Overflowing with Thanksgiving

Colossians 2:6-7
Gary Wassermann | Sunday, November 20, 2022
Copyright © 2022, Gary Wassermann

The Thanksgiving holiday, which is coming up later this week, is an American holiday connected with the history of this country.  When I talk to people from other countries, sometimes they will often say that they also have a similar holiday, some sort of a harvest festival.  But that is fundamentally different than Thanksgiving.  One celebrates what is harvested; the other thanks the God who gave it.  And even though many people in this country do not actually give thanks, I am glad that we still have a Thanksgiving holiday for thanking our God.

Thanksgiving is especially directed to God, and the tragedy of our time is that not only that fewer and fewer people acknowledge the Lord as God, but also that even among those who do, many do not give him thanks for all of his mercies.  I pray that we will each be in that minority that gives thanks to God and gives thanks to others for blessings received.

My primary text this morning in Colossians 2:6–7, but the book of Colossians has a lot to say about thanksgiving, and I will be bringing in other such verses from this book.

The word for “thankfulness” in Colossians 2:7 is eucharistia.  This is a word that today is associated with the Lord’s Supper, and usually the Roman Catholic version of it, the Eucharist.  But it means “thanksgiving,” “thankfulness,” or “gratitude.”  The word eucharistia has in the middle of it the word charis, which means “grace.”  So the heart of eucharist is grace, and the heart of grace, charis, is the word chairō, which means “to rejoice.”  Thanksgiving, then, means to rejoice in God’s presence for blessings freely received from him.  It is joy expressed in word and deed toward God for his grace.

1. Gospel Foundation

Thanksgiving is an essential aspect of the Christian life.  “Overflowing with thankfulness” is a participial phrase connected with “live in him” from verse 6.  So living in Christ is the foundation for thankfulness.  Verse 6 says, “Just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him.”  My first point this morning is the gospel foundation for thankfulness.

The word “received” in the verse, “You received Christ Jesus as Lord,” has the technical meaning “received as transmitted.”  It is used in the same sense as in 1 Corinthians 11:23 where Paul writes, “For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you,” or 1 Corinthians 15:1, “Now, brothers, I want to remind you of the gospel I preached to you, which you received.”  The message of the gospel came to you, and you received it “not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God” (1 Thess. 2:13).  That is the idea of “received.” You heard it, understood it, and believed it.

This gospel message says that you are a sinner.  This is the context of the gospel.  You are God’s creature with an obligation to live the way he designed you to live and to submit to God, but you have not done that.  In fact, you have done the very opposite.  You turned your back on him and you became a slave to sin.  Already, you are guilty before God, such that when you stand in the judgment, you will be eternally condemned.  Ezekiel 32:27 uses graphic language for this, saying that your punishment for your sin will rest on your bones.

There is nothing that you can do about your condition before God.  Sin has corrupted every part of your being.  The Bible depicts and describes sinners in very graphic ways. It compares sinners to a man covered with leprosy—diseased, rotting away, in pain, and unfit for human society.  The Bible compares sinners to a blind man, unable to see reality; to a paralytic, unable to walk in righteousness; to a man possessed by demons; and to a dead man.  Your condition is hopeless and miserable.

This is the message that comes to everyone, but most people don’t receive it.  Most people say, “My condition surely cannot be so bad.”  But you who have received it have signed your names to it, saying, “This is true of me.  I am such a sinner.”

Then the gospel says that Jesus Christ came to save you.  God has contrived a gracious covenant in which Jesus Christ would stand in solidarity with sinners to redeem them.  On the basis of that covenant, he came down from his glory in the heavenly realms.  He took on human nature, lived in perfect obedience to the Father, and died for our sins.  Then he rose on the third day, victorious over sin, Satan, and the curse of death.  He is endowed with all the resources of God that we need—all authority, the divine righteousness that secures us forever, the power to make us new, the grace to supply us in every circumstance, and the government to bring us safely into his presence.

Then he calls on us to enter into covenant with him, and so to receive personally for ourselves all of these benefits.  We confess, “Jesus Christ is Lord, and I am his obedient slave.  I trust in him, and he saves me.  I rise up, I jump to my feet, and I begin to walk.  So now, I stand in a new relationship with God.  He no longer condemns me, and I am no longer alienated from him.  He is my Father.  He promises to receive me to himself at the last judgment.  And as for me, I am a leper no longer because I am in Christ and I am clean.  I am a slave to sin no longer.  Jesus Christ is my Lord.  I am dead no longer.  I am alive in Christ.”

