"A Thankful Life - Part 1"

A Thankful Life – Part 1

“Don’t forget to say ‘thank you.'” If you are like me, then you probably heard this phrase often when you were a child. If you are a parent, you probably give this advice to your children regularly. “Don’t forget to say ‘thank you.'” But if we are honest with ourselves, even adults—and yes, even Christians—need to be reminded of this as well.

Why is it that many of us struggle with remembering to give thanks? Why is it that sometimes we remember, and sometimes we don’t? Why is that sometimes giving thanks seems to slip our minds? How come we have to have a national holiday reminding us to stop and give thanks? Perhaps the reason may be because we are too busy, and we forget to hit the pause button and express our thankfulness. We are too often thinking about the next thing. At work, we ask ourselves, “What are the next steps our business is going to take to grow? How many e-mails do I need to respond to? What do we need to get more of? Less of? Rid of? Better at?”

Or, in our home life, we are constantly going from one thing to another. “What errands do I need to run? Who or what needs to be dropped off? Picked up? Sent to somewhere else?” As your kids grow and grow, you have to go and go, and in the midst of going, going, going, we fail to look back, hit the pause button, and give thanks. Most of the time, it’s not because we aren’t grateful; it’s because, oftentimes, giving thanks simply slips our mind. But can you imagine forgetting to give thanks to—of all people—Jesus?

Well, there is an account recorded in the Bible of a time when a whole bunch of people forgot to give thanks to Jesus. What I would like to do is look briefly at this account. I want to draw out one simple truth from this story, and then I want to get super practical: because I don’t want you to just know what the simple truth is, but I want to show you how to live it out in your daily life so we can become better at giving thanks.

Luke 17:11-17 (NIV) – Jesus’ Kindness

Now, Luke—the author of the Gospel of Luke—was a doctor, and he decided to investigate the claims of Jesus for himself. So he interviewed a bunch of people, and after he had interviewed one person, he heard this amazing story and thought, “Oh, I have to write this down.” This is the story he shares in chapter 17.

“Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee” (v. 11). Luke is recording that Jesus, and his followers are on their way to Jerusalem, for the last time, to celebrate one of the Jewish traditions: Passover.
However, in order to get there, they had to pass through the region between Samaria and Galilee. All along the way to Jerusalem were these small towns or villages that traveling caravans could stop in, rest, get supplies, and then continue with their journey. We don’t know exactly which village Jesus entered into, but we do know who was waiting for him when he arrived.

“As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance” (v. 12). Now, leprosy is a disease that still exists today: a horrible skin disease in which the skin slowly decays and deteriorates over time. We don’t know if that is exactly what these 10 people had, since the word “leprosy” was used for any skin disease at that time, but regardless of what their exact diagnosis was, they would have been social outcasts. In fact, if you were diagnosed as having a skin disease, you were as good as dead. By law, you were forced to leave your family, friends, job, and live only with others who had a similar skin disease. They were quarantined together. You were not allowed to have any contact with other people. Whenever you were walking down the street, you were supposed to yell, “Unclean, unclean!” so that people wouldn’t accidently come in contact with you. So, it is no wonder that these 10 stood at a distance. Notice what else they did: “[They] called out in a loud voice, ‘Jesus, Master, have pity on us!'” (v. 13).

This was their chance. With these people living on the outskirts of a village that was well-traveled, word had most likely spread that this rabbi, preacher, and healer was going to be passing through. He had healed blind men and mute men; he had fed thousands. 

Could he have the power to heal a skin disease? They waited anxiously in anticipation at the entrance of the village for Jesus to show up. Minutes seemed like hours, hours seemed like days, and days seemed like years. And they waited and waited. Is he ever going to come? Is that him and his followers there? Nope, false alarm. Is that him there? Nope, that’s not them either. What if he’s not coming?

