I Know! But How?

Thanking God in All Circumstances

Please remain standing for the reading of Scripture. Old Testament Scripture reading this morning is found in Psalm 73. We'll be reading verses 1 -20 and then 25 -26. Truly God is good to Israel, to those who are pure in heart.

But as for me, my feet had almost stumbled, my steps had nearly slipped. For I was envious of the arrogant when I saw the prosperity of the wicked. For they have no pangs until death, their bodies are fat and sleek.

They are not in trouble as others are. They are not stricken like the rest of all mankind. Therefore pride is their necklace, violence covers them as a garment. Their eyes swell out through fatness, their hearts overflow with follies.

They scoff and speak with malice, loftily they threaten oppression. They set their mouths against the heavens and their tongues struts through the earth. Therefore his people turn back to them and find no fault in them.

And they say, how can God know? Is there knowledge in the Most High? Behold, these are the wicked, always at ease, they increase in riches. All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.

For all the day long I have been stricken and rebuked every morning. If I had said, I will speak thus, I would have betrayed the generation of your children. But when I thought how to understand this, it seemed to me a wearisome task.

Until I went into the sanctuary of God, then I discerned their end. Truly you set them in slippery places, you make them fall to ruin. How they are destroyed in a moment, swept away utterly by terrors.

Like a dream, when one awakes, O Lord, then you rouse yourself, you despise them as phantoms. Whom am I? Whom have I? In heaven but you. And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

For behold, those who are far from you shall perish. You put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. But for me, it is good to be near God. I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of your works.

And then New Testament scripture reading this morning is Romans 5, verses 1 through 5. Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope for the glory of God.

More than that, we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.

You may be seated.

Prayer for Help in the Hour

Before we look into God's word, let's pray for his help in this hour. Fathers, we consider our duty of thanksgiving. I pray that you would help us. We are needy people. We need your spirit to open our hearts to your words, that we would see how these words addressed to everyone apply particularly to each.

We need your spirit to empower the obedience that your word calls from us. We need a vision of the cross of the one who died for us. Help us in this hour now, I pray. For your glory and our good, in Jesus' name, amen.

The Call to Give Thanks in All Circumstances

Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. God says in 1 Thessalonians 5 .18. From toothaches to tragedy, we are to always give thanks. Have you lost the baby? You still need to be thankful.

Did you break your leg two weeks ago and you haven't made progress like you wanted? Your heart must still give thanks. Totaled your car yesterday? Give thanks in all circumstances. Did you lose your wife this last year?

You still should have the praise of God on your lips. Has COVID put you in the hospital? Thanksgiving is still an appropriate response. You've heard it countless times over the years. You must always give thanks, no matter what your situation.

And right now, you're bracing yourself for another one of those sermons. Well, that would be fitting, but I think we have to have another sermon today that says, not that says you must give thanks in all circumstances.

I think we all need to understand how. How to give thanks in all our circumstances. How to give thanks in all those difficult and trying times. Many this year in our congregation have experienced deep hurt and hardship and trial.

The kind that tests their ability to give thanks as God commands. So let's explore what God says about gaining the ability for thanksgiving in difficult times. Not how you must, but how. How can we do that?

That's what I want you to think about this morning. How can we give thanks to God in all our circumstances? Well, where do we start? Let's start with this. Get the right perspective. Get the right perspective.

What makes you sad? What makes you happy, angry, depressed, thankful? What makes you that way? Well, the question itself implies an answer. It says, what makes you that way? And what we think about is events, people, circumstances, situations are the things that make us sad or happy or angry or thankful.

But that is not entirely true. You and your coworker are injured at work, let's say. There's been an accident. You both are working together. There's an accident. And you both have a broken leg. Both of you have a broken leg.

Now you're sad and despairing. You're saying to yourself, you're saying to yourself, man, this means less money for me and my family. I'm going to lose two months of work, and that means less money for me and my family.

And yet your coworker is overjoyed. He's saying, this means less money for me and my family, but I don't have to go to work for two months.

Right?

