CULTIVATING GRATITUDE
11-20-05
Ken Peterson
Deut. 8:1-18
TEXT: Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God.... Otherwise, when you eat and are satisfied, when you build fine houses and settle down and when... your silver and gold increase and all you have is multiplied, then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.... You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.” But remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth....
– Deut. 8:11-14 & 17-18 [bold added for emphasis]
INTRODUCTION
A few years ago, USA Today surveyed wealthy senior corporate executives, asking them to what they credited their current financial status to. They could give more than one answer. Here’s a summary of results of why they thought they were successful:
99% = hard work
97% = intelligence and good sense
83% = higher than average I.Q.
62% = being the best in every situation
32% = luck
While I’m sure all those things are wonderful qualities, do you notice the absence of God from the list? He gets no mention.
In her book, Kids Say the Greatest Things About God, Randi MacKall gives results from hundreds of interviews with kids ages two to ten. In response to, “What do you thank God for?”, one little boy said:
“People make cars and footballs and television and skates and clothes. So I just thank God for myself, ‘cause nobody else could have made me.”
Well, that’s a start, isn’t it?
Our text this morning comes from Deuteronomy, which contains Moses’ final instructions to the nation of Israel before they go into the promised land. It contains a review of the law and important reminders. Our text outlines a warning of the dangers of forgetting God when we are successful and prosperous. They are warnings we do well to heed today.
THE DANGER OF PRIDE
As they anticipated “the good life” in the promised land, Moses, directed by God, recognizes our heart’s tendency that once we become comfortable, we easily become complacent. When life is easy, we can feel self-sufficient and assume that our success is all do to us. Then we begin to feel we are somehow entitled to such blessings. That is what the Bible calls pride– often rightly considered the deadliest of all sins.
Abraham Lincoln in his 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation wrote:
“We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated by unbroken success, we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us.”
If that was our condition in 1863, certainly we are in even greater need of remembering God today! Our hearts, in general, are calloused with pride, intoxicated by our success, and feeling self-sufficient. Times of adversity do have a way of breaking through our pride and bringing us back to God. Lincoln’s proclamation shows forth the repentance and humility prompted by the devastation of the Civil War. Gratitude is needed as an antitoxin against pride in our hearts. When we are thankful, we are acknowledging that what is given is not do to us. God is the giver and ultimately the source of all good gifts. Can any of us really take credit for the country we were born in, the family we were born in, our physical, emotional and mental capacities, or anything else?
Charles Swindoll, in his book, Growing Strong in the Seasons of Life, writes:
“I recall, as a little barefoot boy with a cowlick of snow-white hair on my forehead, standing erect in my classroom and repeating the “Pledge of Allegiance” one Thanks-giving season. Our nation was at war and times were hard. My teacher had lost her husband on the blood-washed shores of Normandy. As we later bowed our heads for prayer she wept aloud. I did too. All the class joined in. She stumbled through one of the most moving expressions of gratitude and praise that ever emerged from a soul plunged in pain. At that time in my young life, I fell strangely in love with Thanksgiving. Lost in sympathy and a boy’s pity for his teacher, I walked home very slowly that afternoon. Although only a child, I had profound feelings of gratitude for my country... my friends... my school... my church... my family. I swore before God that I would fight to the end to keep this land free from foes who would take away America’s distinctives and the joys of living in this good land. I have never forgotten my childhood promise. I never shall.”
Remembering is crucial to keeping us from pride as our text affirms. Be careful that you do not forget the LORD your God.... Then your heart will become proud and you will forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.... You may say to yourself, “My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.”
REMEMBER
“Remember” is a big word in the Bible– used 165 times. It is used 16 times in Deuteronomy and twice in this chapter. Also, “Do not forget” is used three times in this chapter and nine times in Deuteronomy. The word “remember” in the Hebrew is dynamic, an action verb meaning to call to mind, extol, remind, report, record, celebrate. Specifically here, the thrust is to remember God’s powerful acts of delivering them from Egypt and a life of hopeless slavery.
