July 7, 2024

Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving

TRINITY HOUSEHOLD OF FAITH

 

SUNDAY SERMON

7th of July, 2024

Topic:                         Thanksgiving

Preacher:                   Reverend Ebenezer Olawuyi

Text:                           Colossians 2:6 – 7

 

MESSAGE

Take your Bible and say, ‘This is my Bible, the Word of God. I submit myself to the authority of this Word. My life is daily guided by the instructions of this Word. I receive light this morning and understanding, as I hear this Word in Jesus Name, Amen.’

Can you just lift up your hands and say, ‘Thank you, Jesus’.

I told you about a man who was so addicted to singing, praising and thanking God. You hear him in the morning and every time singing songs of thanksgiving to the extent that neighbours would hear him. Anywhere he went, he was always thanking God but there was this neighbour of his that got irritated by his attitude of thanksgiving and was always complaining about how he thanks God. This neighbor told him one day, that if after thanking and praising God so much he finds himself in Hell. This man replied him that even if he gets to hell, he is going to thank God the more. He said he will praise God and shout Hallelujah the more because he knows the Devil can’t stand that kind of praise and would thus throw him out of hell. That is, the devil can’t stand true thanksgiving and praise. Friends, one of the weapons of our warfare is thanksgiving and praise to God. It’s an unknown and unpopular weapon today.

Let me tell you a story again about a man who was always standing below the steps of a house. He would put his hat down for passersby to drop money and every day, people pass by and drop money. One man got there someday and found out that the hat has just few coins; he dropped his own coin and looked at the write-up beside the hat, and what was there was ‘I am a blind man, please help me.’ So, this passer-by decided to change it. He took the write up, turned it to the other side and wrote – ‘This is a beautiful day, only I cannot see it.’ Remember, the first inscription goes ‘I am blind, please help me,’ but this man turned it around and wrote, ‘This is a beautiful day, only I cannot see it.’ Then, he went away. Soon, the blind man discovered that people were passing by after that and dropping money and within few hours, the hat was full of coins. In the evening, the man who changed the write-up came passing by; the blind man, after hearing his footstep called him and asked if he was the one who caused the sudden increase in donation. He asked what he did that suddenly changed the donation. This man told him he only changed the inscription; he wrote almost the same thing but slightly different. Instead of ‘I am a blind man, please help me’, he wrote ‘This is a beautiful day, only I cannot see it’ – the same thing but different words. You see, one of them could see the good in the midst of the bad, the other could not see anything good. All he saw was ‘I was blind,’ but the other saw that ‘It was a beautiful day.’

In life, as long as you keep seeing the negative side of life, you are never grateful. Life is full of both the good and the negative but it takes a man with a heart of gratitude and thanksgiving to see the things that God is doing. People who are grateful don’t take things for granted. Life is not a right, life is a privilege. Your being alive is not a right, it’s a privilege. God has given you that privilege; it doesn’t matter what you are passing through in life, a living dog is better than a dead lion. It doesn’t matter what you are facing in life, for the fact that you are still alive, you have a brighter tomorrow in Christ.

Thanksgiving truly is a heart of gratitude. It comes from the heart, it is not just a reflex of the lips. Not the movement of the lips, it is what flows from inside of you. In the book of Colossians, it says, now that you have received Christ, walk in Him. It takes a man who knows Christ, and is rooted in Him – ‘rooted and built up in Him, established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving….’ It is your relationship in God, your root in Christ that will cause you to abound and overflow with thanksgiving, it doesn’t matter your situation. It takes a man who knows his root in the Lord to thank Him when things are not working the way he wants them to. It takes a man who knows his root in the Lord to still give praise when there is no reason to.

People who are thankless are always finding life complex. When you are thankless, your life becomes complicated. It takes thankful people to enjoy life and enjoy it in abundance. God has called us into thanksgiving… always. Ephesians 5:17 – 19 say, ‘Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.’ When you are filled with the Spirit, there is going to be a natural response. It is an attitude which reflects in your voice, in your life, in everything. The Scripture says, ‘Speaking to yourself in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs…’, ‘abounding with thanksgiving, giving thanks always’ (Col. 2:7). Giving thanks, not in one situation but always, in everything and every circumstance. Don’t be drunk with wine but be filled with the Spirit. Don’t let your life be moved and influenced with wine but let the Spirit of God move you. ‘Though the fig tree may not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines; though the labour of the olive may fail, and the fields yield no food; though the flock may be cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls – Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation’ (Habakkuk 3:17 – 18). Even though things do not work, I will always have a reason to thank and not complain, that is what this Bible verse is saying.

