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Reading from Jonah chapter 1
verse 17 through chapter 2 verse 10. Here are the word of the
Lord. The Lord had prepared a great
fish to swallow Jonah and Jonah was in the belly of the fish
three days and three nights. Then Jonah prayed to the Lord,
his God, from the fish's belly. And he said, I cried out to the
Lord because of my affliction and he answered me. Out of the
belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. For you cast
me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the floods surrounded
me. All your billows and your waves passed over me. Then I
said, I have been cast out of your sight, yet I will look again
toward your holy temple. The waters surrounded me, even
to my soul. The deep closed around me. Weeds
were wrapped around my head. I went down to the moorings of
the mountains, the earth with its bars closed behind me forever. Yet you have brought up my life
from the pit, O Lord my God. When my soul fainted within me,
I remembered the Lord and my prayer went up to you and to
your holy temple. Those who regard worthless idols
forsake their own mercy, but I will sacrifice to you with
the voice of thanksgiving. I will pay what I have vowed.
Salvation is of the Lord. So the Lord spoke to the fish
and it vomited Jonah onto dry land. This is the word of the
Lord. Father, we thank you for this, your word, and I pray that
as we dig into it, that you would encourage our hearts that you
would enable us to, with more fervor, be a thanksgiving people,
a people who have deep gratitude within our hearts by the power
of your Holy Spirit. Pray that you would bless this,
your people, in Jesus' name, amen. In 1636, right in the middle
of the Thirty Years' War, there was a German pastor by the name
of Martin Rinkart who had a very huge parish, and during one year
alone, he lost 5,000 of his parishioners. Can you imagine that? 5,000 parishioners. He was burying, on average, 15
people a day. So you can just imagine the congregation
there, the kind of grief and struggle that they had been going
through, and yet he wrote, even in the heart of that time, he
wrote a grace, a table grace for his children to pray, and
all of you know this one. It is a hymn that we have sung
that says, now thank we all our God. Excuse me. Now thank we all our God with
heart and hands and voices who wondrous things hath done in
whom his world rejoices. Who from our mother's arms has
led us on our way with countless gifts of love and still is ours
today. Now that was a thanksgiving,
if you read his biography, that really did well up from his heart,
but it was not dependent on his circumstances at all. Some of
you have experienced a pretty rough year in 2023 and Gary and
I in the defense have been praying for you. We feel for you We hope
we can adequately minister to you. I'm just so grateful. This
is a congregation that loves on one another so well I have
just been blessed to see that but some of you have gone through
really rough times. I mean my mother You haven't
seen her in a while. You know, she's blind in one
eye I'm very weak Very I'm very poor of hearing. Didn't think I was going to do
this. I thought I was going to be joyful through this whole sermon, right? She's had enough health issues.
She's rarely been able to sit out at the table with us for
a meal for very long. And she really misses that. She
misses fellowship with friends. And yet, when she prays, she
is thankful for what she has. There are others, like Ken Howell,
who have been homebound. And you all know how social Ken
Howell was. It's very, very hard. Some of
you have experienced far worse things in this past year. The
death of loved ones. Even worse, the agony of broken
relationships with friends and with loved ones who seem to have
so little appreciation for the enormous sacrifices that you
have made for them. And it can be very, very painful.
There have been surgeries, job losses, huge financial losses
and other troubles. And you know, it's very easy
in those circumstances to begin to have a grumbling spirit and
even to become angry and frustrated and resentful and even bitter. And honestly, on a human level,
that is totally understandable. People would say that is normal.
