Sermon Title: The Main Reason for Thanksgiving
“16Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)
Dearly Beloved,
Greetings in the Name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!
Isn’t it something?
We never, ever, need to enquire of what God’s Will for us is.
God’s Will for us is crystal.
In Christ Jesus, we are to rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances. This is God’s Will for us.
We have reason to rejoice, pray and give thanks always - all because in Christ Jesus, we have been saved.
His Salvation is the only reason that we live.
If you believe that, what must follow is that - as disciples of Jesus - our lives must be filled with thanksgiving that is centered, established and focused on, God’s gift of salvation through Christ.
In fact, we must be singularly overflowing with gratitude to God for His Salvation over us.
Our Lord Jesus revealed to us in Luke 10:20:
“However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
Our gratitude to God for His Salvation must be foremost on our minds and immeasurable in our hearts; becoming the very foundation in our daily living - reflected in our immovable faith in God through the storms of life and our joyous eagerness to constantly share the Gospel of His Kingdom.
We must learn to rejoice always, pray continually and be thankful that our names are written in the book of life (Ref: Revelation 20:15, 21:27) – for this pattern of living is truly God’s will for us in Christ Jesus!
However, do we really demonstrate our immense and infinite thanksgiving for His Salvation over us? Are we as joyful, prayerful and thankful as we should be?
At times, we are immensely grateful that we are saved; and at times, we do not even remember God’s salvation, or behave in a manner that reflects that we are truly saved.
We struggle unnecessarily through life because we fail to reflect the attitude of our gratitude for God’s Salvation; and consequently we fail in our calling to bring God’s love, joy and peace to the world around us.
Know that our attitude of gratitude for God’s Salvation is deeply consequential and has ramifications that will echo into eternity.
The foremost attitude of the true Christian is constant and immense gratitude for God’s Salvation
This Thanksgiving, I would like to encourage and share with you three ways in which your life will be divinely transformed and supernaturally empowered if you would simply commit to a constant and conscientious life of thanksgiving to God for His gift of Salvation that you have received through Christ Jesus, our Lord and Saviour.
If you are constantly, immensely grateful for God’s Salvation:
1. Your FAITH would increase; and you would truly become strong in the Lord.
For those who are constantly, immensely thankful to God for His Salvation through Christ, your faith in Him will increase because of your certainty that He is a good God who has fulfilled His Promise of eternal life - forged from having a true and intimate relationship with Jesus.
We become frail in statue and weak in faith when we forget to be thankful, or when we refuse to be thankful.
The greatest act of love experienced by mankind is when God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the Cross for the salvation of the world.
When you believed, you have been given the gift of eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. (Ref: John 3:16, Romans 6:23)
And if you persevere in this belief, you would realise how critical it is for you to devote yourself to knowing Christ personally as your Lord and your God who is faithfully present to you throughout your life.
The Apostle Paul revealed to us in Romans 8:32:
“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”
If God is faithful to you, how can you not be faithful to Him?
Foremost and immense thankfulness to God for His Salvation increases your faith in Him; and that, is the faith-key to the divine ability to rejoice always, pray continually, and give thanks in all circumstances.
Your capacity to rejoice, pray and give thanks becomes completely independent of your external circumstances. You remain at peace, in the midst of the storm.
A heart of gratitude for all things is the spring that flows from the well of gratitude for His Salvation.
You become strong in the Lord; and your faith become unquestionable, unquenchable and unstoppable - because gratitude for His Salvation, and consequently along with gratitude for all things, is God’s everlasting Will for you.
If you are constantly, immensely grateful for God’s Salvation:
2. Your hope will increase; and you would truly become certain of Christ’s Return and His Coming Kingdom.
Before you were saved, the devil was your master who deceived you into living for yourself.
After you have been saved, your life is now lived for the glory of God and the Gospel of His Son, Jesus Christ.
The glory of God, and the Gospel of Christ - which heralds His Coming Kingdom - is the guaranteed, eventual and eternal reality is which our unshakable hope is built upon.
To always be constantly and immensely thankful for His Salvation increases our hope in God’s eventual and eternal reality.
