Rhythms of Thanks: Part 2
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
SERMON TRANSCRIPT
Well, we're so glad to be here with you and continuing our Thanks, our Rhythms and Thanks series. So we're gonna keep diving into that and we're gonna keep talking about it. But the reality is with Thanksgiving, that's not necessarily something that should just be done one month out of the year or one day. It's a rhythm that we wanna have and that we wanna implement in our lives regularly. It's so much bigger than just a season. We use this time of the year to help us remember that, to bring attention to this topic and that's great. And I think that's really important and that's why we're having this series. But the whole idea of calling it Rhythms of Thanks and helping us to create that rhythm is so that it will go beyond the season. It will go beyond the one day that we really acknowledge it in the year. Because the Bible talks about Thanksgiving and has talked about this long before we ever had a national holiday about it. So we want to create these habits and these rhythms in our lives that will allow us to continue this practice on beyond just November or Thanksgiving Day.
So today we're gonna look at some practical ways to re-weave gratitude into our everyday lives. So we want to create a habit and a rhythm that will renew our mind. That's really ultimately what we're going for. We have habits in our lives in order to make changes. There's something we want to change or something we want to be better at or we want it to look different. So we create a habit in our life in order to bring about that change. And the same thing is true with our practice of gratitude. And when we have these habits that renew our minds and create a difference, it is transformational, or it should be. It should transform our hearts. And so gratitude is just a wonderful tool that we use to help us do that. So we're gonna start off today by looking at 1 Thessalonians 5. You can pull it up on your phone or your Bible. We'll also have it on the screens. It's a really short verse, but it's one that's often used on this topic. And so I think it's a really great place for us to start off today. So 1 Thessalonians, so the New Testament written by the Apostle Paul, chapter 5, verse 16 through 18, it says, "Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. "Rejoice always, pray continually, "give thanks in all circumstances." Joy, prayer, and giving thanks, these are all marks of the Christian. These are all marks of a follower of Jesus. And so they should be embedded into our everyday life. But this requires us to have a rhythm of thanksgiving. It requires us to put this in to our everyday to make it a habit. But it's also, I think, important for us to understand, and even maybe helpful just in this practice to remember that it is the Holy Spirit who produces these things in us. There are people who are not followers of Jesus who can be joyful, or maybe they pray to something or someone, and they can even be grateful. They can show gratitude. But when it comes to the spiritual life, when it comes to practicing these things in our Christian walk, it is the Holy Spirit that produces them in us. We don't have to have the gumption to do it. We don't have to figure out how to make these things happen in all situations, in all circumstances, by our own strength, because they are done by the power of the Holy Spirit in us, by His grace. And so we can have gratitude in all circumstances because we have Him in us working in our lives.
Actually, I have a degree in psychology, and so whenever we have some series like this, I'm always so interested on the psychology side of things. So I did a little bit of research for us this week, and there actually have been several studies done on gratitude and the effects and the impact that gratitude and practicing gratitude has on our lives. They found across the board, there's varying degrees of effectiveness, but across the board, researchers found that there was marked and measurable improvement in emotional, mental, relational, and even physical well-being when gratitude was practiced regularly. A 2003 study looked at three groups of people. They divided them up into three groups of people, and they studied the effects of their practices. So one group had a gratitude list. They kept a list of things that they were grateful for. The second group kept a hassles list, so struggles, things, problems that they were facing. They kept track of that. And then the third group had a neutral events list, so just things that happened, neither good nor bad, but kept a running list of those neutral events. And what they found was that people who wrote gratitude lists reported higher well-being, more positive mood, better sleep, and fewer physical complaints compared with other groups. Now, the mental and the positive outlook, the mood boost, that to me seems understandable. Like that doesn't surprise me, but what surprised me was that they had better sleep and fewer physical complaints. Like that's incredible, that this practice that God has given us is not only for our own mental well-being, but it makes us physically better. That is wild to me, I love that.
Another, a 2005 study looked at the impact of positive psychology activities. So a couple of, an example of those would be three good things list, where everyday participants wrote down three good things. Another one was the gratitude visit, where they would write a letter of gratitude and thanks to someone, and then they would deliver that letter to that person. So several of these activities were studied, and they produced reliable increases in happiness and decreased in depressive symptoms. And some of these effects lasted for months. It wasn't just that you felt good in the moment, they had these lasting effects continue on because of choosing to be grateful. I love when science proves scripture. God created both, so it's amazing, and I love being able to see that. The thing is, we know from science and from scripture that we can change the neural pathways in our brain. I'm sure some of you are really familiar with this, but when we have thoughts over and over again, good or bad, it creates pathways, like a divot in a dirt road. When you drive over it, over and over again on the same place, it creates this divot in the road. The same is true with our thoughts. So when we have wrong thinking or negative thinking or we're constantly dwelling on that bad thing, living a life of complaining instead of gratitude, it creates a pathway. But the reverse is also true. When we are focused on positive things, when we are choosing to be grateful, when we are dwelling on things that are good, when we have a daily rhythm, a consistent daily rhythm, it creates a new divot. It creates a new pathway in our brain. This builds us up and gives us better and more positive wellbeing.