This is the gospel that you received that declares Jesus Christ as Lord.  What a cause for joy!  Thanksgiving means that we gratefully acknowledge the benefits that we have received.  Surely Christ has done enough for us to return to him and fall down at his feet, giving thanks and praise to God.

We always remember where we came from.  The gospel that we received—receiving was not just in the past, but we continue in it.  In Ezekiel 36, God promises to bring back exiles into the land of Israel, in order to bring glory to his own name in the sight of the surrounding nations.  But what about the problem of the sinfulness of the people that made him cast them from his presence years before?  God deals with that by regenerating the hearts of these people, making them new and giving them his Holy Spirit, causing them to live in the land and thrive and be fruitful and prosperous.

But then Ezekiel 36:31–32, speaking of these people, God’s people, regenerated, living in the Promised Land, and fruitful and flourishing, says this: “Then you will remember your evil ways and wicked deeds, and you will loathe yourselves for your sins and detestable practices.  I want you to know that I am not doing this for your sake, declares the Sovereign Lord.  Be ashamed and disgraced for your conduct, O house of Israel!”  When we look back on what we used to be with shame and grief, we cannot help but thank God for the utterly undeserved mercy he showed in choosing us.  Why should he regenerate us?  Why should he set us in the land and cause us to be fruitful and to prosper?

Colossians 2:6 says, “Just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live in him.”  Overflowing with thanksgiving is an outworking of continuing to live in him.  Continuing to live in him means that we remain in him as the branches remain connected to the vine.  It is a vital union, ongoing, by which we continually receive the sap of life-giving grace from him and so we become healthy and fruitful and living and continue to be so.

Continuing to live in him means that we obey him daily.  He is our Lord.  He has given us his commands.  We follow him as sheep following a shepherd.  And like a shepherd, he protects us and provides for us as we follow him. You see, this ongoing relationship that we have in Christ comes with ongoing grace and ongoing benefits that provide an ongoing foundation for thankfulness to him.

“Continue to live in him” means more still, but that is enough for us to understand the gospel foundation.

2. Overflowing

Colossians 2:7 says that we should be “overflowing with thankfulness.”  The word “overflowing” is perisseuontes, which is a form of the verb perisseuō.  Perisseuō means “to exceed in number or measure.”  The Bible gives us some pictures of what that means.  In John 6 we read about the feeding of the five thousand.  Jesus started with five small loaves of bread and two small fish.  He distributed to the people “as much as they wanted” of both the bread and the fish so that all the people ate their fill.  And keep in mind that five thousand was just the number of men.  There were women and children additionally.  So many thousands of hungry people ate all they wanted, and then Jesus said to his disciples, “Gather the pieces that are left over,” and the disciples filled twelve baskets with the pieces that were left over.  The word translated “left over” is perisseusanta, a form of perisseuō.  So there was this great number of hungry people, eating all that they wanted, and there was a supply of bread, and the supply exceeded the hunger of all these people.

In Philippians 4:12 Paul said, “I know what it is to be in need,” that is, to not have enough for his basic needs, “and I know what it is to have plenty,” that is, to have enough for his basic needs and to have more on top of that that is beyond his needs.  “To have plenty” again is perisseuō.  The supply not only meets the demand but exceeds it and goes beyond it.

This same word describes the abundance of the Christian life.  We read in Romans 15:13, “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow [perisseuō] with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.”  This is an unshakable hope that produces endurance.  It exceeds whatever might cause us to stop, whatever might cause us to give up or shrink back.

In 2 Corinthians 9:8 Paul writes, “And God is able to make all grace abound to you [overflow, perisseuō], so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound [overflow] in every good work.”  In 2 Corinthians 1:5 he says, “For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.” The suffering comes in, but the comfort exceeds it in measure.  And in Philippians 1:26 Paul states, “Through my being with you again your joy in Christ Jesus will overflow on account of me.”  This is the multifaceted, overflowing abundance of the Christian life that God supplies to us, and we are to return equal abundance unto him in thanksgiving.

