Grateful: For Thank Yous, 11/29/15

Sermon 11-29-15 gratitude 4 thank yous -4 appreciation 1thess 5:12-18

¹² Now we ask you, brothers and sisters, to acknowledge those who work hard among you, who care for you in the Lord and who admonish you. ¹³ Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other. ¹⁴ And we urge you, brothers and sisters, warn those who are idle and disruptive, encourage the disheartened, help the weak, be patient with everyone. ¹⁵ Make sure that nobody pays back wrong for wrong, but always strive to do what is good for each other and for everyone else. ¹⁶ Rejoice always, ¹⁷ pray continually, ¹⁸ give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Sermon series – grateful for creation, kindness, forgiveness, and time

Today is thankful for gratitude, for thankfulness for appreciation

This is the pinnacle of the series

Thank you for the gift of gratitude for Thank yous.  For appreciation

Next Sunday – advent- carols

Abraham Lincoln's  - Thanksgiving Proclamation  -of 1863

The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God………..

It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged as with one heart and voice by the whole American People.

I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next, as a day of Thanksgiving and Praise to our [loving] Father who dwelleth in the Heavens……..A. Lincoln, October 3, 1863.

Gratitude is such good stuff

Someone onces said, Gratitude is the sign of noble souls. 

So, heres to the power of thank you! ………….Dale Carnegie once said, "You have it easily in your power to increase the sum total of this world's happiness now. How? By giving a few words of sincere appreciation to someone who is lonely or discouraged. Perhaps you will forget tomorrow the kind words you say today, but the recipient may cherish them over a lifetime."

The power of appreciation

The power of saying thank you

It will change your life, and it will change the lives of others

Give thanks in all things………… all things………….. for this is the will o f god

What is gods will? Give thanks in all circumstances……………

To see and appreciate life – all of it…..

We have a perspective, a paradigm, a way that we see life and it is usually pretty self consumed

To live w gratitude changes our Perspective

When john Wesley was a student at Lincoln College in Oxford.,  A porter knocked on Wesley's door one evening and asked to speak with him. After some conversation Wesley noted the man's thin coat, for it was a cold winter night. Wesley suggested that he had better get another coat. The porter replied: "This coat ... is the only coat I have in the world and I thank God for it."
Wesley asked the man if he had eaten and the porter replied: "I have had nothing today but a draught of spring water ... and I thank God for that."
Wesley, growing uneasy in the man's presence, reminded him that he would have to get to his quarters soon or be locked out. "Then what shall you have to thank God for?" Wesley asked.
"I will thank Him," replied the porter, "that I have dry stones to lie upon."
Wesley was deeply moved by the man's sincerity and he said to him, "You thank God when you have nothing to wear; ... nothing to eat ... [and] no bed to lie on. I cannot see what you have to thank God for."
The man replied: "I thank God... that he has given me life and being, and a heart to love Him, and a desire to serve Him." (8-9)
After the man had left with a coat from Wesley's closet, some money for food and words of appreciation for the witness he had made, Wesley wrote in his Journal: "I shall never forget that porter. He convinced me there is something in religion to which I am a stranger."

Most of us just want enough religion to make us comfortable.

          Sometimes I think god would like us to be a bit uncomfortable

And Americans are comfortable.

We have so much, so much more than others in this world………….

I read somewhere that what we spend on one day, black Friday, 52 billion – would be enough to provide clean water and sanitation 22 billion to every person in the world who needed it.

Gratitude changes everything.

To see one thing to be thankful for, is to turn the corner and begin the process of becoming a thankful person…….. a person of Spontaneous appreciation

Brennan Manning author of [the Ragamuffin Gospel]said, "When somebody becomes aware of [God's] love, that person is just spontaneously grateful. Cries of thankfulness become the dominant characteristic of the interior life, and the by-product of gratitude is joy. We're not joyful and then become grateful; we're grateful and that makes us joyful."

This joy, an outgrowth of our gratitude, also inspires us to act and to utter, in word or in deed, two very powerful words — thank you.

We are often unappreciative because we do not see the good.

Our eyes are closed, or we soon forget what we were focusing on

Or circumstances grab us

How do we appreciate a difficult time?  Give thanks by trusting
1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 - give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus

It is not always easy to give thanks, but this is the very thing we must do in order to see God's will accomplished in our lives. This is how we move into higher realms of faith for ourselves, for our city, and for our nation.  [we must trust]

God is bigger than my circumstances

Gratitude can turn a negative into a positive.  Find a way to be thankful for your troubles, and they can become your blessings.  One can pay back the loan of gold, but one dies forever in debt to those who are kind.  Malayan  Proverb

The most amazing moments of gratitude come from those whom we know have real complaints, but choose not to exercise them.  They are choosing something else…..