Then, finally, they see a large crowd … and in that crowd, it’s him. This was the moment they had been waiting for. They “called out in a loud voice, ‘Jesus, Master, have pity on us!'” Their cry acknowledged Jesus as their master and asked that he would have mercy or pity on them. These shouts got Jesus’ attention: “When he saw them, he said, ‘Go, show yourselves to the priests'” (v. 14).

For us, as we read this, it doesn’t make much sense. But as Luke’s readers were first reading this, it would have been crystal clear. You see, even though they had doctors, it was the priests who were given the responsibility to determine whether or not someone was fit to rejoin family, friends, and society, even when it came to skin diseases.

Jesus says, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” Then something unbelievable happens: “And as they went, they were cleansed” (v. 14). You can imagine the ecstasy they were feeling as they started to look down at their hands, and then their arms, and then their legs and feet. As they went, they weren’t just healed: They were cleansed. Now all they had to do was present themselves to the priests, and then they would have been able to return to their spouses, their children, their friends and loved ones—like returning home after years of being in isolation.

But then something even more incredible happened, something that Luke had to write down when he heard this story being retold. He said to himself, “I’ve got to make sure people know what happened next.”

The Leper’s Thankfulness

“One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan” (v. 15-16). This one man knew that he needed to pause and return to Jesus and give him the thanks he deserved. He stopped, turned around, and made a beeline for Jesus. This time, instead of yelling “unclean, unclean,” he goes through the crowd and—with a loud voice—praises God. Then, when he sees Jesus again, he doesn’t stand at a distance, but he falls at his feet and gives him thanks.

Then Luke adds something for his readers that we don’t quite understand: “and he was a Samaritan.” Now, we read that and we’re like, “No big deal.” But Luke’s readers would have read this and said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa—a Samaritan? That’s a huge deal! Are you sure?”

Samaritans were a people group who were looked down upon by the Jews. Out of all the people to return and give thanks to a Jewish rabbi, it was a Samaritan. Then Jesus responds with three questions: “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?”

Why did only one person return? What was it that made this man pause, turn around, and give praise? Weren’t they all grateful? Of course they were grateful: All 10 of these people just experienced a life-altering miracle. Their lives were about to change forever. So surely, they were all grateful. But one person, one individual, turned his gratefulness into thankfulness. He turned from being grateful into being thankful. Being grateful is an emotion; grateful is a feeling, but being thankful is an action.

Thankful is doing something about it. Instead of continually looking forward toward the things he was going to do, he paused, turned back, and turned his gratefulness for what Jesus had done into thankfulness for what Jesus had done.

God’s Love Endures Forever

Well, to think about this idea of thankfulness, to give us sort of a framework to remind us of some of the things that we should actually stop and be the one who is thankful, we’re going to look at Psalm 136. This is one of those Psalms that has a repetitive line. One of the lines that’s repeated again and again after the end of each verse is this line: “His love endures forever.” So, the first thing we’re going to think about in this call to thankfulness is recognizing the fact that God’s love endures forever. Psalm 136:1(NIV) says, “Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good. His love endures forever.” And it does, his love endures forever.

I want to ask you a question this morning, how might the idea of being showered with infinite love for eternity affect your outlook for the day? What if you lived every day profoundly, deeply, and in a convinced sort of way in your heart, believing that the God of the universe loves you eternally and infinitely? Might that change your outlook on the day? We live in a culture that is all about being loved. People will look in the craziest, most unhealthy, irresponsible places for love. But the God of the universe says, “I will love you infinitely beyond your wildest imagination and I will love you eternally forever.”

You don’t have to look very far into our culture to see the driving power of people who want to be loved. You could look on a junior high or high school campus and see young men and women who will do almost anything to be in a group. They will take everything their parents taught them, everything they’ve always said that they believed in, everything they always said they would do or never do, and they’ll drop almost everything they have ever thought that they would do or not do because someone says I love you. It’s a deep, profound need. But if we live with a deep sense of God’s love, a satisfying, fulfilling eternal, lavish sense of his love, then we don’t have to run after all the counterfeits when we found the real thing.

