THE ATTITUDE IS GRATITUDE II Corinthians 9:6-15 Giving thanks moves us to action. A sermon preached by Dr. William O. (Bud) Reeves First United Methodist Church Hot Springs, Arkansas November 21, 2010
What motivates you to be grateful? What moves you to thanksgiving? There s a cute story, supposedly true, about Danny Murtaugh, who was the manager of the Pittsburg Pirates baseball team back in the 70 s. He and his wife had three married daughters, but none of them had any children. The family was all together for Thanksgiving dinner, and before the blessing, Danny looked at his daughters and spouses and made this announcement: Your mother and I have been talking. We miss the pitter-patter of little feet around the house. We long for grandchildren. We have decided that we will put $7500 into a college fund for the first grandchild. Then everyone bowed their head for the prayer. When Murtaugh finished and looked up, he and his wife were the only ones still sitting at the table! 1 I guess that was a moving Thanksgiving experience. The daughters and husbands were moved to action by a promise. What moves you to action? Money can be a powerful motivation for some people. But it is ultimately not a very deep or lasting or even very satisfying motivation. There are so many things more important than money. I am moved to action by relationships. Of course, my family is the most important set of relationships I have. On the rare occasions when we get to sit down with our two sons and our daughter-in-law (and soon our grandson), my heart just swells with love and pride and gratitude. I would do anything for those people. I am moved to action by what God has done for me. Before I was even born, God loved me and gave his Son for me. Whenever I stray away, he welcomes me back. God is the eternal constant in my life. He has already prepared a place for me in his heavenly home, and one day I will enter that Kingdom forever. That moves me. That hope motivates me to live for God. Today especially, I am moved to action by a deep sense of gratitude. I am giving thanks to God today. In spite of
the problems and difficulties that arise, despite my own abundant shortcomings, life is good. I am truly blessed. I am motivated by thanksgiving. Gratitude is a great attitude. If you can live with gratitude, your life will be happier, healthier, and more wholesome. Dr. Norman Vincent Peale encouraged people to practice the therapy of giving thanks. 2 Dr. Robert Emmons, a professor of psychology from California, and Dr. Michael McCullough of the University of Miami did a study on the role gratitude plays in physical and emotional well-being. They took three groups of volunteers and randomly assigned them to focus on one of three things each week: problems, things for which they were grateful, or just ordinary life events. The results indicated that the people who focused on gratitude were happier. They saw their lives in favorable terms. They reported fewer negative physical symptoms. They were more active. Those who were grateful quite simply enjoyed a higher quality of life. Dr. Emmons was surprised. He said, "This is not just something that makes people happy, like a positivethinking/optimism kind of thing. A feeling of gratitude really gets people to do something, to become more pro-social, more compassionate." 3 Giving thanks moves us to action. If you find yourself depressed or anxious or overburdened by problems, one of the healthiest things you can do is to give thanks. Count your blessings. Claim the promise of Romans 8:28: We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose. 4 Get a positive perspective on your life. Then when you encounter the troubles of life, you will be better equipped to meet the challenges you face. Have you ever experienced the therapy of giving thanks? I have. I ll be distraught and worried over half a dozen things: conflicts at church, somebody mad about something, finding the resources we need to do the ministry God is calling us to do, a hospital situation, a marriage in trouble.
There s plenty to worry about. Sometimes I have to force myself to quit focusing on the negatives and to remember the positives. I get to eat lunch today. I have clothes, a roof over my head, a car to drive. I have wonderful family and friends. I have a challenging and meaningful way to spend my life. The more I think about those blessings, the happier I get. I begin to think of all the things God has done for me and allowed me to enjoy, and before you know it, I have unloaded all my sad baggage, and I m walking with a spring in my step again and seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. It s the therapy of giving thanks. Scripture speaks in so many places about the importance of giving thanks to God. It s part of our everyday spiritual health routine, like brushing your teeth, combing your hair, or taking your vitamins. The Psalmist says over and over, Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; his steadfast love endures forever. 5 Paul, who probably suffered more than any other Christian disciple, kept reminding his churches to give thanks. To the Philippians he said, Do not worry about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 6 In First Thessalonians, he gives the Christian attitude in a nutshell: Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. 7 Do you see what Paul is saying here? Gratitude, prayer, and joy those are the hallmarks of the Christian life. Even when he is talking about the offering for the church in Jerusalem, he brings in the attitude of gratitude. In our Scripture text today, he says, You will be enriched in every way for your great generosity, which will produce thanksgiving to God through us; for the rendering of this ministry not only supplies the needs of the saints but also overflows with many thanksgivings to God. 8 See, there s a double benefit to giving. Not only do we do good to those who receive the gift, but we receive the blessing of
