Classic Friday: Are You A Thankful Person?

Gratitude as a Christian Duty

Welcome to No Compromised Radio Ministry. It has been a week since I've been in the studio. Last time I was here, it was interviewing Pastor Pat Abendroth, his new book, The Active Obedience of Christ.

Haven't felt that well lately, but I thought I'd force myself to come in today because I wanted to talk about being thankful. So, instead of sitting at home trying to get whatever I could get done done, working on a sermon and stuff like that, I thought, well, you know what, let's go into the studio, record a show, talk about thankfulness, and that would probably make me feel better because as I was talking to you about thankfulness, I would be more thankful, and no matter what problems you have in your life, if you are thankful, things are better, right?

So, today on No Compromised Radio Ministry, it's all law, but I'll couch it with a question. Are you thankful? Are you a thankful person? Now, we could think about words that are the opposite of thankful, maybe ungrateful, disappointed, I don't know, symptoms of worry wart, symptoms of taking things for granted, symptoms of why me, and there's a lot of things we could probably talk about.

But as usual on No Compromised Radio, I have no script, I literally walked over to the studio, I have no notes, and I said to myself, I need to talk about something today.

What should it be?

And so, it's going to be about thankfulness. I'm very thankful that while my wife, Kim, is out of town, I do some sneaky things. I'm not thankful for that, but the sneaky thing was I went and bought a Diet Mountain Dew because she wouldn't really like me drinking that.

I'm supposed to stay away from sugar, allegedly, with the cancer stuff, and the Diet Mountain Dew probably doesn't help me. But I just didn't really want to drink 14 teaspoons of sugar in a soda, and I felt like having a soda today.

So, there you have it. Don't tell Kimberly that I'm drinking a Diet Mountain Dew, she wouldn't care. Being thankful. I did read a funny song one day, today I just read it, and remember that old song, count your blessings, name them one by one, count your many blessings, see what God has done.

Count your blessings, name them one by one, count your many blessings, see what God has.

Done.

Well, there you have it. There's another one you could probably sing that I don't think would be quite as biblical, but maybe it'd be called count your problems, which would lead to being very unthankful.

Count your problems, name them one by one, count your problems, scorn what God has done. Count your many problems, make the list real long, count your many problems while you sing.

This song.

I don't know why everything is so funny to me today. We as Christians ought to be thankful people. In matter of fact, 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 talks about giving thanks. In matter of fact, before I get into our main passage today, I think I should probably turn there because it has to do with the will of God.

Many people are running after the will of God, the elusive will of God. Is this the will of God? Should I do this? Should I do the other? And I think it's kind of simple when the scriptures are very clear with this language.

I mean, there's many ways we can determine God's will, and you can find his will in more ways than this, but this makes it simple. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5, verse 16, rejoice always, verse 17, pray without ceasing, verse 18, give thanks in all circumstances, semicolon, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

And then he goes on to say in verse 23, now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Deep breath.

He who calls you is faithful. He will surely do it. We are to be, as the ESV study Bible says, marked by thanksgiving. So I ask the question once again, are you a thankful person? I've had to ask myself that question today.

Am I a thankful person? When I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, my father, while he had many slogans, are you sick and tired of being sick and tired? When it comes to fighting and your fist, don't cock it unless you're going to throw it.

Talking about individual people or persons rather, they're good people. He had other scenes that I don't think I can say on the radio, but I'm sure Pat Avendroth of the Pactum knows exactly what I'm talking about.

But he taught us manners. And while it wasn't a saying, we had to say thank you and please, and there was just no way around it. Thank you and please. So much so that you get the ticket from the officer because you got caught speeding or running or rolling red light or something like that.

Thank you for the ticket. You can say thank you for your service, but we were taught to say thank you. I noticed as my children were growing up, I enforced the same rules. It doesn't cost you anything to say thank you, right?

That's a slogan that my father probably said. And I remember one time taking Luke's friend to the skate park with Luke. And then I went back an hour or two later, picked him up, brought him home, you know, probably 45 minute round trip to go there, 45 minute round trip to come back.

And I dropped off Luke's buddy and he just got out of the car. And I stuck my head out the window and I yelled, you're welcome. Which I did regularly when people didn't say thank you. My kids know to say thank you.

Once in a while, they probably didn't. And I had to say, you're welcome. They said, oh, thank you. But I think if we as Christians take an inventory, we probably would be convicted that we're not thankful enough for many different ways, in many different ways rather.

