“Basic Christianity, Part 45” by Romans
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We are continuing in our Series, “Basic Christianity.” Tonight, we are continuing in the review and examination of our Christian walk, as a facet of Basic Christianity. We are going to continue our acrostic review of the phrase, “By Growing in Grace,” in regard to our following in the steps of Christ. For the word “By,” we have covered thus far the letters B and Y. And, from the word “growing,” we have covered the letters G, R,O, W, I and N.
That brings us to the last letter in the word, “Growing,” which of course is “G,” for the phrase: “Give Thanks:” We read in Ephesians 5:20: “Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;”
Albert Barnes writes of this, “Giving thanks always - This is probably designed to be connected with the preceding verse, and to denote that the proper subject of psalms and hymns is thanksgiving and praise. This is indeed always the main design, and should be so regarded; and this part of worship should be so conducted as to keep up in the heart a lively sense of the mercy and goodness of God.
For all things, or all “persons.” Dr. Barrow supposes that the meaning here is, that they were to give thanks for “all persons,” and to regard themselves as under obligations to give thanks for the mercies bestowed upon “the human race,” in accordance with the idea expressed in the Liturgy of the Episcopal church, “We, thine unworthy servants, do give thee most humble and hearty thanks for thy goodness and loving-kindness to us, and to all men.”
This idea is beautiful: and it accords with the requirements of the Scriptures elsewhere; 1Timothy 2:1. “I exhort, therefore, that first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all people. Such is the duty of Christians; and I see no departure from the fair meaning of the words here, in supposing that the apostle may have designed to express such an idea.
The sense, according to this, would be, that we are to praise God for his general mercy to mankind; for all the happiness which mortals are permitted to enjoy; for the love of God to mankind in creation, in providence, and in redemption - just as a grateful child will give thanks for all the kindness shown to his brothers and sisters One obvious effect of this would be to overcome “selfishness,” and to make us rejoice in the happiness of others as well as in our own.
Another effect would be to make us feel a deeper interest in the condition of our fellow creatures. Another would be to elevate and enlarge our conceptions of the goodness of God - directing the mind to all the favors which he has bestowed on the race. Man has much for which to be grateful; and the duty of acknowledging the mercy of God to the race should not be forgotten.
We are often prone so to magnify our calamities, and to contemplate the woes of the race, that we overlook the occasions for gratitude; and we should, therefore, look upon the “mercies” which we enjoy as well as the miseries which we endure, that our hearts may be right. He who looks only on his trials will soon find his mind soured and complaining; he who endeavors to find how many occasions for gratitude he has, will soon find the burden of his sorrows alleviated, and his mind tranquil and calm.
Yet, if the words here are to be taken as in our translation, “for all things.” they are full of force and beauty. At the close of life, and in heaven, we shall see occasion to bless God for all his dealings with us. We shall see that we have not suffered one pang too much, or been required to perform one duty too severe. We shall see that all our afflictions, as well as our mercies were designed for our good, and were needful for us.
Why then should we not bless God in the furnace as well as in the palace; on a bed of pain as well as on a bed of down; in want as well as when sitting down at the splendid banquet? God knows what is best for us; and the way in which he leads us, mysterious though it seem to be now, will yet be seen to have been full of goodness and mercy.
Unto God and the Father - Or, “to God, even the Father.” It cannot mean to God as distinguished from the Father, or first to God and then to the Father, as if the Father were distinct from God. The meaning is, that thanks are to be given specially to God the Father - the great Author of all mercies, and the source of all blessings.
In the name of our Lord Jesus Christ - That is, through his mediation, or trusting in him. The meaning is, that we are “always” to approach God through the mediation of the Lord Jesus. When we ask for mercy, it is to be on his account, or through his merits; when we plead for strength and grace to support us in trial, it is to be in dependence on him;
and when we give thanks, it is to be through him, and because it is through his intervention that we receive all blessings, and by his merits that even the gratitude of beings so sinful as we are can be accepted.”
To this The Sermon Bible adds, “I. The duty of giving thanks is that duty which of all others may be declared natural to man, and which can be declined by none but those whose dispositions almost prove themselves not human. Men are capable of gratitude and well accustomed to give it expression, but, through some mysterious blindness or perverseness, they overlook or deny the prime Benefactor, and, recognising not His hand, they give Him no praise.
There are two reasons to be given for this phenomenon. (1) The first is the practical atheism which loses sight of a First Cause, and idolises second causes; the second is the repugnance there is in our nature to own itself dependent.
