Thankfulness Is Practical

You know, today there's a word that you hear bentered about a lot in society. People will say, well, that's really practical. Or somebody will say, well, that's not really practical. Somebody else will say about something. Well, you know, this is really practical. If we do this, this is practical. This will really work. And then with another issue or subject, somebody may say, well, you know, I've been thinking about it, but that's not going to be very practical to do that. Webster's takes the word practical, and of course, I think we all know what practical means, but they take the word practical and they define it as useful. Usable. If something is useful, it's practical. If something is usable, it's practical. Obviously, if it's not useful, it's not usable, it's not practical.

So what I'm going to do today is talk about one of the great practicalities. One of the most important practical things there is, this isn't minor league. This is major league. Now, I've been in the church a long time, and I remember the years when we, quote, majored in the minors. Sometimes we took minor things and we majored in them. You should minor in the minors and major in the majors, and this one is a major. So, we're going to measure the usability of it, the useful of it, and we're going to measure the value and the impact of it. And where I want to start is not through my eyes, not through your eyes. I want to start with this subject through the eyes of God, and specifically Jesus Christ. So if you'll go with me to Luke 17, Luke 17, and we will start looking at this very important practical issue, and then we will show why it is so practical. Luke 17. It says here in verse 11, beginning in verse 11, it says, So here are these ten lepers.

And they lifted up their voices and said, Jesus, master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said to them, Go show yourselves to the priest. And it came to pass that as they went, they were cleansed, as they were going on their way to the priest, following his instruction, all of a sudden, they first saw, and I'm sure, with each other, and then they started looking at their own hands and skin. There's no leprosy. We're healed. You can just imagine, can't you? And one of them, one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back and with a loud voice, where I guess everybody within any kind of a synod he could hear him, glorified God.

And he fell down on his face, he did that, and he kept coming back until he got to Christ, and he fell down on his face at Christ's feet, giving him thanks, and he wasn't even an Israelite. He wasn't even a Jew. He was a Samaritan.

And notice what Jesus says to him, what he said to him there. And Jesus answering said, were there not ten of you healed? Were there not ten? Where are the nine? There were ten of you healed? That's a rhetorical question, weren't there ten? And he's drawing attention to the fact that there's only one that said thanks. Only one. There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. Interesting. Interesting take. I've often thought just one in ten. That probably hits pretty close to the human mark. That's probably pretty close to the natural human mind. Those odds are probably just about right because thankfulness is such a rare, precious, scarce commodity. And, folks, I don't think it takes a whole lot to realize it is a dying commodity in this world. It's a dying virtue. It's a dying trait. It's a dying quality. A lot of people don't value it. You know, there's a word. I use the word practical, and I started off talking about, you know, practical, what's useful, what's usable.

And there are a lot of people that think, anytime you talk about giving thanks, you're dealing with a platitude. You're dealing with something that sounds good. But it doesn't translate into anything really useful or usable. And because of that concept with too many, that it's a platitude with too many, children aren't being taught it. Children aren't being taught it in life. And we see that around us. It's just not considered one of the important practical things. But is it?

Let's analyze just briefly that thankful leper, the one out of the ten. Number one, he was a real person. He really had leprosy. He was cleansed. He did go back and thank Christ. So looking at that, number one, reckon how he treated God and how he treated God in his life after that, in his thoughts and his doings.

How much more of a place do you think that God had in his life, in his thoughts and his doings?

Number two, reckon how he treated and treasured his relationships with his family and friends after that. If they had such a thing as a Thanksgiving dinner back in those days, he couldn't have sat at the table. He couldn't have been with the family. He couldn't have participated in anything that they were doing. I suppose you might say if there was enough distance, he could be way back there in the back somewhere and they could throw him a turkey leg.

But he was cut off from his family. Leprosy had cut him off from them. He did not have those relationships anymore.

Reckon how he treated and treasured his relationships with his family and friends after that. Number three, reckon how he treated and appreciated his freedom and his flexibility in the community after that. Because now he could go anywhere he wanted. He could shop, he could mangle, he could go to the temple.

