THANKFULNESS
Andrew Grant
Luke 17: 11-19
Daniel 6: 3-4, 10
1 Corinthians. 1: 4-5
Colossians 1: 12-13
I was encouraged to say a simple word, dear brethren, as to the matter of being thankful. I was encouraged after what we had on Lord’s day in our reading. In Ephesians we are to give thanks for all things (chap 5: 20), and I have been thinking a little about this recently. I was struck with a verse in Romans. It is something of a negative context but in Romans 1: 21, Paul is speaking about those who were unrighteous. He says, “Because, knowing God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful”. I was just struck with that. I might have thought if he had said, ‘glorifying not as God’ that would be bad enough, but I thought the fact that he adds, “neither were thankful” was something additional. I think divine Persons get pleasure from those who are thankful towards them. We see men around us in the world, and I suppose it applies to ourselves naturally as well, that we are not thankful for things as we should be. You see that generally - men are not thankful towards God. They do not recognise what comes from God, or even that what God has ordered is for our benefit; the government and such like - men are not generally thankful for these things. It is more an attitude of complaining, but I just think for the believer it should be the complete opposite. We are to be marked by being thankful and it is a blessed thing and maybe a preserving thing too. It would keep us closer to divine Persons.
I thought of this reference in Luke with ten lepers. It is often read in the glad tidings, the story of how they were all blessed. They all felt their need and they were all blessed, but there was only one that went back to the Lord - and he was marked by thanksgiving. I suppose they would all be thankful for being relieved, but only one of them expressed that thankfulness and was marked by thanksgiving towards God, towards the Lord. It says he glorified God, and then the Lord says this as to them, “There have not been found to return and give glory to God save this stranger”. So really glory to God is from one who is marked by this spirit of thanksgiving. How we can be thankful for the blessing we have been brought into! We have been brought to know the Lord Jesus as our Saviour. How thankful we should be for that! It is open to all, as we know, not through any merit of our own, but it is God who has worked with us to bring us to know the Lord Jesus as our Saviour. How thankful we can be for that and for the blessing of having been brought to have a knowledge of God through Him. How blessed a thing that is. And this man gets a word from the Lord as a result of his expressing his thankfulness. “Rise up and go thy way: thy faith has made thee well”. So he is brought into relation with the Lord, and I think one who is thankful and expresses it has communion with the Lord Jesus in that way.
Daniel is another example. He was in difficult times. I suppose we are in difficult times too, but one thing that marked Daniel was that he was preserved through the difficulties. As we see here, there is something that marked him continually. It says, “he kneeled on his knees three times a day, and prayed and gave thanks before his God”. So I do not think it would be any question of formality or routine with Daniel, but he was genuinely prayerful and thankful, and dependent too. So I believe thankfulness goes along with being dependent. Daniel was in a difficult situation here. He knew what the decree was; he could easily have just laid low for a few days, but he did not do that. He was relying on God, and God came in for him. I think the spirit that marked Daniel - an excellent spirit and a thankful spirit - is an example for us. These ones who sought him could not find anything against him. I was interested in the note to the comment that “they could not find any pretext or fault”, it says or ‘corruption’ (note a). It would remind us of the way the Lord was here too. I was thinking of the passage in Matthew 11 when He had been rejected. It was a difficult time for the Lord because John was doubting, and then these cities rejected Him, but he says, “I praise thee, Father, Lord of the heaven and of the earth”, Matt 11: 25. He was really marked by thankfulness towards His Father. That spirit marked the Lord when here and you see something of that spirit in Daniel here too. Despite the difficulty that was around he maintains his links, and is still thankful, towards his God.
I was thinking too, in Corinthians of how Paul often thanks God about the saints, and that is another thing we can be thankful for. We have links together in practical fellowship and we can be thankful for that. The reason I read the verse in Corinthians is because Paul had a lot to say to these saints that was corrective and necessary to say, but it did not stop him being thankful for them, and thankful for what they were before God. “I thank my God always about you, in respect of the grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus; that in everything ye have been enriched in him”. They had been brought from darkness into the light of Christianity and Paul gave thanks for that. He had been amongst them and he genuinely appreciated the saints there, as he did the other assemblies to which he wrote. That is one thing that we can be thankful for - one another.
In Colossians, it is quite an elevated reference, but I was thinking of how Paul speaks of “giving thanks to the Father, who has made us fit for sharing the portion of the saints in light”. That would be what we can enjoy together as to the inheritance. We are brought in through divine grace to have a knowledge and relationship with divine Persons. So we have been brought to the Source of our blessing in the Father. How thankful we should be for that. We have so much - even the Scriptures that have been preserved to us, and the ministry, and we have our links together in the truth that has been preserved to us. Perhaps especially on a Lord’s day morning, we can give thanks for all these blessed things and I think we should be marked by thankfulness as to them. I feel that for myself: I should be more thankful for these things and I thought how preserving a thing it is if we are maintained in thankfulness towards divine Persons. We should not, as it were, worry about the things that are of this world, but we can be in relation to divine Persons and marked by this thankful spirit. It is something that is necessary in the current day and I feel the need of for myself. The circumstances around us - they could be work or school or anything - can get on top of us, but think of how we can be brought into this sphere of blessing and relationship, and if we are maintained in thankfulness then we can be above all these temporal things.
We have been reading locally recently as to the overcomer. I think thankfulness is a feature of overcoming. It is a very simple thought that I had but I was encouraged after what we had in the reading on Lord’s day. We have been blessed with so much, and I feel the need of just being marked by thankfulness. And there is glory to divine Persons as a result of those who go on in a thankful spirit. So may we just be helped in it for the Lord’s name’s sake.
Word in a Ministry Meeting, Dundee
8th August 2017