands (Mat. 10:28). Thank God that Jesus has freed us from the fear of death. Thank God that we can have peace, no matter what is happening in this world, because this world is not our home. Thank God that we can always have joy, because nothing in this world can remove what Christ has given us in heaven, an eternal inheritance. Thank God we can know exactly what path to follow, all that is Jesus Christ. We are not left in the dark to wonder what the meaning of life is. Thank God we will see our loved ones, again, not in pain or suffering. Thank God for His word, that we could know Him and all these things. Thank God for His Spirit, because only through His Holy Spirit can we know these things. Thank God that He leads us by example and goes before us. Jesus has accomplished all things for us so that we could receive all things through Him. Thank God. Thank God that there is always hope. Thank God.
Live with Thankfulness
“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through Him to God the Father” (Colossians 3:15-17).
“Be thankful” (v.15). Sing, “With thankfulness in your hearts to God” (v.16). And to say verse 17 in another way, “Give thanks to God the Father through Christ Jesus in all that you say and do.” Putting on Jesus Christ is putting on thankfulness because having the light of Christ reveals all that is from God, and all that is from God is all things. Not only has God created all things and created them all, “Good” (Gen. 1:31), but he then sacrificed all that he had, in Jesus Christ, to make it impossible for His creation to ever, again, throw away and destroy what was for their good. We have and serve a good God that is overabundantly deserving of our thanks.
This passage from Colossians is not telling us to simply acknowledge God by thinking or speaking the words, “Thank you.” Though, that is good, we are exhorted to ooze thankfulness from all that we are. Thankfulness should overflow from inside of us, from our hearts (v.16). Thankfulness should burst uncontrollably from our lips in song and praise. How can we possibly contain it? I picture someone at the very end of hope in a dire situation and after they have been rescued, they fall down at the feet of their savior, sobbing and crying in thankfulness for removing the burden that pushed down upon them like a gigantic press causing what assuredly seemed like no escape. The gratitude is uncontrollable, it is necessary. How much greater, even, is the necessity of our thankfulness towards God in Christ Jesus? It is not an earthly depression we have escaped, it is not an earthly starvation, it is not freedom from a human captor, nor is it a drowning from earthly debt or an earthly body of water that we have been saved from, all of which would accomplish the picture I had. No, we have been saved from a spiritual and eternal darkness that destroys the soul. We have been saved from a starvation of the word of God that alone gives eternal life. We have been saved from not a human captor, but a spiritual one that is the Devil. We were drowning not in earthly debt to be paid but in spiritual debt, our sins that we had zero chance of ever paying for; a debt that would be the cause of an eternal hell if not for our savior, Jesus Christ.
Our lives should exude thanksgiving to God. Now that we have been saved, rather than displaying foolishness or disgraceful speech and behavior that is contrary to God (Eph. 5:4), we should show our thanks to God by putting on all that is Christ, by living a life of truth and goodness for God. “For the love of Christ controls us, having concluded this, that one died for all, therefore all died; and He died for all, so that they who live might no longer live for themselves, but for Him who died and rose again on their behalf” (2 Cor. 5:14-15). When difficulties arise in our lives, rather than causing us to be upset with God, I hope we can have a greater thankfulness because the reality that we have been rescued from these things is apparent. Our hope is in Christ and His salvation.
We serve and live for an awesome God, the creator of all things. Let us not live the rest of our time here grumbling like the Israelites who received rescuing from Egypt but in word and deed were unthankful. Let us live thankfully. I will always remember the elderly woman I once ran into on an elevator who said in response to my greeting, “How are you doing,” with, “A lot better than I deserve.” That is thankfulness.
-Pastor Ben