I said scripture shows us this, so let's look at a few of those. The apostle Paul writes in Philippians 4:8, "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things." Paul isn't just encouraging us to live in a fantasy world and only think about the good stuff. The man knows trials, okay? He knows the bad parts of life. But what he's saying here is that you've gotta dwell on what is good because he knew the impact it would have on our lives. Our thoughts create realities. Whether our thoughts are true or not, like objectively true, they still create the realities in our lives. So whatever we choose to dwell on, if we choose to be a complainer or if we choose to be a person of gratefulness, that will create the reality in our life.
Paul also tells us in Romans 12, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, His good, pleasing, and perfect will." We are transformed when our mind is renewed. And our mind is renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit working in us and by thinking on what is true and right and good and pure and lovely. If we want transformation in our lives, and as Christ followers, I think that we do, but if we want transformation and to be made more into the image and likeness of Christ, we have to have that renewed mind. We have to create those new neural pathways and allow the Holy Spirit to transform us through gratitude and by consistently practicing it with a rhythm of thanks. In order to make this a habit, I want us to look at a couple of principles from Scripture that I think help us to better understand kind of the why and the how of practicing gratitude. Why is this really important? We've seen the science of it, but how can we model off of Scripture?
Number one, the first thing is we give thanks because of who God is. Giving thanks is not circumstantial. As we saw in 1 Thessalonians, it says, "Give thanks in all circumstances." Well, all circumstances are not ideal. All circumstances are not good. There are some real, real tough circumstances. So we don't give thanks because of our circumstances. We give thanks in our circumstances. And we can do this even if we're not necessarily grateful for the thing we're going through, for the situation, for the difficult person we're dealing with. We can do this because we can be grateful for who God is despite our circumstances. We can thank God for the promises we know He will keep because He's been faithful to do it before. We can thank Him for His protection or His provision. We can thank Him for His presence. Friends, His presence is good enough. That is enough. That is all we need to be grateful. I think of the story in Acts 16 where the Apostle Paul and his buddy Silas were in prison. It was the middle of the night and they were singing praises and praying to God. I don't think that they were singing praises and praying because they were thankful to be in prison. I don't think that's what they were praising God for. But they were still praising Him in that circumstance because they knew who God is. They knew His character. They knew His goodness. And so they knew they had something to be thankful for. There's a story in the Old Testament that also speaks to this. At this point in, it's in 2 Chronicles 20, the nation of Israel has been divided. And there's Israel and Judah. And King Jehoshaphat, that's easy to say when you're lacking sleep, King Jehoshaphat is the king of Judah. And he's a good king. And he loves the Lord and is seeking Him. And he's given some intel that there is another nation, another army coming to attack Judah. So he seeks the Lord on how to proceed and how to deal with this. And a prophet tells him through a message from the Lord that the Lord says He will fight the battle for them and give them victory. Now, they still had to go to battle. They still had this unfortunate circumstance, this less than ideal situation. They had to go to battle, but they were going to trust God in this. So as they were setting out to fight this army, King Jehoshaphat appointed men to go before the army to praise God. So 2 Chronicles 20:21-22 says, "After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and to praise Him for the splendor of His holiness. As they went out at the head of the army, saying, 'Give thanks to the Lord for His love endures forever.' As they began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushes against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who were invading Judah, and they were defeated.”
They praised and sang to Him because of the splendor of His holiness. They gave thanks because of who God is. They didn't praise God, and they weren't praising Him 'cause they had to go to battle or because they were being invaded by an enemy army. They weren't even necessarily praising God for the victory that He had promised. They were praising Him for His holiness. They knew their God. They knew His character, and they knew that that was all that was required of them to give thanks, regardless of the outcome. They trusted God that He would be good on His word, but regardless of what happened, they knew that they could praise God and give Him thanks.
This first idea really kind of leads us into the second one, and it's that our praise is connected to Thanksgiving. Our praise is connected to our Thanksgiving. If we are going to live our lives as living sacrifices, as Romans 12 says, if we're going to worship God with our being, with our whole selves, if we're gonna live a life that glorifies God, we have to include a practice of gratitude. They go hand in hand. Psalm 145:10 says, "All your works praise you, Lord. Your faithful people extol you." That's the NIV version. In the ESV version, it says, "All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your saints shall bless you." So is it, which is it? Is it give praise or give thanks? Yes, it's both. The Hebrew word there is yada. We're gonna yada God. We're gonna give thanks, and we are going to, oops, sorry. We're gonna give thanks, and we're going to praise Him. Yada! They are so closely connected, but that word yada also means confession. When we praise and we give thanks to God, when we yada Him, we are confessing and reminding ourselves, but also confessing to the world His goodness, His love, His redemption. When we have a practice of gratitude, we look different than the world, and we confess through thanksgiving the goodness and the character of our God. We get to point people to Jesus through our praise and confession of thanksgiving. Psalm 107:1 says, "Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His love endures forever." That give thanks is the same word from Psalm 145. We get to praise Him with thanksgiving. It's all connected. They go hand in hand in our practice in life. So as we look, we're gonna look at some practical ways that we can do this, but as we dive into those, I want us to keep in mind and remember that we are giving thanks in our circumstances, not because of them, and because of who God is, and that our praise has to include thanksgiving.
