"AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE"

TEXT: James 1:17
 
INTRO:

A. 🔹Most religions engender fear in their followers.  🔹Christ removes fear and encourages thanksgiving and praise to God.  🔹God is not some ogre or monster in heaven who delights in the miseries of His people, 🔹but rather is defined in our text as the "Father of lights...(who sends) every good and perfect gift..."
 
B. He wants us to praise Him and those who develop "AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE" have thankful hearts and turn life's tragedies into triumphs and make the best out of the worst of circumstances and are a delight to be around.  Just what is thanksgiving?
 
QUOTES:
Matthew Henry: "Thanksgiving is a proper answer to dark and disquieting thoughts and may be an effectual means to silence them." 
John Henry Jowett: "Gratitude is a vaccine, an antitoxin and an antiseptic." 
Anon: "Thanksgiving destroys the poison of faultfinding and grumbling."
 
TRANS: This verse, if applied, will produce "AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE"...
 
I.  GRATITUDE FOR GOOD:  "Every good..."
 
A. God Is Good.
 
B. God Is The Author of Good:
 
ILLUS: Not so according to the Calvinist who makes God the Author of Evil:  "All things including even the wicked actions of wicked men and devils – are brought to pass in accordance with God's eternal purpose."  G. Grecham Machen
 
   1. The thankful person is also the thoughtful person and gives God the glory for every "good" thing in life.
   2. In my list of things for which to praise the Lord I never include my sin, demons, Satan, perversion, etc.  Why? Because God is good!
 
ILLUS: The thankful person says: "I have so much more than I deserve."  The unthankful person says: "I deserve so much more than I have."
 
II. GRATITUDE FOR GIFTS: "Every...perfect gift..."
 
A. The Gift of God's Grace:  God gives us what we do not deserve!
 
B. The Gift of God's Son:
 
C. The Gift of God's People:
 
D. The Gift of A Thorn:
 
   1. God doesn't SEND thorns, but He may permit them.
 
NOTE: Paul calls his "thorn in the flesh" a messenger of Satan, but he realized that it was one of those "all things" which, though not good in itself was working together for good for him.
 
ILLUS: Fanny Crosby, the blind hymn writer of 8000 hymns, wrote her first poem at age 8: 
Oh, what a happy child I am,  Although I cannot see!
I am resolved that in this world, Contented I will be.
How many blessings I enjoy - That other people don't! 
So weep or sigh because I'm blind, I cannot, nor I won't!
 
   2. God permits many things we consider thorns which develop a thankful heart.
 
ILLUS: Matthew Henry was once mugged.  Reflecting on the experience he wrote in his diary: "Let me be thankful, first, because I was never robbed before; second, because although they took my purse, they did not take my life; third, because, although they took my all, it was not much; and fourth, because it was I who was robbed, no I who robbed."
 
III. GRATITUDE FOR GOD:  "the Father..."
 
A. He is the Father of Lights:  (not the father of lies or the Prince of darkness!)
    
B. He is the Unchanging Father:  "no variableness..."
 
C. He is not a Fickle Father: "nor shadow of turning..."
 
CONCL: Let's just praise the Lord tonight and develop
​

​AN ATTITUDE FOR GRATITUDE FOR GOOD...GIFTS...and GOD!
 
11/24/93