Sermon Central
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A Life Of Gratitude (Thanksgiving Message)
Contributed by Dr. Odell Belger on Mar 19, 2022 (message contributor)
Summary: Bart Simpson, in a program aimed at millions of America's young, is asked to say grace and he says, "Dear God, we paid for all this stuff ourselves, so thanks for nothing."
The attitude of ungratefulness can not only be seen in the cartoons in the newspaper, but also in the lives of people.
WHAT AN UNGRATEFUL PEOPLE WE HAVE BECOME!
For example, if you have attended church very long you have experienced ingratitude.
• There are people who will attend church to get married. Once they are married it will take the FBI to find them.
• There are people who will use the church for funerals, but once the funeral is over with, they will not put a foot inside the church until the next funeral takes place.
• There are people who will come to church and ask for financial assistance, and after a church assists them they attend another church that has not done one thing to assist them.
This is an ungrateful society in which we live.
Illus: You can take your hard earned money and patronize some store to buy groceries for your family. In the process of buying food for your family, your patronizing this particular store provides jobs for the employees so they can buy food for their families. When you go through the checkout line to pay for the groceries, it is difficult to get a smile out of some cashiers, not to mention a “Thank you for trading with us!”
We live in a society that has very little gratitude. And one of the reasons we live in such a society may be because we preachers do not preach enough about gratitude.
Today let us look at verse 5, the foundation for this sermon on gratitude.
We read, “Many, O LORD my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.”
In this foundational verse for this sermon we see...
A. HIS CONFESSION
As he ponders on his blessings, he confesses that they come from God.
He says, “Many, O LORD my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done.”
God has done so much for us, but He receives so little credit for the great things he has done.
Illus: One of the things that the Republicans were angry about during the term of President Bill Clinton was the problem of where credit was given. Republicans would come up with programs like:
• WELFARE REFORM
• BALANCING OF THE BUDGET
• NAFTA
But once they proposed these things, then President Bill Clinton would go before the American people on national television and take all the credit for them. And the truth is, some of the things he took credit for, he used his presidential power to veto. But after they overrode his veto, things were passed.
But that is no different than a lot of folks today. God does all the blessing and they take all the credit.
People should be expressing gratitude all the time, but they have the same rotten attitude as Bart Simpson. They act as if everything they posses, and everything they have achieved in this life, was accomplished by pulling themselves up by their own bootstraps.
The fact is that in most cases they had very little to do with it.
Illus: These people make us think of the ant and the elephant that walked across the hanging bridge. The ant remarked to the elephant, "Boy, don't we make this bridge shake!"
People today are so proud of themselves. They want to make sure the spotlight stays on them. They are not even willing to share the spotlight with God.
Illus: A certain rich man who decided to take up fishing bought the most expensive equipment and bait, but he caught nothing. He passed by a farm boy who had an old stick and a rusty hook, who had a big string of fish. "How did you manage to catch so many, when I couldn't catch a single one?" he asked. "Oh," said the boy, "I try to keep out of sight so the fish won't see me. But I think you show yourself to them too much." (PULPIT HELPS, July, 1991)
This is the problem with so many people today. God can not use them because if he did they would take all the credit.
David knew who to give praise to, he said, “Many, O LORD my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done,”
We looked at HIS CONFESSION, but also look at
B. HIS COUNTING
That is, the counting of the blessings of God in his life.
Illus: Sometimes we sing a song that says, “Count your blessings, name them one by one…” This is something we should not just sing about, but it is something we should do.