Both have suffered the same experience, the same event. But your emotions are entirely different. Why? Same event. Why? Because you have entirely different perspectives. You have entirely different interpretations of that event.

You have two friends, both of whom have lost their husbands this last year. The first widow despairs, and she weeps, and she can't get out of bed, and she's not even going to go to the funeral home for the visiting hours.

And as she cries, she says, why is this happening to me? Why is God so cruel and arbitrary? And yet your other friend, the second widow, cries in grief, but she's at the funeral home greeting folks, even smiling through her tears as she says, our Father in heaven loved my husband and me, and he knows what's best for us.

Both have had the same experience. Why such great differences? Because they have a different perspective. They have different interpretations of that event. Now you see this dynamic operating all through Scripture.

You heard it from Asaph this morning in Psalm 73, as he pours out his heart. He felt sorry for himself. He says, what good does it do to serve God?

Right?

What good does it do to serve God? I mean, I look at all the people who care nothing for God, care nothing for him at all,.

And what do they do?

Everything they touch turns to gold. What good does it do to serve God? But then his perspective changes. He goes into the sanctuary, and he sees what the end of these people are. He sees that they will face the judgment of God, that the prosperity that they've experienced all the way up to this point means nothing if at the very end you lose it all as God judges you.

And at the end, he says that he finds that God is enough. Whom have I in heaven but you? And earth has nothing I desire besides you. My heart and my flesh may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

See, he's got a different perspective now. He's got a different perspective. Why is it, as you heard this morning, why is it that Paul can assert in Romans 5, not only this, but we rejoice in our sufferings?

What?

Because suffering produces perseverance, perseverance, character, and character, hope. How can he rejoice in suffering? How is that possible? Because he has a perspective that says suffering does something.

It produces perseverance, and that produces character, and that produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us. What determines your thankfulness? Let me suggest to you it is this, your perspective, your interpretation of the events of your life and the things that you have.

That's what produces. That's how we can be thankful in all circumstances. How do we interpret the things that we have, the things that have happened, all sorts of things? Well, let's start with this, okay?

If it depends on perspective, where do we start? I believe we need to start with God. Get the right perspective on God. God is a sovereign God. That is, everything, including your hardship, comes by the sovereign hand of God.

Nothing, absolutely nothing in this world happens apart from the will of God. That is, everything that happens comes about because God has willed it. If you look at Isaiah 46, Isaiah 46, if you wanna turn there, Isaiah 46, verses eight through 10.

Remember this, keep it in mind, take it to heart, you rebels. Remember the former things, those of long ago. I am God and there is no other. I am God and there is none like me. I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come.

I say, my purpose will stand and I will do all that I please. God, no one can hold back God's hand. He is going to do whatever he pleases to do and now someone says to me, Shirley, not the difficult times.

You mean the loss of my child last year and that accident was by the purpose of God, by his will? And the answer is yes, it was. Remember what Job declared when his wife urged him to curse God after they had lost all their property and all their children?

And he replied, you are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God and not trouble? In all this, Job did not sin in what he said. Job attributed all the hardship that he had just experienced, the loss of his property, the loss of all his children, he attributed it to the hand of God and in this he did not sin.

Well, at least you know that your trials are not just random events in an absurd, meaningless universe where there is no God. At least you know that these things are happening by the purpose of God, but that doesn't automatically produce thanksgiving from you.

You might not believe in a meaningless universe any longer, but you might walk away thinking that God is nothing more than a cruel, thoughtless tyrant. But you see, that's not all that we need to know about God.

Not just that everything that comes our way comes by his sovereign hand because he is not just a divine sovereign. He is also wise. He is a wise God. Have you ever attained a thought as you watched your child or your spouse suffering?

Have you ever entertained this thought, I sure hope God knows what he's doing, right? Now, you may not have articulated that. You know that some Christian brother is gonna call you on that, but at least you think it.

You may be thinking it. But you see, God is wise. And infinitely so. An old Baptist theologian from the 1800s wrote this definition of wisdom. Wisdom consists in the selection of the best end and the adoption of the best means for the accomplishment of that end.

