The Virtue of Giving Thanks: The Consequence of Humility

Colossians 1:12

Christ told us that “out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks” (Matthew 12:34).  In its full conversation, that verse is aimed at hypocritical Pharisees who were attacking Christ by attributing the work of God to Satan.  Their hearts were corrupt, so their mouths were necessarily corrupt.  Though they put on a show of purity and religiosity for all to see, they were rotten at their core and ended up blaspheming the God they said they so deeply loved.  The condition of their hearts literally came out of their mouths.

The mouths of the humble will naturally express thanksgiving to God.  Paul, a man full of thanksgiving, expressed himself this way to the Colossians: “May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light” (Colossians 1:11-12).

His expression of thanksgiving here is utterly dependent upon the work God has done for him.  Paul did not deserve the inheritance God gave him, and the most influential missionary in the world did not work his way into God’s favor.  Paul tells disciples to thank God in the same way.  We have been made children of God; He has done the work of qualifying us to live in His kingdom.  We are thankful for God’s work, not ours.

Humility is a way of looking at the world, God, and our place in it.  If we think we are the most significant thing in the world, or even one of the most significant things, humility is not a burden we bear.  If we believe God is the most important thing in all of time and space, then we are on our way to understanding our proper place in the world and the proper attitude we need to take toward others.  When God is primary, He is the source of my salvation and I am thankful.  When I am primary, God benefits from my presence on earth.  When God is primary, I am thankful for the gifts of creation, family, friends, work, and so much more.  When I am primary, all these people ought to be thankful for me.

Pride collapses our world.  We become self-consumed as our eyes are turned inward on our own perceived greatness, our own needs, and our own wants.  We become self-idols, looking like statues with heads bowed, not in worship but in self-adoration and self-absorption. 

Humility opens our world as wide as the greatness of God.  Our eyes can now gaze outward and upward as we can give thanks to God for all He has done and all He has given without the fear of losing the importance of ourselves.  In fact, the humble soul freely gives thanks in all things, finding in thanksgiving a divine valuation of all things.  People are no longer valuable to the degree they are useful to us, but in the degree to which they are valuable to God.  The objects of creation are no longer means to serve our selfish ends, but become beautiful objects displaying the handiwork of their Creator.  The humble disciple is able to see the world through the lens of thanksgiving.

The abundance of the prideful heart is a small, dark world.  The abundance of the humble heart is a joyous and expansive thanksgiving.  It is the humble disciple who sees God more clearly.  It is the humble disciple who gives thanks to God for all He has done.

The Virtue of Giving Thanks: An Antidote to Arrogance

Romans 1:21

We don’t give thanks for things we believe we have done on our own.  If we were not given any help, than what are we to give thanks for, and to whom should we give thanks?  A pattern of thanklessness like this is not a surface problem; it betrays a deeper issue – the problem of pride.  We are the source of our strength.  We are the beneficiaries of our own cleverness and intelligence.  We have taken care of ourselves just fine.

But is pride a problem?  Can we be legitimately proud of ourselves without negative consequences?  Arrogance, as it turns out, has deep and character-forming costs.  Arrogance is the stance that God is not necessary for the work of my daily life.  I may believe that God can save the day when things get really complicated, and I probably get angry with him when things don’t go my way, but outside of the extremes of life I have things under control and don’t need God’s intervention.  But a point of view like this one turns us into people without faith, heart, and the intellect God wants for us.

Paul describes the corruption of a thankless life: “For although they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks to him, but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened” (Romans 1:21).  These same thankless people are later described as becoming, “foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless” (Romans 1:31).

There are severe consequences to a person’s soul and character if they are not able to genuinely thank God.

Thanking God for the simplest of things is a great place to start.  God, the Creator, put the sun, moon, and stars into the sky.  He created a cycle of light, water, plant and animal life that makes life itself possible for each of us.  The very air we breathe is a gift from the hand of a wondrous, powerful and loving God.  We thank God for fresh air, for the warmth of the sun, for a beating heart, and for an attentive mind.  And when we do, we begin to notice how dependent upon God we are for every moment of life.

Thanking God for the skills and talents he gave you is another good place to begin.  God warned his people that when they entered the Promised Land and became prosperous they would be tempted to think that they had “done all these things” (Deuteronomy 8).  They would get past the difficulties of creating arable farm land and the first years of vineyards and crops, and in the shadow of their labors in the sun they would think that their hands had given them everything they needed.  But who gave them hands?  Who gave them the knowledge they needed to tend to the land properly?  Who removed the giants in the land?  When we thank God for both our abilities and the fruits of our labors, our attention moves from our hands and minds to the God who formed them and filled them with His grace.

