Colossians 2: 6, 7 – THANKSGIVING
Let’s begin with a quotation from Ron Horton, the author of a book entitled “Mood Tides”: Of all the things [a Christian] should fear in his life, the greatest is that as life goes on he should forget to be grateful. Ingratitude, wrote Shakespeare, is ‘as the serpent’s tooth.’ It poisons like nothing else a relationship between parent and child, between friend and friend, and between man and his Maker. In the lowest circle of Dante’s hell were the extreme ingrates …. Ingratitude has been thought to be the most detestable of sins. –
Ok, that nicely sets the stage. Now for another way, please turn in your Bible to Colossians 2. Let’s begin reading in v. 6:
6 Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, 7 rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
Abounding in thanksgiving – Not just a little thanksgiving, but abounding. Or I like how the NIV and other versions translate it: overflowing with thanksgiving.
[Illustration of overfilling the glass with water]
Now that’s a simple visual aid, but you’ll notice a couple of things – a) you notice the water that has overflowed: something that abounds and overflows becomes obvious.
So Paul here refers to a church’s or a Christian’s abounding thanksgiving that becomes a feature. You couldn’t mistake a grateful believer for a complaining/ discontented believer. Abounding gratitude cannot stay hidden.
The other thing to notice from this homely illustration is that the water comes over the brim of every part of the glass. Likewise, this overflowing thanksgiving emerges in every aspect of a person’s life: gratitude for family, for livelihood, for the so-called things of the Spirit, for the area he lives in, for health, for stories, for gadgets, even for uncomfortable and stressful things because he sees the usefulness to them.
Abounding in thanksgiving. Overflowing gratitude. 1) We’ll attempt to describe thanksgiving; 2) we’ll note its importance in God’s word; 3) and finally we’ll mention gratitude that is distinctively Christian.
What does it look like, sound like to be thankful? What are the components of gratitude?
Let’s try to describe thanksgiving by placing it next to its opposites: grumbling and discontent. It’s an impossible trick to be simultaneously a discontented grumbler and one who overflows with thanksgiving.
The real difference between gratitude and grumbling discontent shows itself in their respective thoughts
Grumbling discontent is entitled. It looks around and says, I don’t have what I should have; I deserve more than this. By this time in my life I should have… With my smarts I should…
Gratitude thinks, What makes me different from anyone else? Why should I have something special?
Grumbling discontent begins by taking things for granted, assuming that what he has is fully merited. Of course I get to sleep in a warm bed. Of course my refrigerator is full. Of course I can afford to buy this Ralph Lauren shirt. [These thoughts are the beginning of grumbling]
Gratitude says, What do I have already that I did not receive…gratuitously? (1 Corinthians 4:7)
The English word for gratitude and grace come from the same Latin root. The implication is that gratitude is awareness of grace. That is, if you’re grateful you’re aware that the good treatment you’re experiencing wasn’t inevitable. It didn’t have to be that way. You don’t deserve it. It has been given.
Thus, gratitude emerges out of an imagination – you can picture things being different than how they are:
When you settle into your soft bed you can imagine a hard bed.
When you sit down to eat the meal you quickly envision a bare table. For the grateful person these imaginations are a habit of mind.
And thus so many times you’re thinking to yourself: why me? I’m not special.
And the more times you practice gratia: awareness of grace, awareness of how much you’re given, it seems like you spot ten more things that you’ve received, that have been waiting for you, just because.
Notebooks that lay open. Spotify where I can select any song I want. A mother that drew the bath for me when I was sick? My own room? Someone does my laundry? A wife that is loyal to me and patient? That view of a stone wall with the water in the background that I get to drive by every day?
This? Me? Gratitude always has a certain note of surprise in it.
Grumbling discontent is unthoughtful in that it ignores the process behind what it experiences because it’s rushing to what is wrong. It shows up at the meal and says, Raspberry Viniagrette? Balsamic Vinegar? Blue Cheese? Where’s the Ranch?
Gratitude notices: Look at this salad, look at the set table. Look around at the clean floor. I saw outside that the lawn looked so neat – you put so much work into this; you did this all for me?
Grumbling discontent is hostile to the movement of God in history. It looks at the past and says, things used to be so much better.
Gratitude says, The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.