He had been reintroduced back to the community.

Whereas before, he had been an ostracized outcast. Number four, reckon how he valued and treated his health. Reckon how he valued and treated his health after that, using what had been restored to God's honor. Using it according to God's design. So those ten lepers healed, none of them, not a single one of the nine, valued, treasured, and appreciated their blessing to the degree. Now, saying they didn't to some degree, but none of them did to the degree that he did. How do we know that? Because he was the only one that it meant enough to him, deeply enough, to go back and say thanks.

The appreciation ran the deepest in him, the recognition, the value, the appreciation ran the deepest in him, as shown and illustrated by his thankfulness.

Again, too many consider it not to be one of the important things. It's not one of the practical things.

In other words, it's not one of the things that's really being thankful, having thankfulness, living thankfully. It's not one of the really practical things because, you know, it doesn't put food on the table. You ever heard anybody say something like that? I have. I grew up in Northeast Mississippi in 1950s when I was born. That didn't even know the Great Depression was over.

Now, it was a poor time. Everybody was basically in the same boat by and large. And it was a survival time for so many people. And, of course, if people are reduced to survival, then it's the things that are really useful and usable that are really championed.

But I look back in those years and those days and those people in the midst of whom I grew up and amongst whom I grew up. And I have to acknowledge there were quite a few thankful people because it is useful, it is usable, and we're going to look at a little bit of that. We'll look at all of it. We'll look at some of that because does it put food on the table or not?

Think about it. Things cost, don't they? How many of you can walk in a store and say, I need such and such and I want it free? It doesn't happen that way. You've got to pay for it. And if you've noticed, if you do your own shopping, things cost more and more. You know, when Congress froze Social Security benefits for two years, stretch back about three or four years ago, whatever it's been now, they said because there's no inflation. That was a dead giveaway that they don't do their own shopping because everything costs. So everything costs, yes. And very few people have unlimited money. I mean, do you know anybody that just has so much money that they don't have to worry about, you know, spending it? I don't. If you're thankful for something, guess what? You will take care of it. And guess what? If you take care of it, it will last longer. And guess what? If it lasts longer, you won't have to replace it as soon. And guess what? That leaves money in your wallet or purse. And guess what? You can buy food with money. We do it all the time, don't we? I chuckle to myself sometimes at these advertisements that are done on TV, especially regarding pickups. We've all seen the ads, the pickup ad, whether it's Chevy or Ford or Dodge Ram, Dodge Tough, you know, whatever. But they take this pickup, first they find where there's no other traffic, but they run these pickups across country where there's no road, bouncing it over rocks. Sometimes I've seen some ads where the pickup, practically the entire thing, bounced right off the ground, showing you how tough this truck is. And I'm thinking, if I were to go down to the dealership and a salesman says, man, do we have a special for you. You remember that ad you saw on TV of that pickup that was bouncing over rocks? It's so tough. We got it right over here and we will make you a special deal. We'll knock off $1,000 for you. I wouldn't buy the truck. I wouldn't want the truck. Would you? No, you wouldn't. And who buys a truck like if the cost it is, or any truck, for that matter, or vehicle, and then would drive it like that? That'd be crazy, wouldn't it? I couldn't help but think back when I realized this is going back a few years, but it's not going back a whole lot of years. I think most of us know who the Dukes of Hazzard were, and generally, you know, the car. Well, they did things with that car that if that was your car, you would never do that and you wouldn't allow that to be done. But what they don't tell you, they only had, what was it? My son, Lauren, might know, but they had, I think, 20-something of those cars. And most of them were in the body shop being repaired for future things because they were constantly wrecking them. You can't make a show like that with one vehicle. And I knew at one time how many it was, but there's a whole bunch of them. Well, growing up in northeast Mississippi, I'll say this. I did not grow up poor. I did not grow up rich. I was provided for it by a very hard-working father and mother. But they grew up very hard. And I know my dad was what would have been considered dirt poor. He got a living out of a hillside farm. And dad got grown, got on his own, and went into construction and became a very successful home builder. But I grew up seeing my parents taking care of what they had. They took care of it. That's how they showed their appreciation. That's how they said thanks for it.