II. The duty of thanksgiving becomes still more evident when we consider the subject matter of gratitude. Look (1) at the small or everyday mercies. There is no stronger evidence of human littleness than the disposition to overlook this or that thing as little. God cannot give what is small;
He can give nothing which required not Christ’s blood as its purchase money.And shall a favour which was worth the Crucifixion, a favour which Deity could not have granted unless Deity had taken flesh—shall this be defined as small by our narrow arithmetic?
(2) We also owe God thanks for what men count evils. The advantages of affliction are so many and great, affliction serving as medicine to the soul, and medicine being so needful to souls diseased with sin, that we have reason, not only to be content, but to rejoice in all the crosses and vexations with which we meet.
Let a man be renewed by the Holy Ghost, and he will not fail, if visited by troubles, to believe and feel that "all things work together for good," and therefore to class afflictions amongst benefits. H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 2204
The Duty of Thankfulness in all Things. I. Each person has some one particular trial under which he is not disposed to be thankful, but secretly to complain. He is inclined to think that this trouble or trial is of all others that which is the most difficult for him to bear, that any other than that which oppresses him he could bear with patience. It is very likely the case that the trial which he labours under is indeed of all others the severest to him..
The most obvious reason why our heavenly Father sends any trial or affliction upon us is, doubtless, often this: to draw our hearts off from the world and to fix them more upon Himself. The point, therefore, in which He is most likely to disappoint, and therefore to distress, each one of us is that on which our worldly hearts are most set, for there our particular danger most lies.
Many are the cases of this kind in which we may see that the trial which is put upon us may indeed be the very hardest for us to bear with thankfulness. We must make such trials a subject of prayer, and if we continue to do this, praying that God’s will may be done in us, and not our own, they will at length become subjects of praise also. If we had nothing to lament, we should have nothing to desire.
II. As far as this world is in our hearts, we may well go mourning and disquieted all our days, and see in all things great and small and in all persons matter of complaint; and if we live in this temper, doubtless we shall die in it, and if we die in it, we shall be no company for happy angels, but rather for unhappy and lost spirits, for of him who loves the world we know that the love of the Father is not in him.
It may be said that a thankful spirit is a happy spirit; but this temper is required of us, both because this thankfulness is in itself a great duty to our heavenly Father, and because we shall never be able to fulfil our great and important duties to God and our neighbour without it. Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. vii., p. 217.
I. That many things are occasions of thankfulness to God all will naturally allow, but that in Jesus Christ we are to give thanks for all things and at all times sounds almost strange in our ears, and
we too little consider how very certain and how very important this duty is.
If we will only remember what it is that all true religion consists in, as set before us in the Bible, we shall perceive how very necessary a part of it is thankfulness, not as an occasional feeling, or to be called forth by particular circumstances only, but for all things and at all times.
Every Christian is required to love God with all his heart, and soul, and strength, and he who does this, or sincerely endeavours to do so, will be thankful, not merely for one thing only that God sends, and murmur at another, but will be thankful for all things that his heavenly Father is pleased to give him.
For this is the very nature of love; he who loves another will receive anything from him, not weighing the value of the gift, but receiving it with welcome because it comes from him he loves. And the love of God implies the fullest confidence and rest in His infinite goodness and a full assurance that He ever gives that which is best for us.
II. If we consider all religion to consist in faith, we must still come to the same conclusion. And if there is any misgiving, any difficulty, any impossibility, of being cured and benefited by Him, it is on account of our want of faith. So far, therefore, as we have this faith, it is very evident that we shall give thanks for all things at all times. No Christian can have life without this love of God and this faith in Him, and no one can have this love and faith without being always thankful;
and, therefore, every Christian must be always thankful. No one can be truly thankful but he who is humble; and we cannot be humble unless we mourn constantly for our sins. Let us give thanks to God always for all things, not only for the daily comforts which He showers down upon us, but, above all, giving Him thanks for His fatherly chastisements.
Plain Sermons by Contributors to "Tracts for the Times," vol. vii., p. 211. References: Eph_5:20.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xix., No. 1094; W. V. Robinson, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxix., p. 13; J. Edmunds, Sixty Sermons, p. 406. Eph_5:22-24.—J. H. Evans, Thursday Penny Pulpit, vol. xi., p. 17.”
The Preacher's Homiletical adds, ““Giving thanks always for all things unto God.” God is the active Source of all blessings in creation, providence, and grace, and should be constantly acknowledged in grateful adoration. The thankful heart is the happiest; and it is the happy who sing.
Thanksgiving is the predominating element in praise; and praise is the essence of true worship.
Prayer is not the essence of worship, though it is an important help. Prayer becomes worship when it merges into praise. The reading and exposition of God’s word are not worship. Preaching accomplishes one of its loftiest functions when it incites to praise. Music is not worship; but it may become a valuable accessory.