Ellen Vaughn in a recent book tells about a friend whom the Lord rescued from active addiction to alcohol. He keeps his eyeglasses under the bed at night. Then, in order to retrieve them in the morning, he is forced to get down on his knees. While there on his knees, he purposefully remembers his slavery and thanks God for his deliverance. That would be a good position for everyone to begin their day in.
When we take communion, we are called to do it in remembrance of Him. The Eucharist is another name for communion. The Greek root of “eucharist” is eucharistos: grateful. Remember and be grateful for Christ’s redemption. It involves forgiveness of our sins and being set free from the dominion of sin. It means being empowered to live brand new lives to His praise and glory.
Sometimes in the Bible, we are told God’s people put up a stone, or a monument to remind them of something God did there. After the miraculous crossing of the Jordan River, a monument was built of 12 stones, one for each tribe of Israel. And, there were many others. It is a good practice for us to have reminders of God’s powerful acts of grace we’ve experienced. They keep us mindful and grateful.
Here’s a piece of marble I kept on my desk at church for many years to remind me of Marble Colorado. There is a wonderful Christian retreat center there operated by Dr. Louis McBurney, a Christian psychiatrist, for the healing of pastor’s and spouses who are facing emotional crises. I was in the midst of serious burn-out, and the two weeks there were wonderfully saving, healing, and delivering. But, I never want to forget and think I can handle things– hence this piece of marble picked up from the mountain there.
I’d like to challenge you to do some active remembering this week. Each night, before going to bed, take five or ten minutes to review your day and write down things you are grateful for from that day’s journey. Then, offer your thanks to God. I think you’ll be surprised at how much you have to be thankful for– a smile, a word of encouragement, a project that went super-well saving you lots of time, chance encounters that seemed providential, some beauty that stirred your heart, and so on.
REMEMBER THE POOR
There are many, many admonitions to Israel to remember the poor. In the New Testament, beginning with Jesus, this has been an important emphasis for Christians to be involved in caring for the most needy and desperate around us. It is noteworthy that Paul, as he describes his conversion and call to ministry is given a reminder to care for the poor. Out of this meeting with the apostles, as Paul begins his ministry, he says,
James, Peter and John, those reputed to be pillars, gave me and Barnabas the right hand of fellowship when they recognized the grace given to me. They agreed that we should go to the Gentiles, and they to the Jews. All they asked was that we should continue to remember the poor, the very thing I was eager to do. (Gal 2:9-10)
I find this interesting. In this high-powered meeting between the pillars of the church and Paul, coordinating outreach, the one reminding injunction they leave with Paul is that he should continue to remember the poor. That gives us a feel of how important this was to the early church. We can serve Jesus through serving the needy, for Jesus tells us,
whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me (Mtt. 25:40).
We began our time this morning with the video giving a snapshot of the ministry of Love INC– Love In the Name of Christ. As I mentioned, churches in the area are moving forward in developing this for our area. There will be many opportunities of hands-on involvement with the poor through this as well as offering a means of channeling our resources to work most effectively in loving people in Christ’s name. Dave Hellyer, the director of Manfisher Ministries is with us to share a few minutes about this.
DAVE HELLYER
CONCLUSION
Gratitude needs cultivation in our lives, or it gets overgrown with the busyness of living, the cares of life, and the coveting materialism of our age. Our text is a forceful reminder of what happens if we neglect thanksgiving.
Remember!
Remember the LORD who saved you and delivered you. Give thanks for His redemptive acts past and continuing in your life and our world. Thank Him for giving you the ability to do what you do. For the next week, make your nightly list of things to be grateful for. You’ll find your eyes being opened to God’s blessings every day. AND, remember the poor. Remember them both in your giving and your doing. Notice the quote in your bulletin from Albert Schweitzer,
“In gratitude for our own good life, we must render in return some sacrifice for others.”