When I was growing up, except for when I was very young, very young, except for the state roads, and maybe a few more major county roads, but by and large, all the off-roads were gravel. And they were built on a red clay base. And as time went on and you had rains and wintertime and even in the summertime sometimes, those road beds would get soaked. And the gravel would get pressed more and more down into the red clay.

And pretty soon you'd have ruts where you didn't even really have to drive your car. So on some of those roads, you'd just get it in the ruts, turn loose to the steering wheel, and it keeps the tires in the ruts. Well, ever so often, what we call the graders, the graders would come along and they would clean out the ditches, drag the gravel back up on the road, what had gotten in the ditches. They'd be gravel trucks come along and they'd dump gravel on the road.

And then, of course, that spread it. Well, that was the worst time to be driving on it because there would sometimes be gravel from the gravel pits. Gravel would be the size of my fist or even the size of my head. Not too many the size of my head, but they would have some big pieces of gravel.

Now, until it kind of got packed in a little bit properly, you could go whizzing down the road at whatever speed you wanted and not worry about what you hit. And then you could go see the body shop and have them repair the hole in your oil pan or gas tank or whatever. Well, I saw Mom and Dad drive those roads and I saw them, you know, if there was a big rock in the way, they didn't try to bust it.

They swerved around it. They missed it. But then some folks, they just hit them. But I saw this. It was a way, and I realized taking care of something is a way of saying thanks. I appreciate having this. I've got a couple of my vehicles. One has 263,000 miles on it, original engine. And I've had vehicles that I kept to 247,000, not burning a drop of oil when I got rid of it, pick up that had 272,000. But one thing I always did, it didn't matter what the weather was doing, it didn't matter how cold or how hot, I climbed under those vehicles, put them on a ramp, and I changed the oil.

I made sure that it had clean oil and filters, because that's the life of an engine. And that was just simply one way of saying, hey, I appreciate what I've got, and I'm going to use it wisely. But the more you look into this subject and analyze it, the more you really do have to recognize that being thankful, living thankfully, is practical. It is practical living.

If you want a title, this title would serve just fine. Thankfulness is practical. It's practical. I'm going to turn over to 2 Timothy 3. 2 Timothy 3. Thankfulness is practical. This know also, Paul said, and boy are these things not coming true in the day and age in which we now live, that in the last days perilous times shall come, times that will contain tremendous peril, dangerous times. And times are only going to grow more so that way with every passing year. It says, verse 2, for men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boastful, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents. Let's just stop there a moment.

You ever stop to think that the reason the perilous times come is because it's these things that follow that produce them? That you have perilous times because what then follows and is mentioned is what produces perilous times. And you think, okay, if people are just so self-centered and lovers of themselves, and they're covetous, and they're boasters, and they're proud, and they're blasphemers, and they're disobedient to parents, etc., well, what a list!

What a list! Well, look at the next thing mentioned. I'm thankful. Wait a minute, that doesn't belong in there. That's not a heavy-duty thing. How did that get in there? Because Paul knew what he was talking about. And the word that follows that is unholy. Of course, it goes on to list some other things. But one of the main things, this listed, that generates, produces, perilous times is unthankfulness.

How so? Well, I said earlier, what we're thankful for, we take care of. Well, what we're not thankful for, we don't treasure properly. So we're going to neglect it. It's automatic. Or we're going to abuse it. The blessing, whether that blessing is a person, an opportunity, or a thing, is not properly valued and treated. Those not thankful, now, think about this, those that are not thankful are never truly content with their state or blessings.

You ever know people like that? They're never truly content with their state or blessings. They don't appreciate and properly use what they do have. Their eyes are always elsewhere. There's a certain discontent of spirit. And if someone does appreciate something, if they are thankful for it, they show it by using it, the blessing, properly. A neighbor came to me one time, many years ago, and asked if he could use my chainsaw. I wanted to be nice, so I said yes.