But I want to tell you that God does not want us to live in the
realm of the normal. He wants us to live in the realm
of the supernatural joy and love and peace that comes from His
throne, and yes, even the grace of thanksgiving. And it is a
grace. It takes grace to truly be thankful in circumstances
like that. Not just a perfunctory thanks,
but a thanks that wells up from deep within us because the Holy
Spirit himself is engendering that thanks. That's what we all
want for you. And this morning, I just want
to examine one small facet of the supernatural thanksgiving
that God can give to his people as we approach this Thanksgiving
day, and it's the healing power of thanksgiving. And let me give
you a little bit of background on why Jonah needed healing.
and why that made it a struggle for him to be thankful. His bad
attitudes are normal reactions when you face the kind of things
that he faced. And his thanksgiving that I just
read to you, that is not normal. That is supernatural. That is
something wrought by God's grace. Jonah was suffering with what
some people describe as being deep depression, and if you have
never experienced depression yourself, or you've never had
a loved one that's gone through depression, you might have a
hard time even appreciating what Jonah has done. I've seen some
people describe Jonah as being hard-hearted. I really don't
think that Jonah was hard-hearted at all. He had compassion upon. Yeah, he was kind of closed off
in his heart toward the Assyrians, but it wasn't all pagans. He
was very compassionate to the Phoenicians. They were pagans
and he could have just said, well, I want to die anyway, just
let them go down on the ship with me. But no, he had compassion
upon them. Whereas he was insensitive to
the plight of Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, he was very sensitive
to the sailors, teaching them about God so that when they prayed
to God, they knew who to pray to. They were praying to Yehovah,
and they repented of their sins. So I don't think he was hard-hearted.
I think he was depressed. Jonah shows several of the classic
symptoms for depression, and let me just list seven of those
symptoms. He withdrew from people and then
complained about the isolation he was experiencing, right? It's
very, very common to withdraw from people and then to feel
bad that you're isolated. Second, he was downcast and blue,
and people who have written books on Jonah speak of this as being
an incredibly deep sadness, an overwhelming sadness that he
was experiencing. Third, he felt overwhelmed with
what God wanted him to do. It just didn't feel like he could
do it. He gives up on his responsibility
because he just feels they are too much for him to bear. Fourth,
he sleeps when he should have action. In fact, in chapter one,
you know, you got a ship sinking storm and he's sleeping so soundly
that the sailors have to wake him up, shake him up, right?
Now, weirdly, sometimes people who have depression can have
the opposite extreme, insomnia, but sleeping, this deep sleep is one of the
symptoms. Fifth, he shows no desire to
eat. He's completely lost his appetite. Sixth, he excused his
irresponsibility. Seventh, he lost all desire for
living. He just wanted to die. In chapter
1, he insisted that the mariners throw him overboard. He thought
that would end his troubles. He probably didn't dare to commit
suicide. But he didn't have any problem with them throwing him
into the sea. In chapter 4, verse 3, he says, therefore now, O
Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to
die than to live. In chapter four, verse eight,
he says, then he wished death for himself and said, it is better
for me to die than to live. He was so depressed that he felt
like he couldn't go on living. And chapter by chapter, God kind
of forces him to confront those inner hurts, to confront the
bitterness that had led to his depression. What was he bitter
over? Well some of the reasons for
his bitterness are hinted at in chapter 3 verse 8. This verse
records a part of the decree that came from the king of Assyria,
the king of Nineveh, where he called his people to repentance
and the king says, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth
and cry mightily to God. Yes, let everyone turn from his
evil way and from the violence that is in his hands. So he picks
out two phrases, evil way and the violence that's in their
hands. to describe what was wrong with Nineveh. Now, if you look
at all of the biblical evidence of Assyria, and you look at the
archaeological evidence that has been dug up in recent years,
you realize that the Assyrians were one of the most barbaric
and sadistic of the peoples of the ancient Middle East. It was one of the reasons why
almost all of the nations feared them. That was one of their tactics,
was to scare people to death. Over the years, I've subscribed
to various archeology magazines, purchased archeology books, and
the Assyrian artifacts that have been dug up give depictions of
the most barbaric tortures that they inflicted upon their conquered
nations. Even during their leisure time,
they like to look at statues and frescoes that depicted, I
mean, they even have them in their bedrooms, that depicted
torture. It's just a sadistic, gross background, demonic, really. Very, very horrifying. They like
to skin people alive slowly just to relish the screams of pain. They tried to drag the torture
out as long as they could to get enjoyment out of the screams.
So it's very sick. You might cross-reference Nahum
chapter 3 where it talks about all of the nations rejoicing
when Nineveh is destroyed and it says, because of her cruelty.
All of the pagan nations rejoiced at the Assyrians' destruction.
