Sermon Notes 11-24-2019

Thanksgiving

It's more than a day

It's an attitude

We all live in a great country, we have lots of opportunities, we live in a country where we can worship God freely, work and make our own money, let’s face it we have a lot to be thankful for, but most of us aren’t!

The research is in!

We are hardwired to see negative!

In almost any interaction, we are more likely to notice negative things and later remember them more vividly.

As humans, we tend to:

·      Remember traumatic experiences better than positive ones

·      Recall insults better than praise

·      React more strongly to negative stimuli

·      Think about negative things more frequently than positive ones

·      Respond more strongly to negative events than to equally positive ones

But by God's grace, we can work to overcome that!! 

So, let’s compare 2 people, 

let’s call one: Negative Nancy!

and the other: Grateful Greg!

Let’s look at negative Nancy first!

Philippians 2:14–15 (ESV)

¹⁴ Do all things without grumbling or disputing, 

¹⁵ that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, 

Most of us are very unthankful!

Let’s be honest. None of us are as thankful as we should be. We love to complain, and our attention is usually on the negative. 

Nancy’s Point of view

Thanksgiving isn’t easy. Although the Bible tells us to do everything without complaining, maybe just maybe we haven’t perfected it yet. Surely if Paul knew how good it felt to be a complainer, he’d change his tune. These practices are guaranteed to make you an efficient complainer.

Keep a journal. 

·      No matter how minute, keep track of everything that bugs you. 

o   We all have pet peeves. 

o   If you write these annoyances down, you’ll keep track of them better. 

o   Try to write down three or four things that irritate you daily. 

o   Regardless of how insignificant these issues are:

Set aside time daily to ponder what other people do to bug you.

Whenever you find yourself accidentally happy, take your journal out and review all of your frustrations. Maybe even write these frustrations on notecards and post them around your house.

Use negative words whenever you can. 

·      The lives of grateful people aren’t that different from yours, but they’re not realists like us. 

·      They simply need to practice reciting their frustrations more.

·       Language matters so be mindful of the adjectives you use. 

·      The more strongly you label things, the better you’re going to be able to cultivate a grumbling spirit. 

Use adjectives like:

·      Horrible

·      Bad

·      Atrocious

·      Irritating

·      Stupid

Be constantly distracted. 

Thankful people usually can’t (or refuse to) remember the bad stuff that’s happened in the past. 

·      They don’t worry enough about all the awful things that could happen in the future.

·       If you want to be an A+ complainer, you must be able to do both. 

·      Always, always, always be multitasking. 

·      Don’t waste your time by simply enjoying a meal. 

·      Entertain yourself constantly by looking at your phone and watching TV. 

·      If you give yourself too much time to focus on the good stuff happening around you all the time, you’ll miss out on the potential threats on the horizon or bad stuff you’ve already experienced.

Focus on yourself when you pray. 

·      Use your prayer time to get what you want. 

·      Praising God for who He is will waste your time. 

·      He already knows how great He is. 

·      He doesn’t need you blabbering on about it. 

·      Instead remind Him of everything you want that you don’t have.

Let your health deteriorate. 

·      Thanksgiving and physical health tend to work together. 

·      Healthy people are usually grateful and positive. 

·      Then the positivity tends to just lead to healthy decisions. It’s a vicious time-wasting circle.

·      Make sure you’re never getting all of the sleep you need. 

·      When you’re tired, you get anxious. Anxiety is like steroids for complainers.

Exercise is poison. You get endorphins when you exercise. Those positive chemicals in your body prevent you from recognizing the awful realities of the world. You can’t afford to let anything stand in the way of that.

Of course, we don’t need help to become serious complainers. Fortunately, you can reverse all the points we just talked about. Don’t be like negative Nancy, be like grateful Gregg!

Now for Grateful Gregg 

Ephesians 5:18–21 (ESV)

¹⁸ And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, 

¹⁹ addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, 

²⁰ giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 

²¹ submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. 

So, let’s look at Grateful Gregg’s habits, and figure out how we can become more thankful! 

Gregg Regularly practices giving thanks. 

·      We should make a habit of expressing gratitude. 

·      Thankfulness rather than criticism should be our default position. 

·      When you see something good in your life, point it out. Thank God for it. 

·      We all complain occasionally, but practice responding to your own complaining by finding things to be thankful for. 

·      This helps to rewire your brain to be as proficient at recognizing the good in your life as you are at identifying the bad.

ALWAYS, Express gratitude regardless of the situation. 

·      Remember Nancy talking about Paul

·      Paul tells the Thessalonians to give thanks in all circumstances because God wills it (1 Thess. 5:18). 

o   Why? We never see the full picture. 

o   We can’t look at every situation and clearly understand why it’s happening. 

o   We can only know God is at work in these situations and working them out for our good and His glory (Romans 8:28).

·      Regardless of what’s happening, we can thank God for His presence. 

·      He is redeeming the situation and sustaining us through it. 

·      On our own, we focus on the current situation. 

·      We rise above the situation when we purposefully look for what God is doing in the middle of it. 

·      A.W. Tozer says, “Perhaps it takes a purer faith to praise God for unrealized blessings than for those we once enjoyed or those we enjoy now.”

Praise God when all is well. (train now, the storm is coming) 

You may believe this is obvious, but it’s critical we do it. 

·      We’re conditioned to believe that life will go well for us. 

·      When life runs smoothly, we don’t tend to see this as God’s gift to us. 

·      We don’t see how He protects and guides us along the way to green pastures and still waters.

Gregg learns from his past! 

He always learns to see how bad experiences can produce good outcomes. 

·      We should all take some time to consider the benefits of the difficult times in our lives. 

·      After a period away from the situation, we should be able to see the good that came out of those experiences. 

·      Often we will be able to see how those bad experiences helped us gather strength and momentum for future blessings in our lives. 

·      Regardless of that, learning to see past trials through eternity’s perspective enables us to be more thankful during times of struggle.

He makes gratitude a part of his interactions with other people. 

·      Nancy is always looking for the bad in others, the fault in others

·      Gregg on the other hand, see the good and positive in others

o   We all have our good and bad qualities, Greggs focuses on the good

·      Gratitude should impact both our relationship with God and our relationships with other people. 

·      Rick Warren once said, “To appreciate means to raise in value. That’s not only true of things, it’s true of people. 

·      When you appreciate somebody, you literally raise their value. 

·      We ought to appreciate people because it increases their self-worth.” 

·      Make it a regular practice to say thank you to people in your life. 

·      Sadly, often, the people we express gratitude with the least in our lives are those the closest to us.

Lastly, Gregg Leans into the strength gratitude provides. 

·      I know many people who have been through extremely tough situations. 

·      I’ve noticed those who are the most grateful and have learned to see God’s work regularly show the most perseverance.

Everything good in your life comes from God (James 1:17). 

We’ll grow closer to God when we understand this truth and build our lives around it. Giving thanks in the good and the bad times, learning to see the good in the people around us, and trusting God in all things!