Grumbling discontent peers into the future and says, We’re doomed.
Gratitude looks ahead and recalls: who God is, what God has already done, and then laughs at the days to come.
Grumbling discontent is always impatiently waiting for something else to happen…it’s never quite the time to sit back, consider and be grateful. Once the kitchen is renovated, once I’m out of financial stress, once I get a boyfriend or a spouse, once my spouse changes…
Gratitude doesn’t wait for full resolution to be grateful for what already has been accomplished.
So obviously gratitude is more than mumbling thanks. Gratitude has thoughts behind it, a lot of noticing, being surprised. In other words, gratitude is always from the heart!
This? Me?
That’s 75% of gratitude. But there’s something else. Expression. Gratitude is compelled to render. Ascribe. Vocalize. Point.
Do you recall that Moses was a stutterer? With that fact in mind do you recall that at the end of his life he wrote a song that he would leave as his legacy? Hear the opening of the song of Moses and notice the number of times he refers to speaking:
Deuteronomy 32:1 “Give ear, O heavens, and I will speak, and let the earth hear the words of my mouth.
2 May my teaching drop as the rain, my speech distill as the dew, like gentle rain upon the tender grass, and like showers upon the herb.
3 For I will proclaim the name of the LORD; ascribe greatness to our God!
4 “The Rock, his work is perfect, for all his ways are justice. A God of faithfulness and without iniquity, just and upright is he.
You notice that for Moses, even Moses the stutterer, it wasn’t enough that his mind be filled with pleasant thoughts of God: he was compelled to articulate those thoughts, to say them aloud: I will proclaim the name of the LORD. From these clenched vocal cords you will hear of the greatness of God.
So gratitude, gratitude which is supposed to overflow out of a church’s culture, out of a believer’s way of life, comes into being with a habit of thinking – noticing, not assuming, surprise – and then finds a way to express what it is thinking.
[The danger of growing up in a good family]
That’s the first and longest point. But next see that the Scripture guides us to see that thanksgiving is important.
To see the importance of thanksgiving note how many times that Paul, in his brief letter to the saints and faithful brothers in Christ at Colosse, emphasizes thanksgiving:
1:3 – we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you…
1:11,12 – may you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father.
2:6,7 – Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in him, rooted and built up in him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving.
3:12ff – Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.
3:16: Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your heart to God.
3:17 – and whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
4:2 – Continue steadfastly in prayer, being watchful in it with thanksgiving.
Just the repetition of the idea of thanksgiving implies that thanksgiving is not unimportant, not a minor activity.
But beyond the fact that Paul brings it up a lot, it’s what he says about thanksgiving, what he connects it to. We’ll just touch on a couple of these.
Paul doesn’t present gratitude as a little extra something tagged onto the real something, like the end of a meal mint.
Rather, Paul says in 1:11, 12, the Christian’s thanksgiving is an exhibition of the glorious might of God. Gratitude doesn’t automatically show up in somebody’s character but happens only after God has exerted himself against the elemental and dark spirits. Thanksgiving is God’s achievement; you can think of it as a mark of His victory.
A related point from that passage beginning in 3:12 [and here is the most complex]: In contrast with some spectacular yet ultimately hollow religious practices, thanksgiving marks the presence of the energizing of the ascended Christ as He brings an end to the indulgence of the flesh.
To put that more briefly, a habit of thanksgiving is a sign of Christ’s Life and reign.
And to put a specific to that, thanksgiving is the path that Christ carves out for his people away from sexual immorality. Listen carefully to the details of a phrase that Paul uses when he writes to the saints who are in Ephesus and faithful in Christ Jesus:
But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is the great sign of the risen Christ’s victory over the dark powers who had used illicit sexuality and other forms of covetousness and greed (but especially sexuality) to enslave people.
Thanksgiving re-arranges desires that have become disordered. Thanksgiving re-calibrates us with true truth when deceptive desires would disorient us to the point where we sense only the power of our lust. Here’s the insight: sexual immorality often…almost always… arises out of some profound discontent: some frustrated entitlement or fear of the future. And gratitude – that recognition and expression of grace in your life – provides an antidote.
Do you remember what Joseph said to Potiphar’s wife when she attempted to seduce him: “Behold, because of me my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my charge. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept back anything from me except you, because you are his wife. How then can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” (Genesis 39:8–9).
