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WEEKLY
Volume 4 Number 28
6 December 2009
A Thankful Heart
(Message delivered by Rev Hien Nguyen at the
Worship Service, 2:00 pm, Dec 6, 09)
Text: Psalm 100:4
We are living in these last days of
sins, ungodliness, and ungratefulness. God’s Word says, “This know
also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be
lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers,
disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural
affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, traitors,
heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God” (2
Tim 3:1-4). God is the Creator and Maker and the Giver of all blessings,
and He expects you and me to worship Him with a thankful heart. His
wrath is against the ungodly who failed to worship Him, glorify Him and
thank Him, “For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all
ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in
unrighteousness…Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not
as God, neither were thankful…Who changed the truth of God into a
lie, and worshipped and served the creature more than the Creator, who
is blessed for ever. Amen” (Rom 1:18, 21, 25).
For professing Christians who are not
born again, they may give thanks to God with their boastful lips,
trusting in their good works and despising others like the Pharisee who
stood praying, “God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are,
extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican
(tax-collector)” (Luke 18:11). His proud prayer was rejected
while the tax-collector’s accepted because it was humble, sincere, and
repentant before God, pleading for His mercy.
A thankful heart to the Lord is the
fruit of a born-again Christian, “By him therefore let us offer the
sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips
giving thanks to his name” (Heb 13:15). The Lord Jesus Christ
teaches us to do all things as our duty, and as unprofitable servants
without expecting any thanks from those whom we have helped (Luke
17:9-10). However, we are to be personally thankful to the Lord for His
goodness, grace and mercy and to others for their kind assistance. Then,
do you and I have a thankful heart?
Be Thankful to God
Why should you and I be thankful to
God? We are thankful to God for who He is and for what He has done in
our lives. When we thank God, we honour Him and glorify Him, “I will
praise the name of God with a song, and will magnify him with
thanksgiving” (Ps 69:30).
Thank God for Who He Is:
We must thank God because He is our living and true God, our Creator and
Maker, our Shepherd, “Know ye that the LORD he is God: it is he that
hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of
his pasture” (Ps 100:3). We must thank God for His love, His
faithfulness, His grace, His goodness, His mercy, and even His holiness,
“O give thanks unto the LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth
for ever” (Ps 136:1) and “Rejoice in the LORD, ye righteous; and
give thanks at the remembrance of his holiness” (Ps 97:12). We must
also give thanks to God’s holy name, “Save us, O LORD our God, and
gather us from among the heathen, to give thanks unto thy holy name, and
to triumph in thy praise” (Ps 106:47). Do you and I keep thanking
God for who He is?
Thank God for What He Has Done:
Sometimes we just take God’s blessings and gifts for granted, and we
forget that we have our breath of life and our being because God has
created us! When we are dying, then we shall see life is precious and it
is a gift from God. It is good to give thanks to God as long as we live
and still have our breath of life, “For in him we live, and move, and
have our being” (Acts 17:28). We must give thanks to God for His
good creation—the light, the sun, the moon, the stars, the seasons, the
rain, the crops, the food (Ps 136), etc. When we are in great need of
some air, light, water, or food, or when due to our illness we cannot
temporarily see, hear, speak, walk or move, we shall appreciate God’s
blessings and goodness which we usually take for granted.
Most of all, we must thank God for
giving us and mankind His only begotten Son the Lord Jesus Christ, who
came into this world to die for our sins and He rose again for our
justification (John 3:16; Rom 4:15). We must thank God for giving us the
Holy Spirit, who has convicted us of our sins and helped us to repent
and trust in the redemption in Jesus’ blood, and revealed God’s truth to
us and guide us into all truth (John 16:7-14). We must thank God for
giving us His divinely inspired and preserved Word, through which we may
know about Him, about us, and about His will and His salvation for
mankind, and through which we may stand firm and contend for our holy
faith in this world of deception, ungodliness, compromise and apostasy
(2 Tim 3:16; Ps 12:6-7; Matt 5:18; 24:35; Eph 6:17; Jude 3). We must
thank God for graciously choosing us, saving us, and giving us eternal
life and glorious inheritance in the Lord Jesus Christ while we only
deserve condemnation in Hell! While we are still living in this world
full of sins, snares, temptations, we must give thanks to God every day
for sustaining us, guiding us, protecting us and giving us victory in
Christ, “Now thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph
in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in
every place” (2 Cor 2:14) and “O wretched man that I am! who
shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus
Christ our Lord” (Rom 7:24-25).