We meet all of the many facets of the circumstances that we are in with thanksgiving, and we still have more thanksgiving ready to go.  There are sorrows that flow into our lives, but what is it that dominates our outlook?  Is it misery?  Is it gloom?  Is it complaining?  No.  It is rejoicing in God’s presence for his goodness to us.

Now it may seem obvious, but how do we know what we are overflowing with, that is, what is overflowing in each one of us?  The Lord said in Matthew 12:34, “For out of the overflow”—and there’s the word again—“of the heart the mouth speaks.”  The overflow of the heart is expressed; it is evident.  We speak it.  It comes out in our words.  It comes out in our demeanor.  It comes out in our conduct.

Thanksgiving will be in our speech.  Some people are silenced by the maxim, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all.”  But the thankful person still has plenty to say.  He is not silent.  Psalm 116:12–13 expresses the heart of thankfulness:  “How can I repay the Lord for all his goodness to me?  I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord.”  When we are thankful for God’s abounding grace to us, we will abound in good works done in service to God and to God’s people.

The sad reality is that many people don’t thank God at all, and most of us thank him far less than is right.  Unbelievers don’t thank God at all.  When things go well, they take the credit.  Romans 1:21 says about such people, “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him.”  God expects thanksgiving, and if we are not giving thanks to God always, something is deeply wrong with us.

Remember the Israelites.  God delivered them from the iron-smelting furnace of Egypt, from a life of bondage, by great miracles.  Yet almost immediately they started grumbling.  Ten times they grumbled against their redeemer, and the New Testament warns us not to follow their example.  First Corinthians 10:10 says, “And do not grumble, as some of them did—and were killed by the destroying angel.”

Or consider Psalm 50, where “the Mighty One, God, the Lord” testifies against his people who are in covenant with him.  These are the Israelites of the Old Testament, and we can say by extension the people of the church in the New Testament.  In that psalm, the psalmist addresses two groups.  The first group are those who are consistently bringing their sacrifices and offerings.  They are faithful in their religious observances and duties, but it seems they have started to think as though they are doing God a favor.  God says, “I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine.”  These people are like the Christians of the Ephesian church in Revelation 2.  They worked hard, persevered, and did not tolerate the wicked, but they had fallen from their first love.  So in Psalm 50 God’s first command is, “Sacrifice thank offerings to God.”  You are not doing God a favor.  God has done you the greatest favor in redemption and he continues to shower blessings on you.  Reorient yourself and thank God.

The second group God addresses in Psalm 50 are the wicked in Israel.  They hear God’s word, but they do not obey it.  They join with thieves, adulterers, and slanderers.  They don’t realize that they are living on God’s patience, which they misinterpret as God’s agreement.  God has one thing to say to such people in Psalm 50:22–23:  “Consider this, you who forget God, or I will tear you to pieces, with none to rescue: He who sacrifices thank offerings honors me, and he prepares the way so that I may show him the salvation of God.”  The only right relationship we can have with God is one in which we are continually giving him thanks.

Thanksgiving to God shows that you are a Christian, made new on the inside and filled with the Holy Spirit.

3. Count Your Blessings

What should we thank God for?  The first answer is good things, blessings.  James 1:17 says, “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights.”  He is the source of every good thing.  How often do we see the gift and forget the Giver?  How many good gifts of God come to us that we fail even to take note of?  God’s mercies are new every morning.  Psalm 68:19 says that God our Savior “daily bears our burdens.”  He is continually, daily pouring out his mercies upon us.

Who do you think is the most thankful not to be in the hospital?  I am sure it is those who were recently there and may still not be in great shape.  Why shouldn’t those who are healthy be at least as thankful not to be in the hospital?  Who is most thankful for a good night’s sleep but those who have not had it in a while?  Why shouldn’t those who generally sleep well be at least as thankful for a good night’s sleep?  You see, God meets our temporal needs of food and clothing and many other things abundantly.

So let’s consider some of the major blessings God has given to us.  First, we should thank God for this planet.  Genesis 1—we have been studying through the book of Genesis, and you may recall from our study of Genesis 1 that God made the heavens and the earth to be suited for us to live on.  This world is not just a place where we are able to live—it is made for us.  Scientists also describe how creation in fine-tuned in so many ways so that this planet will exist and be the right distance from the sun, such that if anything were changed just a little bit, life would not be possible.

