Pastor Wayne Cordeiro
December 17, 2006 - W0651

The oldest person in the world died recently. She was 116 years old and the daughter of a slave. She is survived by 1,247 family members! So what is the secret of longevity?  In various secular studies, one of the common characteristics of long living people is that they live with an attitude of gratitude. They experience small and large events with thankfulness and learn from each one. One man said that although his wife’s frail health made life most difficult, he was still very grateful for the life he had with her. In fact, he said he was “swimming in a sea of gratefulness.”

Various secular studies conclude that having an attitude of joy and gratefulness is good for your health. Another finding we’re hearing in the secular community is that forgiveness is healthy and unforgiveness is unhealthy.  A book on business practices points out that integrity is the best practice for long-term survival of any business. More and more it seems that the secular world is preaching biblical messages. It would seem that God is raising a secular voice to call attention to biblical principles. He has done similar in the past, for example, when he raised up the infidels to teach the Israelites and non-Christians to teach Christians. It seems that God is using nonbelievers to confirm for believers that the Bible is true so wake up and smell the coffee!

God wants us to understand that in order for miracles to happen in our lives – for God to turn tragedies into triumphs, negatives into positives, and mistakes into miracles – we must add thanksgiving to the recipe. The Bible says, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus” (Phil. 4:6-7).

This passage tells us…

GRATEFULNESS IS THE ONE SEASONING THAT MUST BE TASTED IN EVERYTHING WE DO.

The Bible further reinforces, “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you, with all wisdom teaching and admonishing one another with psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God” (Col. 3:16).

We must have a grateful attitude in all circumstances because we cannot control everything around us. Accidents happen, people we love die and sometimes life does not go as planned. But God does not want us to be anxious. He wants us to begin everything with a thankful heart because an attitude of gratitude provides God with an opening to work miracles in our lives.  He then can turn nothing into something and tragedy into triumph.

One of the surprising, but important things to remember from this message is that God Himself is grateful and delighted when He gives us something and we are grateful for it. Our thankfulness should come first, not just after the event. God is looking for our spirit or attitude of gratefulness before anything is given to us. This gratefulness will bring us longevity and blessings, and will allow God to turn tragedies into triumphs.

When my son Aaron was little, he had a friend whose bicycle chain had come off the sprockets. When I told him that I could fix it, Aaron was very impressed and grateful.  He said, “My dad can fix anything!” That made me feel very grateful in turn and I wanted to do even more for my son and his friend. It is like that with God. He wants to do even more in our lives when we are grateful. Our thankfulness is a gift to ourselves because it comes with so many of God’s blessings.

So what are the principles to developing an attitude of thanksgiving?

THREE PRINCIPLES:

1.     A CHOSEN HUMILITY.

Even nonbelievers are thankful when something good happens. It is when we say thanks when nothing happens that we behave as people of God. My experience has been that the people most thankful for breath are people who can’t breathe (e.g., have asthma).  The people most thankful for being able to stand up straight are the people who suffer from severe back pain. We are so grateful for our health right after we have been sick as a dog. We are most grateful, humble and sympathetic to another’s plight if we had gone through a similar circumstance.

We are most thankful and humble when we are sick and poor. On the contrary, when we are healthy and rich, we tend to lose our gratefulness because we don’t feel we need anything. We are most thankful for things when we have nothing. It is similar to Pharaoh’s attitude: when Egypt’s times were bad he treated the slaves well but as soon as times were good he went back to treating them harshly. There was a rich mean guy with heart problems who turned very nice and kind to everyone when he was recovering from surgery but after 6 months of recovery, he turned back into a mean spirited man.

When I was having heart problems, I thought that I might not wake up the next morning so I wrote my wife Anna a goodbye letter. When I did wake up the next morning I was so grateful to God for letting me live at least one more day. It is human nature that anticipation of an impending bad event makes us humble and grateful, but we need to choose humility so that God can turn mistakes into miracles.  The best gift is one of thanksgiving.

“Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time” (1 Pet. 5:6). It is a chosen humility that God wants us to have.

The most humble people I have met recently have been the very poor Sri Lankans. They barely have enough to eat themselves but when we visited them they warmly opened their homes to us and fed us a very nice chicken dinner with their best china. They had almost nothing yet chose to share what little they had.

The second principle to develop an attitude of thanksgiving is …

2.      AN INTENTIONAL GIVING.

The most humble are the best givers. It is almost typical that after we rise up in status as in becoming a CEO, president or become rich that we no longer feel the need to be humble. So we have to consciously remind ourselves to be humble. If you are a Christian - whether you are rich or a CEO – you are still a servant before God. Intentional giving helps to develop a grateful heart. As the Bible says, “Instruct those who are rich in this present world not to be conceited or to fix their hope on the uncertainty of riches, but on God, who richly supplies us with all things to enjoy. Instruct them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous and ready to share, storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of that which is life indeed” (1 Tim. 6:17-19). In other words, even when you reach the top of man’s world you should be generous and humble so that you can receive God’s blessings and enjoy what really matters in life.

The last principle to develop an attitude of thanksgiving is …

3.     A DECISION TO BE THANKFUL … REGARDLESS OF HOW IT LOOKS AT FIRST.

We have all heard of stories of the rise to success after a big setback or disadvantageous circumstances. People have become rich after being fired, they have overcome after having a disabling accident and have risen up from abject poverty. Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% what we do about what happens to us.

There was a man that had a bad case of dandelions in his yard so he wrote to a city government office for a solution.  He was told to use weed and feed. That failed.  Then he was told to use an herbal mix.  That too failed. Then he was told to treat the soil.  That also failed.  When he wrote a 4^th time, the office finally wrote back, “Learn how to enjoy dandelions!” So you can curse the dandelions or make something out of them!

According to the Bible, “In everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” (1 Thess. 5:18). But please note that it does not say give thanks for everything but in everything. The thankfulness should be on the front side of every event. In other words, be thankful before the event actually happens.

“But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God’s own possession, so that you may proclaim His excellencies …” (1 Pet. 2:9). There are various translations of this but basically “God’s own possession” means that we are near to God and therefore are protected by His presence. Nothing can touch us unless it goes through God first. His word and divine plan will be true for us if we combine everything we do with gratefulness at the start or the front side of each event.

I was poor, raised in Palolo and on my own at age 13 but I would not change a thing in my early life. When I was in the 9^th grade, an elderly neighbor asked for my help in cutting down trees on some remote property that he owned. For 2 ½ months I slaved away cutting down trees with a chain saw, driving a tractor to haul all the trees and lumber away and cutting it down to firewood size. At the end the old man only paid me $20! I cried and cried. But afterwards, I realized that I should be grateful because I learned a lot. I learned how to drive a tractor and use a chain saw and I also learned discipline and a great work ethic.

We have to figure out a way to be thankful in all circumstances because we cannot control everything around us. God can turn anything into gold if we are thankful. True thankfulness begins before an event - not only after it turns out well for us. May we all receive the gift of thankfulness this Christmas.

God’s blessings will follow if we have an attitude of gratefulness in every circumstance. In order to develop that attitude of gratitude we must follow three principles. First, we must choose humility even when we have attained a high status in man’s world. Second, we must develop a habit of intentional giving, which will lead to enjoying God’s true blessings of life. Finally, we must consciously decide to be thankful in any circumstance regardless of how it looks at first because we cannot control everything around us and nothing touches us that does not go through God first.

Study Questions.

1. What should you be grateful for?
2. When you were in circumstances that made you very sad, what should you have been grateful for?
3. What blessings have you received by having an attitude of gratefulness?
4. What are some of the difficulties in choosing humility after being successful?
5. What has intentional giving done for you?
6. Why would God want you to be grateful before you are given the blessing?