Turn back, if you would, to 1
Thessalonians 5. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. Our text is verse 18. It says, in everything give thanks. In everything, give thanks. In everything, give thanks. Thanks is gratefulness. That's what it means, gratefulness. In everything, our Lord says,
be grateful for everything. In everything, be happy for it. In everything, see the good in
it. God is good. In everything, see God in it. In everything, give thanks. Verse
16 says, Rejoice evermore. That means be happy from here
on out. Be happy from here on out. Brother
Scott Richardson, did any of you ever meet Scott Richardson?
Do you know who he is? Well, my dad became the pastor
of his church. Whenever he was too old and feeble
to continue, my dad became the pastor of Katie Baptist Church.
Scott Richardson pastored there for years and years. And this
is one thing he used to say all the time. I haven't heard any
bad news since I heard the good news. Really. Rejoice evermore. And verse 17
says, pray without ceasing. Prayer is giving thanks. Before
we sit down at our table, we say, let's give thanks. Pray
without ceasing. In everything, give thanks. Who do we thank? Who does this
thanks belong to? Look at 2 Thessalonians 1. Verse
3. We are bound to thank God. We are bound to thank God. We have to give thanks. Not only because we're bound
to, not only because we're commanded to, but we love to. I love when the Lord causes my
mind To say, I need to give thanks. Have you ever prayed for anything
and the Lord answered your prayer? And then it takes you a while
to realize, I didn't go back and give thanks. I forgot to
thank Him for it. We love to give thanks. We're bound to give thanks. It
goes on right there to say, we're bound to thank God always for
you, brethren. As it is meet, because that your
faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity, the love of every
one of you all toward each other aboundeth. We give thanks for
that. We give thanks to God for you.
Philippians 1.3 says, I thank my God. I thank my God upon every remembrance
of you." I love that verse. Brotherhood is a great reason
to give thanks, isn't it? It's a great reason. When you
find somebody who is of like mind, who is of like faith, it's a great reason to give thanks. Now I just want to look through
this Word for a few reasons to give much thanks to God. See
what the Scripture says about it. The first thing that we give
thanks for is Christ. First and foremost. We thank
God for Christ. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians
chapter 9. 2 Corinthians 9 and look at verse 15. Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable
gift. Thanks be unto God for His unspeakable
gift. Any of you who are parents, could
you imagine giving your child for the sins of the world? Could you imagine that? It is
unspeakable. It's unspeakable. How much does
He love us? How much does He love us? For
God so loved this sinful world, He gave an unspeakable gift. How much does He care about us?
Thank you so much. Thank you so much. Unspeakable. It's unspeakable. We give thanks for Christ. Turn with me to Luke 2. Luke 2. Look at verse 36. There was one Anna, a prophetess,
the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Aser, She was of a great
age and had lived with her husband seven years from her virginity.
And she was a widow of about four score and four years, which
departed not from the temple, but served God with fasting and
prayers night and day. And she coming in that instant
gave thanks likewise unto the Lord. and spake of Him to all
them that looked for redemption in Jerusalem." Our Lord had just
been born, and He's brought to the temple. Simeon had just seen
Him. She's over there giving thanks and prayer and fasting.
And she hears that the Messiah is here. And she runs over and
peeks over His shoulder, and as soon as she saw Him, the Redeemer's here. The Redeemer's
here. Thanks be to God, the Redeemer
is here. We thank God for Christ. Secondly,
we thank God for His shed blood and for His broken body. Go with
me to 1 Corinthians 11. 1 Corinthians 11, look at verse
23. For I have received of the Lord
that which also I delivered unto you, that the Lord Jesus, the
same night in which He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given
thanks, He broke it, and said, Take, eat, this is My body which
is broken for you." this do in remembrance of Me. After the
same manner also He took the cup. When He had supped, saying,
This cup is the New Testament of My blood, this do ye as oft
as you drink in remembrance of Me. We give thanks for His broken
body and His shed blood." It's our salvation. It's our whole
salvation. It's our whole redemption. Thank
You, Lord, for saving our souls, making us whole, giving to us
this salvation. It's so rich, it's so free. We
thank God for sending Christ, the unspeakable gift, and we
thank Christ for His broken body and His shed blood. The third
thing we thank God for is His healing and cleansing power. Turn with me to Luke 17. At my mother's funeral, I'll
never forget, Brother Henry Mahan was one of the preachers of my
mother's funeral. And he looked straight at me
and he said, Now, your mother has no sin. And she's well. She died of cancer. No more cancer. He literally took her cancer
away. Say, well, she died. Well, this
body of death did, yes. But her soul lives. And he cured
her of her cancer. He did. Luke 17, look at verse
11. It came to pass, as He went to
Jerusalem, that He passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as He entered into a certain
village, there met Him ten men that were lepers, which stood
afar off. And they lifted up their voices
and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw
them, he said unto them, Go, show yourselves unto the priest.
And it came to pass that as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw
that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified
God, fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks."