We should thank God for this country.  In spite of all its wickedness, and there is a lot of wickedness, we are here together worshiping this morning, and there are no agents of the state sitting here looking to report us and arrest us.  There is no angry mob about to attack us.  We still have the freedom to educate our children with a godly education.  These things cannot be said of every country in the world.

We should thank God for our parents.  Being is better than not being.  Through our parents, we were born.  We came into being. And if we had not been born, we would not have had the opportunity to be saved and come into a vital knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ and ultimately to enjoy eternal life.  Our parents did not dispose of us out of personal convenience, but they made a lot of sacrifices for us.  They loved and cared for us daily until we reached adulthood.

Colossians 1:12 introduces us to the spiritual blessings that God has given us.  It says, “Giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.”  He has qualified us, made us fit.  On our own, we are utterly unfit for heaven, utterly unfit to come before God, utterly unfit to belong among the people of God.  But God has made us new, and this points to the whole ordo salutis.  God has loved us from before the beginning of time.  He chose us and, in time, he called us.  He regenerated us.  He enabled us to put our faith completely in Christ.  He gave us the gift of repentance. And through union with Christ, he justified us.  He forgives us all our sins.  He adopted us and made us sons and daughters of the living God. He has qualified us to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light.

God has brought us into the light.  He has given us the light of knowledge.  Now, where do you find light but in the Scriptures?  The Scriptures are light, in contrast to the darkness of human philosophy.  In the Scriptures, we find truth.  So thank God for the Scriptures and thank God that he has delivered us from a reprobate mind.  We have the mind of Christ, so we can think rightly about all things.  We can understand spiritual truths spoken in spiritual words. They make sense, and we receive them as true.

God has brought us into the light of purity.  Thank God for pouring out clean water on us to cleanse us from all our impurities within and to deliver us from loving the shadows where darkness is practiced.  God has made us creatures of the light so that we love the light, we come into the light. We are glad for accountability.  We are glad for truth.  Through an upright walk, we are very bold.

God has brought us into the light of joy.  He gave us “beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, and the garment of praise for a spirit of heaviness.”  People wear themselves out running after happiness and they never grasp hold of it, because they seek it directly, independently of God.  Thank God that he has given us joy in his presence forever.

God has brought us into the light of love and of everything that is glorious and ennobling.  He has given us a sure future in heaven.  If we are in him, if we believe in him, he has made us fit to pass directly from here into heaven this very day. If we were to die today, we would be brought into his glorious presence immediately.

God has brought us into fellowship with his saints.  Thank God for a church that preaches the word of God and for the community of believers who love God and love one another.  A true church is like an oasis in the desert, a place where the weary come and they find refreshment. They find life again.  God supplies the church with grace, with gifts, and with competent ministers.  What a blessing!  And as we are considering the saints, this brings me to my next point:  we must thank people.

4. Thank People

God truly is the source of every good and perfect gift, and in the Bible the great majority of thanks is given to God or given to Jesus Christ.  However, we also see in the Bible that people receive thanks too.  Paul writes in Romans 16:3–4, “Greet Priscilla and Aquila, my fellow workers in Christ Jesus.  They risked their lives for me.  Not only I but all the churches of the Gentiles are grateful to them.”  This is a fitting pattern for us: grateful to them.

Consider this especially in the context of the church.  God has fitted each person into the church as an organically connected member of the body.  To every believer God has given gifts—at least one gift and maybe multiple gifts—to be used for the building up of the body.  So the person with the gift of leadership takes on the task of governing within some sphere for our good.  The person with the gift of giving generously gives generously, whether specifically to poor individuals or to the church to be used for the poor for their good.  The person with the gift of encouraging builds others up for their good.  And so it is with every member of the body:  Each one uses whatever gift he has received to serve one another.  And there are many with the gift of serving. That is perhaps the primary need that the church has—service in one form or another.

