Being Thankful

Now I would like to continue this list of suggestions and I want to emphasize they’re personal and they may not be exactly so applicable in your life. On the other hand, as I am speaking, the Holy Spirit may drop things in your mind that do apply to you. Some of what I have to say is very elementary but the important thing is that it’s true.

The next thing I would emphasize is practice being thankful. I remember when I was newly saved, I was saved a few weeks in Britain, and then in the Army sent me overseas and found myself in the deserts of North Africa, Egypt and Libya for basically the next two years. I had no opportunity to attend a church or have a pastor or listen to preachers. I was simply there on my own amongst very ungodly people with no other equipment but my Bible. But there was one other soldier who was not in the same unit that I was in because I was in the medical corps, he was in what was called the service corp. He was a driver. But from time to time we could get together and have fellowship. And I remember I came to a point and he did to where the pressures of the desert and the monotony and the continuing blasphemy and all that became overwhelming. So we decided to do something which was very revolutionary at that state in my Christian experience, we decided to fast for a day and ask God to show us what was wrong. I wasn’t quite sure that you could approach God that way.

Well, when we got together in the evening and began to pray we got a tongue and an interpretation. And the interpretation began with, “Why have you not thanked me, why have you not praised me?” And God made it very clear that our problem was not our situation but our attitude. We had not been thanking him. And I think many, many times when Christians feel their situation is wrong, the problem really isn’t in the situation, it’s in the attitude. I’ve seen that, I’ve been a missionary on two fields. I’ve had a lot of relationships with missionaries. Missionaries are, in a sense, the cream of the crop but they’re also God’s problem people. And they have such problems being discontented, not being in the right job or being under the wrong person or whatever it may be. And I’ve seen that the primary problem is not being thankful.

Let me look at some scriptures with you. Let’s turn, first of all, to Ephesians 5:17–21. This is the passage about being filled with the Holy Spirit. I think we need to give heed to it.

“Therefore do not be unwise but understand what the word of the Lord is.”

Now I interpret that to indicate that the following verses are the will of the Lord. And that if we don’t understand those we are unwise.

“Do not be drunk with wine in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit.”

So many Christian groups have majored on the negative and ignored the positive that each command is equally valid. It is wrong to be drunk with wine but it is also wrong not to be filled with the Holy Spirit. Now what’s the mark of being filled with the Holy Spirit? I believe the next three verses describe what it’s like to be filled with the Holy Spirit and it’s not enough to have spoken in tongues in l972. That is not sufficient. What are the marks?

“Speaking to one another . . .”

I have made a study in the New Testament some years back of the evidence of being filled with the Holy Spirit or full of the Holy Spirit. I studied the persons, the situations, the results. If I remember rightly, there are eight individuals of whom it is stated that they were filled with the Holy Spirit. Five of them died a martyr’s death. So before you ask to be filled with the Holy Spirit just count the cost. There are interesting results. Everywhere that it speaks about being filled with the Holy Spirit the next phrase is something to do with the mouth. I studied the characteristics. Some of them were very interesting. I found that they were people of great plainness of speech like John the Baptist who said, “You generation of vipers, what are you doing here?” It was really interesting. It gave me a different perspective on what really is involved in being filled with the Holy Spirit. So here is one clear example. After it says be filled with the Holy Spirit the next word is speaking.

“Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.”

I think you can check for yourself it’s true in every place where it speaks about being filled with the Spirit or full of the Spirit.

“Speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs.”

Speaking to yourselves. I think it’s legitimate to speak to yourself that way even if there’s nobody else there. Isaiah said the Lord has become my strength and my song. That’s the key verse for my wife Ruth. The Lord is her strength and her song. Whatever she’s doing she sings. And it changes the atmosphere. I’m glad to have a singing wife, a wife who sings psalms, hymns and spiritual songs.

“Singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.”

That’s for me because I’m not very melodious with my voice but I try to be melodious in my heart. Then notice the next aspect:

“Giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

So after the singing and the praising comes the giving thanks. And then the final mark:

“Submitting to one another in the fear of God [or in the fear of Christ.]”

So I say a person who is not full of praise, a person who is not continually thankful and a person who does not have a submissive attitude is not full of the Holy Spirit. Those are the three primary marks of being full, not of having been filled in l972, but of being full in l983. Praise, worship, giving thanks and submission. And the moment you cease to be thankful, you know you’re no longer full of the Holy Spirit.

