Giving Thanks for DGCC

Next week we celebrate Thanksgiving. The holiday prompts us to do what should be doing “always and for everything” (Ephesians 5:20). Indeed, the Apostle Paul instructs us elsewhere:

Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1 Thessalonians 5:18)

When preaching on this verse (audio; blog post), I encouraged you to put this into practice by thanking God for:

  • One aspect of salvation,
  • One obvious gift,
  • One clear answer to prayer,
  • One good you are tempted to think you earned or produced,
  • One good you are tempted to think you deserve,
  • One gift you easily overlook, and
  • One difficulty that considered by itself is not good.

In the run-up to the holiday, here are my answers to those prompts, primarily considering the last 22 years of Desiring God Community Church:

One Aspect of Salvation:

Thank You, Father God, that You make rebels deserving of condemnation into Your intimate family, and then delight to do them good, bringing us into the “white-hot enjoyment of Your glory.” Thank You for deepening my joy in You through DGCC.

One Obvious Gift:

Thank You, Father God, for the gift of Jacob as my fellow elder and as my successor Senior Pastor. You answered our prayers so faithfully, beyond what we could ask or imagine, in superintending the search process and in uniting us as elders and as a church under his ministry. Thank You also for the gift of his family, for Amy and Evie and Gigi. Thank You for the way You have complemented Jacob and me through the leadership of Daniel, Wil, and I’John;

One Clear Answer to Prayer:

Beth and I moved to Charlotte in 2002 with little understanding of the challenges ahead and no definite financial support for a church plant. We prayed with friends and family that You would be pleased to plant this church, that You would provide for that church spiritually and financially, that You would send out Your Word through this church. And here we are 22 years later. Thank You for Your grace shown through DGCC.

One Good I am Tempted to Think I Earned or Produced:

Thank You, Father, that this church is faithful to Your Word, is united as one family, and shines with Your Glory because of Your grace and mercy.

One Good I am Tempted to Think I Deserve:

Thank You, Gracious Father, that the members of DGCC respect me, listen to me, seek my counsel, bear with me, encourage me, love me, and pray for me.

One Difficulty that Considered by Itself is Not Good (flipping the order of the last two):

Thank You, Father, for the difficult challenges we faced in DGCC in 2005 and 2007. Painful as they were, You humbled and refined me, and then supported this church so that we together grew in Christlikeness. Thank You for the refreshment and strength You gave to Beth and me through the Desiring God National Conference in 2007, when I was wondering if we could continue.

One Gift I Easily Overlook:

I thank You, Father, for the many who have been part of this church – those who faithfully served, who generously gave, who led in various ways or served behind the scenes, who counseled and wept, who celebrated and rejoiced, who preached and learned, who cleaned and kept the books, who set up and tore down. Following the Apostle Paul in Romans 16 (and, like him, undoubtedly leaving out many I should mention), I thank You:

  • For those early members who worked so hard to begin DGCC: Amanda, Dee, Stacy, Matt, Michelle, Steve, Paula, Court, Linda, Rick, Nathan, Martha, Donna, Jody, Josh, Dana, Earl, Catherine, Jason, Shawnda, Jonathan, Nicole, Tyrone, Sharon, Derek, Damion and Rebecca, the Unsells, Michael and Jessica;
  • Thank You also for the Shanks, Kellers, Johnsons, Mosses, and Teiglands.
  • Thank You for the gift of five sons who worked with effort and joy in those early years to do whatever needed to be done: Jonathan, Thomas, Andrew, Matthew, Joel;
  • For the many children born into DGCC, beginning with Isabelle in August 2003, and the blessing of the many others brought into our church;
  • For David Livingston, for the wise counsel he has given us, the friendship with which he has blessed my family, and his opening up Your Word so many times;
  • For Kenny Stokes, for his devotion to us, his several visits, his vision for the Treasuring Christ Together Network, and his efforts to bring the network into existence and then to flourish;
  • For You, Father, enabling our tag line to become a reality: “A church of the nations with ministries to the nations, both in Charlotte and around the world.” Thank You for the Chinese You brought into the church in the early years, especially Mike and Lily and then Kevin and May. Thank You for the Indians You have blessed us with over the years, especially Sunil and Jerlin, Jonathan, William, George and Trapti. Thank You for the Filipinos, Aileen, Karol, and Fred for his faithful and God-honoring ministry among us. Thank You for the Kiswahili-speaking congregation, beginning with Bruno and then Thierry and Julienne, the Bingolos, Shaba and Mwali, John Felix, and so many more.
  • Thank You for Ty and Carla, for their friendship and hospitality; thank You for the grace You gave through the challenges of Ty’s illness and death; thank You that You have conquered death and brought life and immortality to light through the Gospel.
  • Thank You for the “Taylor girls,” Amanda, Erin, and Erica;
  • Thank You for the dozens of married couples you have brought together, including Josh and Shelley, Andy and Laura, John and Helen, Rachel and Rick, Edward and Carrie, Albert and Natalia, Taylor and Ema, Scotty and Lisa, Blake and Elizabeth, I’John and Bria, Ivan and Stacy, Thomas and Kay, Matthew and Kailie, and now Noah and Sarah;
  • Thank You for Ed and Annette, for their friendship, for their hospitality, for their unwavering support, for their perseverance in witness and in prayer;
  • Thank You for the gift of having so many stay in our home, some for a day or two, some for weeks, including Len, Rachel, Michele, James;
  • Thank You for Amy Meshnick and the gifts of both her music leadership and her loving care for our missionaries;
  • Similarly, thank You for Kristin and her loving, faithful service with internationals and in music;
  • Thank You for sending Albert to us, and his leadership in music beginning the first month he was with us;
  • Thank You for the Suttons, the Taylors, the Timms, the Longs;
  • Thank You for Ray and Tom and Sobe and Selina and Paul and Donna and Rob and Amber and Wes and Jenn and Jarod and Eric and Kari and Matt and Vasti and Dan and Karen and Jeff and Samson and Annet and Maddie and Michael and Liz;
  • Thank You for Karl and Cindy, for so many years of faithful and wise leadership;
  • Thank You for Daniel and Julia, for their partnership in the Gospel and their devotion to leading their family in loving service;
  • Thank You for Michael and Julie, for hours and hours of service behind the scenes, and for their marriage and parenting;
  • Thank You for John Finney, for his week after week service to us and to me;
  • Thank You for Mike and his quiet faithfulness and love for internationals;
  • Thank You for Wil and Katie being members during two stints! For their evident love for you, for their hospitality, for the way their home foreshadows Your future Kingdom.

Thank You, Father, for appointing me to this ministry with these Your people – for the privilege of opening up Your Word week after week and seeing You breaking down barriers, encouraging the fainthearted, and advancing Your cause. Continue, O Father, to build up DGCC for the glory of Your Name and the joy of all peoples.

(To prompt your personal thanksgiving, here is a selection of Bible verses on the topic.)

 

 

Cultivating a Thankful Heart

How important is gratitude to God?

The Apostle Paul commands us, “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you” (1 Thessalonians 5:18).

Gratitude is thus central to our becoming what God intends us to be. But we easily fall into ingratitude, focusing on what God has not given us as opposed to what He has.

Consider these seven categories of items, from the past and in the present, for which we should express thankfulness to God:

1) Salvation, in all its parts

We were by nature children of wrath, but God being rich in mercy made us alive in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 2:3-5). That salvation is completely undeserved; it is all a gift, all by His grace (Ephesians 2:6-9). In Christ Jesus we have complete forgiveness through His sacrifice on the cross, and thus have access directly to God the Father. He adopts us into His intimate family and has His Holy Spirit dwell in us. He transforms us more and more into the likeness of Jesus.

2) Obvious Other Gifts

God sometimes grants us pleasures, joys that are clearly unexpected gifts from Him. Here’s one from my life:

I was a competitive distance runner for almost 25 years. As a 37-year old In 1993, I ran a small town Thanksgiving Day 5k in Massachusetts that I should have won. But I limped home third, showing no guts and little speed. I was disgusted with myself.

The next day I got up before sunrise to run a five-mile loop. Looking at the thermometer, I almost got back into bed – it was 7 degrees, the coldest morning so far. I forced myself out of the house, just planning to go through the motions.

And then God gave me the gift. After a mile or two, I found myself running with tremendous freedom, with smooth form, with considerable speed, soaking in the beauty of the sunrise over the mountains.

All that I loved about running was encapsulated in that effort.

Then God gave me another gift – I wrote about that run. Unbeknownst to me, eight months later I would suffer a knee injury that would prevent me from ever running like that again. But our Lord prompted me to write in part in order that I would have that reminder for the rest of my life of His gift of running.

