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Annual Sermons: Vol. 5 No. 21
Text: Ps. 103:1-4
Concord Baptist Church:1991
Copyright 1991 by Bob Marcaurelle
AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE
“With all my heart I will praise the Lord. I will never forget how kind He has been.” (Ps. 103:2 Contemporary English Version)
When it comes to thanksgiving , there are two kinds of people - those who take things with gratitude and those who take things for granted. God wants us to be grateful, thankful, appreciative people. The Psalms command us, “O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good, because His mercy endures forever (Ps. 118:1). Paul tells us to offer our prayer requests to God “With thanksgiving” (Phil. 4:6). The writer of Hebrews spoke of thanksgiving as an abiding attitude in the heart of a Christian, “Let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, the fruit of our lips is giving thanks to His name” (Heb. 13:15). Spurgeon said, “Take the pearls of blessings; thread them on the lace of pure grace; and hang them around the neck of praise.”
When our blessed Lord took in hand the bread and broke it, a symbol of His upcoming ordeal on Calvary, the Bible says He “gave thanks” (Mt. 15:36). Any of us can be grateful when all is well, but the mature Christian, following His Lord’s example can even be grateful when all is not well. Thus Paul could say, “In all things give thanks” (1 th. 5:18) and he practiced what he preached by writing his most joyful Letter (Philippians) from a prison cell.
When the broken heart is also the thankful heart, then Christian maturity is evidenced and Christ is truly Lord. This is the person who has learned that suffering is a part of being made in God’s image, for our God suffers too; that suffering, as bad as it is, has some benefits; and that suffering is temporary because this world is not our home.
I like the story of the little girl who was forced to eat spinach and beets for supper. When asked to say the blessing, she refused, saying, “The Lord knows I’m not thankful for spinach and beets.” Her mother told her she couldn’t leave the table until she thanked God for something. The little girl bowed her head and said, “Lord, I’m thankful this stuff didn’t make me sick. Amen!”
And so today, let’s look around and look within and see if we cannot cultivate an attitude of gratitude for all the things that come to us, as the Psalmist says , from the goodness and mercy of God.
I. GOD’S GENERAL BLESSINGS (Ps. 111)
In Psalm 111 we find praise for the wonders of God’s creation. The writer says, “I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart. . .Great are the works of the Lord. . . He has given food to those who fear Him.” (Ps. 111:1,2,5). Have you ever stopped to consider all the treasures that are ours that come from the Creator?
A man in middle age came to his pastor in a state of depression over his life. His health was weakening and the medical bills coupled with the cost of college for his children made life a burden with no relief in sight. The wise pastor asked him if he could spend an hour or two with him. The man agreed and the pastor took him visiting.
They went first to the shut-ins in the nursing home. There they saw some people with clear minds and crippled bodies who were confined to beds or wheelchairs. They saw some with active bodies but minds completely gone. Some could not hear and others could not see. When the hour was over, the wise pastor did not moralize or sermonize but silently prayed his friend would get the message.
He wanted that man to leave saying, “I can see - the moon in the sky and the faces of my family - I can hear - the songs of the birds, the whisper of the wind and the laughter of my children. My mind is unimpaired and I have a roof over my head, food on my table, independence and health enough to work and enjoy life.”
I cried because I could not afford new shoes
And then I saw a man who had no feet”
Thank God today for these common, general blessings so often overlooked. Thank Him for good food and an appetite to enjoy it; for birthday parties you pretend not to enjoy and for a family that laughs at your old jokes when they’ve heard them twenty times. Don’t wait until you lose such things to know their real value and be grateful.
II. GOD’S INDIVIDUAL BLESSINGS (Ps. 116; 118))
“You, Lord have saved my life from death; my eyes from tears; and my feet from stumbling. Now I will walk by your side.” (Ps. 116:8,9)
We need to be thankful not only for God’s general blessings that we enjoy as members of the human race, but for those personal, individual touches He has given specifically to us.
1. God’s Heavenly Touches
We are one among billions on planet earth but God will not allow us to get lost in the crowd. He is not like “the old woman who lived in a shoe” that had so many children, she didn’t know what to do.” God knew us in our mother’s womb (Ps. 139:13). He knows the number of hairs on our head (Mt. 10:30).
All of us have a wonderful record of things God has done just for us. There are countless prayers He has answered. There are special friends He designed with us in mind. He gives us our husbands and wives and children, fitted just for us. He gives us our talents and our jobs, suited just for us.
I’ll never forget, when I was in the ninth grade, before I became a Christian, asking God to let me grow a half an inch a month and gain three pounds a month. I nailed a board to the barn wall, measured and weighed the 10th of every month, and up that stick and up those scales I went - gaining fifty pounds and eight inches. God touched the life of a 13 year old boy. I’ll never forget driving all alone to the seminary in Forth Worth, Texas, with everything I owned in a little “U-Haul” trailer. I asked God to give me a wife and three years later he let my path cross Mary Ann’s in a Sunday School class, and the rest is history. I’ll never forget him giving me Mt. Carmel Baptist Church while in seminary, Haddock Baptist Church when I graduated and this church when my Haddock ministry was completed.