You may have been, you may have started out today full of the Holy Spirit but at that point you are no longer full. You know, if you’re carrying a vessel full of water and somebody jogs your arm and a little spills, what spills out tells you what’s in. And if complaining comes out then it isn’t the Holy Spirit, believe me!

Let’s look at another scripture, 1 Thessalonians 5. We’ll begin at verse 16. Here are some of the shortest verses in the New Testament.

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Do not quench the Spirit. Do not despise prophecies. Test all things, hold fast what is good. Abstain from every form of evil.”

John Wesley, as you know, held the doctrine of Christian perfection which I think is a very realistic doctrine. It has been abused and perverted later. And somebody challenged him and said what do you mean by Christian perfection? He said, very simply, rejoice evermore, pray without ceasing and in everything give thanks. And believe me, anybody that does that—And you can’t go against those because they’re three clear requirements of scripture.

And then immediately after that it says do not quench the Spirit. I understand that in the context to mean that if you cease to rejoice, cease to pray or cease to give thanks you’re quenching the Spirit. And in connection with giving thanks it says for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. What is that? The will of God is for you to give thanks for everything. Now you understand that you may be in the right position, in the right ministry, in the right fellowship. But if you’re not thankful you’re out of the will of God. Not because of your situation but because of your attitude. I don’t know how many people I’ve encountered who said I’m not in God’s will. But when you analyze the situation it isn’t the situation, it’s the attitude. When you cease to be thankful you are out of the will of God no matter what else may be true in your situation. I find that being thankful is a beautiful thing. It makes people beautiful. It gives them a special grace. You probably know that the Greek word for “to give thanks” [eucharisto] is directly related to the word for grace [charis]. And in Latin the word gratia is the word for giving thanks which has come to us in all the Latin languages as gracia, gras . . . The message is if you’re not thankful, you’re not in the grace of God. The grace of God is expressed in thankfulness. This was impressed upon me when I discovered that in the African languages where we were working in Kenya they didn’t have any word for thank you. They had to borrow it from another language. Can you imagine living among people who have no word for thank you.

What that brought home to me really was that it’s only where the grace of God is operating that people have a word for thank you. It’s the grace of God that’s brought thankfulness.

Let’s look at just one scripture on the other side. 2 Timothy 3:1–5.

“But know this, that in the last days perilous times will come.”

Now the source of the peril is not nuclear fission. It’s the degeneration of human character. I personally believe that sin is corruptive. I find that the key word to describe the carnal nature, the old man is corrupt. And that once corruption sets in it’s always progressive. Consequently I believe that there is a progressive degeneration of human character that is unfolding in history. And so when it says in the last days we get this list, that is, in a sense, the necessary outworking of the corruption of sin once it’s entered. And then we get this appalling list and we need to note that it begins and ends with what people love. Verse 2:

“For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money [and going down to the end of verse 4:] lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God.”

Take those three phrases: love of self, love of money and love of pleasure. How true are they about contemporary culture in America? I would say probably they are the three most accurately descriptive adjectives of our contemporary culture. Love of self, love of money and love of pleasure. And then imbedded in that is this other list of moral blemishes: boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy and so on. Notice where unthankful comes. Between disobedient to parents and unholy.

You cannot be unthankful and be holy. They’re two self contradictory terms. Thankfulness has to be cultivated. It really has to be a decision. We have to see it in scripture and then trust God’s grace to reproduce it in us.

Looking back on my own walk with the Lord I’m sure there are many areas which the Lord has to deal with, but I can say I am a much more thankful person than I was when the Lord saved me. In fact, I was a very unthankful, critical, resentful negative. It’s taken a lot of patience and grace on the part of the Lord but there have been major changes in my character. In fact, if I tell people who have only known me the past ten years or so what I used to be like they can’t believe it. But it’s true. Now I say that really to encourage you and myself because sometimes when we look at what God expects of us we think well, that’s too much to ask. But God’s grace really is sufficient. It’s not merely was sufficient nor will be sufficient, it is sufficient. And as I said, the word for grace and the word for thanks are directly related. I think the best way to appropriate the grace of God is by being thankful.