Now, here is where it hit Jonah personally. This is only a hint
of that, so I can't be dogmatic on that, but I think it's a very
valid reading between the lines. If you read 2 Kings 14, you will
find that Jonah lived in Gath-Hephir, and Gath-Hephir was a place that
Assyria had attacked. And so we know how Assyria dealt
with anybody that fought against them. making cruel examples of
what happened to anybody who resists by way of torture. And
so here's a possible reconstruction of what had happened. Jonah was
one of the survivors who probably witnessed the cruel torture and
slow deaths of many friends and family members, and burned into
his memory was the laughter of the Assyrians as their loved
ones were being tortured. It's just every time the Assyrians
came to his mind, his emotions churned with the memory of ghastly,
demonic cruelty. And it would take a great deal
to heal Jonah of this pain and enable him to come to the place
where he could love his enemies. And by the time he writes this
book, I believe he has come to love his enemies and in doing
so has conquered the hurts that brought him to his depression
step by step. God brought Jonah out of his
depressed state. And we can't look at those steps
today. There are many, many lessons
that could be drawn from this book if you were to deal with
people who are depressed. For example, this book illustrates
the principle that depressed people frequently need intervention. They're not going to seek help
on their own. They need intervention. They're not going to figure it
out on their own either. Jonah wanted to crawl into a hole.
God was not going to let him do that. Jonah wanted to avoid
pain. God helps him to deal with his
pain. Jonah felt overwhelmed with the
task, so God breaks down his tasks step at a time. Jonah tried
to avoid action. God forced him to take action.
Jonah sought to excuse his irresponsibility. God kept reminding him of his
responsibility. He will not let him off the hook.
God asked Jonah two times in this book, is it right for you
to be angry? And both times Jonah and says,
yes, I have a right to be angry. He's angry at God even, uh, in
this book. And, uh, God points out in many
ways why Jonah is only looking at the negative and he points
out the positive, especially in chapter four. So in many different
ways. God showed his love to Jonah
by bringing him out of his depression. So I think it's a great book
to train people in counseling those who are depressed. But
this morning, I'm not going to look at any of that. I just want
to look at one facet of Jonah's healing, and that was Jonah's
prayer of thanksgiving. I believe, and I've experienced
it myself, having gone through deep depression in the past,
I believe thanksgiving is a God-ordained means of inner healing and strength
that the Lord has given. Now, it may not make sense, but
it works, and I've had any number of you tell me after I've encouraged
you to do this, that this has brought a profound change, has
been revolutionary in your own lives. Many people have testified
to the supernatural healing they experienced as a result of persistent
thanksgiving. First Thessalonians, Paul commands
us to give thanks in every circumstance. Ephesians 5.20 is where people
really get upset because he goes one step further and he says
that they are to give thanks always for all things. And they just say, that's too
much. So let's start looking at Jonah. Where does he start?
Frequently depressed people have lost so much will to live that
they can't even pray. They try to pray, but they don't
know what to say. Their mind's not working very well. They don't
know how to put any of prayers into words. Sometimes all they
can do is cry out to God, help me. Help me, help me. During
times like that, I think it is helpful to read the Psalms, or
have somebody else read an appropriate Psalm to you, or you can read
prayers that other people have developed. There's all kinds
of good prayers out there. But it's obvious to me, in chapter
two, because almost every verse of chapter two comes from the
Psalms that Jonah had spent a lot of time in the Psalms, must have
had them memorized because he wasn't reading a Bible in the
belly of the fish, no light down there. But he had them in his
mind. And the Psalms can be incredibly
comforting because God is entering into our pain and he's allowing
us, giving us permission to cry out our pain to him, but couples
it together with Thanksgiving. And so if you've ever come to
a place where you have a hard time praying, try praying the
Psalms. It helps to organize our emotions,
and many times our emotions need organization. They can often
help us to jump off on our own spontaneous short prayer of our
own, or even pray a prayer that somebody else has composed. There's
lots of cool prayers that people are sharing around in this congregation.