It doesn’t end in junior high or high school; it goes on to college and to young adult life. You watch young men and women who so desperately want to have someone say I love you, that when someone comes along and says, I love you, they’ll do about anything. Even if they’re pretty sure the person doesn’t mean it, what they mean is, I love you tonight. You see that deep, deep need. What if as young adults we understood and believed that God loves, and that love was so important and so real and so profound and we are so aware of the depth of that love and the eternality of that love that we didn’t have to go after the counterfeits because we have the real thing.

It doesn’t stop when you get out of your 20s. It can go into your 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. We desire, we need to be loved. And here God says to us, “Understand, my love for you endures forever.” Come to know God, come through faith in Jesus and experience something. I am loved beyond description and beyond time. Loved by the Maker of the heavens and the earth. When you get that, then you can have healthy, loving relationships with other people. That’s why Jesus said the most important thing in all the universe is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and then love your neighbor as yourself. Let God’s love get ahold of you, get ahold of God’s love, and it will change you. “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, his love endures forever.” He is a good God, and that’s worth celebrating and praising God for.

Here is my question for you: How has God revealed his goodness in your life? And you know what, he has been so good to us in so many ways. We can walk right past those ways, we can forget those ways, we can get used to them and numb to the fact that he has been so good, and take Him for granted. But there are times we just need to stop and say, God is good. In the midst of all the financial chaos, in the midst of struggles in the political realm, in the midst of conflict in the Middle East, but you know what, God is still good. He is still present.

Where have you seen the goodness of God? Where have you seen his presence? For another day of life, another breath to take, you can say God is good. For friendships, people who care about us, you can say, God is good. For a church family that loves God and loves you, you can say, God is good. For a delicious jelly donut, you can say, God is good. The little things and the delicious things, like the donut, do you notice, do you actually stop and say, God, you’re good. If you pick up your child for the hundredth time or for the thousandth time, do they seem like a burden or a load, or do you look at their face and you say, God is good, what a gift. It’s how we see it; it’s how we look at it. He is good.

God Is Over All

Then we discover in Psalm 136:2-4 that he is a God who is over all, he is sovereign, he is powerful, and he is a God of wonders. He is the King of kings, and Lord of lords.

(Psalm 136:2-4)

God is glorious. He is the capital G, God, over small g, gods. He is the only God, the only One, and he loves us, he cares about us, and he reaches out to us. So here is my question: Have you seen the amazing wonders of God in your own life day-to-day, in the world around you, in the lives of others? Do you notice his wonders, and do you say thank you?

I have this feeling that seeing the wonders of God and thankfulness are inextricably bound together. When we’re thankful for the wonderful things God has done, we notice them more. Some of you say, “Well, I don’t really see God do wonderful things.” Slow down, be the one among ten and notice. Nine of them had their skin healed and they kept on going. Just as wonderful of an experience, but they didn’t stop and thank God. I think there’s a connection, not only the more that we thank God the more we experience his wonders, but I even suspect that the more we’re thankful to God, the more wonders he does in our life.

Tell Christmas Story

If we notice and thank God for his great things he does, I think first of all we will notice more of those things. But also, I think in some ways if we stop giving thanks to God, I think there is a point at which God says, “You know, you’re not ready for another wonder because you really haven’t appreciated what you’ve already received.” So, I want to encourage you to be thankful to God for all he does. We should thank him because he is the Creator of all things.

In Psalm 136 verses 5-9, there are these five lines. Each of the five lines finishes with “His love endures forever.”

(Psalm 136:5-9)

When you drink in the glory of God’s creation, thanks should flow naturally. When you see the beauty of what God has made, when you watch the sun rise over the mountains and give light in the valley, just say, “God, you’re good, look what you made.” When you watch the sun set over the ocean, notice and thank God. Sometimes because we’re in such an amazingly beautiful place, we miss it, we don’t even notice anymore the beauty of what God has made. You know what sometimes happens? You go running right by it. So slow down, say, “God, for all you have made, I give you thanks. You show your love, your enduring love through those things.”