Rev. Mark A. Loest, Pastor
Immanuel Ev. Lutheran Church of Frankentrost
Saginaw, Michigan
Stewardship 2007 II (September 23, 2007) “Gratitude”
Text – Colossians 3:16

09-23-2007 audio

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. (Colossians 3:16 ESV)

Pray:
O God, grant that we always follow Your Word and praise and thank our dear Lord Jesus Christ for His precious blood, which He so freely offered for us. And keep us form the terrible vice of ingratitude and forgetfulness of Your blessings. Amen.

Dear fellow redeemed in Christ,
Last Sunday we began our Stewardship Series with the theme of “Faith.” And at the beginning of that sermon I pointed out that faith in Jesus is God’s greatest gift and that the Apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 9:15, “Thanks be to God,” he says, “for His indescribable gift!”

Today our theme is about giving that thanks, or gratitude.

Before we speak about gratitude, we first have to speak about ingratitude, just like you have to speak about the Law, before you can speak about the Gospel. And what we find in the Bible comes as no surprise: that there are more examples of ingratitude than gratitude, this is particularly true of the Old Testament more than of the New.

Right away Adam and Eve expressed their ingratitude for all God had done for them—creating them, giving them a wonderful place to live, and His Word, by going against that Word and eating from the tree which God had forbidden them. All they had to do in thanks to God was to avoid that one Tree—out of all the plants and everything else God had made and given them dominion over—and they would have lived forever.

As the saying goes, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree and right away Adam and Eve’s eldest son is recorded as ungrateful and expressed this ingratitude—which was, again, rebellion against the Word of God—and killed his brother Abel out of jealousy.

Now after that—the world had a pretty dismal start and continued along the same path.
Esau sold His birthright for a bowl of porridge!
The children lost the privilege of immediately entering the Promised Land because of their ingratitude and incessant grumbling in the wilderness.
The writer of Hebrews tell us,

For who were those who heard and yet rebelled? Was it not all those who left Egypt led by Moses? And with whom was he provoked for forty years? Was it not with those who sinned, whose bodies fell in the wilderness? And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient? So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief. (Hebrews 3:16-19 ESV)

Samson gave away the secret of his strength to a sinful woman. David risked the Kingdom for a one night stand with Bathsheba. Israel eventually went into captivity and lost their land, city and Temple because false gods replaced for them the LORD GOD who had made and given them all things and had delivered them from their enemies and was their Savior.

And let’s not imagine for one moment that in the New Testament we don’t find examples of ingratitude! The Evangelist St. John begins His Gospel by telling us,

He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. (John 1:10-11 ESV)

Our Savior met ingratitude among those–particularly the Pharisees, and others—who thought they were religious. Their self righteousness replaced any need for the Savior and the Salvation He came to give to them and all people so richly and freely.

In the New Testament, a thankless heart and ingratitude is characteristic of unbelief and unfaith.
In the Gospels only those who repented and believed the Gospel, such as the one Samaritan Leper, showed gratitude.

We have then, in contrast Jesus. Jesus always expressed gratitude to His heavenly Father. On the night He was betrayed—when He as was about to go to His death—Jesus prayed a prayer we call His “High Priestly Prayer,” in which He gave thanks to the Father, even as He faced death.

No other human being could do this, but the eternal Son of God. He prayed that prayer for our benefit as much as for the disciples so that we might know that on our behalf He went willing and obediently to the cross.

Notice how in our Scripture the Apostle Paul speaks of gratitude in the context of the Divine Service. He doesn’t say show gratitude by sitting at home and thinking about how wonderful creation is. He doesn’t demand of us a tithe, for which there is no command for New Testament Christians. God looks for gratitude first and foremost in our joining other Christians in the Divine Service. Therefore the Apostle Paul says,

Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. (Colossians 3:16 ESV)

The ungrateful heart is absent and absents itself from church. This is shown by the examples I gave earlier: Cain who chose the worship of his heart rather than the Word of God; Ananias and Sapphira who sent their offering ahead, but again as an offering of the hypocrite which the Holy Spirit revealed and then dealt with.

What is the chief concern I encounter in counsel with the homebound and nursing home members of our congregation? Their troubled hearts because they can’t make it to church! That the young and able so often despise preaching and God’s Word will stand in judgment against them when the Lord reveals how they laughed at His Word while the weakest of His servants cried to be in the House of the Lord in their last years while so many young and able couldn’t further themselves.

The highest form of Thanksgiving takes place right here upon this altar. I am not taking about the offering plates which we place over the credence table, (that’s not to imply that they are full of mammon and unworthy of the altar—our offerings are made worthy by faith in Christ!)

No, the altar has a greater purpose than a simple table or shelf. The altar is where the very body and blood of Christ comes to us in the Lord’s Supper. Now we learn in the Catechism that one of the names of the Sacrament is “Eucharist” which means, “to give thanks.” Jesus gave thanks before He instituted His Supper. We give thanks not in the sense of the Mass—as if we could offer to God the sacrifice of His Son—but to thank Him for the redemption He has prepared for us through Jesus Christ—the forgiveness of sins, life and salvation that is ours because of Jesus’ death on the cross.

It is obvious, then—to all Christians—that the chief way to show gratitude is worship: which is the joyful receiving all the gifts God gives to in Word and Sacrament. Thankfulness on the part of the members of this congregation will always begin in the Divine Service, such has now.

Apart from the Divine Service, the Gratitude of the Christian is lived out in daily thanksgiving to God. In the First Article of the Creed we acknowledge that God has made us and all creatures; and that He has given us our body and soul, eyes, ears, and all our members, our reason and all our senses, and still takes care of them.

He also gives clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, wife and children, land, animals, and all I have. He richly and daily pro vides me with all that I need to support this body and life. He defends me against all danger and guards and protects me from all evil.
And so we say,

All this He does only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me. For all this it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him. Amen.