We must thank God for His sovereignty
and providence, making all things work together for our good (Rom 8:28),
even in our difficulties, afflictions or trials to mould us and refine
us. Then, may God help you and me to give thanks to our God and our
Saviour Jesus Christ in all things and for all things without any
murmuring or complaint, “Giving thanks always for all things unto God
and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Eph 5:20). One
of God’s commandments for you and me is to give thanks (keep on giving
thanks) to Him in all things, “In every thing give thanks: for this
is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you” (1 Thess 5:18).
Are you and I keeping God’s commandments?
Thank God in Our Worship and Service:
If you and I
really know our God and who He is and what He has done in this world and
in our lives, we shall thank God in our lives, even in our worship and
service. We should never think that we shall do God a favour when we
come to worship Him, when we sing praises to Him, when we attend a Bible
study, when we give our offerings to Him, or when we serve Him and serve
others in His name. Truly, “A man can receive nothing, except it be
given him from heaven” (John 3:27). In heaven, God is worshipped day
and night with thanksgiving, “all the angels stood round about the
throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the
throne on their faces, and worshipped God, Saying, Amen: Blessing, and
glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and
might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen” (Rev 7:11-12). Then,
may God help you and me to worship Him, pray to Him, and sing to Him,
and serve Him with a thankful heart, “Let us come before his presence
with thanksgiving… Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and
into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless his name”
(Ps 95:2; 100:4), and “Sing unto the LORD with thanksgiving”
(Ps 147:7) and “Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with
thanksgiving” (Col 4:2), and “And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord,
who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into
the ministry” (1 Tim 1:12).
Be Thankful to Others:
We are taught to thank God for others as well as to be thankful to those
who have helped us, “I exhort therefore, that, first of all,
supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for
all men” (1 Tim 2:1). We must be thankful to our parents and loved
ones. Many children nowadays just take everything for granted, and they
fail to honour their parents with their thankful hearts as God commands
them. We must be thankful to our teachers, both secular and spiritual
teachers, especially to those who have uncompromisingly taught us God’s
truth. I must thank God always for a very good and sound theological
teaching and training at the Far Eastern Bible College with godly
lecturers. We must thank God for our Christian brethren and for their
faith, love, and spiritual growth in Christ, and for their kind support
in Christ, “We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it
is meet, because that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of
every one of you all toward each other aboundeth” (2 Thess 1:3) and
“I thank my God always on your behalf, for the grace of God which is
given you by Jesus Christ” (1 Cor 1:4), and “I thank my God upon
every remembrance of you… For your fellowship in the gospel from the
first day until now” (Phil 1:3, 5). Do you and I remember one
another in our prayers with thanksgiving?
Conclusion
Our Lord Jesus Christ has set for us a
good example of giving thanks to God (Matt 11:25; 26:27; John 6:11;
11:41; 1 Cor 11:24). Do you and I have a thankful heart to the Lord? The
more we know our good Lord, who He is and what He has done in our lives,
the more we shall give thanks to Him. Instead of murmuring or
complaining, let us give thanks to our God the Father in our Lord Jesus’
name always, for all things and in all things, as by so doing we do
honour Him, magnify Him and please Him. May God help you and me worship
Him, live for Him and serve Him with our thankful hearts. May God help
us to be thankful to our parents, teachers, supporters, and Christian
brethren and remember them in our prayers, “O give thanks unto the
LORD; for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever” (Ps 136:1).
Amen.
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