Ephesians 5:19-20

“Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

After telling us to live by the power of the Holy Spirit by giving Him control of our lives Paul then reminds us to live a life of praise and thanksgiving. Continual thanksgiving should be the outflow of a life filled with the Spirit of God. Paul doesn’t call us to practice praise periodically but perpetually. The words always giving thanks for everything remind us of Paul’s instruction in I Thessalonians 5:16-18 “Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” What about your thanksgiving is it continual or contingent? Paul also reminds us what comes out of our mouths is tied to what’s in our hearts, “Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart” What leaves your lips is a reflection of your life. Paul is talking about a continual attitude for Christians, an attitude of the heart, one which impacts how we relate to each other. How do you speak to others is it with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs, are your words ones of praise or poison? Do you see people as a pain or as a privilege? How much time do you spend complaining and how much complimenting? The issue for many is not that we don’t have an attitude of thankfulness but that our thanks is contingent and conditional not continual. So how do we have a continual attitude of thanks, especially in all circumstances? I think this has to do with our perspective of praise and thanksgiving, for without the proper perspective we will always make praise provisional. There is a great story about perspective by a young lady writing home from college:

“Dear Mom: Sorry I haven’t written sooner. My arm really has been broken. I broke it, and my left leg, when I jumped from the second floor of my dormitory…when we had the fire. We were lucky a young service station attendant saw the blaze and called the Fire Department. They were there in minutes. I was in the hospital for a few days. Paul, the service station attendant, came to see me every day. And because it was taking so long to get our dormitory livable again, I moved in with him. He has been so nice. I must admit that I am pregnant. Paul and I plan to get married just as soon as he can get a divorce. I hope things are fine at home. I’m doing fine, and will write more when I get the chance. Love,

Your daughter, Susie

P.S. None of the above is true. But I did get a “C” in Sociology and flunked Chemistry. I just wanted you to receive this news in its “Proper Perspective!”

If we are going to be thankful in all circumstances, we need a proper perspective of both our circumstances and our Creator. There are many attitudes that can steal our praise and turn our gratitude into grumbling . Probably the biggest attitude that poisons peoples praise is that of pride. This is the attitude that says, “Nobody ever gave me anything, I worked hard for everything I have.” The result of this kind of attitude is that we feel that we have no one to thank but ourselves. Another attitude that keeps us from living a thankful life is a critical spirit. A critical spirit is consumed with constant complaining, instead of being grateful this person is a grump, always finding something to complain about. Another attitude that keeps us from being grateful to God is carelessness. It’s hard to be grateful when you take God for granted. The Israelites grumbled because they had no food so God miraculously sent manna to cover the ground each day except the Sabbath. In order to eat they didn’t have to plant or weed all they had to do was harvest yet they still found a reason to grumble. They went from complaining about having no food to having to eat the same food. Here they were fed and full, with a miracle straight from God every day yet they were no longer satisfied. They went back to their moaning because they wanted more than a miracle. The problem wasn’t God’s gracious provision it was the peoples attitude. Have you gotten carless and caught up in an attitude of complaining, Are you going to live a life of griping or gratefulness?  If there is any nation that ought to be thankful to God and grateful for his goodness it ought to be America. And if any people in America ought to be thankful to God and grateful for his goodness it ought to be Christians. Yet how many Christians are caught up in a life of complaining, how many are living with a critical spirit? Paul as he preaches about praise reminds us that thanksgiving should be:

• Expressed

In Psalms 107 David says “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good His faithful love endures forever” We should express our thanks to God and others. We are quick to express our problems to God but what about our praise? As has been stated before only one of the ten lepers came back to express their praise to God yet all ten expressed their problems.  Living a life of gratitude involves not just grateful thoughts but actions, and attitude directly impact our actions. Are you living with an attitude of gratitude, and how is your gratefulness to God being revealed? Does it show in your speech, if gratitude is not part of your thought life it won’t be part of your talk life. Today many are more prone to outbursts of anger than praise. We live lives filled more with frustration than fulfilment because we are no longer grateful to God. Is it possible that we are more stressed and sicker as a society today because we have stopped singing our song of praise to God for all that He has done? Thanksgiving is the healthiest of all human emotions and it is not only good for the giver but also good for those who receive it. A thankful heart will endear others to us, praise attracts where anger poisons. Just as a thankful life draws people to us it will also draw us closer to God. A closer walk starts with worship, but if we are ungrateful, if we do not express our thanksgiving, then it can have the opposite effect. In Romans 1:21 Paul says, “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.” Gratitude and being ungrateful are like opposite ends of a magnet, depending on which is pointed depends on whether it attracts or repels. Those who are ungrateful to God end up with hearts that are hardened. So how do you say thank you to God, how are you expressing you gratitude?