He said, well, I've got a little small tree in my backyard that I want to cut. Now, first of all, it was a pretty little tree, and I'm thinking, why in the world is he cutting it? It's an addition to his backyard, not a problem. But it was his tree. So he cut it. He brought me my chainsaw back, and you come to cut hot butter with it. He cut more dirt. He got the chainsaw down in the dirt. I saw where he cut the tree later, and I think he cut more dirt than he did. Now, I realize some of you have never used a chainsaw, and some of you have.

And dirt is not a friend to the chain on a chainsaw. Boy, can it dull it in a hurry. Anyway, I just told myself after that, I think if I'm ever asked by, quote, a neighbor again if they can use my chainsaw, I'll say, sir, or ma'am, I'll tell you what I'll do. I'll come do the cutting for you.

Just tell me what you need to cut, and I'll cut it. Because he did not appreciate it enough to even take care of it. And that's what happens. But when there's no thankfulness, either neglect or abuse, it sets in. Discontents sets in. I know we've got a nation that's filling up with too many discontented people. They get disgruntled. And again, you translate it out. What does that translate into? Well, it translates into one degree or another, lust, greed, covetousness. And every one of those things leads to destruction of one sort or another.

And think about it. In needlessly pursuing more, because, and I'm talking about where it's due to us not being thankful for what we have, then what we do have becomes automatically devalued. And therefore, it will be neglected and or abused. And, of course, in society, when that happens, the first and foremost biggest blessings of all that are lost in the shuffle are God and His values.

And we see a nation now more and more is unthankful, more and more ungrateful. I'm not painting everybody with the same brush, but I am saying we're seeing more and more a nation that is more and more unthankful, and a nation where God and His true values are being thrown out the door and the windows as fast as it can be done, it seems. God and His true values, in an unthankful society, those are the first casualties. God and His righteousness cease to be the focus. And agreed sets in, too, that leaks away the life.

Without thankfulness, and I'm still open here to 2 Timothy 3, without thankfulness, as it says in verse 2 there at the beginning of verse 2 of 2 Timothy 3, without thankfulness, people become lovers of self, lovers of themselves.

Now, when you say thanks, in one sense, what are you doing? You are acknowledging to the one you say thanks to that you have been given something. The leper who went back to Christ with thanksgiving in his heart and his mind, and he expressed it with action, was saying thanks to Christ for giving Him, we could say healing, which is correct, but all that that now meant to an ostracized outcast who had to live in misery and loneliness and knowing he also would conclude such a misery with a very bad death.

And now he had been reinstated in relationships, community, and all. Without thankfulness, I said a discontent sets in, a dissatisfaction because, well, men shall be lovers of their own selves. When you fall in love with yourself, there's a hard reality, and that is, self is never satisfied. I'm in love with myself. Oh, I love myself. I am so self-loving. And what that happens when a person falls into that, that snare, is you can never satisfy self.

You can temporarily biked some time for self. But it's, I need more. I need more. Oh, I need something different. I need someone else. I need somebody new. I need a new husband. I need a new wife. Oh, I'm not happy with what I have anymore. I'm not happy with who I have. And you think about peace of mind, which is so valuable.

Contentment of spirit, which is so valuable. Enjoyment of life, which is so valuable. It's stripped away. It can't exist in that atmosphere. But out of it comes heartache, which nobody really wants. Miseries, emptiness, loneliness, financial consequences, instabilities, delinquency, crime, drugs. And you start putting all that together, and you have the things that do make for perilous times. Notice Proverbs 4 in verse 23. Proverbs 4 in verse 23. Remember, all things start in the mind, have to do with the mind, the thinking, the perspectives, the perceptions, the attitude, all those issues. And it says in Proverbs 4 verse 23, it says, Keep your heart with all diligence, because out of it are the issues of life.

And thankfulness is one of the prime issues of life, and there's no substitute for it. So many of today's problems could be avoided, could be avoided, if there was sufficient thankfulness for what we have. You know, certain things are considered safeguards of the mind, this is one of them. We're back in ancient Israel. One of the prime words that was used to define ancient Israel was murmurrs. Murmurrs. They're murmuring again, they're murmuring again, complainers.