Look at what has been done for me! Look where I’ve been placed! Gratitude is a solid buffer against sexual temptation.
So, thanksgiving is not a small, extra thing we could do like flossing teeth. Gratitude is both how the human besieged by lust and covetousness is delivered and also the flag that flies over his ransomed life announcing that he has been delivered…Christ has taken over.
So there’s two points: 1) Gratitude is noticing, imagining a different scenario, being surprised, expressing. 2) And gratitude is more important than we might think.
One final point:
Here we are, humans all of us, given the task [logic] of Thanksgiving. But also, most of us here are men and women in Christ, and so we stand in a particular situation from which to be thankful. Christians have even more reason to express gratitude to God.
We read one final time in Colossians 2:6-7, but this time from The Message paraphrase:
My counsel for you is simple and straightforward: Just go ahead with what you’ve been given. You received Christ Jesus, the Master; now live him. You’re deeply rooted in him. You’re well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you’ve been taught. School’s out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving.
I quoted from the Message not only to be trendy but because I like how it renders rooted, built up, established – as accomplished fact, something that is already true about us. Those verbs are passive in the original Greek.
In other words, Paul is not telling us what needs to be true, what we need to do; but rather Paul is emphasizing what is already true. We already have been acted upon, outside of ourselves: rooted in him…well constructed upon him…in Christ Jesus, the Master.
And remembering what God has done for us in the forefront of our attention is equated to living Christ. Overflowing gratitude for being rooted, built up, established is the sign that we’re walking in Christ.
Christian, this morning, notice what God has done for us. It didn’t have to be this way!
You’re Rooted in Christ. We might have moved around all our lives, so much that we have to pause if someone asks us, where is home? Also, some rootlessness might come from the fact that we’ve long had habits of filth, financial undiscipline, emotionalism, loud-mouth-edness, flakiness, cowardice that prevent us from getting traction. Even after our baptism we might notice that we still are shallow, distracted, inauthentic.
Yet here we’re reminded that by faith we’ve been placed by the Spirit into Christ, so that now – whatever the case of our past or our present – we are now allied to the eternal, the lovely, the pure, the just, the eternal Son of God. Adam 2.0. That connection with Him goes the deepest. Thank you for receiving us into your life and wealth, Jesus!
And in Christ we are well constructed. Some of you saints have been built up to the point that you are a beautiful edifice – in your character there’s a radiance, a deep virtue, a reasonableness, a gentleness, a thoughtfulness, a concentration, a sober-mindedness.
Some of us are more akin to what you might come across in the seedy parts of Hartford– a ragged parking lot bounded by a leaning chain link fence. There’s a long way to go.
But in either case there’s a blueprint for all of our lives, a plan: Christ Jesus Himself. God the Father is the Owner and His General Contractor is God the Spirit. And the workers on the jobsite have names like Apostle Paul, Apostle Peter. So, no matter what stage we’re at there’s a direction. We’re on the way. We are being built. Thank you, Jesus!
And in Christ we are being established in the faith just as was originally taught. Here we are, opening up a book that goes back 3500 years – I quoted from Genesis today. You’re here learning the same things that the previous generation did, and the previous generation, and the one before, and the one before. Even this little church resuscitation is part of a global Body that extends back thousands of years.
We’re not part of something capricious, flimsy, subject to trends or fashion, some wind of zeitgeist that will be irrelevant five years from now. We’re not being played. We’re not trial rats.
If you’re listening to this with anything like approval – just think about it: you’re locked into something… no we’re related to Someone who was in the beginning with God and who is God.
Church, you have in Jesus Christ become a fixture in the forever plans of God. Somers Baptist Church: your past, your present, your future – all bought with the blood of Jesus Christ and given over to God. Amen, thank you Jesus.
And if we truly are keeping the grace of God in front of you, your response is, This? Us? THANK YOU!
So now, at the end of this sermon, I can state for the first time its thesis. God in Heaven, help this to resonate:
GRATITUDE – THIS NOTICING AND APPRECIATING AND EXPRESSING – IS THE CRITICAL MARKER THAT LETS CHRISTIANS KNOW THEY ARE ON THE RIGHT TRAIL OF WALKING IN CHRIST.
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