Our future is not just good, it is going to be “exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20 KJV) – and it is guaranteed; because we are saved through the historically-evidenced finished, atoning work of Christ on the Cross at Calvary more than 2000 years ago, who – again, historically evidenced – raised from the dead on the third day and was seen by more than 500 witnesses before He ascended to heaven.
In Christ, we must be overwhelmingly hopeful.
Christ has promised that He will return soon! (Ref: Revelation 22:7, 12, 20)
God has promised that when Christ returns, we will “share in the first resurrection” (Revelation 20:6); and be given a glorious and imperishable “New Creation” body (Ref: 1 Corinthians 15:52); the second death will have no power over us; and we “will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years.” (Revelation 20:6)
What a glorious and hopeful eventuality!
His Salvation is only the beginning.
Through His Salvation, we are redeemed and restored into a right and holy relationship with God here in this world – and destined for eternal life in His Coming Kingdom.
As His Children, we never lose sight of God or His Eternal Kingdom if we are constantly, immensely thankful for His Salvation over us.
Our hope is alive because Christ is alive!
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.
This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Peter 1:3-5)
Indeed, we are born “into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade” – an inheritance that goes well beyond this world into His glorious, eternal Kingdom.
Be constantly, immensely thankful for His Salvation over you, and your hope would increase out of an increased certainty that you belong to God; and that you are guaranteed citizenship in His Present and Coming Kingdom.
If you are constantly, immensely grateful for God’s Salvation:
3. Your love would increase; and you would truly live as child of the living God, and Spirit-empowered witness to the living Saviour.
When you are committed to being constantly and immensely grateful for God’s Salvation over you, you would intuitively commit to living solely to love, to please and to serve God; and not yourself, anyone nor anything else (Ref: Matthew 6:24).
For only from true gratitude would there arise a deep impulse to reciprocate the act of kindness, through a single-mindedness on pleasing the one who earned your gratitude.
Because of God’s Salvation over his life, the Apostle Paul vehemently argued:
“Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.” (Galatians 1:10)
The evidence is clear; Paul lived solely to please God.
When you are truly grateful to God, you would discover the divine impulse to please Him, to love Him, to serve Him – because He first loved you, and first served you by dying on the Cross to save you.
God made the greatest sacrifice to save you; doesn’t He deserve your greatest love, your greatest devotion and your greatest service?
And this follows that: if you truly value God’s Love and Salvation in your life, you will never fail to love others with the same sacrificial love that God first loved you with.
“We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)
Human love is consequential; God’s love is sacrificial.
Only God’s love reigns supreme.
When we remember to be immensely thankful for His Salvation in our lives, our love for God will increase; and consequently, our love for other people would increase and not only that, it would become as sacrificial as His.
If our lives are empowered by the Holy Spirit, God’s love is never divided; it is multiplied.
If you have ever found loving people, or even a particular someone, is proving to be a challenge, it is because you are not entirely grateful for His Salvation over you.
Are you certain that you are more lovable than the next person?
In fact, the more you discover your true self, the more unlovable you realise you are.
And yet, God loves you infinitely and immensely.
When you received Christ in your life and became born-again, what becomes new in your life? What makes you a “New Creation”?
A Newly Created, Pure Heart.
David writes in Psalm 51:10-12:
“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.”
For the new to come, the old must go. (Ref: 2 Corinthians 5:17)
When you are saved by God, you remain in Christ – that the love of God now surrounds and covers you; and Christ remains in you – that the love of God now occupies and flows through your heart. (Ref: John 15:4)
In Christ, your love has supernaturally increased and you have been empowered by the Holy Spirit to love others – regardless of race, language or religion - for the sake of sharing God’s love and the Gospel of His Coming Kingdom.
Any struggle you have about being an active witness for Christ; or any disregard to your Commission to preach the Gospel - is rooted in your lack of thankfulness for His Salvation over you.
“7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.
Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” (I John 4:7-12)
True love begins from true thankfulness for God’s Salvation through Christ Jesus – who became the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Be constantly, immensely thankful for His Salvation over you, and your ability to love – which is, the divine gift that truly befits the child of the living God and worthy of a devoted Spirit-empowered witness to the living Saviour - would truly become Christ-like.