Friends, God has guided and guarded our footsteps all through life. The reason our record is not literally flooded with divine blessings is that we have not prayed enough. The Bible says “we have not because we ask not (Js. 4:2)”. Spurgeon gave this good advice,
2. God’s Human Touches
There is a special side to this and that is thanking the people through whom most of God’s personal blessings come. God usually touches us with human hands. Have you thanked any of them lately?
William L. Stidger was talking with a fellow minister during the great depression of the 1920’s. They wondered how they could preach on Thanksgiving when they and their people were on the edge of poverty. Stidger went into a state of depression. To rise out of it he began thinking of things he was thankful for. His thoughts turned to a school teacher who taught him to love prose. He wrote her a note to thank her. Soon thereafter, in the scribbled handwriting of an aged person, he received her reply. . .
My dear Willie,
I cannot tell you how much your note meant to me. I am in my eighties, living alone in a small room, cooking my own meals, lonely, and like the last leaf of autumn, lingering behind.
You will be interested to know that I taught in school for fifty years and yours is the first note of appreciation I ever received. It came on a blue-cold morning and it cheered me as nothing has in many years.
The letter moved him to tears and brought him so much joy that for the rest of his life he wrote notes of thanks to all those people God put in his path to make the way a little brighter. Husband, have you thanked your wife for the joys she has brought you? Wives, have you thanked your husbands? Parents, have you thanked your children? Children, have you thanked your parents? Friends, have you thanked your friends? To do so will bring unspeakable joy to THEM, and also TO YOU.
III. GOD’S SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS (Ps. 118:1, 22)
“Tell the Lord how thankful you are because He is always- merciful.” (118:1)
As good as all this is, God’s greatest gifts, and the ones that deserve our highest praises, are spiritual. He is the God of mercy (Ps. 118:1) who forgives our sins and delivers us not just from their penalty but from their power to damage and damn our lives. In verse 22 the Psalmist, through the eye of prophecy says “The stone which the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone” (Ps. 118:22). The New Testament applies this to Jesus Christ (1 Pet. 2:4-7). The world sees Jesus Christ as a worthless rock to be thrown away, an obstacle in the road. We see Him as the foundation stone of life, and as the road of life.
Paul, like most preachers, was seldom at a loss for words. But one time he was. Sitting in the same prison cell from which he wrote Philippians, he also wrote Colossians. In it he said, “Thanks be to God for his UNSPEAKABLE gift..” Note that word “unspeakable.” Paul was saying, “What I feel about Jesus and what He has done for me and for the whole sinful world just won’t go into words.”
If you are a child of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, think about where you are on the road of life today. Some of you accepted Christ late in life or did not take His Lordship seriously. How many of our heartaches and hardships come because we did not walk with God? How many needless tears have we shed? How many people have we hurt?
But look also on the positive side. I often stop and ponder where I would be today without Jesus. I know, beyond doubt, that I would be divorced for no woman could have endured living with me, without Christ living inside of me. My wife will get heaven’s highest medal for putting up with me saved. No woman could have put up with me lost. Christ took alcohol out of my life; and took anger and depression off the throne of my life. Where would I be if these three demons had been allowed to remain and rule? I’ll tell you where - in a hell on earth. In a home without a noble wife and three Christian children who think I’m the next best thing to sliced bread; and in a life without good and noble friends like you. My choicest treasures are people and for every one I can say, “Thank you, Jesus!”
Two thousand years ago God sent Jesus to the old rugged cross and Jesus was willing to go. He was not dragged to the cross kicking and screaming. He went willingly. Why? Because He loved! And this love was not just for the world (Jn. 3:16) but for Bob Marcaurelle and for you and you and you. Paul called Jesus “The Son of God who loved ME and gave Himself up for ME” (Gal. 2:20). The new gospel hymn puts it well,
“When He was on the cross, I was on His mind!”
Jesus died for me but for much of my life I didn’t care. I was mildly religious and Jesus was a part of my life but I was in control. What happened? Did I wake up? Did I turn around? No! I was waked up! I was turned around by the hand of the God I was ignoring. He sent the Holy Spirit to me to wake me up to my lost condition and to turn me from darkness to light. I would never, never, never have come to Him! But he used a good pastor, a good Christian family, Billy Graham on TV, and a book by Charles Allen to come to me. The lost sheep doesn’t look for the shepherd. In a world of preachers and Bibles and churches it doesn’t know where to turn. But praise God, the loving Shepherd looks for the lost sheep.
Charles Colson, up to his neck in the mess of Watergate, was found by Jesus Christ. He says that for a year he kept all the cartoonists in business as they poked fun at him and his faith. He served his time in prison. He established a ministry to prisoners. He had bravely battled cancer since his conversion. In a recent speech he looked back at his life. He said that the worst day he had known as a child of God in prison and battling cancer were better than the best days he knew before he met Christ.
