How to be more Thankful (11/26/17 – Thanksgiving Message)

ATTN: I hope you’ve had a great Thanksgiving. We will be having a thanksgiving feast shortly after service, but before that I wanted to share a short message. I try to make it my goal to work for your joy. 2 Cor. 1:24, “Not that we lord it over your faith, but we work with you for your joy, for you stand firm in your faith.” So, I spend a lot of time thinking about how to work for your joy. And this is the best way I know how: I need to tell you that you are a sinner. The more deeply you feel yourself to be a sinner, the more potential you will have to be joyful. I know that’s counterintuitive. As a matter of fact, the world says exactly the opposite – to be happy, you have to have everything you want – fame, money, health – but we know plenty of people who have all that and are so miserable that they are either strung up on drugs or committed suicide. Think of a millionaire who was born into a millionaire’s home and throughout his whole life, had everything that a millionaire would have and he just bought yet another house on Sunset Blvd (ho hum) versus an inmate who thought for sure he would be executed and totally deserved it by killing an innocent person and has given up on his own life, but is miraculously given a second chance and the freedom. Let me tell you that even though he has no million dollars in the bank and no house on sunset Blvd, he is a much happier man. Therefore, one essential element to true, lasting happiness is knowing that we are sinners in the deepest sense, and then knowing that we are forgiven in Jesus Christ, that’s where true joy comes from. It’s like pulling back a sling shot, the further you can pull it back, the further the object will be projected. The more keenly we recognize ourselves to be sinners and yet forgiven, the more happiness and joy we will feel.

        So, to raise happy and healthy children, the thing to do would not be to give him/ her everything she wants – we will raise the most hellish and miserable children – self-centered, entitled, spoiled, but to let her know that she deserved the worst, and then introducing Christ to her who died to not only to save into heaven where she will own everything her heart every desired, but also from hell that she deserved.

        I want to back up this up from the Bible by introducing to you one of the happiest persons recorded in the Bible.

        Luke 7:36-50. Most of you know have heard of this story. This woman was so filled with love and gratitude for Jesus that she didn’t think twice about pouring this expensive perfume – valued to be 1 year’s wage – on Jesus’ feet to honor him and appreciate him. Only a person who is thoroughly happy and pleased with someone else can do this. Think of a grandma or a grandpa spending so lavishly on his/her grandchild b/c they are so enamored by them? They may be scrooges when it comes to spending on themselves but when it comes to grandchildren, they lose their heads! Why? Because they are so happy and in love with them, nothing is to be spared.

        So was this woman. She was so appreciative and happy that nothing was too valuable to give to Jesus. But why? What made her so happy and so grateful? Her sins were forgiven. V. 47 Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. She wasn’t given an enormous inheritance. She wasn’t healed of some incurable disease. But she was forgiven. And for that, she was so happy and grateful. Your sins are forgiven and my sins are forgiven. And yet, why aren’t we happy like this woman? Why aren’t we as grateful as her? Because we do not realize the enormity of our sins. This woman KNEW she was a sinner. The bible refers to her as “a woman of the city, who was a sinner.” (v. 37). She was most likely a prostitute. She was filled with guilt and shame. Perhaps, couldn’t kill herself only because she had to support her child or aging parents… But when she sees Jesus, a forgiver of sins, restorer of sinners, she makes a beeline to him and pours her entire savings on his feet. In other words, she loses her head in gratitude. And to hear those words, “Your sins are forgiven… Your faith has saved you; go in peace.” She was condemned to hell. She knew it. Jesus rescued her out of it at his own cost. What would be too precious to give to Him?

But why wasn’t the pharisee very impressed? Why wasn’t he treating Jesus with such gratitude and warm reception? Because he didn’t think he really needed Jesus. And why? Because he didn’t see himself as a sinner. At least, not that bad that he would need a Savior. He’s fine all by himself. He can manage. “He who is forgiven little, loves little.” But in the eyes of God, who was a greater sinner? This pharisee. Because he was full of pride and self-justification which is the very essence of sin. He is being dangled by the thinnest of strings over the mouth of hell and he did not know it. He couldn’t see it.  

One of the greatest gifts that God gives us is to make us sense and feel how great a sinner we are. Ask for it. Why? Because it will lead to a great joy knowing that He saved us anyway. I get angry at churches and preachers that tell their people that they are basically good people who occasionally make mistakes. They just need to tweak themselves a bit and they will be okay. They are robbing them of their joy! Tell them, and pray that God will make them realize how wretched, hopeless, despicable sinners they are. Only then, only when this hits home, the cross of Jesus, the blood that has been shed for them, the Savior that is Jesus will seem more glorious than anything else.

Listen, realizing how much of a sinner you are has nothing to do with whether you are a prostitute or a deacon at a church. The truth of the matter is that we are all sinners. It’s just that some are better at hiding their sins than others. It is not that some are worse sinners than others. We were all on a death-row! The only chance any of of us had in being forgiven is if the immaculate Son of God died on the cross. So, the key to happiness and gratitude is to see ourselves as sinners deserving of hell. But how? Three  suggestions:

1. Look at the horrors of the cross. The cross is the cost of my sins and your sins. Jesus was executed in the most horrific way to forgive us of all our sins. The sins that we take so lightly and glibly, the Son of God was executed so cruelly for. If you want to know how much of sinners we are, rewatch the Passions movie made by Mel Gibson. The cross is the final proof of how horrific our sins are.
2. Pray that God will make the consequences of your sins and mine terribly and wonderfully real to you. In other words, ask God to make heaven and hell real enough to taste and feel. Real enough to weep over our sins like this woman did.
3. See burdens as gifts. I caught myself complaining one morning as I was getting ready for school….What I thought of as burden, God calls it a gift. School is a gift. This church is a gift. My family is a gift. It is something i didn’t deserve that if I didn’t have, I would long for. It’s my sinful nature that takes what is meant as a gift and turns it into a burden. But as we contemplate on what we deserved and the reality of the horrors of it, but God gave us instead, we  should be thankful and glad.