THE ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE
#103 THE ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE
Scripture Jeremiah 2:5-13 NIV Orig. 11/22/64 (11/78)
Deuteronomy 1:10-11, 21 NIV Rewr. 11/22/86
Passage:
Jeremiah 2:5-13
5 This is what the Lord says:
“What fault did your ancestors find in me,
that they strayed so far from me?
They followed worthless idols
and became worthless themselves.
6 They did not ask, ‘Where is the Lord,
who brought us up out of Egypt
and led us through the barren wilderness,
through a land of deserts and ravines,
a land of drought and utter darkness,
a land where no one travels and no one lives?’
7 I brought you into a fertile land
to eat its fruit and rich produce.
But you came and defiled my land
and made my inheritance detestable.
8 The priests did not ask,
‘Where is the Lord?’
Those who deal with the law did not know me;
the leaders rebelled against me.
The prophets prophesied by Baal,
following worthless idols.
9 “Therefore I bring charges against you again,”
declares the Lord.
“And I will bring charges against your children’s children.
10 Cross over to the coasts of Cyprus and look,
send to Kedar[a] and observe closely;
see if there has ever been anything like this:
11 Has a nation ever changed its gods?
(Yet they are not gods at all.)
But my people have exchanged their glorious God
for worthless idols.
12 Be appalled at this, you heavens,
and shudder with great horror,”
declares the Lord.
13 “My people have committed two sins:
They have forsaken me,
the spring of living water,
and have dug their own cisterns,
broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
Deuteronomy 1:10-11, 21
10 The Lord your God has increased your numbers so that today you are as numerous as the stars in the sky. 11 May the Lord, the God of your ancestors, increase you a thousand times and bless you as he has promised!
21 See, the Lord your God has given you the land. Go up and take possession of it as the Lord, the God of your ancestors, told you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.
Purpose: To call my people to remembrance of blessings of God to His people and that their spiritual prosperity was linked to their obedience
Keywords: God’s Blessing Promises Hebrew History Promises
Thanksgiving Thankfulness
Introduction
The attitude of gratitude is not borne easily. Not only is its existence a troubled one, bearing it can sometimes be a struggle to those near at hand.
Anonymity claims the pen which wrote the verse:
“Be thankful every day for bread;
For clothes and shelter, clean and warm;
And God’s protection in life’s storm;
For life and health, and those who care;
For peace and quiet, and love and prayer.”
But in its lines is “the attitude of gratitude.” Without such, there is little to life’s meaning. There is no maturity, no personhood; certainly, no discipleship.
Bishop William Quayle, upon hearing of the death of his friend, the naturalist John Burroughs, reflected aloud, “Poor John, he loved the garden, but he never met the gardener.”
Joyce Kilmer, on the other hand, was unapologetically a believer. Before he died on a battlefield in France at the age of 32, he wrote,
“Thank God for the bitter and ceaseless strife
And the sting of His chastening rod.
Thank God for the stress and pains of life
And, Oh, thank God for God.”
The Hebrew people to whom Jeremiah spoke, and around whom Deuteronomy was written, shared a heritage of blessing in the promises of God. A part of that observance was the Feast of Tabernacles. They knew this celebration as “Sukkot,” and shared together in this feast at the end of the harvest season. The purpose was to give thankfulness to God for the fulfillment of all His promised blessings to them. But their history, like ours today, is checkered with those occasions of great blessing, with little or no response from those to whom the blessings are given.
I. The Attitude of Gratitude Examines the Record from the Past. Jeremiah 2:7, “I brought you into a plentiful country to eat the fruit thereof and the goodness thereof.” So the Lord is the key to time and circumstance. Dr. Sidlow Baxter teaches an important lesson in the lives of the seven great men of Genesis. Abel was 1st, not a man reaching in toward himself as was Cain, but reaching out to the unknown: to God. 2nd was Enoch, immortalized forever as the man who walked with God. 3rd was Noah, forever the man of spiritual renewal; he followed his God over the cold water to a new day of hope. 4th was Abraham; he was a man who walked by faith, was “accounted as righteous” and called “the friend of God.” 5th, a little later, came Isaac; from him we get our first taste of sonship; he was of special promise, of special birth, almost a sacrifice for sin. Then, 6th, came Jacob; in him was the life of service—busy, untiring, blessing, a prince at prayer. Finally, 7th, came Joseph, a life thrown away, but picked up again, blessed and used.
It is not such men that we need today, but people with such a grasp of God, committed to pray, promise, and perform.
It was in some similar way that God moved to bring America to the forefront of nations. The year was not 1492, by the way, nor was the man Columbus. The year was 1455, and the man was Gutenberg. If you do not recognize the name, he was a printer. Printing came alive, the equivalent of the computer. The Bible, and its vision of men and women in freedom, was only a step away.
It was not long before doctrinal integrity replaced Ecclesiastical hierarchy (1517) in Luther’s 95 Theses at Wittenberg. During that same period. The persecution of Separatists, your spiritual forebears, pointed believers toward a distant wilderness and freedom’s dream.
God’s concern in America today is not in a land, but in a vision; not in a political entity, but a people. Isaiah 1:18 “Though your sins be as scarlet they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson, they shall become as wool.” Colossians 2:2, “God’s secret . . . is Christ himself. He is the key that opens all the hidden treasures of God’s wisdom and knowledge.
II. The Attitude of Gratitude Considers Performance of God’s Dealings with His People. Deuteronomy 1:10 “The Lord your God hath multiplied you and behold, you are this day as the stars of heaven for multitude.” The good gifts of God to Israel were a stewardship trust.