I wrote, “I am most thankful not for the years of races, not for the hard training, not for any speed I may have, but for this Thanksgiving Friday run.” (You can read my write-up here.)

What obvious gifts are you thankful for?

3) Clear Answers to Prayer

God involves us in accomplishing His purposes via prayer in part so that we will give thanks to Him when He answers: “You also must help us by prayer, so that many will give thanks on our behalf for the blessing granted us through the prayers of many” (2 Corinthians 1:11).

So remember what you pray for – and give thanks when He answers!

4) What We are Tempted to Think We Produced or Obtained Ourselves

Let me just list several examples to prompt your reflection:

  • Spouses
  • Children
  • Jobs
  • Income: “It is [God] who gives you the power to get wealth” (Deuteronomy 8:18)
  • Homes
  • Health and Fitness
  • Skills and Abilities
  • Education
  • Christian virtues: faith, obedience, perseverance, even the desire to follow Him (Psalm 119:36)

5) What We are Tempted to Think We Deserve

Again, here are some possible examples:

  • Life – He created us
  • Breath – He sustains us
  • Sleep – “He gives to his beloved sleep” (Psalm 127:2)
  • Daily provision – food, health care, peace
  • A functioning government – While it is easy to see flaws in our government, very few people in the history of the world have lived under a better government than ours.

We recognize all the items in these first five categories as good. The problem is that we often don’t acknowledge them as from God, and so we fail to give Him thanks.

The last two categories are different:

6) Gifts that We Easily Overlook

We are tempted not to notice these gifts – instead, we often complain when we don’t encounter them. Examples:

  • An efficient customer service agent
  • A courteous driver
  • Electricity when it doesn’t go out
  • Police who do their jobs effectively and professionally
  • The church members who aren’t up front – who prepare the Lord’s Supper, who put up signs, who clean the church, and do so many other tasks

What do you benefit from that you overlook? Thank God – as well as the people involved.

7) Always and for Everything by Faith in God’s Future Grace

The seventh category brings us to Paul’s statement that we should give thanks “in all circumstances,” or, as the Apostle says in Ephesians 5:20, “always and for everything.” That implies that we should thank God for trials and difficulties – even for the results of sin.

So we should rightly thank God for:

  • Tragedies
  • Deaths
  • Disappointments
  • “Negative” answers to prayer – when the sick are not healed, when the door to a job or a ministry or marriage is not opened, when a relationship is not reconciled, when a war is not

How do we give thanks for these?

We do not thank God for the sin, the sorrow, the pain, the suffering. But we do thank Him that He is working out His purposes even through such hardships.

Remember what our Lord says in Luke 11:11-12: “What father among you, if his son asks for a fish, will instead of a fish give him a serpent; or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?”

A good father doesn’t refuse to give his child something good, and never gives his child something harmful. But when a good father’s two-year old asks for a cookie he may well give him an orange. We – spiritual two-year olds that we are – often struggle to see how what God gives us serves His purposes. But if we are in Christ, whatever He gives us is for our good and His glory.

Sometimes we get a glimpse of how God is at work, as Paul did 2 Corinthians 1:8-9:

We were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead.

Paul discerns one way God worked through that difficult trial – He highlighted Paul’s dependence on Him. God undoubtedly was accomplishing millions of other objectives simultaneously; as the Apostle says elsewhere, “How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways” (Romans 11:33). Though Paul doesn’t see those millions of accomplishments, he is able to thank God for this one good result of his trial – for this one way this difficulty was an egg and not a scorpion.

So when in the midst of trials and difficulties, look for ways that God may be at work. Ask Him to show you a glimpse of what he is accomplishing.

However, even when we pray for such glimpses, oftentimes we fail to discern any good that results from the evil we experience. How do we thank God “always and for everything” then?

Thank God that He promises that:

  • He is at work – even when we can’t see how
  • He has not given us a scorpion
  • He is sustaining our faith in the midst of the trial
  • He provides in His Word and in church history accounts of others in similarly terrible circumstances – and those worked for the good of His people and the glory of His Name.