thanksgiving, the satisfaction of knowing that we have honored God by helping his children. When I participate in the therapy of giving thanks, there are three items that are always on my list. I am grateful to be a part of a church that is transforming lives. We are a strong and vital congregation, and I hope we never take that for granted. So many churches are struggling for survival today. We struggle, but it s not for survival. We are trying to make the biggest impact we can for Jesus Christ in this community and the world, and I am grateful for that. Four years ago I shared with you a story about Barbara Brown Taylor, who was a preaching professor at Candler School of Theology. She wrote about an experience she had hiking in the Kachkar Mountains of northeastern Turkey. One afternoon they were hiking up a dirt road when they came upon a startling sight. It was a ruined cathedral, a massive structure that once housed thousands of worshippers. As they stepped inside, they couldn t believe what they saw. It was just a huge hull, a massive shell of space, but there was no evidence of life at all or that there had been for hundreds of years. Very little of the roof remained, and most of the frescoes on the walls had been destroyed by the elements. There was evidence of campfires having been set in a side chapel, and it looked like someone had used another chapel for a garbage dump. Rats were prowling for scraps. Barbara listened, and she heard sounds of little children not too far away. Following the sounds, she found herself in what used to be the central nave of the church. On the grass that now grew in that space, the children were playing soccer, and sheep were grazing. Barbara sat down in the midst of those ruins, overwhelmed by the sight. This had been an incredible cathedral in the land where Paul was born and traveled, in the land where millions of people once were Christians, but
where now less than 1% of the population identified themselves as followers of Jesus. Then Barbara began to think of her church back home in Georgia. It had beautiful woodwork and stained glass and brass fixtures. People came there every Sunday to worship. But what would it look like a few decades from now? Would it be possible for it to pass away like that great cathedral and become nothing more than a shell of its former glory, a remnant of an ancient faith no longer practiced in the land? Barbara answered her own thoughts with these words: Such a thing is not impossible; that s what I learned in that ruin on the hillside. God has given us good news in human form and even given us the grace to proclaim it, but part of our terrible freedom is the freedom to lose our own voices. 9 Every generation of the church is potentially the last. I m very grateful to be a part of a church that is perpetuating the faith for the next generation. Aren t you? That gratitude I feel moves me to do whatever it takes to provide a ministry that will grow new Christians, develop disciples, and will still be here serving God a century from now. The church of the future will look different than the church of the past, but it will still be transforming lives for Jesus Christ. I am also grateful that God can take my small sacrifices and make them part of something big. We re involved in a very big project here. It s bigger than me and you. It s bigger than First United Methodist Church of Hot Springs. It s called the Kingdom of God. We re helping it happen. Nothing we can do personally will make or break the Kingdom. But everything we do can make a positive contribution to the whole. Dr. Albert Schweitzer once said, In gratitude for your own good fortune, you must render in return some sacrifice of your life for other life. He put that gratitude into action in the jungles of Africa. God can take the small sacrifices we make in thanksgiving and turn them into great things for the Kingdom.
I read that Benjamin Franklin, before he died in 1790, left a bequest of $5,000 each to the cities of Boston and Philadelphia. The money was to be kept in interest-bearing accounts for 200 years, then given to the cities. In 1990, 200 years after Ben Franklin died, the cities of Boston and Philadelphia each received $3.5 million from the estate of Benjamin Franklin. 10 It s incredible the way our long-term investments pay off, especially when we are investing in God. Our small sacrifices now will become great acts of faith in the Kingdom of God, and our reward will be proportional. Finally, I am thankful today that God has given me the power to make a difference in the world where I live. This is the power of God: to take this little bit of intelligence and these few years of time and whatever money I can scrape together and turn it into something significant. In fact, when I pool my resources with yours and yours and yours, we can put together a ministry that changes lives, that transforms communities, that helps the needy, that keeps teenagers straight through adolescence, that teaches little children to love Jesus. That s the essence of being a disciple and a steward. I read an account of a family up in Pennsylvania who shared this understanding of their ministry. Their name is Collins, and they have a timber and lumber business in the mountains of western Pennsylvania. When the business began to prosper about a hundred years ago, the father of the family and the head of the business began to give significantly to Methodist mission work. In 1902 he began to give $10,000 a year. In 1902 dollars, $10,000 was a very generous gift. The family continued their giving into the second and third generations. Because they were good stewards of their lumber as well, the business remained profitable for over a century. These healthy habits of gratitude have enabled the Collins family to give over $60 million to Methodist causes.
Several years ago, the family released a statement concerning their giving: We are all here in this life for a short time, and each of us is a trustee of our time, our children, our business, our homes, and the land and freedoms that have been handed down to us by those who came before. Each of us has the responsibility to be a steward over what has been given to him or her in trust, so that it will not be diminished in our care. 11 Now is our moment. Now is our time to give thanks. Now is our movement toward the altar of God to make our commitments to him, to express our stewardship of his gifts, to strengthen our ministry at First United Methodist Church, to make sure that what God has given us will not be diminished in our care. The amount of your commitment truly does not matter to God. Only the size of the sacrifice counts. If you have prayed over it and let God lead you, then it s the right gift for you to make. God will bless your gift and bless you for giving it. Then he will take your sacrifice, however large or small, and make it part of something big for his Kingdom. And you can be sure that your gift will make a difference. For your gifts and for this church and for this wonderful opportunity, I am deeply grateful today. Amen! 1 From a sermon by Dr. Brian Bauknight. 2 Norman Vincent Peale, Thanks for Everything, Plus, November 1998, 1. 3 Deborah Norville, "How The New Science Of Thank You Can Change Your Life," Readers Digest (October, 2007). 4 Romans 8:28, NIV. 5 Psalm 136:1. 6 Philippians 4:6. 7 I Thessalonians 5:16-18. 8 II Corinthians 9:11-12. 9 From a sermon by Dr. Norman Neaves. 10 From a sermon by Dr. Bill Hinson. 11 From a sermon by Dr. Brian Bauknight.