You see what he's saying? Wisdom means I know where I need to go, where I need to take you, and the best way of getting there. Not just the end, but also the means. I'll pick out the end that's the best for you, and I know the best way of getting you there.

And God is infinitely wise in that regard. And you know what else? God doesn't need any counselors for that purpose. He never agonizes over a decision about where he wants to take you and the best means of getting you there because his wisdom is intuitive, infinite, and infallible.

The psalmist says his understanding has no limit. So God's not just sovereign, but he is infinitely wise. And he displays his infinite wisdom in bringing good out of every circumstance of evil for his children.

You know, we're gonna turn there. Romans 8, Romans 8. We all know this. We have it pounded into our heads. And we have it pounded into our heads because it's probably one of the simplest statements in the scripture about what God does in our lives.

And listen, some of you may be saying to me right now, oh, here we go again. God works everything for our good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're not gonna preach that all the time. And the answer is yes. Yes, I will. I'll never forget our missionary that we used to support years ago when he was a missionary in Brazil, Tom Benefiel. Those of you who are here long enough, remember what happened.

They lost one of their children as they ran over him. It was a horrible, terrifying loss to them. And I remember probably a year or so after all that talking to Tom. And Tom said, you know, people say to you things like, oh, now, when people go through those kinds of things, don't pull out Romans 8, 28, 29.

And he said to me, that's what we needed to hear. That's what we needed to hear. That's what sustained us. And so we're here, very familiar. Romans 8, 28, in the context of a world that is agonizing and crying out for its restoration.

He says, and we know that for those who love God, let's stop there just for a moment. This is a promise to God's people. It's not a promise to everyone. It's a promise to God's people. We just can't say indiscriminately to people, well, you know, it's hard now, but it'll work out for you.

It might not. It will for God's people. It will for those who he loves. So let's go on. And we know that for those who love God, all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose.

What is that good? Verse 29. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his son in order that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.

All right?

Now notice his purpose here. His purpose is to conform you to the image of his son. That may not mean a life of comfort and ease. It may not mean that at all, as we would define the good, but it does mean peace and righteousness, holiness, happiness, and abundant love.

That's what follows our conformity to the image of Christ. In his wisdom, he turns all the forces of evil that rage against his children for their good to conform them to Christ and find the happiness and joy and righteousness and all those wonderful fruits that come as we are more like Jesus.

Jerry Bridges, in his book, Trusting God, Even When Life Hurts, writes this,. God knows infallibly with infinite wisdom what combination of good and bad circumstances will bring us more and more into sharing his holiness, and I would argue our happiness.

He never puts too much of the salt of adversity into the recipe of our lives. His blending of adversity and blessing is always exactly right for us. Do you know how you can give thanks to God in difficult times?

Remember that they originate in the infinite, infallible, wise sovereignty of God. But the sovereign God is not just wise, he is also love. He is also love. Turn to Zephaniah. Go to the table of contents if you have to.

All right, the minor prophet Zephaniah. Zephaniah chapter three. This is a marvelous verse. Zephaniah 3 .17. I'll wait until I hear the pages no longer rustling, which means that some of you have phones and you cheat and you don't even know the orders of the books of the Bible, but you don't care.

All right. The Lord your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save. He will rejoice over you with gladness. He will quiet you by his love. He will exalt over you with loud singing. Do you have that picture of God?

That God delights in you? That he just sings because of you. Isn't that a marvelous picture? He just sings because he loves you. You see, God not only loves his saints, but he loves to love them. You catch it?

He doesn't just love you. He loves to love you. He takes delight in loving you because you are his very own. Some of you are looking at me like, yeah, right, there it is. That's what God says. You belong to him.

He exalts.

He sings over you.

He loves you.

I want you to think this thought now. Everything that comes into your life comes to you through the loving hand of a loving heavenly father. There isn't one thing in your life, blessing or adversity, it all comes from the love of God.