There's Puritan prayers in the Valley of Vision. There are other
little books of prayers of Thanksgiving or the whole Acts, Adoration,
Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication. There's the Anglican Book of
Prayer. There's a lot of good prayers out there. So prayers
that are recited from memory or that are read can be just
as accepted by God as spontaneous prayer. I really believe that.
Okay, next question. When did Jonah start his Thanksgiving? He didn't wait until he got spit
out of the fish. He didn't wait till he started
feeling better. He didn't wait till he was delivered. Verse
one says, then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the fish's
belly and he sat. He's thanking God in the belly
of the fish. Can you imagine that? I mean,
I'm claustrophobic, so I can't imagine being in the belly of
a fish, but that slimy, mucus-filled belly, oh. But that's where he
is thanking God. Verse 10 indicates, it was only
after this prayer of thanksgiving that the fish spit Jonah out.
The New American Standard Bible says, then the Lord commanded
the fish, and it vomited Jonah up onto the dry land. Septuagint
translates it, upon this a command was given by the Lord to the
fish. So God wants us thanking and praising him while we are
cast down, even while we're metaphorically in the belly of the fish. Two
of the Psalms that Jonah quoted are Psalms 42 and 43. We're going
to be singing one of those after the sermon. And both of those
deal with depression, but they also show this author of the
psalm determining with an act of his will, I will praise God. No matter how downcast I feel,
I will praise God. He's basically grabbing himself
by the scruff of the neck and saying, stop it, Phil, stop it.
I'm going to praise God. I have much to thank him for.
Now, I've given this illustration to you a few years ago, but since
it illustrates this issue so well, I want to use it again.
When I was a kid, my brothers and I used to hike up in the
mountains of Ethiopia all the time. We loved hiking. And this
one time, we were getting home a little bit late, and the fog
closed in. And so we were going slow, trying
to feel our way back. But we started hearing the howls
of some of the dangerous animals coming out and we figured, man,
we better hurry up. And so we started foolishly running
down the mountain. We figured, OK, we know we're
on the home stretch. Turns out later we were lost.
We were not on the home stretch at all. And all of a sudden,
as I was running, I was actually ahead of my brothers. I got tripped
and I went sprawling, skinning up my elbows, my knee hurt, my
hip. And I get up from the ground
complaining to myself, and I look back to see what in the world
had tripped me. There was nothing there. To this
day, I am convinced it was an angel that had tripped me. Well,
by that time, my brothers had caught up with me. And for a
moment, the fog lifted just enough that we could see just a few
feet in front of me was a huge cliff that I would have run right
over if I had not skinned my knees, fallen down. Well, all
of a sudden, you can bet I was thanking God for his providence.
I was saying over and over, thank you, Lord. Thank you. Thank you
for making me trip. Okay, my thesis for this morning
is that God wants you to have that kind of thanksgiving for
your painful experiences even before the fog lifts, even before
you realize why God has brought the pain, the discouragement,
or the difficulty. It is rare that God actually
lifts the fog like he did for me to realize I'm glad I tripped. I'm glad for that pain. Why? Because he wants us to live by
faith and not by sight. We're to be a people of faith.
He wants us to be thankful in the fog and not just after the
fog has lifted. And when we do that, God brings
joy and healing, and he brings spiritual power. It may not make
sense, but it is an act of faith, and God always blesses faith
wherever it is exercised. And I think it is one of the
steps that God has used as a God-ordained step, one of many steps actually,
we won't get into the other steps, but of going through depression. Our act of thanking God when
we don't feel like thanking him receives and channels God's spiritual
provisions into our hearts. Just think of it as a tool of
faith. We may say that, oh yeah, I've got faith in God's purposes,
but if you are unthankful, I guarantee you, you don't have faith in
God's providence. Romans 8, 28 has guaranteed that
all things work together for our good. And if we truly believe
it, we're going to be able to be thankful to God, not only
in every circumstance, but for every circumstance. Now it doesn't
mean you don't change the circumstances when you can. God has ordained
sometimes these painful things to come so that it tests our
resolve. Are we gonna change those circumstances?
But they are there for a reason. They're always there for a reason.
What enabled Paul and Silas to thank God in prison after they
had been beaten and their backs were still caked with blood?