You could have lost a lot this year; you could have lost somebody who is close to you but know this fact, God is the reason you have not lost everything. God still shows you mercy to give you a reason to say, ‘Thank you.’ I was listening to a testimony yesterday. The man said before his mother pass away, the Lord asked him if there is anything that could happen to him to make him stop giving Him praises, but he said nothing of such could happen. Over time, he had forgotten. Suddenly, his mom got sick and he was beside her in the hospital when the Word came again. He immediately remembered what God had told him before, and within few hours, the mum passed on. He knelt down and said, ‘Lord, I worship you. You are still God.’ The attitude of thanksgiving flows instantaneously and spontaneously. It’s not an exertion on the will but something that comes from the heart. Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always to God in all things.

You know, for the New Testament believer, thanksgiving is not just about what God has done for us. Thanksgiving is an act of holiness to God. It’s not just because of what God has done for us, but because thanksgiving has become our life, our Christianity. Thanksgiving, in the New Testament, is not just when God blesses you but even in the times of trials. It is included in the prayer of the believer. Your prayer can never be complete without thanksgiving. God has called us into a life of thanksgiving and the mysteries of thanksgiving are reserved for thankful and grateful people. They are reserved for those who are thankful, not for thankless people and complainers. Half of the year has gone, whatever you have experienced in the past cannot be compared with what He can do going forward. Above all, thanksgiving is an attitude – ‘Even though He slays me, I have gotten to a point that I am no longer mine, nothing can take me away from Him.’ That even though He slays me, yet I will praise Him. That couple was waiting on God for ten years without the fruit of the womb, and yet no anxiety, no fear, no complain; they were serving the Lord with passion, the man didn’t excuse himself from the work of the Lord because they didn’t have the fruit of the womb. Both young man and young woman, they are out there serving the Lord in missions in upper Ghana. What is Christianity in our generation today? Christianity goes beyond lip service. Jesus said some people praise Him but their hearts are far away from him, that is, their gratitude is from the lips, not the heart. If it was from the heart, their attitude will not change, no matter the circumstance.

Remember, God is faithful. David said in Psalm 22:4, ‘Our fathers trusted in You; they trusted in You, and were not ashamed.’ God has never been a disappointment. He can’t ever fail. Joshua 21:25 says, ‘Not a word failed of any good thing which the Lord had spoken to the house of Israel. All came to pass.’ No wonder David could say in Psalm 37:25 that, ‘I have been young, and now am old; Yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken, nor his descendants begging bread.’ You know what? I love working with old people, because you may be more educated like them but you don’t have ‘rags’ like them. I like walking with them. I have a lot of them who are very old, even twenty, thirty years older than me, and I love to hear from them. Sometimes, you learn God’s faithfulness from them. You learn how God is faithful and that if He had been faithful in these ones, He won’t leave you alone. Be determined early in life that nothing whatsoever will take you away from Him, not even a husband, not even a wife, not a child, not children, not houses, not land, not academics, money, and so on. Let your attitude be: ‘In the midst of it all, I will still praise You.’

 

Declaration

Psalm 119:89 says, ‘Forever, O Lord, Your word is settled in heaven.’ If it is settled in Heaven, it is our responsibility to establish it on earth. Therefore, I say, ‘Anything contending against God’s Word in your life be destroyed now.’

Anything contending against your peace, your life and progress, I demand now that it is written that the Word of the Lord is settled in Heaven, so I demand, let them give way. Amen.

Let the Word of God find expression in your life.

Lord, this Word will continue to find expression in our lives in Jesus Name, Amen.

Call to Salvation

You need to know Him for you to be able to give Him the kind of thanksgiving that comes from those rooted in Him. You must be rooted and established in Him to abound in Thanksgiving. You are here this morning and want to say, Jesus, I want to give you my heart. Lift up your right hand and say: ‘Lord Jesus, I surrender to you. I receive you today as my Lord and Saviour. Please, wash me clean and bring me into your fold. Thank you for saving me and writing my name in the Book of Life. Amen.’