You say, wait a minute. When I lost my husband, that came from the loving hand of God? And the answer is yes. This infinitely wise, loving God. Remember what it says in Romans 8 .39. Nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

Now, do you see that? Nothing will separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus, our Lord. When you find yourself hard-hearted and ungrateful in the midst of adversity, when you find yourself wondering if God loves you because you failed so often, please remember this.

God's love to his son can never change. Can God change in his love to his son? Can you imagine that? It's not possible. And so his love cannot change towards you because we are in union with Christ. That love is ours in Christ.

You belong to him. You are united to him. Therefore, if his love will never waver toward his son, it will never waver towards you. It will never change. God will always love you and everything that comes from his hand comes from a loving hand.

No matter what your circumstances, God loves you in Christ. Again, Jerry Bridges, no calamity may come upon us, however great it may be or no calamity that may come upon us, however great it may be, can carry us beyond the pale of God's fatherly love for us.

No matter what it is, you are not outside the love of God. Everything comes from his loving hand. Do you know how you can thank God even in difficult times? Remember that they originate in his unwavering love for you, his unwavering, unchangeable love for you.

Two, consider the greatest good. God's wise, loving sovereignty brought out of the greatest evil, the death of his son. Can you ever doubt that he would bring good out of any of your tragedy? It says, the prophet Isaiah says, yet it was the will of the Lord to crush him.

He has put him to grief. The greatest horrific event in human history came about through the wise, loving sovereignty of God so that you would know the goodness of God and you would know the glory of salvation all because of his wise, sovereign will and loving will.

Do you want to give thanks to God in all circumstances then get the right perspective of God. Now everything I've said up to this point hinges on what I have said about God so let's move on then. With that in mind, with this understanding of God we can talk about his gifts to us.

The Right Perspective on God’s Gifts

Get the right perspective on gifts. Get the right perspective on gifts. The things that we enjoy, the things that God has given us. How should we view them? If you get the right perspective on gifts you'll be able to give thanks in all circumstances.

Here's the first. The giver deserves more love than the gifts. The giver deserves more love than the gifts. Love the giver more than the gifts. That's the bottom line. All that God created, all the gifts he gives.

Look at 1 Timothy 4 for a moment. 1 Timothy 4. This is a great Thanksgiving passage. I've already used it years ago. 1 Timothy 4. Listen to what God says here. Verse 1. The Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith by devoting themselves to deceitful spirits and teachings of demons through the insincerity of liars whose consciences are seared, who forbid marriage and require abstinence from foods that God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth for everything created by God is good and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving for it is made holy by the word of God in prayer.

Now just consider that. Do you think this way? All the good gifts I have, you know what God wants? He wants you to just kind of stay away from them, right? No, you know what he says about those who forbid marriage and forbid the reception of all these good gifts of God?

They're deceiving spirits. It's demon teaching. That should say something to all the people who look at us Christians and say, oh, you're all about what you're against. Hey, I'm all for good stuff because God says we ought to be.

The food you eat, the love you enjoy in the arms of your spouse, the children and grandchildren that brighten your day, all are given by God for the express purpose of your enjoyment. But how do you know if you enjoy the gifts more than the giver?

How do you know that? You know what, all my grand, whenever I see my grandchildren, they want gum, okay? Even Clive, Clive, who's just now formulating words, looks at me and says, gum. First thing he says to me, not this morning though, that was really nice.

Now, I don't doubt for a minute that my grandchildren love my gum more than me, but you have to ask yourself the question, do I love the gifts more than the giver? Get the proper perspective on the gifts.

Enjoy them, enjoy them, but make sure you don't love them more than you love the giver. How do you respond when God takes away some of those gifts? If you complain and murmur, you know that you're loving the gift more than the giver when God takes some of those away.

I love Charles Spurgeon says, listen to this, there is as much love in God's taking as in his giving. Have you thought about that? There is as much love in God's taking as in his giving. The kindness of God is quite as great when he smites us with his rod as when he kisses us with the kisses of his mouth.