He was a Samaritan. All power is given unto Him,
and this is literal. He is the Great Physician. He heals all who come to Him. And there is no sickness that
He cannot heal. Literally. Thanks be to God. Thank you, Lord. We thank God
for the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank God for His broken body
and His shed blood. We thank God for His healing,
cleansing power. And we thank God, fourthly, for
His sovereign authority. I'm so glad God is in control. I'm so glad. His sovereignty. Turn with me to Revelation chapter
11. Revelation 11. Revelation 11 verse 17 says, We give Thee thanks, O Lord God
Almighty, which art and wast and art to come, because Thou
hast taken to Thee Thy great power and has reigned. We thank
You because You're the King. Peter said we were eyewitnesses
of His Majesty. We saw the King. He is the King
of Kings. He's the Lord of Lords. We don't
just preach grace. We preach sovereign grace. The
fifth thing we thank the Lord God for is His goodness to us. He is so good to us. Turn with
me to Psalm 100. Psalm 100. Verse 1 says, Make a joyful noise
unto the Lord, all ye lands. Serve the Lord with gladness.
Come before His presence with singing. 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. Enter into His gates. with thanksgiving, and into His
courts with praise. Be thankful unto Him, and bless
His name, for the Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting, and
His truth endureth to all generations. The Lord is so good. He has had such great mercy on
us. He's been good to us with our
greatest need. He saved us. He revealed His truth to us generation
upon generation. So good. He supplied all of our
needs, and that's the sixth thing that we thank God for. All of
His provisions. Now, I love this. I don't know
if I've ever shown you this or not. But I absolutely adore this. Go to Matthew 15. We thank God
for His provisions. Matthew 15, look at verse 32. Then Jesus called His disciples
unto Him and said, I have compassion on the multitude, because they
continue with Me now three days and have nothing to eat. And
I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in their way.
And His disciples say unto Him, Whence should we have so much
bread in the wilderness, as to fill so great a multitude? And Jesus saith unto them, How
many loaves have you? And they said, Seven. And a few little fishes. And
He commanded the multitude to sit down on the ground. And He
took the seven loaves and the fishes and gave thanks. He broke them and gave to His
disciples and the disciples to the multitude. And they did all
eat and were filled. And they took up of the broken
meat that was left seven baskets full." And they that did eat
were four thousand men, besides the women and children." He didn't say, he said, how many
loaves do you have? And they said, seven. A few little
fishes. And he said, let me have them.
He didn't say, Father, this is not enough. We can't provide on this much. We don't have enough. He took seven loaves and a few
little fishes and said, thank you. Thank you. He gave thanks for what God had
provided. He thanked God knowing The Father
knows what things I have need of. The Father knows how many
people are out there. Verse 36 says, He gave thanks,
and break them, and gave to His disciples, and the disciples
to the multitude. He gave it away. He took all
that He had, and He gave it away. He was generous with what God
had given Him, and God blessed it. That's what happened. He
gave thanks for what he had. He was generous with what he
had. And God blessed him. He supplies all our needs and
so much more, doesn't He? We live in luxury. Don't turn,
but 2 Corinthians 9-11 says we are enriched in everything to
all bountifulness. That means liberality. which
causes through us thanksgiving to God. We're enriched in the
riches of His grace. The seventh thing that we thank
God for is grief and suffering. Now, we don't want it. We don't
ask for it. And I had a lot of Scriptures
to turn to, but I'm just going to tell you about our little
incident with Sophie. Nobody wants grief. Nobody wants
suffering. A week ago, Friday night, after
Thanksgiving, Hannah and the girls and I, Hannah's parents,
and a couple of other people from the church in Rocky Mount,
decided to go camping. And the campground was 45 minutes
from town and our little hospital, you know, right there in town,
45 minutes away. And we knew we were sitting around the fire
Friday night. We knew Sophie was getting a fever. We could
tell. We put the girls to bed. We went to bed. 1.30 in the morning,
Sophie got sick. Her stomach was upset. Hannah
had to get up and take care of her, clean her up. So she had
her undressed, cleaned her up, and about 15 minutes later, Sophie
went into a seizure. And she started shaking. Hannah
started screaming for me to come in there. So I come in, and Hannah
walked into the shower, and she's sitting there holding Sophie,
and Sophie's just shaking. I just couldn't believe it. I've
never seen our child seize. I know it happens. I know it
happens. And her fever was just sky high, just sky high. So Hannah
took her outside, got her in the cold, and she snapped out
of it. So I got Isabella up. This is
about 1.45 in the morning. And we got in the van, and I
made a 45-minute trip in probably 30 minutes. I was just flying
down the road. Hannah's in the back, trying
to keep Sophie alert, and I am praying to God. For 30 minutes, I was saying,
Lord, please, touch my little girl. And you know, I know a
lot of kids have this, but it was real to me in that moment.
