The Discipline of Gratitude

Hi, this is Dave Scherrer. I found this little clip. I thought it was fun and entertaining. It's children talking about what they are thankful for. So listen in. It's actually a Jimmy Kimmel live interview, a kind of interview on the street. It's kind of fun. Kids talking about thankfulness. What are you thankful for? My dog and my brothers. Do you like your dog or your brothers better? My dog. What are you thankful for? Thankful for my family and plants. What kind of plants? Really all plants. Because plants give us AO. What are you thankful for? Sushi and garbanzo beans. I'm thankful for having food. What kind of food? Turkey, gravy, chicken. What are you thankful for? My school and my friends. Which friends? Sydney and Taylor. Chicken, nachos, burritos, chili fries. So this is Kingdom Offerings, and you've found the podcast world of 100 Full Ministries. For several months now, we've been examining the disciplines of the kingdom. And these are the habits, the behaviors, that help align our spirit to God's spirit. Some months ago, we identified eight. Eight kingdom disciplines, and they were all drawn from Jesus' most famous kingdom sermon, the Sermon on the Mount. Mostly from chapter six, one from chapter seven. We found eight disciplines mentioned specifically by Jesus that we are to lean into. They are, one through eight, confession. By confession, what we mean is that passage in Mark where he says, Believe and repent, or believe and turn. It is to confess our belief in Jesus Christ. Confession, generosity, prayer, forgiveness. That's a great discipline. Fasting, one that I call treasure seeking from Matthew 6, verse 20. And then gratitude or contentedness from 6.31. And then the very start of the next chapter in Matthew 7, verse 1, the practice of being non-judgmental. We've started our disciplines series in late January of this year, and we've at least touched on all of these disciplines now but the last two. Thankfulness or gratitude. And the last one is acceptance or this idea of being non-judgmental or accepting. So from our sound clip a moment ago, I'm guessing you guessed that we are tackling the kingdom discipline of gratitude. And it's a big idea. So we'll just set the stage for today and then tackle it again next time. Let me give you something to think about, things that you probably already know from the world of science. There are these two psychologists, a Dr. Eamons from the University of California and then a Dr. McLaughlin from the University of Miami, and they've done several research studies on gratitude. And in one study, they asked all their participants to write a few sentences each week focusing on one of three particular topics. One group wrote about things that they were grateful for that had occurred during the week. A second group wrote about daily irritations or things that had set them off. And then there was a third group that wrote about events that had affected them and it could be positive or negative. They weren't told to choose. And so after 10 weeks of those who wrote about gratitude and those who wrote about things that irritate them and then things that people just noticed, the ones that wrote about gratitude were more optimistic and they felt better about their lives. Surprising. They also exercised more. They had fewer visits to physicians than those who focused on sources of aggravation. That kind of makes sense. There's another study by a Dr. Siegelman. He's a psychologist at the University of Philadelphia in Pennsylvania. He tested the impact of various positive interventions on 411 people. And they had a weekly assignment to write down and personally deliver a letter of gratitude to someone who had never been properly thanked for his or her kindness. So these participants, they exhibited a huge increase in happiness scores. The impact from this thankfulness was greater than any other intervention that they asked these experimenters to participate in. So here's what we know about gratefulness. We know that gratefulness is a kind of muscle, an emotional, spiritual muscle. And it needs to be exercised like any other muscle. It needs to be stretched. It needs to be strengthened. So when you flex your gratitude muscles, there's some scientific proof, like we were just talking about, of reduced stress and improved sleep patterns and the cultivation of positive emotions. There's good things that happen when we practice thankfulness. In one blog that I saw when I was kind of doing some research on this, they came up with at least four effects of practicing gratitude. One of them is that it refocuses our eyes on God and his generosity instead of thinking only about ourselves and our own wants. It reminds us that there are many things that we can't control, but we serve a sovereign and kind God who can work things out for our benefit. Thanksgiving gives us that. It removes complaining and negativity. It just does by the very discipline of being thankful. It's impossible to be truly thankful and then be filled with negativity at the same time. And finally, Thanksgiving, it repels evil. It repels the darkness in our minds, because darkness can't stand to be around hearts that give thanks and honor God. So there's no better way of intentionally focusing on gratitude than spending some time in God's Word. So let's just find a few verses, because Scripture is just filled with them, especially the Psalms. We'll focus on the Psalms here. Psalm 100, verses 4 and 5 say, Enter his gates with, say it with me, Thanksgiving, and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, bless his name. Why? For the Lord is good. His steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations. I think I memorized Psalm 100 when I was six years old. Psalm 118 says, Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His love endures forever. Psalm 9, I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart. I will tell all of your wonderful deeds. Psalm 7, I will give to the Lord that thanks do his righteousness, and I will sing praise to the name of the Lord, the Most High. There's a theme here. There's a theme here of confessing God's steadfast love that endures forever. That's in Psalm 136. God is love, so we can practice gratitude by honoring God for his patience, his kindness, his gentleness, his mercy, his love. Count Your Blessings is actually a song, not just an idea. It's an old hymn. It goes like this. When upon life's billows you are tempest-tossed, when you are discouraged thinking all is lost, count your many blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done. I guess there's been something out there on social media called the 21 Day Gratitude Challenge. It's been on Facebook, I understand, and it's been out there for years, apparently. The challenge is to write down three things that you're grateful for each day for 21 days. Hence, the 21 Day Gratitude Challenge. I guess they did some studies with this, and they've shown that if you do this, your overall happiness will increase by 5% in a month, 9% in six months. I don't know how they come up with those numbers, but the idea kind of strikes me as true, that if we are disciplined in our sense of gratitude, that we will find ourselves falling into a more thoughtful and peaceful mindset. So, grab your notebook, or open your phone's notepad, and start recording the things that you're grateful for today. Let me give you a hint, though, because your gratitude should be to God. James 1 verse 17 tells us that every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights. He does not change like the shifting shadows. So, by targeting our thankfulness on the attributes of God, like His grace, His kindness, His forgiveness, these are ever-present gifts. These are the gifts, the eternal gifts of God. The car you're thankful for may or may not be around for very long, depending on what happens at the next stop sign. Focusing our attention on what God is doing changes our heart attitude. The kingdom discipline of thanksgiving is powerful. So, the kingdom of God and, frankly, you will be all the richer for your disciplined and intentional spirit of thanksgiving. We're going to talk about this a little bit more the next time we're together here at Kingdom Offerings. This is Dave Scherrer. Peace.