I mean, you read the history of them. They were not a thankful people, as a whole. They took God's blessings for granted. And here was a nation that had experienced the misery and the magnitude of Egypt and slavery, and here they were free, they were on their way to the golden land of Canaan, golden opportunities and blessings, and they blew it. They could never quit complaining. Thankful people don't complain. It's usually a dead giveaway that if you know somebody's just always griping about something, always complaining about something, complaining, complaining. Gratitude doesn't live in them too well. Of course, that's an old pattern. It didn't begin with Adam and Eve or any of their descendants.

You may have noticed sometime in your readings, back in Job 38, verse 7. I'm not going to turn back there, but just reference it. You might notice that at the time the earth was created, when God is talking to Job and telling him about the time that the earth was created there in Job 38, you pick it up in verse 1, but like I said, I'm not going to turn back there, but I want to reference the Scripture.

In Job 38 and verse 7, it talks about when God created this planet long, long ago, far long before humans. Then all the angels, it's referencing the angels there, all the angels sang for joy, including Lucifer.

They were all together before the angelic rebellion. And we don't know the full account. We don't know all that occurred. But the Bible gives us enough to go on to be able to kind of put the pieces together and read between the lines as well, although there's some very direct lines to read to and know. But the time came that for Lucifer, whatever the level of responsibilities God had given him, there weren't enough. He wasn't thankful for what he had been given. He wasn't thankful for what he had. He was filled with ingratitude. That's one way to word it. And he decided that nothing was going to suffice and be good enough for him except God's throne.

And Isaiah speaks of that. I'm not going to turn there, but in Isaiah 14, of course, verses 13 and 14, now it gives the heart and core of it, but he decided to charge off to heaven after he convinced a third of the angels to do so with him and rebel against God, and going to take God's throne. Nothing would suffice short of having God's own throne. That's what, in a very true sense, ingratitude did for Lucifer. But in whatever way we want to word it, unthankfulness always translates into some very undesirable and miserable effects.

I see, over the years, not just in the ministry, but in life, I've seen at the least it translates into neglect, at the most, abuse. At the least it translates into a restless mind, a restless spirit. At the most, just plain old pure greed. But when we're thankful, our eyes become sharp and focused on what we have been blessed with. We become attuned to our blessings, and we make proper use of them, and thankfulness takes on a preserving quality.

It helps to preserve us. A whole generation of Israel died off in the wilderness. When we're thankful for what God has blessed us with, we won't go after the other person's goods. And boy, there's a lot of that going on these days. Or the other person's mate. And boy, is there a lot of that going on these days. The grass won't always look greener on the other side of the fence, like it appears to be to so many. And when we're thankful, we won't always put ourselves in hock for what we can't afford and probably don't need anyway.

I think that's one reason why the Apostle Paul told Timothy in 1 Timothy 6, 6. In 1 Timothy 6, 6, he said, Godliness with contentment is great gain. That is a tremendous blessing in and of itself. But I want to turn to Philippians 4 in verse 11.

Philippians 4, in verse 11, Paul said, Paul said, Not that I speak in respect of want or lackings, for I have learned in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I read that and I say to myself, there's no way he could say that and mean that unless there was present a very heavy measure of gratitude. Because if there weren't a very heavy measure of gratitude, he couldn't have been content if you know all the different states that he had to deal with.

But that kind of capacity, that kind of ability is a great benefit of mind. It has the power to help to keep a person from being driven to distraction or crazy, we say. And if you look at verse 6, when we do make a request, make it with thanksgiving.

Verse 6 of chapter 4 here, Be careful, or let his anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. Let your request be made known to God. You go to God, you need something, you want something, it's proper to have, nothing wrong with it. And you're asking God to bless you with it or make a way for you to be blessed with it.