Be thankful to God for everything. Yes.
But most importantly, be constantly and immensely thankful to God for His Salvation over you - through Christ Jesus, our Lord and Saviour.
Shalom.
Let us pray.
Our Father in Heaven,
Hallowed be Your Name.
Your Kingdom come, Your Will be done; on earth, as it is in heaven.
Thank You for revealing to us that Your Holy Will for us is to rejoice always, pray continually and give thanks in all circumstances – in Christ Jesus our Lord and Saviour.
Praise You, O God – for we have reason to give thanks only because in Christ Jesus, we have been saved from the wages of sin, which is death; and restored unto Your Holy and Eternal Kingdom.
Your Salvation is the only reason that we live!
May my life be filled with thanksgiving that flows from my unqualified and profound gratitude centered, established and focused on, God’s gift of salvation through Christ.
Yes, Lord – may I singularly overflow with thanksgiving for Your Salvation – that my faith, hope and love be increased daily through the storms of life and manifest greatly in my joyous eagerness to constantly share the Gospel of Your Kingdom.
Forgive me, O Lord, when I struggle unnecessarily in my neglect to imbue an attitude of gratitude for Your Salvation; and consequently, fail in my calling to bring Your Love, Joy and Peace to the world around me.
Change my heart O God; and fill me with gratitude for the joy of Your Salvation!
From the well of gratitude for Your Salvation; may my faith increase – that I may become truly strong in You; may my hope increase – that I may become truly certain of Your Return and Your Coming, Eternal Kingdom; may my love increase – that I may truly live as Your Child and Spirit-empowered witness to all the earth!
Yes Lord! I am thankful to You for everything!
But most of all, may I be constantly and immensely thankful for Your Salvation through Christ Jesus, our Lord and Saviour.
I thank You and pray all these in the Name of our King, Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.
“16Rejoice always, 17 pray continually, 18 give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)
Dearly Beloved,
Greetings in the Name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ!
Isn’t it something?
We never, ever, need to enquire of what God’s Will for us is.
God’s Will for us is crystal.
In Christ Jesus, we are to rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances. This is God’s Will for us.
We have reason to rejoice, pray and give thanks always - all because in Christ Jesus, we have been saved.
His Salvation is the only reason that we live.
If you believe that, what must follow is that - as disciples of Jesus - our lives must be filled with thanksgiving that is centered, established and focused on, God’s gift of salvation through Christ.
In fact, we must be singularly overflowing with gratitude to God for His Salvation over us.
Our Lord Jesus revealed to us in Luke 10:20:
“However, do not rejoice that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”
Our gratitude to God for His Salvation must be foremost on our minds and immeasurable in our hearts; becoming the very foundation in our daily living - reflected in our immovable faith in God through the storms of life and our joyous eagerness to constantly share the Gospel of His Kingdom.
We must learn to rejoice always, pray continually and be thankful that our names are written in the book of life (Ref: Revelation 20:15, 21:27) – for this pattern of living is truly God’s will for us in Christ Jesus!
However, do we really demonstrate our immense and infinite thanksgiving for His Salvation over us? Are we as joyful, prayerful and thankful as we should be?
At times, we are immensely grateful that we are saved; and at times, we do not even remember God’s salvation, or behave in a manner that reflects that we are truly saved.
We struggle unnecessarily through life because we fail to reflect the attitude of our gratitude for God’s Salvation; and consequently we fail in our calling to bring God’s love, joy and peace to the world around us.
Know that our attitude of gratitude for God’s Salvation is deeply consequential and has ramifications that will echo into eternity.
The foremost attitude of the true Christian is constant and immense gratitude for God’s Salvation
This Thanksgiving, I would like to encourage and share with you three ways in which your life will be divinely transformed and supernaturally empowered if you would simply commit to a constant and conscientious life of thanksgiving to God for His gift of Salvation that you have received through Christ Jesus, our Lord and Saviour.