Ephesians 5 verse 20 is a key verse that I think has brought
healing and strength to me during those times when I've been in
the fog and I have no idea why God has allowed me to stumble
into pain. But by faith, I thanked Him, and He has brought His strength
to deal with the pain. It's just remarkable. That verse
reads, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father
in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. So he says there's never
a time when we cannot be engaged in thanksgiving, giving thanks
always. And he says there's never any
circumstance that we cannot actually thank God for thanking him for
all things. And you might think, well, what
about that other person's sin? Surely God doesn't like their
sin. No, he doesn't. But why does God test you by
allowing those other people to bring their sinful attitudes
and their sinful actions into your life? You might have to
rebuke them. There's all kinds of things God says we should
do, but it's not by accident that God has allowed it into
your life. So this includes giving thanks for the difficulty you've
experienced this past week. It includes even the most wretched
times that you feel like you are in the fish's belly. It includes
facing the pain of the past like God forced Jonah to do. And so
the first step, we're gonna get seven steps and we'll get out
of here fairly quickly, but the first step is to thank God where
you can, even if it means reading somebody else's prayer or reading
a song. Jonah was so depressed he didn't
know how to word himself, so he uses words that somebody else
had composed, and you could do the same. Second step, do it
right away. Jonah thanked God before the
herd had gone away. Jonah began Thanksgiving even
while he was depressed, even while he's in the fish's belly.
Third thing that can make our Thanksgiving a reality is developing
an eternal perspective. We so frequently measure our
pains and our gains by time rather than by eternity, and God shook
Jonah free of that by making him face death. If you're about
to die, That will make you start thinking about eternity, right?
So verses two through five. I cried to the Lord because of
my affliction and he answered me. Out of the depths of Sheol
I cried. He had either already died, which
is what some people take it, and God had resurrected him back
into the belly of the fish, or it's metaphorical. Most people
take it metaphorical. I'm not gonna be dogmatic on
that. But he says, for you cast me into the deep, into the heart
of the seas, and the floods surrounded me. All your billows and your
waves passed over me. Then I said, I have been cast
out of your sight, yet I will look again toward your holy temple. The waters encompassed me, even
to my soul. The deep closed around me. Weeds
were wrapped around my head. I went down to the moorings of
the mountains. The earth with its bars closed behind me forever,
and then verse six describes the rescue by the fish, yet you
have brought up my life from the pit, oh Lord, my God. So
there is nothing quite like the prospect of imminent death to
make you realize that the concerns, the frustrations, the fears,
the hopes, the priorities that you've had in life, or even the
things you've gotten bitter over are out of balance when measured
by eternity. Moments before you die, you're
not going to regret that you didn't manage to meet your financial
goals, or you didn't get that house, or you weren't able to
buy a yacht or sail on a boat. You're not going to get so frustrated
that you were robbed of 200 bucks, or that somebody embarrassed
you in front of a crowd. Right before death, the only things
you're going to be concerned about are those things that will
last for eternity. And I've seen this over and over
as people are dying, the regrets that they have. Why didn't I
spend more time with my family? Why didn't I develop a deeper
relationship with God? There is those kinds of regrets. Thanksgiving helps us to have
an eternal perspective right now because it helps us to look
at life through God's eyes, and such an eternal perspective gives
us kind of a habit of thanksgiving. It's almost like they reinforce
each other. Thanksgiving produces an eternal
perspective, and eternal perspective reinforces our thanksgiving,
right? A kind of a circular relationship. And God's word says we shouldn't
have to wait for death to think about eternity. We should always
have an eternal perspective. We should measure absolutely
everything we do, including work, relaxation, marital relations,
you name it, everything we do by eternity. Jesus said, what
shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his
own soul? The fourth thing that helped
Jonah be thankful for that slimy, mucus-filled stomach of the fish
was that he knew God was sovereign. You cannot thank God for all
things unless you believe God is sovereign over all things.