I encourage you to cultivate a thankful heart by considering these seven categories. Identify and thank God for one example from each, whether recent or from your past. Thank Him for:

  • One aspect of salvation
  • One obvious gift
  • One clear answer to prayer
  • One good you are tempted to think you earned or produced
  • One good you are tempted to think you deserve
  • One gift you easily overlook
  • One difficulty that considered by itself is not good

You may want to do the entire exercise in one sitting. Alternately, perhaps it would be more beneficial to pick one category a day over the course of a week. In either case, then share these thanksgivings with someone else. Ask him or her to do the same.

Continue to remind yourself that any good, any pleasure, any delight, all health, all wisdom, all knowledge, any growth, any improvement, any Christlikeness comes from God – and they are ours only because of Jesus.  Apart from Him, either the entire human race is destroyed under God’s wrath, or we live in a Genesis 6:5 world: “Every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time” (NIV).

So cultivate a thankful heart. Give thanks always and for everything. Express that thanks to God and to one another.

And so fulfill the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

[This devotion is based on part of the March 27 sermon, “Give Thanks in All Circumstances.” You can listen to that sermon via this link.]

The Foundation for a Thankful Heart

What leads to “spontaneous” gratefulness?

The middle of the night. Wakened – barely – by the sound of raindrops, I turn from my back to my side. My hand accidentally touches Beth’s shoulder. Resting it there, I pray, “Thank You, Lord, for this precious woman.”

The prayer was not the result of a logical chain of reasoning. It simply welled up within me in the moment. It was spontaneous in that sense.

However, if the same sequence of events had happened forty years ago, that prayer would not have occurred. So what has changed in me over these decades that leads my heart to thank God spontaneously?

Scripture tells us again and again that we must be grateful:

  • Psalm 52:9: “I will thank you forever.”
  • Psalm 105:1 (and seventeen other verses): “Give thanks to the LORD.”
  • Colossians 3:15: “Be thankful.”
  • 1 Thessalonians 5:18: “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”
  • 2 Timothy 1:3: “I thank God … as I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day.”

Why are we to be overflowing in thanksgiving to God? Because He is the source of everything good:

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights (James 1:17).

In particular:

His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness (2 Peter 1:3).

Yet I deserve neither good gifts nor everything needed for life and godliness. Rather, I deserve the opposite: punishment from God:

“None is righteous, no, not one; no one understands; no one seeks for God. All have turned aside; together they have become worthless; no one does good, not even one.”… All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…. The wages of sin is death (Romans 3:10-12, 3:23, 6:23).

Yet in His mercy He shone the light of the Gospel in my heart, enabling me to see Jesus for Who He is (2 Corinthians 4:6); He laid my iniquity onto Jesus (Isaiah 53:6); and He therefore declared me righteous “by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24).

A gift! And how should we respond to gifts?

So salvation alone should lead to our giving abundant thanks to God.

Now, I understood the gift of redemption many years ago, and have thanked God for it regularly. That is the base of the foundation of “spontaneous” thanksgiving. But more layers were needed before such thanks would well up within me.

I had to see – and not only see but take to heart – that everything good in this world as well as anything good in me is the result of the grace of God through Jesus Christ.

I had to learn that apart from Him I could do nothing (John 15:5); apart from Him I could not succeed in any business or profession (Deuteronomy 8:17-18); apart from Him there are no beautiful sunsets, no glorious galaxies, no creative people; apart from Him there is no love, no hope, no joy, no peace. For the heavens declare the glory of God (Psalm 19:1), and when we display any goodness, we are reflecting the remnants of His image in us (Genesis 1:26-27).

When, through daily encounters with the Word of God over decades, the Spirit builds these truths in our hearts on to the foundation of redemption, we then thank God spontaneously when we notice a snapdragon in bloom, a chicken pot pie in the oven, or a loving spouse next to us in the bed. Spontaneously – but not so spontaneously. For the foundation was built up over many years.

So now I remind myself every morning and at every meal: This food, this day, this breath, even the ability to move – all of these are mine only because of Jesus. So I thank You, Lord, in His Name.

Do realize – I am not yet fulfilling Ephesians 5:20, “giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” I must continue to grow in thankfulness, to God and to others. But I can look back forty years ago and say with John Newton, “Though I am not what I ought to be, nor what I wish to be, nor what I hope to be– I can truly say that I am not what I once was…. ‘by the grace of God I am what I am!’” (1 Corinthians 15:10).

You too can grow in this grace. Go to the Word. Ask the Spirit to lay this foundation. Remind yourself daily of these truths. And then open your eyes! Notice His gifts! They are all around you.