So getting into a little bit of the nitty gritty, some practical things that I hope you can take home with you today to really dive into this practice and create your own rhythm of thanksgiving. Number one is write it down. We are a forgetful people. Y'all, I can tell you the lyrics to several songs from high school, "Can't Tell You What's On My To-Do List Tomorrow." Don't know. But if I write it down, if I tell, "Hey, Siri, add this to my list," I will remember it because I wrote it down. So write it down. We have the calendars on your table. If you don't have one already, take one home with you. It's only the ninth, you can catch up. You can think of nine things to add to the calendar and get back on track. But write it down. Practice gratitude by writing it down. Maybe you would rather keep it in a journal. Maybe you journal regularly and you can just add things that you're grateful for in that journal. Some people will actually have gratitude journals that that is the only thing that's in them. There's an author, Anne Voskamp, who wrote a book called "A Thousand Gifts," and she had set out to write down a thousand things that she was grateful for. And she just had a notebook out on her kitchen counter, and as it came to mind, she would write them down. But she kept track of them so that she could go back and look at them and see what God had done in her life. So maybe that's for you, is just a gratitude journal. Maybe you're a little bit more high tech and you just wanna keep them in a notes app on your phone 'cause we always have our phones. So we can just type it up real quick. Or maybe you text it to a friend. Maybe there's a group of you that for accountability and encouragement, you text each other every day what you're grateful for. Build each other up through this practice and this rhythm. However you decide to do it, be sure to write it down in some shape or way.
The second thing is that we give things first thing in the morning. Start your morning by thanking God for something, anything. Before you get out of bed, before you ask Him for anything, give Him thanks. Thank Him for waking you up for another day. Thank Him for who He is, that He is good. But start your morning off with thanksgiving. The next one is to do it before meals. I think this one can kind of be a little bit of more of a rote practice that we just kind of do without thinking about it. But think about it. When you pray, we give thanks for the provision of the food. But this is a natural thing that many of us already do three times a day. But when we're a little bit more intentional about it, it can help rewire that brain and create those new pathways. Jesus did this often before a meal, before He instituted communion, before He fed the 5,000, before He ate with His disciples, He prayed and gave thanks. So we can model that as well. Next one is to give thanks when we remember. Now I know just that we are just forgetful people. So it's not so much that we remember on our own accord, but when the Holy Spirit brings something to mind for us, we can give thanks. Paul wrote in, Paul is the man of the hour, okay? Paul wrote in Philippians, he says, "I thank my God every time I remember you." When the church was called to Paul's mind, he thanked God for them. So as the Lord brings people or situations or the blessings in your life to mind, thank Him for it. Let them be that trigger for you. Several years ago, I went through this really weird season where every time I looked at the clock, it was the same numbers. So it was either like 12:12, like repeated numbers, or it was all the same, like 2:22. And it happened a weird amount. And so I just started praying every time I saw this happen, it just kind of was a trigger for me to pray for whatever had come to mind in the moment. So whatever that, that's not necessarily in your control, but maybe you find something like putting Post-its around your house, on the mirror, on the fridge, on your car, where it will trigger you to give thanks for something. Perhaps it's associating a person or a thing with a task, with a chore or an activity. So every time you brush your teeth, you give thanks for your spouse. Or every time you do your dishes, you give thanks for your children who probably are the ones who made the dirty dishes. Or maybe every time you're standing and making your coffee, you thank God for coffee, whatever it is. Associate that thing with that activity and it will trigger you to practice gratitude in that moment. It could even be a day of the week. Every Monday you pray and thank God for the same thing. Every Tuesday, it's something different.
But it's creating this habit in this rhythm in your life. This is what they call in the psychology world, habit stacking. You already have the habit of brushing your teeth or taking a shower or making your coffee. So just stack the habit of gratitude on top of it. And it'll create those pathways. It'll create that rhythm in your life. Lastly, we can practice gratitude before we go to bed. End the night by thanking God for something from your day. It is such a peaceful way to prepare for rest. Often at night, our thoughts begin to spiral. We start thinking about anything and everything. We start worrying, stress ramps up, anxiety seeps in to our thoughts. We replay all the bad things that happen from the day or how we should have done it differently. So instead, interrupt that spiral with gratitude. When we give thanks, instead of stressing, it allows our minds to focus on what is good from the day before we go to sleep. And that creates so much restful sleep. Whatever it is, make it work for you. These are rhythms that are supposed to fit into your life. And so you may have to make some tweaks and adjustments, but choose something that will work for you in the season that you're in. Make it a priority because as I said before, gratitude is a mark of a Christ follower. So when we are practicing the way of Jesus, we should be marked by an attitude of gratitude, by giving thanks in all circumstances. We're gonna wrap up our time today by having just a quick discussion question at our table. I want you to just turn to someone at your table and tell them which of these practices you're gonna implement this week. Maybe even tell them how you plan on making that happen. But just turn to your neighbor and talk about a few things and we're gonna have the worship team come up and finish this out.