If it be Thy will, touch her body and heal her. Please, if it be Thy will, just
touch her body and heal her." So we get to the emergency room
and they have her all hooked up. They get her fever under
control and she's fine. At one point she smiled and we
took a picture of it. We get back to our house. and
put the girls to sleep. And I couldn't go to sleep. I was too wound up. But I was
laying there. I couldn't go to sleep. And I was thinking, oh,
I'm so thankful we're all back home. We're all home. And that's
when it hit me. For the first time, I, to some
degree, entered into what Donnie Bell is going through right now. Donny Bell doesn't have the same
outcome that I have. I love that man and I love his
wife. And when you hear that a dear
loved one has cancer and it's bad, you think, oh, that's a
shame. But when it's you, when it's life and death, you, it's not just a shame. And I thanked my God for allowing
me the opportunity to just enter into what my brother's having
to go through right now. In everything, see the good in
it. I'm not trying to say I did anything
right. I'm just saying that's what happened
to us. And I wouldn't change that whole
scenario. I'm sorry that it happened to
Sophie, I was so thankful after that for health. I took our health
for granted. Didn't you? Everybody woke up
today. Everybody just got dressed. Everybody went about their business.
We took it for granted. I was so thankful for health. I was so thankful for hospitals. I was so thankful for everything.
I was just thankful. It's of the Lord. It's of the
Lord, isn't it? And the Lord is going to show
us the good in all of it. In all of it. There's some good
in all of it. For believers, it's not just
some good, it's all good. It's all good. We thank God for grief and suffering
because it's what the Lord uses to bring us to Christ. This statement
was made I don't know who said it, but you only pray about that
which you cannot do. That's true, isn't it? You only cry out to God for the
things that are out of your hands, don't you? The eighth thing that we thank
God for is election. I have ten things, we're on number
eight. The eighth thing that we thank God for is election. I'm so thankful for election.
Turn with me to Matthew 11. Matthew 11, look at verse 25. At that time, Jesus answered
and said, I thank Thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because
thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast
revealed them unto babes." That's election. That's election. I thank God for election. He
could have hid it from everybody. It's a mystery. He could have
hid it from everybody. Nobody deserves to know it. Nobody. But He revealed it unto simple
little babes like you and me. I thank God for election. We thank God for our brethren. I'm so thankful that He elected
me. I'm so thankful He elected you. I'm so thankful. We thank God for our brethren. But we also thank God for all
men. That's number nine. We thank
God for all men. All men. Turn with me to 1 Timothy
2. Verse 1 in 1 Timothy 2 says,
I exhort therefore that first of all, supplications, prayers,
intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men. All men. The reason is because
we're no different than they are. Not one bit. We're no different from anybody
else. I thank God for election. But
I'm not one whit better than anybody. Not one bit. We came from the same lump of
clay. Here's another thing Brother
Scott said. He went into a convenience store, and he was with one of
the men in the church, and they ran into a guy in town, and Brother
Scott said, How you doing, brother? Good to see you. And when they
got back in the car, the fellow from Scott's church said, Do
you really believe that man is your brother? He said, Well,
if I missed him in Christ, I got him in Adam. One way or the other,
he's my brother. The whole reason that we preach
the Gospel, the reason why I'm compelled to stand here right
now and preach the Gospel, is because we love mankind. We do. And we desire that they might
be saved. I would love to stand at the
door and holler to Kingsport, whosoever will, let him come. Whosoever will. That brings us
to the last one, number 10. We thank God for the Gospel. We thank God for the Gospel.
His message of good news. Go with me to Colossians chapter
4. Colossians 4. Verse 2 says, continue in prayer
and watch in the same with thanksgiving. With all praying also for us,
that God would open unto us a door of utterance to speak the mystery
of Christ, for which I am also in bonds, that I may make it
manifest as I ought to speak. If the Lord God gives a man a
message and enables his mouth to speak the mysteries of Christ,
and if He gives us an ear to hear and understand this wonderful
news, it's great reason to give thanks. If we are meeting here
in truth, if this is a gospel church, it's great reason to
give thanks. Those are just a few of the things
we give thanks for. It's unlimited, isn't it? It's
unlimited. I'm going to close with why.
Here's why. Two reasons. The first one is
in 2 Corinthians 4. Turn with me to 2 Corinthians
4. Why do we give thanks? 2 Corinthians
4, look at verse 15. For all things are for your sakes,
that the abundant grace might, through the thanksgiving of many,
redound to the glory of God. We give thanks because it gives
God all the glory. That's why. We just give thanks. That's all we can do is give
thanks. And we give God all the glory. The second reason is in our text.
Go back to 1 Thessalonians 5. 1 Thessalonians 5, look at verse
18. In everything give thanks, for
this is the will of God. in Christ Jesus concerning you. I just want to do God's will.
That's all I want. I'm just searching for the Lord's
will. I just want to do the Lord's will. Well, in everything, every
single thing, and I'm just talking to me. I'm talking to me. In everything, give thanks. For this is the will of God in
Christ Jesus concerning you. Lord, give us the grace to do
that. Give us the grace to give thanks.
I hope the Lord will bless that word. Stand together with me.