When he was in the boat, he knew this was God's storm, and he
told the sailors, this is God's doing. He knew it was God's fish. He knew it was God's waves, both
the literal waves and the metaphorical waves that made him feel like
he was spiritually drowning. They came from God. He says in
verse three, all your billows and your waves passed over me. So Jonah knew that nothing but
the sovereignty of God could have put him in the fish's belly,
And nothing but the sovereignty of God could get him out of that
fish's belly. Okay. But Jonah also knew the
reality of Romans 8, 28, long before it was written. Here's
what he says in chapter four. I know that you're a gracious
and merciful God, slow to anger, and abundant in loving kindness,
one who relents from doing harm." Now, it didn't look like God
was that good, but theologically, he knew that God was that way,
and it enabled him to believe so, to give thanks by faith.
Thanksgiving also has the power to move you from self-seeking,
self-centered idolatry into servanthood. Service is really important for
overcoming our miseries. In verse nine he says, but I
will sacrifice to you with the voice of thanksgiving. I will
pay what I have vowed. Thanksgiving is hard sometimes.
That's why it's called a sacrifice. Sacrifices are hard to do. They
take work. They take energy, they take time.
But in the verse before, he implies when we only do what we want
to do, what's fun, what's easy, when we're self-seeking, we are
idolaters and God's mercies never flow to idolaters. They simply
do not. Okay, it comes to those who seek
God, not to those who are self-seeking. So thanksgiving is the very opposite
of being a self-seeking idolater, and God blesses that thanksgiving.
A further benefit of thanking God is that it helps us to focus
upon the fact that our emotional security and our help comes totally
from the Lord. So often we get down because
people have hurt us, or people have let us down, or people have
frustrated us. But Jonah's focus on God's sovereignty
helped him to realize God is the only one who threw him into
the ocean. Verse three says, for you cast
me into the deep, into the heart of the seas. But he ends the
psalm meditating upon a phrase that, when I first became a Calvinist,
this was one of my life verses, salvation is of the Lord. Totally. Salvation is of the Lord. He
would stop looking for salvation from men, from things, and from
circumstances. Those were all bound to let him
down and discourage him, and he would look to the Lord alone
for salvation from some of his problems. Some of the most thankful
people that I have met in my life were in India. Incredibly
poverty stricken undergoing persecution and the thanks that poured out
of them in worship was just phenomenal This past Tuesday. I read a poem.
I think illustrates this so well I couldn't find the author of
it, but it's titled forgive me when I whine Today upon a bus
I saw a lovely maid with golden hair I envied her she seemed
so gay and how I wished I were so fair I When suddenly she rose
to leave, I saw her hobble down the aisle. She had one foot and
wore a crutch. But as she passed, a smile. Oh, God, forgive me when I whine. I have two feet. The world is
mine. And when I stopped to buy some sweets, the lad who served
me had such charm. He seemed to radiate good cheer.
His manner was so kind and warm. I said, it's nice to deal with
you. Such courtesy, I sold him fine. He turned and said, oh,
thank you, sir. And then I saw that he was blind.
Oh, God, forgive me when I whine. I have two eyes. The world is
mine. Then, when walking down the street, I saw a child with eyes of blue.
He stood and watched the others play. It seemed he knew not what
to do. I stopped a moment, then I said, why don't you join the
others, dear? He looked ahead without a word,
and then I knew he could not hear. Oh, God, forgive me when
I whine. I have two ears. The world is
mine. With feet to take me where I'd go, with eyes to see the
sunsets glow, with ears to hear what I would know, I am blessed
indeed. The world is mine. Oh God, forgive
me when I whine. Now that's being thankful that
things aren't worse. You know, it's being thankful
for what we have rather than what we do not have. Now one
last benefit of thanksgiving is deliverance. And this shouldn't
be the only point we focus on, but it was interesting that Jonah
was delivered at the very point that he gave his thanksgiving.