Now, how would I engender thankfulness? How would I make myself more thankful? Might just be more thankful. Obviously there are commands to be thankful. But 1 Thessalonians 5 is preceded by 1 Thessalonians 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Any language of thankfulness in Ephesians chapter 5 is followed by the first four chapters, specifically the first three that talk about union with Christ and being in Christ, Trinitarian.

Blessings.

Remembering What We Deserve

What if we first though, first step in being a thankful Christian is probably if we remembered what we deserved, we remember what we deserve. That might propel us to be thankful. Now you say, what do you mean by that?

Well, before you know it, we're starting to talk about holiness, the holiness of God. And Isaiah chapter 6, because we realize when we talk about sin, then we have to talk about holiness because our sin is against someone.

Our sin is against God. Our sin is not against a made up God. I was reading in Isaiah the other day, I mean, the folly of taking a piece of wood and cutting it in half and using half the fire and warming your hands and taking the other half and shaping it and molding it and carving it into an idol and then bowing down to it.

Doesn't that just make no sense at all? Isn't that just lunacy? Isn't that idiotic? Isn't that just like sin? And so today on No Compromise Radio, we're trying to talk a little bit about thankfulness and probably the first way we could be thankful is, of course, to respond by the Spirit's power to the commands of Scripture, knowing who we are in Christ.

But if we just remember what we deserve, think about if you were to die without Christ. Think about that first moment of being in the presence of God without a mediator, the Lord Jesus. I mean, that's really the definition of hell, being in the presence of God, Revelation 14, without a mediator.

You know, sometimes we think, well, hell is the absence of God. It's certainly the absence of God's goodness and kindness and patience. No grace there, no love there, but God is omnipresent. And so to be in the presence of God without a shield, without a redeemer, without an advocate, without a mediator, that's really the best definition of hell.

And hell, you know, putting aside for a moment how long hell lasts, can you imagine just the ferocity of it all? Michael Horton used to talk about, you know, being in the presence of God without a mediator is like, you know, it's a nuclear winter times eternity, times, you know, higher magnitudes.

And as hard as life would be, I mean, I really feel sorry for people that are on their deathbed, they're sick, cancer, morphine drip, all the other stuff that goes along with it, COPD, Lasix that they're on, breathing devices, oxygen.

And people say, well, you know, they just died and at least they're not in pain anymore. They, if they're not Christians, would give anything and more to be back on that deathbed with the gray skin, cold sweats, pain, et cetera.

I think it was on, and you know, I'm not a big Edwards guy, but Edwards is right sometimes. And it would be as bad as hell, as bad as it is on earth, it would be a veritable heaven on earth compared to how bad it is in hell, right?

As that flip side goes as well, as good as life gets on earth and you die in the prime of your life with a wife and kids and everything else and health, and just all of a sudden out of nowhere you die, it was pretty good on earth, but what earth would seem like in comparison to heaven, earth would seem like a veritable hell once you realize how great heaven is.

And while I'm talking about the positive side, can you imagine even now to be thankful what I deserve and what I get, and then I deserve hell, but the moment I, as a Christian, because of the Lord Jesus and faith and grace alone, rather, through faith alone, I get everything, my joy and air.

There's no condemnation. Absent from the body, present with the Lord, to live as Christ, to die as gain.

Christ's Mercy, Election, and the Blessings of Salvation

It's hard to talk when you don't feel good.

It's hard to talk when you don't feel good. Who is texting me? Actually that's R. Scott Clark texting me. It's about time, Scott. Beam me up, Scotty. Those moments. I mean, I think about slow deaths and when I was in the hospital for 16 days with COVID thinking I was going to die.

I mean, I knew it was bad when I went from the oxygen from level two to 60, you know, over time with different apparatus.

Apparatus.

And then they were giving me Lasix and then they, CAT scans, and I did get out of the room once in 16 days. They took me for a CAT scan and I thought I was getting out of jail or something. And then they were going to tap my lung, big cannula that goes in between your ribs, and I thought, oh, I'm so dead.

But if I would have died, I would have awakened to glory, right? Whenever I get Versed and other anesthesia medicines before a colonoscopy or surgery, prostate stuff, I know I'm going to wake up to bright lights either in the recovery room or in glory.

Anyway, back to the subject, I know we're rambling. I'm a rambling man, rambling guy. Remember him, Steve Martin? I saw him, I think, in 73 or 74 in Omaha, Orpheum maybe. Scott Clark, have you ever been to the Orpheum Theater?

And I think I saw the Ramones there too. It wasn't the same day. To imagine what we deserve and what we get, I regularly say, because I'm sure I stole it from someone, the gulf between what I deserve and what I get should bring me joy and thankfulness.