But I ask:  Where does the obligation for someone else to encourage you come from?  Or where does the obligation to govern for your good come from?  Or to meet your needs, or to teach you, or to do you good in any way—where does it come from?  See, when I hire a contractor to do some work on my house, he is obligated to do that work because I am paying him.  But that is not how we operate within the church.  I am not paying each one of you to do the work of service that you are doing.  So the obligation does not come from me; it does not come from you, that others are obligated to you.  It comes only from the living God.  They are obligated to do these things not out of a debt to us, but with respect to us by sheer grace and mercy.  God commands them to do it, but it is undeserved by us.  Where does our continuing debt to one another to love one another come from?  Not from one another, but from God.

So as we receive all these benefits, we should be overflowing with thanksgiving to those who are laying down their lives for our good.  We ought to receive what is done for us gratefully.  We ought to be able to say, “Thank you.” As things are being done ongoingly, say, “Thank you,” recognize it and appreciate it. Consider, “How can I return to them something as they have done that for me?”  And I am amazed not only how much is done ongoingly that I and the rest of us benefit from, but how much has been done in the past that we are still benefitting from today.

Think of the foundations of what sort of church this should be.  People worked to lay those foundations long ago.  Think of the vision to have our own people do the cleaning and maintenance of our church.  That benefited the church financially and it benefited us giving each one of us more of a share and a stake and a sense of ownership in this church.  Think of those who were the first to give generously, the Barnabases of this church, when it was not obvious from a human point of view that this venture that they were giving to was going to last.  Think of those who sacrificed much to remain in this area when there was far less here to remain for.  They not only laid down their lives as an example for us who came later, but they are now some of those people who we remain here for.  Think of those who sacrificed early on to lead or to teach, and so helped to establish the pattern for the rest of us and helped to give us an example to look at so that we can see that it is worth it, that that life of sacrifice is also a blessed life.  And it has made the way easier for so many of us who have followed in their footsteps.

Chief among all such people is our pastor, who laid down his life, pouring himself into powerfully preaching the word, involving himself in the lives of the small number of unpromising people in the early days, and remaining faithful throughout many trials.  Truly we should be overflowing with thanksgiving!

And within our homes, we should be giving thanks.  How thankful children should be to their father and mother!  What a happy home we would have if the children really recognized the deep debt of obligation due those who have raised them and cared for them so long.  The husband is obligated to be thankful to his wife for all of her kindnesses—those hundreds of unseen ministries of love.  The wife is obligated to be grateful to her husband for his work and provision.  She receives many things from him that make life comfortable.  If we lived in our homes in mutual gratitude, feeling our mutual indebtedness, how happily our homes will run.  How it will take away fights and quarrels and bickering and friction of every sort.

5. In Everything

Thank God for good things and in good times, but also when we face troubles.  It is in the book of Lamentations, this book of grief, that we read that his mercies “are new every morning.”  God does not change like shifting shadows.

The Bible gives us examples of people who gave thanks in hard circumstances.  Consider Jonah.  He was literally in the depths and in darkness as he was in the belly of the fish.  On top of that, he had a heavy conscience because he knew he was there because he had been running from the Lord.  Yet from there, he looked up again and prayed.  And in verse 9, he concluded his prayer, “But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you.  What I have vowed I will make good.  Salvation comes from the Lord.”  So even in great trouble, we must give thanks to God.

We have the classic example in Acts 16 of Paul and Silas in prison in Philippi.  They were in physical pain and they were suffering unjustly, thwarted from doing the work of the Lord that they had set out to do.  Yet they did not consider that their cup had dried up.  They did not fall into misery.  Verse 25 says, “About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God.”  Even in pain and in darkness they were overflowing with thanksgiving.

God gives us solid reasons for thanksgiving even in times of trouble.  Romans 8:28 is the truth we can stand on in every situation.  It says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”  That means that the Lord who is in complete control of all things causes all experiences for our good, and especially negative experiences.

Hebrews 12 says that God disciplines us as a loving father.  He has good purposes and good will behind it, and it produces good results.  Verse 11 says, “No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.”  What price can you put on righteousness and peace?  They are worth more than great riches.

Suffering teaches us obedience to God.  Psalm 119:71 says, “It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.”  Obedience to God and conformity to the image of Christ is more valuable than comfort.  And things that humble us, things that make us weak, things that make us feel our weakness and bring us down have a way of putting us in exactly the right place to receive grace because God gives grace to the humble. So that is something to thank God for.

