Thanksgiving is a wonderful time of year! But God desires Thanksgiving to be a lifestyle, not just an event or holiday. The apostle Paul urged just this type of a perpetual attitude of gratitude. While in Philippi Paul in dramatic fashion not only talked the talk of a grateful spirit, but walked the walk as well. By God’s grace we can enjoy a thankful spirit regardless our circumstances.

<p>Thanksgiving is a wonderful time of year! But God desires Thanksgiving to be a lifestyle, not just an event or holiday. The apostle Paul urged just this type of a perpetual attitude of gratitude. While in Philippi Paul in dramatic fashion not only talked the talk of a grateful spirit, but walked the walk as well. By God’s grace we can enjoy a thankful spirit regardless our circumstances.</p>

<p>Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.</p>

Dalton SDA Church

Chester Clark

An Attitude of Gratitude

Thankful for this Sabbath, thankful for the gift of life, thankful for the wonderful music and worship that we have enjoyed already today.

You know, this is the time of year when we particularly remember Thanksgiving, right?

We particularly remember the things that we are thankful for.

And you know, as I think about Thanksgiving, I often realize that in my own life, it's easy for me to be thankful when things are going well.

It's not always as easy for me to be thankful when things aren't going so well.

When things are going uphill, when it seems like there's just, there's just Murphy's Law is the rule of the day.

It seems like it's more difficult for my heart to be thankful.

And yet what we're going to be looking at this morning is the fact that thankfulness is not something we do, it's something we are.

Thankfulness is not an activity that we engage in perhaps once a year or maybe Sabbath morning during the praise service.

It's an attitude of gratitude which can come to encompass our very being.

You know, I was reading recently about Thanksgiving, and 1 story I read was of a little four-year-old boy that was asked to give thanks, to say grace, at the beginning of the Thanksgiving meal.

And somewhat overwhelmed by all the rich repast of food, as well as by the many family members, as young children can do, He was just being very effusive and expressing everything that was on his heart and he was thankful for all of his friends and he was thankful for his family members, for his aunts and his uncles, his grandmas, grandpa, his cousins, and then he began listing the things on the table that he was thankful for.

He was thankful for the turkey and dressing.

He was thankful for the vegetables and for the pies and even for the Cool Whip.

And then there was a long pause, And he whispered up at his mom, If I say I'm thankful for the broccoli, won't Jesus know that I'm lying?

And you know, sometimes we're a little bit that way.

You know, we are thankful for the good things, but there are certain things that we're not so thankful for, and we're not even going to pretend that we're thankful for, because after all, we wouldn't be honest.

This morning, I think our Scripture tells us that not only are we to be honest, we're indeed to actually be grateful and have a spirit of gratitude, an attitude of gratitude to truly be thankful in all things.

And so that's what we're going to look at as we study today, as we study God's Word.

You know, the first Thanksgiving Day in 1621 was celebrated there in Plymouth Plantation, and it was modeled after the harvest festivals in Europe where the pilgrims came from.

These were common at the time, but it became a tradition in America the fourth Thursday of November in Canada on the second Monday of October, and this is a time of year where I'm grateful that we can think of our blessings.

But let us not forget that these pilgrims, these first celebrants of the American Thanksgiving, it wasn't because they had experienced a life of ease and plenty.

In fact, over the past year, half of their number had succumbed to various diseases.

And they came not because of all of the things that were going right, because everything was going right.

They came because they had a spirit, an attitude of gratitude.

Thanksgiving is best if it's experienced not just once a year, if it becomes a very part of who we are.

In fact, the Bible prescribes Thanksgiving on a continual basis.

We're going to begin with 1 Thessalonians 5, and this could be considered a parallel passage to what Dr.

Chapter 5 and verse 18, we see here the counsel of Paul in talking to those Thessalonians how they ought to live and prioritize their life.

1 Thessalonians chapter 5 and we'll notice several verses here before verse 18.

Without ceasing, in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

So there's this succession of things that we ought to do.

I think this is the spirit that we are to have.

No matter what is happening, always is really always, isn't it?

And I can just imagine that some of those in Thessalonica, They must have said when Paul wrote this, they must have said, rejoice always, all the time, even when things aren't going well, even when things aren't as they might be or aren't as good as they should be, rejoice always.

And it's as if Paul preempted their questions.

How is it possible for us to have a spirit of rejoicing even when things aren't going well, even when the economy is not good, even when our challenges are mounting?

He continues and he says, Pray without ceasing.

I don't think it's possible, beloved, for us to rejoice always unless we're praying without ceasing.

I think these go hand in glove, hand in hand, together.

He says, rejoice always, pray without ceasing.

In other words, as we'll look again at Philippians, it says, let everything be known.

These are not your problems, These are His problems.

He is the 1 who has made Himself responsible.

He says, don't you know that not a sparrow falls unless I know it?

Don't you know the grass of the field, the birds of the air, they don't have to worry about what's going to happen, what's going to be coming tomorrow.

The Father in heaven takes care of them and you're worth many sparrows.

And so when we pray without ceasing We're telling God everything.

And yes, I think there's even a time for us to tell God that we don't like some of the things that are happening, that we don't feel at peace about some of the problems.

There's a time for us to be brutally honest, sometimes in our prayers.

I feel that we come to a point where we are very rote or circumscribed, and we thank God for the blessings, but we don't really talk to Him much about our challenges, unless it's simply to solve our problems.

We don't talk to God enough, I think, about our feelings, how we feel.

Now you might say, well, it doesn't really matter, does it?

How I feel, it does matter to God, because God wants to change our feelings to an attitude of gratitude.

And I think that this best happens when we are telling God everything, when we're praying without ceasing.

If you're going through a hard time, tell Him.

Does He already know how I feel, how you feel?

Does He know when we feel defeated and hopeless?

He knows when we feel defeated and hopeless.

Does He know when we feel like we just make mistakes and we can never get it right, He already knows those things.

And the beauty of telling Him is it opens your heart to His being able to change your perspective.

To His being able to change your perspective, my perspective, to a perspective of knowing that He's in control.

Notice what it says, Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

Let's turn to what Paul wrote to the Ephesians.

Now, if we could just see a map of the region which Paul had been traveling and starting churches, we would recognize that to the Thessalonians, he was writing to those on the west of the Aegean Sea, over there on the shore not far from the Aegean Sea.

Now to the Ephesians he's writing across, in today modern Turkey, he's writing to the Ephesians and telling them the same thing.

Ephesians chapter 5, verses 17 through 20.

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An Attitude of Gratitude

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