Verse 10 says, so the Lord spoke to the fish and it vomited Jonah
onto dry land. Thanksgiving delivers. It doesn't
always give us physical deliverance. Hey, even if you die, you're
delivered into heaven, aren't you? But Thanksgiving gives us
certainly emotional deliverance and spiritual deliverance from
the things that are binding us. And I see this with Jonah. This
Thanksgiving prayer freed him up to preach his heart out for
40 days around the city of Nineveh, in and around that city. God's
work in his life enabled him to get past his depression. And
by the way, I should mention, don't think you're alone if you
have suffered depression. Many of the most famous people
in the world, I looked at a long, long list of people who struggled
with depression. Did you know Charles Spurgeon
struggled almost every day fighting off depression in his life? I
read this past week, of the 39 years that he ministered, he
handed in his resignation 36 times. And his congregation wouldn't
take it. They said, no, they knew that
he struggled with this. And they said, nope, sorry, we're
not letting you turn in your resignation. But anyway, there
are ups and downs. Anybody can have these ups and
downs. You need to fight against it. So for 40 days, Jonah mastered
his emotions. He was delivered by that time.
And it was only after Nineveh repented And God gives them mercy
that he's thinking to himself, they don't deserve mercy. Of
course, he's not thinking, I don't deserve mercy either, right?
But Jonah's old thoughts came back and his depression began
to return. And we have got to, this happens
over and over to people, their depression gets worse because
they've not learned to discipline their thoughts. It's a very critical
part of healing. There's an old saying that goes
like this, to praise God for our miseries ends them, to praise
God for our blessings extends them. Thanksgiving is a powerful
tool of spiritual healing, but we must use it. So let me just
quickly review the steps. First step is to thank God where
you can, even if it means reading or reciting the prayers of others.
The second step is to do it right away, even in the midst of pain.
The third step is to relate what you are thanking God for to eternity. Measure it by eternity. I mean,
when you do that, the pain that we're going through really does
diminish. The apostle Paul said that it's but a momentary and
light affliction compared to the eternal weight of glory that
awaits us. Now, when you see everything
that Paul went through, You know that's saying something when
he says, it's a momentary and a light affliction. The fourth
step is to remind yourself that God is sovereign over your problem. Now, since he's a good God, this
gives you a rational basis for thanking God. If God is sovereign
and good, it is rational to thank him that he's allowed those things
to come into your life, maybe to test you. Meditate on his
sovereignty and include that as a reason for thanksgiving.
The fifth step is to take the effort to think of things to
thank him for. Just try to make a list of that.
I mean, he calls it a sacrifice. It's hard work. It takes effort. It doesn't come easy. Sacrifices
rarely do, but they do pay off. The sixth step. is to not depend
upon other saviors and other sources of security and to realize
that God alone is your source of security. And I think too
many times we look to vitamins to be our savior, or food, or
medicine, or we look to the pastor to be our savior. Now, it's not
like God doesn't use all of those means. I think he does. I think
it's important you get nutrition. I take vitamins and minerals.
They're all important, but here's the point. Those things are not
gonna work unless God blesses them. So everything we do, we
need God's blessing. He alone is the Savior, and He
can use those means to bless us. So having done all of that,
God has promised to deliver you. Now, it may not be the way you
wished or the way you anticipated, but He will deliver you. This
is exactly what He promises in Psalm 50, verse 14. It says,
offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving in the day of trouble. Notice
the context. Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving
in the day of trouble, and I shall rescue you, and you will honor
me. God will bring the exact rescue
or deliverance that we need, and through our thanksgiving,
we will honor him. God says, those who honor me,
I will honor. And so I urge you, all of you,
to begin thanking God for all things, even when you do not
feel like it. Amen. Father, we thank you for
the reminders that you give to us in your scriptures, that you
are sovereign, and we have every reason to thank you. And forgive
us for those times where we have grumbled instead. Forgive us
for those times where we fail to look at life from an eternal
perspective. Forgive us, Father, where we
fail to glorify you and to realize that everything that you do for
us is for our good, is working together for our good. And so,
Father, I pray that we would learn the discipline of thanksgiving,
and through that, by faith, to receive from your throne the
living waters that fill us so full that out of our innermost
being would flow rivers of living waters into the lives of others.
And as we sing Psalm 42, I pray that you would bless the scripture
to the hearts of your people as they sing it in faith. And
we pray this in Jesus' name. Amen.
The Healing Power of Thanksgiving
Series Sermon
| Sermon ID | 112123120233044 |
| Duration | 39:29 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday Service |
| Bible Text | Jonah 1:17-2:10 |
| Language | English |
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