Christianity has taken hold of music and consecrated and elevated it to the highest uses of worship. It has produced the greatest musicians and the grandest music. All true music is the outward and melodious expression of our dearest and most sacred thoughts and feelings. The musical artist touches what is deepest and best in us. Nature has no false notes. When we praise God aright, worship becomes an act of the highest intelligence, calling forth and exercising our noblest powers.
We are to sing with the Spirit, and we are to sing with the understanding also. Worship is acceptable to God as it is the joyous expression of the soul, brimming over with thankfulness and reverence. We are then brought under the spiritually transforming power of the Being we worship; the worshipper becomes like the object worshipped.”
Finally, for this first verse, I will share with you Matthew Henry's insights. He writes, “Thanksgiving is another duty that the apostle exhorts to. We are appointed to sing psalms, etc., for the expression of our thankfulness to God; but, though we are not always singing, we should never want a disposition for this duty, as we never want matter for it. We must continue it throughout the whole course of our lives; and we should give thanks for all things;
not only for spiritual blessings enjoyed, and eternal ones expected (for what of the former we have in hand, and for what of the other we have in hope), but for temporal mercies too; not only for our comforts, but also for our sanctified afflictions; not only for what immediately concerns ourselves, but for the instances of God's kindness and favour to others also.
It is our duty in every thing to give thanks unto God and the Father, to God as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and our Father in him, in whose name we are to offer up all our prayers, and praises, and spiritual services, that they may be acceptable to God.”
Next, in regard to giving thanks, I offer Paul's words in 1 Thessalonians 5:18: “In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”
Of this, Alexander MacClaren writes, “The duty of continual thankfulness. That, too, is possible only on condition of continual communion with God. As I said in reference to joy, so I say in reference to thankfulness; the look of things in this world depends very largely on the colour of the spectacles through which you behold them.
If a man in communion with God looks at the events of his life as he might put on a pair of coloured glasses to look at a landscape, it will be tinted with a glory and a glow as he looks. The obligation to gratitude, often neglected by us, is singularly, earnestly, and frequently enjoined in the New Testament.
I am afraid that the average Christian man does not recognise its importance as an element in his Christian experience. As directed to the past it means that we do not forget, but that, as we look back, we see the meaning of these old days, and their possible blessings, and the loving purposes which sent them, a great deal more clearly than we did whilst we were passing through them. The mountains that, when you are close to them, are barren rock and cold snow, glow in the distance with royal purples.
And so if we, from our standing point in God, will look back on our lives, losses will disclose themselves as gains, sorrows as harbingers of joy, conflict as a means of peace, the crooked things will be straight, and the rough places plain; and we may for every thing in the past give thanks, if only we ‘pray without ceasing.’
The exhortation as applied to the present means that we bow our wills, that we believe that all things are working together for our good, and that, like Job in his best moments, we shall say, ‘The Lord gave, the Lord hath taken away: blessed be the Name of the Lord.’ Ah, that is hard. It is possible, but it is only possible if we ‘pray without ceasing,’ and dwell beside God all the days of our lives, and all the hours of every day.
Then, and only then, shall we be able to thank Him for all the way by which He hath led us these many years in the wilderness, that has been brightened by the pillar of cloud by day, and the fire by night.”
Finally, we read in The Expositor's Bible, “thanksgiving is a kind of joyful prayer. As a duty, it is recognised by everyone within limits; the difficulty of it is only seen when it is claimed, as here, without limits: "In everything give thanks." That this is no accidental extravagance is shown by its recurrence in other places. To mention only one: in Philippians 4:6 the Apostle writes, "In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God."
Is it really possible to do this thing?
There are times, we all know, at which thanksgiving is natural and easy. When our life has taken the course which we ourselves had purposed, and the result seems to justify our foresight; when those whom we love are prosperous and happy; when we have escaped a great danger, or recovered from a severe illness, we feel, or say we feel, so thankful. Even in such circumstances we are possibly not so thankful as we ought to be.
Perhaps, if we were, our lives would be a great deal happier. But at all events we frankly admit that we have cause for thanksgiving; God has been good to us, even in our own estimate of goodness; and we ought to cherish and express our grateful love toward Him. Let us not forget to do so. It has been said that an unblessed sorrow is the saddest thing in life; but perhaps as sad a thing is an unblessed joy.
And every joy is unblessed for which we do not give God thanks. "Unhallowed pleasures" is a strong expression, which seems proper only to describe gross wickedness; yet it is the very name which describes any pleasure in our life of which we do not recognise God as the Giver, and for which we do not offer Him our humble and hearty thanks. We would not be so apt to protest against the idea of giving thanks in everything if it had ever been our habit to give thanks in anything.