If we could see everything as he sees it, we would often perceive that the kindest possible thing he can do to us, that which appears to us to be unkind. If we had his perspective, we would see that his taking away some things was the kindest thing he could have done.

Little girl comes up to her dad, and she's had her apron out, and she's been out in the woods picking berries, and she comes back with her apron full of these bright red berries. And she says, dad, look what I found.

And he looks at her in alarm and shock and says, have you eaten any of those? And she says, no. Good, and he takes all of them and smashes them and buries them. Now to her, that looks terribly unkind, but it was the kindest thing he could have done because those berries were poisonous.

And if she had eaten one, she'd have been dead. And the same is true with us. Sometimes when God takes the gifts away, we need to remember he does it out of love. He does it out of love. You want to know how to give thanks in every situation?

Love the giver more than the gifts. Here's another perspective we need on gifts. Give the proper, give gifts their proper value. Give gifts their proper value. What do you value more? What do you value more?

Your nice car? Your nice house? Your job? And all the things that you have? Or does Jesus himself and the redemption that he brought mean more to you than these? What value do you put on that gift as opposed to the other ones?

Now you think about that. Remember what the apostle Paul says in 2 Corinthians 9 .15? We all know that verse. Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift. He's talking about Jesus there. He is the inexpressible gift.

What do you value the most? Listen to Paul in 2 Corinthians 4 .1. Therefore, having this ministry, by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart. Now, okay, that sounds like, okay, great. That's just a nice verse.

But to me, that is radical. He is saying, I have this ministry by the mercy of God. What ministry? A ministry that entails, as he says in the 11th chapter of that book, a ministry that entails of having the flesh ripped off his back three times.

Being stoned three times. Being shipwrecked. Being hungry. Being cold.

All of it.

And you say, I say to myself, that's mercy? You gave him that kind of ministry out of mercy? And the answer is yes. He valued that ministry above what he had. You know, Paul could have been, Paul could have been an internationally renowned rabbinical scholar who lived a comfortable life.

Who could have had probably anything he wanted. That was the trajectory of his life when Jesus interrupted it. The life of hardship is better than the life that he had before. We have this ministry by the mercy of God.

Spurgeon, again, I am sure that a Christian man with gratitude for a small income is rich, really richer than the man who lives a graceless life and is plentifully endowed with worldly wealth. So let others do as they will.

We say, give us, Lord, whatever thou wilt, whether it be little or much, so long as thou dost give with it the light of thy countenance, our souls shall be abundantly content. Thus we are to bless the name of the Lord for all that he gives us.

Do you hear that? You, with what God has given you, you have much more than anybody else who has more possessions. And then the last perspective on gifts. Remember that the recipients of God's gifts do not deserve them.

If you think you're entitled to those lovely children, if you think you're entitled to those wonderful, wonderful grandchildren, if you think you're entitled to the food that's on your table, you're wrong.

You're not entitled to it. All of it is the grace of God.

All of it.

Matthew 5. Now, Matthew 5, let's turn there for a moment. Matthew 5 is not about thanksgiving. It's about loving our enemies.

Okay?

Matthew 5, 43 to 48 is about loving our enemies. It's not about thanksgiving. But there's a principle here that I think we need to see. You have heard that it was said, you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.

But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. Note, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the just and on the unjust.

You see, God gives gifts to people who are shaking their fist at him. Unless you think you deserve it, remember that you are shaking your fist at God too. Why do we bow our head and give thanks every time we sit down at the table?

Why is that?

Because this is a gift from God. We don't deserve it. This is a gift to undeserving people. God showers you with gifts and you don't deserve a one of them. Should that help you be grateful? Absolutely.

So if you want to know how to show gratitude in every circumstance, then get a right perspective on gifts. Now, we've talked about the right perspective of God, the right perspective on gifts, and I think now we can tackle the last hurdle, the most difficult of them, and that is how to give thanks in the difficulties of life.