They were gifts clearly from God. The Ark of the Covenant symbolized God’s presence. 2 Chronicles 7:14: "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." We abuse holy things.
They were gifts centered for service. Deuteronomy 26:5, “My father was a homeless Aramean who went down into Egypt with a small company, and lived there until they became a great nation.” It was clearly their responsibility to use those gifts to the glory of God. To examine Israel during those years of glory is to be aware of the awe in which others held them. In the world of nations between 10th-8th Centuries BC, they were the rich kid on the block. Others were jealous, but could do nothing. Then it was discovered that the mansion of Israel had roaches and termites just like the shacks by the river. They had been given a chance to help others. Their greatest failing was that they did not. What will our greatest failing be?
You see, the truth of moral and spiritual responsibility is eternal. To know God is to be morally and materially responsible for sharing that knowledge persuasively. Isaiah 62:6 “I have set watchmen upon the walls, O Jerusalem, which shall never hold their peace, day or night . . . . Give Him no rest till He establishes, till He makes Jerusalem a praise in the earth.”
Not to share that responsibility is soul damning. Philippians 2:13, “For it is God which worketh in you, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world.”
“O Zion haste, thy mission high fulfilling, to tell to all the world that God is light,
That He who made all nations is not willing one soul should perish, lost in shades of night.
Proclaim to every people, tongue, and nation that God in whom they live and move is love.
Tell how He stooped to save His lost creation, and died on earth that man might live above.”
III. The Attitude of Gratitude Speaks Also of Promises in Prospect. Deuteronomy 1:11 “[May] the Lord God of your fathers make you a thousand times so many more as you are, and bless you, as He has promised you.”
Let us remember that God is righteous, and our sin is a burden to Him. The world was created and ordered under His perfect hand. It awaits people of faith and dedication to open the chalices of promise.
About ¾ century ago Albert Einstein stood before colleagues and wrote an equation that has literally changed the world. E = MC2. Energy is proportional to mass. And the atomic age came into being. Will it always bode evil and war? Can it not also bring good?
The fulfilled promise is one in which sin is brought to light in Christ.
It is the eternal link of blood. Leviticus 17:11 “For it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” Hebrews 9:22 “Without the shedding of blood is no remission.”
It is the building blocks to the universe. Isaiah 28:16 “Therefore, thus saith the Lord God, Behold, I lay in Zion, for a foundation, a stone, a precious cornerstone, a sure foundation.”
God’s promise is first an invitation. Matthew 11:28, “Come unto me, all ye who labor.” I Peter 2:9, ‘Ye are a chosen generation called . . . out of darkness into His marvelous light.” Revelations 22:17 “Whosoever will, let him take of the water of life freely.”
Conclusion
The early charters of the colonies that became the United States were treatises dedicated to God through His Son. Plymouth, Delaware, Massachusetts Bay, Maryland, Rhode Island had the stated purpose, “to advance the enlargement of the Christian religion, to the glory of God almighty.”
The closing words of the Declaration of Independence confessed the nation’s dependence. Congress appointed a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer in 1776, that the colonies, “through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, obtain His pardon and forgiveness.” Congress ordered the first Thanksgiving in 1777 asking “the penitent confession of their manifold sins . . . and their humble earnest supplication, that it may please God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to blot out our sins of remembrance.”
Abbreviated version of #103
When you hear today of someone with “an attitude,” it usually has a negative connotation. However, if I understand the word aright, it can be used positively as well. Just as we are able to express strong negative emotions, we are also able to express powerful positive emotions. It is in that sense that I speak to you this morning on “The Attitude of Gratitude.”
Anonymity claims the pen which wrote the verse:
“Be thankful every day for bread,
For clothes and shelter, clean and warm;
And God’s protection in life’s storm.
For life and health, and those who care,
For peace and quiet, and love and prayer.”
Such lines as these contain that “attitude of gratitude.” Without such, life’s meaning is extremely the more complicated. Bishop William Quayle, upon hearing of the death of his friend, the world-renowned naturalist, John Burroughs, reflected aloud, “Poor John, he loved the garden but never knew the gardener.”
Joyce Kilmer, on the other hand, was unapologetically a believer. Before dying on a battlefield in France at the age of 32, he wrote:
“Thank God for the bitter and ceaseless strife
And the sting of His chastening rod.
Thank God for the stress and pains of life
And, Oh, thank God for God.”
The Hebrew people, who were Jeremiah’s audience, and the subject about which Deuteronomy was written, shared a heritage not unlike our Thanksgiving heritage. It was a celebration called ‘Sukkot.” It came at the end of the harvest season, and was intended as an expression of thankfulness. But their history, like ours today, is checkered with manifold evidence of blessing, and little more than token response from those to whom the blessings are given. The “attitude of gratitude” must examine Past Perceptions, Present Performances, and Promises in Prospect.
The early charters of the colonies that became the United States were treatises dedicated to God through His Son. Plymouth, Delaware, Massachusetts Bay, Maryland, Rhode Island had the stated purpose, “to advance the enlargement of the Christian religion, to the glory of God almighty.”
The closing words of the Declaration of Independence confessed the nation’s dependence. Congress appointed a day of humiliation, fasting, and prayer in 1776, that the colonies, “through the merits and mediation of Jesus Christ, obtain His pardon and forgiveness.” Congress ordered the first Thanksgiving in 1777 asking “the penitent confession of their manifold sins . . . and their humble earnest supplication, that it may please God, through the merits of Jesus Christ, mercifully to blot out our sins of remembrance.”