If you are constantly, immensely grateful for God’s Salvation:
1. Your FAITH would increase; and you would truly become strong in the Lord.
For those who are constantly, immensely thankful to God for His Salvation through Christ, your faith in Him will increase because of your certainty that He is a good God who has fulfilled His Promise of eternal life - forged from having a true and intimate relationship with Jesus.
We become frail in statue and weak in faith when we forget to be thankful, or when we refuse to be thankful.
The greatest act of love experienced by mankind is when God sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the Cross for the salvation of the world.
When you believed, you have been given the gift of eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord. (Ref: John 3:16, Romans 6:23)
And if you persevere in this belief, you would realise how critical it is for you to devote yourself to knowing Christ personally as your Lord and your God who is faithfully present to you throughout your life.
The Apostle Paul revealed to us in Romans 8:32:
“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”
If God is faithful to you, how can you not be faithful to Him?
Foremost and immense thankfulness to God for His Salvation increases your faith in Him; and that, is the faith-key to the divine ability to rejoice always, pray continually, and give thanks in all circumstances.
Your capacity to rejoice, pray and give thanks becomes completely independent of your external circumstances. You remain at peace, in the midst of the storm.
A heart of gratitude for all things is the spring that flows from the well of gratitude for His Salvation.
You become strong in the Lord; and your faith become unquestionable, unquenchable and unstoppable - because gratitude for His Salvation, and consequently along with gratitude for all things, is God’s everlasting Will for you.
If you are constantly, immensely grateful for God’s Salvation:
2. Your hope will increase; and you would truly become certain of Christ’s Return and His Coming Kingdom.
Before you were saved, the devil was your master who deceived you into living for yourself.
After you have been saved, your life is now lived for the glory of God and the Gospel of His Son, Jesus Christ.
The glory of God, and the Gospel of Christ - which heralds His Coming Kingdom - is the guaranteed, eventual and eternal reality is which our unshakable hope is built upon.
To always be constantly and immensely thankful for His Salvation increases our hope in God’s eventual and eternal reality.
Our future is not just good, it is going to be “exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20 KJV) – and it is guaranteed; because we are saved through the historically-evidenced finished, atoning work of Christ on the Cross at Calvary more than 2000 years ago, who – again, historically evidenced – raised from the dead on the third day and was seen by more than 500 witnesses before He ascended to heaven.
In Christ, we must be overwhelmingly hopeful.
Christ has promised that He will return soon! (Ref: Revelation 22:7, 12, 20)
God has promised that when Christ returns, we will “share in the first resurrection” (Revelation 20:6); and be given a glorious and imperishable “New Creation” body (Ref: 1 Corinthians 15:52); the second death will have no power over us; and we “will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years.” (Revelation 20:6)
What a glorious and hopeful eventuality!
His Salvation is only the beginning.
Through His Salvation, we are redeemed and restored into a right and holy relationship with God here in this world – and destined for eternal life in His Coming Kingdom.
As His Children, we never lose sight of God or His Eternal Kingdom if we are constantly, immensely thankful for His Salvation over us.
Our hope is alive because Christ is alive!
“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ!
In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.
This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.” (1 Peter 1:3-5)
Indeed, we are born “into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade” – an inheritance that goes well beyond this world into His glorious, eternal Kingdom.
Be constantly, immensely thankful for His Salvation over you, and your hope would increase out of an increased certainty that you belong to God; and that you are guaranteed citizenship in His Present and Coming Kingdom.
If you are constantly, immensely grateful for God’s Salvation:
3. Your love would increase; and you would truly live as child of the living God, and Spirit-empowered witness to the living Saviour.
When you are committed to being constantly and immensely grateful for God’s Salvation over you, you would intuitively commit to living solely to love, to please and to serve God; and not yourself, anyone nor anything else (Ref: Matthew 6:24).
For only from true gratitude would there arise a deep impulse to reciprocate the act of kindness, through a single-mindedness on pleasing the one who earned your gratitude.
Because of God’s Salvation over his life, the Apostle Paul vehemently argued:
“Am I now trying to win the approval of human beings, or of God? Or am I trying to please people? If I were still trying to please people, I would not be a servant of Christ.” (Galatians 1:10)
The evidence is clear; Paul lived solely to please God.