We are often unappreciative because we do not see the good.
we don’t appreciate it – we take so much for granted

Do you appreciate driving at night?  Late night pizza?  24 hour grocery store?  Reading, watching tv in bed?

. In 1882, , the Edison Illuminating Company established the Pearl Street Station, the first electrical power plant in the United States

 Initially, Pearl Street Station powered 400 lamps in 85 households.

It soon became apparent that gas lamps were the technology of the past.

The new electric lights burned more brightly than the sputtering, flickering gas lamps of generations past.

In the space of a generation or two, the human experience of light and darkness had been changed forever.

To us today, the setting of the sun provides little or no impediment to anything we want to do.

When it grows too dark to read, just reach over and turn on the lamp. It's that easy. Even activities like high-school sports are no longer restricted to daylight hours. Powerful banks of electric lights turn night into day in an instant.

Not so very long ago, it would have been unimaginable for a store to stay open past sunset -- the customers couldn't have seen the merchandise, nor could the clerks have counted out the change. Today, as we know, there are businesses that stay open 24 hours a day. No one thinks twice about it.

Darkness meant something very different to people of earlier generations. It meant a daily, enforced limitation on human activity. Those days are gone.

We have grown so accustomed to good things, we don’t appreciate them

Appreciation adds extra value

Tom Lattimore

Buster Keaton tie…….. admired, moving, given…….

its one of my favorite ties….means more than a tie, more than buster Keaton, it reminds me of a friend, a time, a connection…… appreciating a thing adds value to it

Stolen Chalice

A little more than 25 years ago, a youth walking by the old log Muskego Chapel on the Luther Seminary campus in St. Paul, Minnesota, peeped in its window and noticed a beautiful chalice sitting on the altar.

He broke into the chapel and stole it. Naturally, the young boy didn’t know that this chalice had been a gift to Luther Seminary in 1936 from Norway’s King Olaf. In October 2006, Pastor Glenn Berg-Moberg from St. Anthony Park Lutheran Church, a neighbor of the seminary, called Luther President Rick Bliese, asking for a meeting to discuss “an interesting matter.” The boy who had stolen the chalice, now a grown man, had visited his congregation. He was dying of cancer and had one request: He wanted to return the stolen chalice to the seminary. He had kept the pewter chalice in perfect condition. It had sat on his mantel for 25 years. Finally, its presence had become a source of discomfort and disease. Before the man died, he wanted it returned to its rightful owner and place, Luther Seminary and Old Muskego Chapel.

President Bliese received the gift of “the prodigal chalice” with surprise and delight. Letters were written to this dying man expressing appreciation, as well as forgiveness for his deed. The lost had been found; now the blind were gaining their sight. The man received the letters with gratitude and died soon afterward.

Now this chalice has become doubly special because it was returned after serving the purpose for which it was really intended: calling sinners to repentance and forgiveness. It has become a powerful sign of Luther Seminary’s mission.

Finding a reason to appreciate a thing adds value to it

Appreciation changes the world 

Hard-core IRA and Loyalist terrorists serving long prison sentences were often given brief furloughs during holiday periods

Once at home with their families, these men, as the authorities had correctly calculated, developed a keen appreciation of elderly parents whom they might never see again once they were returned to prison, and also of children growing up too fast and of still young and attractive wives wasting their lives waiting. When the men returned to prison, they were asked if they would be interested in an expedited release.

To qualify for this form of parole, the men were required to move out of segregated prison wings (where they lived with only fellow IRA or Loyalist prisoners) and into fully integrated cell blocks, where Protestants and Catholics mixed freely -- and nonviolently. This was a critical first step on the road to parole, followed by vocational training (not provided in segregated wings), counseling and more-frequent family visits and furloughs. No one who had taken advantage of this opportunity for early parole ever returned to violence or to prison.

Today, the war between the catholics and protestants in Ireland is virtually over…. it may be owed to the creativity of the Northern Ireland Prison Service and it may be due to the sense of appreciation that people have for their loved ones when they have been apart.

Appreciation changes the world

Appreciation changes everything

Awakenings  -  1990

Movie w robin Williams

We’ve got to tell them….how good it is.  What?  Life?  We have to tell them how good it is, how amazing it is.

Friends, what does it mean to be born, to open your eyes and discover to your astonishment that "you" are alive???  Gratitude and appreciation wake us up to what we have been given

Conclusion

When we  wake up and truly see God's gift of life, we cannot contain this joy. From this thankfulness comes an outpouring of gratitude that is contagious, infectious, and life-giving to those around us.

Closing prayer -

Dear Father, let me be aware of the treasure that you give us each day.  Let me learn from each day, love each day, and bless you for each day before they are gone.  Let us never pass a day in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow.  Father teach us to hold each moment for as long as we can, and may our hearts be filled with awe and joy.  In jesus name, amen