And you're doing it out of a thankful mentality, a thankful perspective in spirit, in mind, in manner. Why should you give more to someone who doesn't properly appreciate and use what they already have? If I ask God for something, and he's sitting there on his throne thinking, why should I give him more when he doesn't even appreciate what he does have? And humanly, if we have someone that we love and care a lot about and we give to them and they don't even properly appreciate and take care of what we give them, it doesn't exactly give us the stimulation, the motivation to want to give them more.

And so anyhow, I think we all understand that. And how often, along that line, how often do our prayers entail our prayers? We have our personal prayers, don't we? We go to God. How often do they entail thanksgiving to God? How much does our individual prayer life involve that? Ephesians 5.20. Ephesians 5.20. Giving thanks always for all things to God and the Father, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

One of the things that I personally try to do each day when I pray is find something, and it's not hard to do. That's part of my personal prayer. Find something to be thankful for. I don't have any problem finding something to be thankful for. And thanking God for that blessing, or any number of blessings. Some of you will remember, some of you older ones will remember, and some of the younger ones know the actor Jimmy Stewart.

I guess he's dead now. But he did a, one of the movies he did a long time ago was Shenandoah. The Shenandoah Valley of Virginia during the Civil War days, and he had a bunch of big strapping sons, and the north one and his boys, and the south one and his boys, and he was trying to keep his boys out of the war.

And they have this dinner scene where they all sit down to dinner, and there's this long table, and they're all gathered around it. And the father of the clan, Jimmy Stewart, he puts his head down, and he says something like this, We thank thee, O Lord, for all your bounty, but we know that we wouldn't have any of this if we hadn't worked like dogs for it.

Amen. And people laugh, because it is kind of humorous, and it is kind of funny. And yet, God told him, he says, Look, keep something in mind when you go to Israel, when you go into the land. It's in, you'll find it in Deuteronomy 8, verses 17 and 18. Deuteronomy 8, verses 17 and 18, he says, When you go in the land, and you prosper, and you have houses, and you have good things, and you have herds, and everything is going great for you, just remember who it is that gives you, and I like the way it's worded, remember who gives you the power to get wealth, who gives you the power, the energy, the opportunity.

As James said, every good and perfect gift is from God above. James 1, 17. You know, the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink, life, energy, opportunity, the originator of everything worthwhile having.

Psalm 69, thankfulness raises our consciousness of God's presence and God's value in our eyes. Psalm 69, verse 30. David said, I will praise the name of God with a song. Now, notice how he words this and will magnify him with thanksgiving. How do you magnify God? You don't. The Scriptures that say, our righteousness doesn't add anything to God, our wickedness doesn't take anything away from God. So what's David talking about? How do you magnify God? You magnify him in your mind. David is saying that God, his consciousness of God, God's presence, God's value, God's importance, God's magnitude is magnified in his mind. If you don't think that's what David was talking about, go talk to some people who have diminished God to the point they won't even discuss God with you. They have no appreciation for God. We live in a very more so and more so Godless society, and like the good news a year ago about America's war on God. David knew the more thankful you are, the more God in his ways are magnified in our minds. We as God's people, I'll wrap this up, we as God's people nationally are the most blessed people on earth. And yet yesterday was what they call Black Friday, the kickoff to the big shopping season. And if you read some of the reports across the nation, you saw anything but godliness and a lot of the shopping that was going on. You saw anything but thankfulness. And again, that's not to paint everybody with the same brush many means. But what about us as God's ecclesia, God's people, and especially the American congregation of God's ecclesia, God's people? How much we have to be thankful for, to have the knowledge and the light of God's plans and purposes, and all that translates into force in our future. You know, Thanksgiving is past as far as a national holiday, but Thanksgiving is not past. We gave thanks today. We'll give thanks tomorrow. We'll give thanks the next day. Thanksgiving is something, the thankfulness that we all, if we study it, realize how valuable it is. It does put food on the table. It does take care of people. It does enhance our relationship with God and each other. And no matter how we slice it, whether it's material things, people and relationships, opportunities, experiences, or just life, thankfulness is practical, and living thankfully is living practically. And I know that I, we, must learn how to be and remain God's thankful people living thankfully, and that is one of the absolute most important and practical usable things that any human being can ever learn to do.