When you are truly grateful to God, you would discover the divine impulse to please Him, to love Him, to serve Him – because He first loved you, and first served you by dying on the Cross to save you.
God made the greatest sacrifice to save you; doesn’t He deserve your greatest love, your greatest devotion and your greatest service?
And this follows that: if you truly value God’s Love and Salvation in your life, you will never fail to love others with the same sacrificial love that God first loved you with.
“We love because he first loved us.” (1 John 4:19)
Human love is consequential; God’s love is sacrificial.
Only God’s love reigns supreme.
When we remember to be immensely thankful for His Salvation in our lives, our love for God will increase; and consequently, our love for other people would increase and not only that, it would become as sacrificial as His.
If our lives are empowered by the Holy Spirit, God’s love is never divided; it is multiplied.
If you have ever found loving people, or even a particular someone, is proving to be a challenge, it is because you are not entirely grateful for His Salvation over you.
Are you certain that you are more lovable than the next person?
In fact, the more you discover your true self, the more unlovable you realise you are.
And yet, God loves you infinitely and immensely.
When you received Christ in your life and became born-again, what becomes new in your life? What makes you a “New Creation”?
A Newly Created, Pure Heart.
David writes in Psalm 51:10-12:
“Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.
Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.”
For the new to come, the old must go. (Ref: 2 Corinthians 5:17)
When you are saved by God, you remain in Christ – that the love of God now surrounds and covers you; and Christ remains in you – that the love of God now occupies and flows through your heart. (Ref: John 15:4)
In Christ, your love has supernaturally increased and you have been empowered by the Holy Spirit to love others – regardless of race, language or religion - for the sake of sharing God’s love and the Gospel of His Coming Kingdom.
Any struggle you have about being an active witness for Christ; or any disregard to your Commission to preach the Gospel - is rooted in your lack of thankfulness for His Salvation over you.
“7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God.
Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.
8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.” (I John 4:7-12)
True love begins from true thankfulness for God’s Salvation through Christ Jesus – who became the atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Be constantly, immensely thankful for His Salvation over you, and your ability to love – which is, the divine gift that truly befits the child of the living God and worthy of a devoted Spirit-empowered witness to the living Saviour - would truly become Christ-like.
Be thankful to God for everything. Yes.
But most importantly, be constantly and immensely thankful to God for His Salvation over you - through Christ Jesus, our Lord and Saviour.
Shalom.
Let us pray.
Our Father in Heaven,
Hallowed be Your Name.
Your Kingdom come, Your Will be done; on earth, as it is in heaven.
Thank You for revealing to us that Your Holy Will for us is to rejoice always, pray continually and give thanks in all circumstances – in Christ Jesus our Lord and Saviour.
Praise You, O God – for we have reason to give thanks only because in Christ Jesus, we have been saved from the wages of sin, which is death; and restored unto Your Holy and Eternal Kingdom.
Your Salvation is the only reason that we live!
May my life be filled with thanksgiving that flows from my unqualified and profound gratitude centered, established and focused on, God’s gift of salvation through Christ.
Yes, Lord – may I singularly overflow with thanksgiving for Your Salvation – that my faith, hope and love be increased daily through the storms of life and manifest greatly in my joyous eagerness to constantly share the Gospel of Your Kingdom.
Forgive me, O Lord, when I struggle unnecessarily in my neglect to imbue an attitude of gratitude for Your Salvation; and consequently, fail in my calling to bring Your Love, Joy and Peace to the world around me.
Change my heart O God; and fill me with gratitude for the joy of Your Salvation!
From the well of gratitude for Your Salvation; may my faith increase – that I may become truly strong in You; may my hope increase – that I may become truly certain of Your Return and Your Coming, Eternal Kingdom; may my love increase – that I may truly live as Your Child and Spirit-empowered witness to all the earth!
Yes Lord! I am thankful to You for everything!
But most of all, may I be constantly and immensely thankful for Your Salvation through Christ Jesus, our Lord and Saviour.
I thank You and pray all these in the Name of our King, Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.