From thanking God for the things around and in us, we will want to move to thanking God for Himself.  We will want to begin naming the character traits of God and thanking Him for each and every one.  He is my Provider.  He is my Lord, Redeemer, Savior and Friend.  He is my Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  He is the Only Wise God.  At each thunderous attribute, pause in thanksgiving, allowing the Holy Spirit to fill you with Him, and to overflow in the thanksgiving of praise.

A heart and mind filled with this kind of thanksgiving simply does not have room for the squalor of arrogance.  It is too busy being overwhelmed with the greatness of their God.

For Christ Did Not Please Himself

Romans 15:1-3

Christians come in every possible variation, color, and background.  And when we come together as the church we are intended to leave all the non-essentials at the door and live in unity under Christ.  At least that is the ideal.  It is how God is constructing his church, but we, the bricks of that construction, often get in the way.  Our differences divide us too easily.  We may gather in a vague sense of the supremacy and Lordship of Christ, but we are often far more taken with our pew-mate’s difference of opinion on the color of the pews than with our mutual Savior.  Our pettiness ought not be.  It should not be the thing that defines the body of Christ.  Instead, Christ shows us a much more excellent way.

“We who are strong have an obligation.”

Among our differences, Christians come in all degrees of maturity of lifestyle and faith.  Some have found a deep sense of intimacy with Christ and a strong understanding of their life of liberty and God-honoring behavior.  Others are still young or relatively immature in the faith and stumble easily at the lives and opinions of others.  When Paul mentions the “strong” and the “weak” to the Romans he recognizes the reality of weakness among Christians but places an obligation on the strong.  They are obliged to bear with the failings of the weak and live so as to please them in God’s goodness instead of living to please themselves.

The mature believer views the body of Christ as an opportunity to tend to the good of their weaker brother or sister’s life in Christ, and to make an effort to build them up.  Paul’s vocabulary about building up the other believer is vivid – it means to erect an edifice, to build a house, to edify.  In this way of living with each other in Christ, the disciple continues to learn what it means to view the other as more important than themselves.  As Paul put it to the Philippians, Christ’s way of thinking was to view you as more important than himself, and we ought to think the same way.  And in a relationship where one believer learns to love the other in spite of differences over non-essentials, we learn to enter another’s life as a builder instead of a destroyer.  We can actually be a part of God’s work in their lives to raise them to maturity in Christ and intimacy with their Heavenly Father.  Isn’t that a better vision of the body of Christ than a group of grumps quibbling over meaningless legalistic jots and tittles?

“For Christ did not please himself.”

The reason for our behavior is always grounded in Christ.  In order to explain and justify this radically selfless view of harmony in the church, Paul makes the ultimate appeal for the Christ-follower – this is how Jesus actually lived.  His incarnation was for our good: he “made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men” (Philippians 2:7). His life was for our good: “For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve” (Mark 10:45). His death was for our good: “he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities” (Isaiah 53:5). His resurrection was for our good: “I came that they may have life and have it abundantly” (John 10:10).  The way Christ lived his life on earth 2000 years ago has profound consequences in our lives today.  It gives us our reasons for behavior and practical grounding for our relationships.

Christ lived his life among us so that we might have his life.  Do we live with each other in the same way?  Does the life of the church mean it is easier for God’s people to find God’s life?

God's Loves, God's Hatreds

Romans 12:9

One of the fundamental transformations that takes place in the hearts and minds of disciples of Jesus Christ is that they learn to love the things God loves and hate the things God hates.  While it may be easy and even common for us to reflect on and talk about loving the things God loves, we don’t always take into account the things God hates.  Much less do we meditate on hating the same things.  The maturing disciple learns to both love and hate, but only in the fashion and image of God’s loves and hatreds.

“Abhor what it evil; hold fast to what is good.”

If we are sensitive to it, Scripture is full of descriptions of God hating evil and injustice and loving righteousness.  Psalm 45:7 describes God’s faithful people and ultimately the Messiah by saying, “you have loved righteousness and hated wickedness.”  The very character of Jesus Christ is marked by God’s love and God’s hatred.  Jesus taught the things God loves, touched the people God loves, lead the life God loves, and taught his disciples to continue in the same way of life.  But by the same token, Jesus had some uncomfortable things to say about the behaviors and ideologies God hates, and the hypocrites that perpetuated them.

To abhor, or to hate, is to see the vice or evil in a thing, a behavior, or an idea.  To love (or as Paul puts it, “hold fast to”) is to associate with, to promote as good and valuable, and to even sacrifice for something or someone.

How do we learn what we ought to love and hate?  The loves and hatred of God.  Learning what God loves becomes our moral compass – it is our matter-of-fact command to love.  A disciple is willing to surrender their fleshly loves and hatreds and let them be transformed by God’s point of view on the matter.  Every disciple comes to God with a set of loves and hatreds given to them by the world, and all of them must be surrendered.  And as the disciple is surrendered and submitted, their obedience to command becomes the very pulse of their desires.  Our loves become transformed so that we willingly and naturally love the way God loves and we righteously hate what God hates.