• One way we can express our gratitude to God is in the time that we give to Him. How much time do you spend with Him outside of a weekly worship service?
• A second and often overlooked way we can say thank you is by forgiving others. In Matthew 18:21-35 we see the parable of the unforgiving servant. Here was a man who wanted the master’s mercy but was unwilling to share that mercy with others. In verse 35 Jesus tells us that we are to forgive others from our heart not our head. Is there anyone you need to forgive?
• We say thanks by serving Him, how and where are you currently serving the Savior?
• When we share His Plan of salvation, who are you sharing His salvation with?
• When we reach out to the hurting and hopeless with the healing power of God’s love. Who are you loving?
• When you give God your best instead of your left overs. Let’s be honest when it comes to left overs we all eat them but we don’t like them as much as we did the fresh meal. What are you giving to God is it your best or are you putting Him on the backburner. This week think about how you are expressing your gratitude to God.

Deuteronomy 16:9-17

“9 Count off seven weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle to the standing grain. 10 Then celebrate the Festival of Weeks to the Lord your God by giving a freewill offering in proportion to the blessings the Lord your God has given you. 11 And rejoice before the Lord your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name—you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, the Levites in your towns, and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows living among you. 12 Remember that you were slaves in Egypt, and follow carefully these decrees. 13 Celebrate the Festival of Tabernacles for seven days after you have gathered the produce of your threshing floor and your winepress. 14 Be joyful at your festival—you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, and the Levites, the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows who live in your towns. 15 For seven days celebrate the festival to the Lord your God at the place the Lord will choose. For the Lord your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete.16 Three times a year all your men must appear before the Lord your God at the place he will choose: at the Festival of Unleavened Bread, the Festival of Weeks and the Festival of Tabernacles. No one should appear before the Lord empty-handed: 17 Each of you must bring a gift in proportion to the way the Lord your God has blessed you.”

Last time we saw that a life of celebration involved giving back to God a portion of His provision to us. Not only does celebration involve giving but second we see that it also involves:

• Rejoicing

Verse eleven says: “And rejoice before the Lord your God at the place he will choose as a dwelling for his Name—you, your sons and daughters, your male and female servants, the Levites in your towns, and the foreigners, the fatherless and the widows living among you.” Rejoicing wasn’t something that was reserved for a select few, it included everyone, from the leaders to the last. According to this verse the focus of our rejoicing should be God the Father. We need to remember that our reason for rejoicing is found in our Redeemer not in our current circumstances. Today many of us are allowing our rejoicing to revolve around results and how well we think things are going instead of on how great a God we serve. Rejoicing is not about the results it’s about the Redeemer. When we tie our celebrating to our current circumstances we limit our celebration to only those moments in life where we think things are going good. We end up waiting to worship until things get better and wasting our opportunities to worship. Instead of living a life of consistent celebration we settle for a sporadic one. In truth we end up celebrating our circumstances instead of our creator. Have you fallen into the trap of worshipping the wins instead of the One who is worthy of your worship? To rejoice means to take delight in something or someone, what are you finding your delight in? Are you daily delighting in God? In Philippians 4:4 Paul reminds us, “Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice” Paul not only calls us to rejoice always but right away he reminds us a second time to rejoice. Remember Paul was in prison when he wrote Philippians, he practiced what he preached. Paul chose to rejoice regardless of his predicament because he was looking to God to lead and provide. You can cry over a half filled cup or celebrate by thanking God that you have some water to drink. It’s a choice, you see no matter the situation we all have a choice to rejoice. You can look for thorns among the roses or be thankful that among the thorns there are beautiful roses. In Habakkuk 3:17-19 the prophet declared: “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, 18 yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior.” The words “I will” reveal Habakkuk’s belief that he could choose his response, either to sink into deep despair or to rejoice in God’s presence and power.  His decision to rejoice was not a denial of the problems, but a choice to praise in the midst of the problems. We will all have times of sorrow and grief, even Jesus wept (John 11:35), but sorrow doesn’t have to have the final say. Don’t let the problems and the pain rob you of rejoicing. The choice to rejoice is available to us every day and to refuse to choose is itself a choice. Are you waiting to worship? Who or what are you really worshipping? Do you need to stop and redirect your rejoicing? Not only does celebration involve rejoicing but it also involves:

• Remembering

Its hard to rejoice where you are unless you remember where you were. If God had not rescued us, we would still be slaves to sin. What about you, has God rescued and redeemed you? We are just like the people of Israel who so quickly forgot what God had done for them. But when we remember we recall His goodness and grace. Today we are called to come to the table and remember how on the cross of Calvary Jesus crushed sin. Without the Savior we would still be slaves, but because of his sacrifice we are saved. Because of Gods mighty hand His people were freed from Egypt, where they had spent their time trying to please the task masters, laboring for that which they did not own. Now because of God’s goodness they had land and crops to give back to God, before they had nothing to give, they were salves and you can’t give away what’s not yours. When we remember where we were and where we are now we are reminded not only of how much we need Him but of how much we have to thank Him for. God’s call is for us to come and celebrate, to remember what He has done and rejoice in who He is. Because of the Lord we get to live it up. If there is one group of people on this planet that should be caught up in a perpetual party shouldn’t it be the people of God? Why are we so sour and sullen, after all we are the ones who are saved and secure.  Yet many of us live lives of constant complaining instead of celebration, we act like we are ruined instead of redeemed. Today will you chose to celebrate? Are you going to remember and rejoice, what are you going to give back to God?