Most of the world says you deserve everything and the world never delivers. So the difference is you're downcast, you're depressed, you're moody, you think you got robbed. But if you really think about it the other way around, it's the joy begetter.

I am so thankful because why am I chosen? I mean, that's probably the second thing we could go to, what I deserve and what I get in Christ Jesus, what the triune God has done for me. And you could just start working through every theological concept and just go slowly.

If you're a Christian, God chose you in eternity past. For no reason, except the reasons that he knows. The reasons aren't in us, that's for certain. So you have friends that aren't saved, why? You have family members who aren't saved, why?

You have people that you work with that aren't saved. Why aren't they saved and you are? Well, the answer is not found in you. Why am I a Christian? The answer is not found in me. If you look at 1 Corinthians 1 at the end of the chapter, verses 26 and following, you're going to realize God chooses those on the lower end of the spectrum.

Most often he chooses those kinds of people. Well, there are some exceptions, of course. He didn't say not any, but he said not many. So that no one boasts in themselves, so that people boast in the Lord, let him who boasts.

Boast in the Lord.

And you realize, I'm not going to go to hell. I am chosen by God. The Lord Jesus with the Father and the Son loves me, and I see that love, especially in time where the Lord Jesus lived for me and died for me, has been raised for me.

I realize how the Spirit of God has sealed me to the day of redemption, how he encourages me, how he comforts me, how he comes alongside, convicts me. I see God's even loving hand in discipline and chastening as proof of his love.

I'm thankful that I can understand who God is through scriptures. You know, Luther talks a lot about, well, how do you know that God is good? Well, I have taste buds. I can hear wonderful music. I can enjoy my wife, and I can have children, and I can have grandchildren, and I can have friendship, and I can have all these things.

That's true.

That shows God's goodness. But Luther would say, how do you know God is good? Because there's cancer in the world, and there's suffering, and there are miscarriages, and there are horrible things that go on, and earthquakes.

So, how do you know God is good? Luther's answer is, look at the incarnate Jesus. If you want to know what God's like, look at Jesus. And you watch Jesus with the children, you watch Jesus with the leper, you watch Jesus with Simon's mother-in-law, you watch Jesus in his patience with his men, the apostles, you watch Jesus casting out demons, healing sick people of all sorts, forgiving sins of the paralytic, dining with sinners, communing with sinners, of course, telling them to repent.

But you see where I'm going here? So, for the last 18 minutes, I have not really thought about my cancer numbers. I called my cancer doctors this week because I just wasn't feeling well. Two weeks ago, I went in for my typical checkup.

And I always think to myself, you know, this is just my monthly checkup. And what you do is you go in in the morning, you go give blood, they run the, you know, 40 different tests for the things that they're looking for.

And then you meet with your care team, which typically is a couple of nurses. Something's really bad, you meet with the doctor. And then you usually go home, right? Get your parking ticket validated. I'm in a study called the MAGIC study, M-A-G-I-C.

And it's funded by one of the large companies, the drug companies. And so for me to be in the study and have a diary and do all that, I get $50 a time that I go to the hospital. Which you got to pay $12 for parking, you've got to pay $10 for gas and tolls.

You've got to buy lunch for 35 bucks, so you're already negative. But hey, I'd be even more negative. And you kind of just work through all this and it's just a normal visit. Well, last time, two weeks ago, I got there and they said, your neutrophils are low, you have neutropenia.

And they're a kind of white cell that fights infections. So we're going to give you a shot. And it's going to start making these grow in your bone marrow so that you have an immune system that works. Don't be around a lot of people.

I said, like taking my daughter to the Rolling Stones concert in two days. It was outside. So they gave me the shot. My bones ached. I mean, if you've had a backache before, it's nothing like that because it's inside your bones.

So they said, take Claritin and Advil and that would help. But I've since then have just been running on empty so bad. I preached on Sunday, but I hope I said biblical things. I just went home afterwards and just crashed.

No desire to work out. It's just bad. So here's my point. I haven't really thought about that as I've been rehearsing what I deserve and what I get. What I deserve by my own doing. I won't even blame Adam, although he's my federal head.

If I was there, I would have sinned faster probably than Adam. So would have you. But it's just a rehearsal of the benefits of God. I was reading Deuteronomy, and I think it's chapter 11. Rehearsing who God is and what he's done helped the Israelites.

Matter of fact, I'm going to go there right now and see what's happening when it comes to being thankful and just kind of rehearsing the benefits from the triune God. So that's Deuteronomy. I'm hoping my memory is good with this Bible here.

