1 Thess 5:18, Thankfulness. “God, What Have You Done For Me Lately?”

Thursday May 4, 2023

Theme: Like joy, real and lasting gratitude is only found in God alone.

Main passage:

1Th 5:16-18

Rejoice always; 17 pray without ceasing; 18 in everything give thanks; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

1. Rejoicing and being grateful is a form of worship, Heb 13:15-16.
   1. Psa 30 – David was sure that his prosperity would always last. God removed it to make David stronger and David in the last line praises and thanks God.
      1. The real commodity is inner strength – not things, wealth, or position.
2. Thanksgiving to God results in ethical living.
   1. “In the New Testament, religion is grace, and ethics is gratitude.” [Thomas Erskine]
3. The sources of Thanksgiving.
   1. The grace of God, 2Co 4:15.
   2. Being gracious, 2Co 9:10-12.
   3. The success of other believers, 1Th 3:9-10.
   4. God’s providence (food), 1Ti 4:3-5.
   5. A wise, Spirit-filled life, Eph 5:15-21.
   6. God, Php 1:3-4, 25; 3:1.
4. All listed in point 3 have their origin in God. Find Him and you find joy and gratitude.
5. What trips us up? The things of the world.
   1. We fall for the promises of the false.
   2. “Set your mind (continually) on the things above, not on the things that are on earth” (Col 3:2).
      1. Christ tells us to store up treasure in heaven. “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Mat 6:21). You are what you consider to be your treasure.
      2. Lust of the eyes, flesh, and boastful pride, 1Jo 2:15-17.
      3. Lust makes pleasure war with your own body, Jam 4:1-8.
6. God does not command no pleasure. He commands the source.
   1. God Himself is the source of our good and our pleasure. To Him alone are we grateful.
   2. Christians add to the word of God by denying pleasure (ascetics, monks, some puritans).
   3. God gave the trees in the garden for pleasure as well as the Tree of Life.
   4. When we allow God to remove our desire for earthly satisfaction, it is then that we see the beauty of the earth around us (even the fallen earth).
      1. When we’re not looking to consume for fulfillment, we enjoy fully the material things, and the people around us.
      2. We receive a hundred-fold what we have forsaken, Mar 10:28-31.
         1. It does not mean that we live on the streets. It means that we give God all of our desires and all of our wants. If He tells us to sell it or give it, we do.
         2. When we have reached this plateau, we will be grateful in the midst of a material world. We will be a light to it.
7. 1.