Think of what you call, with thorough conviction, your blessings and your mercies, -your bodily health, your soundness of mind, your calling in this world, the faith which you repose in others and which others repose in you; think of the love of your husband or wife, of all those sweet and tender ties that bind our lives into one; think of the success with which you have wrought out your own purposes, and laboured at your own ideal;
and with all this multitude of mercies before your face, ask whether even for these you have given God thanks. Have they been hallowed and made means of grace to you by your grateful acknowledgment that He is the Giver of them all? If not, it is plain that you have lost much joy, and have to begin the duty of thanksgiving in the easiest and lowest place.
But the Apostle rises high above this when he says, "In everything give thanks." He knew, as I have remarked already, that the Thessalonians had been visited by suffering and death: is there a place for thanksgiving there? Yes, he says; for the Christian does not look on sorrow with the eyes of another man.
When sickness comes to him or to his home; when there is loss to be borne, or disappointment, or bereavement; when his plans are frustrated, his hopes deferred, and the whole conduct of his life simply taken out of his hands, he is still called to give thanks to God. For he knows that God is love. He knows that God has a purpose of His own in his life, -a purpose which at the moment he may not discern, but which he is bound to believe wiser and larger than any he could purpose for himself.
Everyone who has eyes to see must have seen, in the lives of Christian men and women, fruits of sorrow and of suffering which were conspicuously their best possessions, the things for which the whole Church was under obligation to give thanks to God on their behalf. It is not easy at the moment to see what underlies sorrow; it is not possible to grasp by anticipation the beautiful fruits which it yields in the long run to those who accept it without murmuring:
but every Christian knows that all things work together for good to them that love God; and in the strength of that knowledge he is able to keep a thankful heart, however mysterious and trying the providence of God may be. That sorrow, even the deepest and most hopeless, has been blessed, no one can deny. It has taught many a deeper thoughtfulness, a truer estimate of the world and its interests, a more simple trust in God.
It has opened the eyes of many to the sufferings of others, and changed boisterous rudeness into tender and delicate sympathy. It has given many weak ones the opportunity of demonstrating the nearness and the strength of Christ, as out of weakness they have been made strong.
Often the sufferer in a home is the most thankful member of it. Often the bedside is the sunniest spot in the house, though the bedridden one knows that he or she will never be free again. It is not impossible for a Christian in everything to give thanks. But it is only a Christian who can do it, as the last words of the Apostle intimate: "This is the will of God in Christ Jesus to you-ward."
These words may refer to all that has preceded: "Rejoice alway; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks"; or they may refer to the last clause only. Whichever be the case, the Apostle tells us that the ideal in question has only been revealed in Christ, and hence is only within reach of those who know Christ. Till Christ came, no man ever dreamt of rejoicing alway, praying without ceasing, and giving thanks in everything.
There were noble ideals in the world, high, severe, and pure; but nothing so lofty, buoyant, and exhilarating as this. Men did not know God well enough to know what His will for them was; they thought He demanded integrity, probably, and beyond that, silent and passive submission at the most; no one had conceived that God’s will for man was that his life should be made up of joy, prayer, and thanksgiving.
But he who has seen Jesus Christ, and has discovered the meaning of His life, knows that this is the true ideal. For Jesus came into our world, and lived among us, that we might know God; He manifested the name of God that we might put our trust in it; and that name is Love; it is Father.
If we know the Father, it is possible for us, in the spirit of children, to aim at this lofty Christian
ideal; if we do not, it will seem to us utterly unreal.
The will of God in Christ Jesus means the will of the Father; it is only for children that His will exists. Do not put aside the apostolic exhortation as paradox or extravagance; to Christian hearts, to the children of God, he speaks words of truth and soberness when he says, "Rejoice alway; pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks."
Has not Christ Jesus given us peace with God, and made us friends instead of enemies? Is not that a fountain of joy too deep for sorrow to touch? Has He not assured us that He is with us all the days, even to the end of the world? Is not that a ground upon which we can look up in prayer all the day long? Has He not told us that all things work together for good to them that love God?
Of course we cannot trace His operation always; but when we remember the seal with which Christ sealed that great truth; when we remember that in order to fulfil the purpose of God in each of us He laid down His life on our behalf, can we hesitate to trust His word? And if we do not hesitate, but welcome it gladly as our hope in the darkest hour, shall we not try even in everything to give thanks?”
This concludes this evening's Discussion, “Basic Christianity, Part 45.”
This Discussion was originally presented “live” on August 11th, 2020.
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