Christian preaching | Biblical studies
Luke 17:11-19
Introduction:
We have a great and wonderful God, a good and powerful God, who showers us with favors and mercies every day, every day. A God, who has not dealt with us according to our iniquities, nor has he paid us according to our sins. Therefore we have many great reasons and very powerful reasons to be and be grateful to our good God and heavenly Father.
I. What is giving thanks?
Giving thanks is turning (then one of them, seeing that he had been healed, returned, glorifying God with a loud voice v15) or returning with expressions or actions towards someone who has done us a favor, or has given us help or has done us harm. right; When someone gives us something, we go to him with a smile or a hug or with words of thanks and the more valuable the gift, the favor or the help we receive, the greater our gratitude for the one who gives it to us.
And it is those actions and expressions that we give or do when we recognize the gesture and kindness of someone towards us, which make us be grateful and the lack of them make us ungrateful.
Now, giving thanks to God is the response of a humble heart, of a heart that does not forget and that recognizes the wonderful blessings that God gives it. Giving or saying thanks is part of an education, but for us, giving thanks to God must be a devotion. Every child of God must be grateful, we must express gratitude to God with our lips, we must bless his name and give thanks. (Bless Jehovah, my soul, and bless all my being his holy name. Ps. 103:1) Try that your whole life, that your whole being, be a thanksgiving to God, let us not forget that we have many reasons for which to give thanks.
Giving thanks is not done simply or only with words, but also with deeds and I sincerely believe that many children of God lack that.
II. Why should we give thanks to God?
Thank God for his ineffable gift! 2Co 9:15
If we began to enumerate all the reasons for which to thank God, our list would never end. (For life, health, food, for his sacrifice, for rescuing us from sin, from the devil, from death, for the gift of being called his children, for his Spirit, his grace, for his presence, for his eternal love, for his kindness, because he is good, because he has given us great and powerful privileges, he has made us princes and priests, he keeps us from all evil, he has given us victory, he has made us free and more than conquerors, etc. etc. . etc.)
1 Cor 15:57, 2 Cor 2:14, Eph. 5:20
All of us who are children of God should be aware of all the favors and mercies that God gives us, but unfortunately this is not the case, sometimes we live without understanding what God does in us and for us, not to mention what he has already done and what he will still do. Can you list one by one the blessings, favors and mercies that God has given you this day? Not counting the one you have done for your family, now list the ones you have done in gratitude to God today. I know that no matter how much or everything we do, we will never be able to repay God for what he does for us, we will never be able to! We will be eternally indebted, but we can be grateful and be grateful for eternity.
Oh, if we only knew the gift of God and who it is that gives it to us!
III. Why many times do we not give thanks to God? Why are we not grateful?
You have thought about whether or not you are grateful to God. One of the reasons why we are not thankful is precisely because of the lack of knowledge of all the things that God does for us.
If we knew and God has told me this several times, if you really knew what God did and is doing and will still do for us, what He has given us and who we are for Him, we would be every day, all the time on my knees worshiping and thanking him. If we were truly aware, aware of his work for us and in us, we would be grateful. Let us learn to recognize all the works of God in our lives, because many times we expect surprising things, wonderful miracles and we are so waiting for that, that we do not realize that God is already acting so subtly and habitually that we make the mistake of assuming the facts as logical or natural and we do not give God the glory, we do not give thanks because we think it happened because it had to happen or because it was obvious or logical that it would happen and we do not realize the extraordinary miracle that God did so that happened.
God was not in the Fire, nor in the whirlwind nor in the earthquake when He spoke to Elijah in the cave, He was in the still voice of a soft wind. “In all your ways acknowledge him and he will make straight your paths” Prov. 3:6
Another reason is because we are forgetful, that is, we forget what God does (“Bless the Lord, my soul, and do not forget any of his benefits” Sal.103: 2) But what happens? we forget and far from thanking, what we do is murmur. God spoke to Israel and said: (“Be careful not to forget the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of bondage.” Dt 6:12) And this was the first thing Israel did, they forgot the great miracles that the Lord did for them, to free them, He opened the Red Sea, through which they passed on dry ground, all of them, saw with their eyes that wonderful scene, they saw the pillar of fire and received the shade that the cloud gave them during the day and as if that were not enough, he gave them water to drink from a rock and fed them with bread from heaven, manna. And they never thanked, what they did was murmur and say: we had better stay in Egypt, here we will die, we have nothing else to eat, imagine they were fed up with the manna, a unique and amazing thing, but for them it was not enough. And that happens to us too, sometimes we are wishing and thinking so much about what we don’t have that we can’t see how wonderful God has given us, we spend time lamenting about such absurd things, because the neighbor has more or has what we want, because things do not turn out the way we want and we are not happy, nor do we let others be, because of our murmuring, a very unpleasant thing for God.