It's a pretty thick, big Bible. This is Deuteronomy chapter 11. He's talking about keeping commandments, taking possession of the land, laying up the words of God in your heart and soul, and bind them on your hand, and not to have any other gods before you.

That's not the chapter. Maybe it's chapter 12 is what I was after. Somewhere in here, there's a rehearsal in Deuteronomy. I've been doing the Robert Murray McShane Bible reading, but sometimes I'm a little ahead, and so I can't seem to find it.

But you would know if you saw it. One thing about it is I don't like to give up, and so I'm not going to quite give up yet. As I'm talking and scanning here, what is going on in this passage? A God enlarging your territory.

That sounds like the prayer of Jabesh, does it not? Holy things, blood sacrifices, dreamers, cities, Passover. I can't find it. That is really dumb. Spencer, where are you to edit these problems? Counter problems.

Name them one by one.

Counter many problems.

Make the list real long.

Trials, Providence, and Rejoicing in Salvation

Well, here's a passage that I do know. I do know I could go to 1 Peter. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again. That sounds like something to be thankful for.

To a living hope, not a dead hope. That sounds like something to be thankful for. To the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. That sounds like something I should be thankful for. To an inheritance. That sounds something you should be thankful for.

That is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading. Kept are reserved in heaven for you. That should elicit thanksgiving and praise and joy. Who by God's power are being guarded through faith for a salvation.

Ready to be revealed in the last time.

It's all the Lord.

He'll protect. He'll do. He's the one. In this you rejoice, though now for a little while. If necessary, you've been grieved by various trials. So we can still be joyful. We can still have thanks, even if we have trials.

So that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ.

I could even be thankful for my trials. I could even count it all joy, my brethren, when you encounter various trials.

Why?

Because God's doing something. He's making me have endurance and patience. And I personally could thank him and say, I did this a while ago. It's in my book. It took me a long time to finally say thank you for leukemia.

It probably took me a longer time to say thank you for prostate cancer. Not ultimately that those things are to be thankful for, but God will use them and God can cause them to work together for good.

And God does do that. And the Lord is faithful and he is kind. And I know he'll give me seemingly, from my perspective, extra love and attention. I've said very often when our children were growing up and one of them were sick, my wife just doted on them.

And I'm sure you did the same with your children. We're not talking about if somebody skinned their knee and were crying like a baby and they should get up and get back into the game. We're talking about really sick.

And so my wife would get this special place on the couch for them and she would call it a nest. Special blanket, special pillow, special ice cream, special food, special show to watch on the monitor TV.

Because we don't have TV when we're, we had children because we're Christians. We just had a monitor. It's back in the old days, you know, you were really way out there if you had moving pictures, right?

You could, you could have a slideshow, but once those pictures started moving, boy, that was, that was sinful. And my point is extra attention, doting on, loving on. Oh, we still love the other children who are healthy, but this one got a little bit more attention.

And I'm not saying that somehow God is more omnipresent near me. He's more present near me than others. I'm not saying anything about that, the doctrine of God. I'm just saying God cares.

God loves.

God is a good shepherd.

He's faithful.

And even when we're having a trial, we're getting that extra special attention from the Lord. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not see him now, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.

Mike Habenroth, No Compromise Radio Ministry. So when it comes to thankfulness, I ask again, are you a thankful person? Or are you just a complainer, a murmur, ungrateful, demanding, self-sufficient, independent?

Well, the answer for all of us is we struggle with those things, right? So in light of God's goodness and motivated by grace, why don't we just say, Lord, please forgive me. Sorry. I want to forsake those things and show you honor by saying thank you.

Thank you. Let's just make it practical. Here's my no-co challenge for you this week. It's the madhouse challenge. Don't complain about the weather for one week. I mean, I don't want you to ever complain about the weather, but why don't you be thankful?

Whatever the weather God gives you, why don't you be thankful for it? If it's rain, I think the earth needs rain. If it's sun, the earth needs the sun. How about let's start off with being thankful for that?

How about let's start off with being thankful for our spouses? If you've been married for as long as I have, 35 years, I could probably pick out some negative things in the marriage. But how about to be thankful?

If you find a wife, you find a good thing. How about being thankful for your children, your job, your health? You say, well, my health isn't good. Well, mine isn't either. But it could be a lot worse, right?

Anyway, my name is Mike Abendroth. This is No Compromise Radio Ministry. We want to be a thankful people because we have a risen Savior. Don't forget, cancer is not your shepherd. And the updated sexual fidelity, Romans, Colossians, all found on Amazon .com.

If you want to order a bunch, email me, Mike at NoCompromiseRadio .com.