The Right Perspective on Trials

And so I want to say to you, get a right perspective on trials. Get a right perspective on trials. First, understand that God has a loving purpose behind every trial. Hear that? God has a loving purpose behind every trial.

Some of you have experienced the most horrible things you can experience in this fallen world. Some of you, as I'm looking at you, I know some of those things. I know what you've been through. And yet, I can say to you that God has a loving purpose behind all of the hardships, trials, difficulties, horrors of life in this fallen world.

How do I know that?

Well, again, we know Hebrews 12, 5, and 6, don't we?

You know it?

You can turn there if you want,.

If it sounds unfamiliar.

Hebrews 12, 5, and 6. My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by him, for the Lord disciplines the one he loves. He chastises everyone whom he receives. If you know the context of that, and in some months we'll be there, in chapter 10, they're losing their property.

Their property is being confiscated. They are being thrown in jail. They are being publicly ridiculed in the public square. And God here says, oh, by the way, do you know what that means? It means I love you.

And some people say, I wish you wouldn't love me that much.

Right?

But God has a loving purpose behind it. And he goes on to say what? It's brought into your life so that you share in his holiness, and you know the peace of righteousness. He has a loving purpose behind every trial.

That's the perspective that you need. When the waves of suffering come crashing down on you, and you have a difficult time feeling that God loves you, and it's the last thing that you can accept, remember, God has called you to believe that he loves you, even if you don't feel like it.

The story is told of the pastor in North Scotland, in the north part of Scotland, who had just lost the love of his life. He lost his wife. And as he prayed that night in the presence of the friends that had come to comfort him, he prayed this, Father, if an angel from heaven told me that this would work for my good, I would not believe him.

But because thy word says it, I must believe it.

Do you believe it?

You may not feel like it at that moment, but do you believe that God has a loving purpose? You can thank God in trials when you believe he has a loving purpose behind each one. Spurgeon says, listen to this.

This is one of those you write in your Bible. Here it is. When we cannot trace God's hand, we can trust his heart. You can thank God in trials when you believe he has a loving purpose behind each one.

Understand, as well, that hardship can serve a greater purpose. Hardship can serve a greater purpose. Paul suffers in his ministry of the gospel. Turn to 2 Corinthians 4, verse 15. 2 Corinthians 4, verse 15.

Paul suffers in his ministry of the gospel, but he says here that he has a greater view than just his suffering. Here's what he says. For it is all for your sake,.

So that as, listen,.

So that as grace extends to more and more people, it may increase thanksgiving to the glory of God. When you have a hard time giving thanks in circumstances, think this. There is a greater purpose than just me.

It is the glory of God. And as I suffer, it may minister grace to others, which will increase thanksgiving to God for his glory. Your suffering can minister grace. Have you ever felt that? Someone else's suffering has ministered the very grace of God to you, so that you can give thanks.

You can thank God in hardship because it can be used to move others to thanksgiving for the glory of God. Here's another perspective on our trials. Understand that adversity produces a more intimate knowledge of God.

Psalm 73, 25, and 26, as Asaph has just got done talking about all the wrong things, all the things he doesn't have, and all the things these godless people do have, what good does it do at the end of that?

Do you remember what he said? Whom have I in heaven but you? And I desire nothing on earth besides you. My heart and my flesh may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion, or my treasure forever.

That's what Asaph said. I can tell you that the times where I felt, felt the closest to God, when I experienced the nearness of God, was in the darkest days of my life. One has written this. I walked a mile with pleasure.

She chatted all the way, but left me none the wiser for all she had to say. I walked a mile with sorrow, and narrow words said she, but all the things I learned from her when sorrow walked with me.

Do you want to know God?

When you turn to him in the dark times of your life,.

He will come near. He will come near.

And you can give thanks in adversity because it drives you to God, and you will know him like you have never known him before. Here's the last thing about suffering that we need to see. 2 Corinthians 4.

You may be there. 2 Corinthians 4. By the way, the whole chapter is a wonderful chapter about not losing hope. You want to see what it is to not lose hope in the midst of hard times. Read 2 Corinthians 4.