“For having known God, they did not glorify him as God, nor did they give thanks to him, but were futile in their reasonings, and their foolish hearts were darkened” Ro 1:21 Let us learn, beloved, not to forget that without God we are less that we are nothing, nothing without Him. Let us not forget that He is the one who provides all things, that everything subsists by Him and everything is for Him. Let us not forget any favor from God no matter how small it may seem, because God does not do small things, but if for your eyes it is little, be grateful for that little then and then learn to see the great things that God does for you and be grateful.
Let’s not make the same mistake as Israel let’s not forget who God is and what he does for us, he took us out of the slavery of sin and the world and has made us free, let’s not prefer to go back, rather let’s be grateful and value all the goodness that God does for us, because He doesn’t have to do it but He does it because it pleases Him, because it is in His heart to do us good. Because (“By the mercy of the Lord, we are not consumed, for his mercies never fail”) Lam 3:22 Let us learn to be grateful at all times, for everything and in everything. The word says in 1 Thess. 5:18 “In everything give thanks, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus”
Another reason why we do not thank God is because we do not believe him, we believe the enemy more than God himself.
Because God tells you: I am with you until the end, I will not leave you nor forsake you, I am the one who keeps you, who sustains you with my right hand, do not fear, you can do everything in me, your house, your family is in my hands, but then Satan comes and begins to tell you in your mind you cannot, you are alone, nobody is with you, you are a failure, you will not be able to against me, evil will come and it will reach you and yours and you instead of reprimanding him and tell him what God has told you, you begin to listen to him more, to believe in his lies and to get depressed to fill yourself with sadness and resentment that do not do you any good and you begin to live in the lie of the devil for not believing God who has told you that he has a different, true, glorious and victorious life for you.
Let’s believe God because “God is not a man to lie or a son of man to repent…” Num 23:19 if He has said it, He will do it. Let us live not by sight but by faith.
IV. How can we be grateful or give thanks to God?
The best way to do it is as the Spirit says.
1. Expressions: opening our lips, our mouth expressing nice words, prayers, praise. Always expressing gratitude to God turns into praise. Heb 13:15 “so let us always offer to God, through him, a sacrifice of lips that confess his name”
And praise is powerful and the enemy Satan knows it very well, that is why he does many things to take praise from our lips, because when a people praises God wonderful things happen, it was with praise that the walls of Jericho fell With praise to God, chains are broken, the earth trembles, battles are won, victory is obtained, the enemy flees. Praise from the heart, in spirit and in truth, is what God desires, because He seeks such worshipers, become one of them. Let us open our lips freely and express to our God and Lord all the gratitude of our hearts. Because He is waiting for you and me.
2. Actions: thanksgiving is doing is acting. It is to stop doing evil, it is to completely surrender to God all areas of our life, it is to give God all the glory, all control of our entire being, spirit, soul and body. Thanksgiving is doing God’s will and not our own. In Ro 12:1 it says “so, brothers, I beg you by the mercy of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing to God, which is your reasonable worship” is to leave a specific time without interruptions, without distraction, for God , thanksgiving is a gift, it is a commitment, both the monetary offering and the offering of our life is a thanksgiving.
Conclusion:
Let’s not be like the nine indifferent and ungrateful lepers. Let’s live pleasing and being grateful to God, every day, all day, at all times and in all places.
God bless you.
6. “Because I have not found your works perfect before God,” the Lord has searched but has not found the works of the Sardis believers. The works of the Sardis believers were without divine approval because they were not generated by genuine faith. What is reproached is not the quantity of the works but the quality of the works of that church.
III. THE WARNING:
“Remember… what you have received… heard… keep it, and repent…” (v. 3).
1. They were to remember how they had received and heard the gospel.
Apparently there was a…