Suffering teaches us to rely on God.  The book of 2 Corinthians tells us more about the hardships Paul endured than any other book.  Most of the hardships that we read about in 2 Corinthians are not recorded in the book of Acts.  That is just a small sample.  In 2 Corinthians 1:8 Paul begins, “We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about the hardships we suffered in the province of Asia.  We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired even of life.  Indeed, in our hearts we felt the sentence of death.”  But there is a reason.   “This happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead” (2 Cor. 1:8–10).  When we gain that perspective, we will thank God also for suffering.

6. Thanksgiving Is Good Medicine

Colossians 3:15 says, “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.”  This verse joins together peace and thankfulness.  Whoever needs to hear “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts” also needs to hear “and be thankful.”

There are many disturbers of the peace that can take hold on our hearts.  The main sort of problem that this is addressed to is what divides one person from another.  It is the problem of bickering.  It is the problem of grumbling against one another.  It is the problem of harsh words and cutting sarcasm.

We are to occupy our minds and our mouths one way or another.  James says that the same spring cannot produce both fresh water and salt water.  If you have been producing salt water—bickering, arguing, complaining, biting words—you will find that fresh water does not come easily.  But if you occupy yourself with producing the fresh water of thanksgiving, you will find that the salt water dries up.  Who can go from genuine thankfulness one minute to arguing and quarrelling the next?  Thanksgiving is a healthy occupation.

But beyond that, thanksgiving helps with the heart that is given to friction with others.  Sometimes we can be irritable and impatient.  Ultimately, this is a grumbling heart saying that God is not doing us right.  But start by saying, “Shall we accept good from God and not trouble?  The Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away, and blessed be the name of the Lord.”  This will bring you back to peace with God.  Thank God for your gains and for your losses.  Thank him for your enjoyments and pleasures, and also for your aches and pains.

Sometimes gloominess sets in.  It is like the light fading around us, and we feel deep sadness and depression coming on.  Perhaps some are temperamentally more prone to that than others, but when it comes it feels like deep darkness.  When David said in the Psalms, “I will awaken the dawn,” he probably meant literally that he would be praising God already as the sun came up.  But there is a sense in which, when you start giving thanks, that causes the light to begin to shine, and you truly awaken the dawn.  It is the return of peace.

Envy is another such evil that works against peace.  Like a dark cloud, it pollutes our whole outlook.  “He has what I want, or at least I assume he does, and I resent him for it.  Why don’t I have it?”  Envy is a corrosive thing.  Envy rots the bones.

There are many sorts of trouble that can fill our hearts and corrupt us.  Sometimes it is anxiety that seems to reach up from below and wrap its fingers around our hearts and minds.  Why does it come?  Perhaps nothing circumstantial has changed, but still it creeps in.

It is not a pleasant thing to rot.  It is not a pleasant thing to be choked or squeezed with anxiety or envy.  But that misery alone rarely seems to be able to turn us from our sin of anxiety or envy or whatever it may be.  Give thanks, and in so doing you have recognized God’s goodness and God’s sovereignty once again.  Peace is restored to your heart, and life to your body.

Thanksgiving works powerfully against all these evils like a wonder drug that cures many ills.  But it is not just the strength of its power to raise us up from great depths, but the breadth of its power is something that we also underestimate.  Thanksgiving is a tonic for a great many evils, so that it is almost like a cure-all.  Listen to Ephesians 5:3–4: “But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people.  Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving.”  Six evils are listed here.  Six sins!  Immorality, greed, foolish talk, and so on.  Six sins, and only one alternative: thanksgiving.

If that is so, how much should we be giving thanks?  Be thankful!  Be thankful!  Be thankful!  You who are anxious, start giving thanks.  You who are offended, start giving thanks.  You who are sullen, start giving thanks.  May the people of God rejoice!

Yes, thanksgiving has good results.  God comes bringing peace and joy and courage.  God is glorified when we thank him, and God gives more blessings to a thankful people.

God takes pleasure in our thanks, and he gives more blessings, as I said.  Psalm 50:23 says, “He who sacrifices thank offerings honors me, and he prepares the way that I may show him the salvation of God.”  When we stop giving thanks, we are turning off the stream of blessings.  May God help each one of us to overflow with thanksgiving always.  Amen.