In becoming these kinds of disciples, a distinction becomes clear: God loves people and hates the things that destroy them.  Scripture says that I was an enemy of God in my sin, but God loved this sinner so much that he entered flesh, lived among us, died on the cross because of my sin, and rose again for my life.  The transforming disciple learns to view humans – even our enemies – in the same way.  Our enemies cease to become targets for our cursing and wrath, and become potential recipients of the grace and forgiveness of God.

In this we see that the love of God necessarily includes the hatred of sin – otherwise the cross of Christ is a superfluous act of torture and death.  Sin is a destroyer and needs to be destroyed.  Sin is hated by God and ought to be hated by his disciples so much so that they are ready to sacrifice themselves for the love of sinners.  Only in this way can the disciple of Jesus Christ learn to love what he loves.

I Beg of You, Be Disciples

Romans 12:1-2

There are people who have made a mark on this world, not because they were powerful or wealthy, but because they were faithful followers of Jesus Christ.  Often they shook the structures of their time for the single reason that they were people who belonged to the Kingdom of God instead of the kingdoms of this world.  And even though many of them faced (and still face) the persecution of this world and the fate of martyrdom, they are the heroes of their stories.  Their discipleship was stronger than earthly might, and their lives shine brighter than the candles of kings and kingdoms.

The difference is discipleship.  And Paul pleads with us to be disciples of Jesus Christ.

“I appeal to you, therefore, brothers.”

Paul’s appeal is strong.  This is Paul’s deep desire for followers of Jesus Christ.  This is, in many ways, his life’s work for them.   What Paul wants more than anything else for these followers of Jesus Christ is that their lives would reflect the image of Christ to an ever increasing degree.

When Paul writes to the Roman Christians he appeals to them to be disciples in a culture not made for Christian disciples.  The empire of Rome was not built around making it easy for Christians to deny the state gods and religious practices.  When someone converted to Christianity, the rest of their lives became harder.  And, of course, we all have the images of Christians in the Coliseum in our minds as we think of Rome and religious tolerance.  And yet, Paul pleads with them to look more like Christ instead of less.

While Paul pleads with Christians to become disciples, he tells us it happens by the mercy of God.  Discipleship is first and foremost a matter of engagement with God.  We do not strive and achieve to make our way into discipleship and the image of Christ by fixing the small, loose ends of our lives or tidying up the messy corners of our personality we haven’t gotten around to fixing yet.  Discipleship is a lifestyle of engagement and surrender to God.  The disciple surrenders what is destructive and engages with God in order that his Holy Spirit can, by his power, build in him the virtues of Christ.  It is complete surrender; it is constant engagement.  The disciple learns to turn their attention to Christ more often than not, and in the end, their attention can be completely occupied and colored by the presence and wisdom of God.

Discipleship is not a 12-step program or a formula that can be applied in each and every situation.  It is a daily decision to belong to God; and that daily decision can turn into a lifestyle, and that lifestyle really can turn into the life of Jesus Christ.  Paul has already told us and the Romans that God has predestined each and every believer to be conformed to the image and likeness of his Son, Jesus Christ.  Paul now pleads with each and every one of us – present yourself to God so that you may begin to look like, act like, and think like, Jesus Christ.

Discipleship is a new life and it is a life available only through the powerful mercies of God.  Please, I ask of you, follow Jesus Christ. 

Provision in the Desert

Deuteronomy 8:1-10

In this life temptation will come. It is inevitable. It is the very nature of the world. But not every season in life and not every temptation is the same. There are unique temptations that come in the difficult and desert seasons in life. We struggle with things we are not able to overcome and over issues we feel are noble but don’t seem to bring anything but pain. We feel as if God has abandoned us or may even actively be against us. These are real seasons in life with God, and can be some of the most difficult, but God has some things to say about the temptations of the desert.

Though the language is stark, it is nonetheless true – God led his people in the wilderness and even tested his people through the trials they faced there. Moses says, “And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness , that he might humble you, testing you” (vs. 2). In the desert God’s people faced some very real and difficult things, beginning with hunger and thirst. Adding to the natural difficulties is the fact that God did the leading into the desert with a few things in mind for them including humility, obedience and testing.

The inclusion of humility here is powerfully instructive. They were the children of generations of slaves and had spent their entire lives wandering in a barren wilderness. Do they really need humility? Hasn’t life been difficult enough on them? It turns out, however, that God’s most-used descriptor for them is not “humble,” but some form of “stubborn” or “stiff-necked.” Neither the ignominy of slavery nor the difficulty of the desert made them humble. Humility is not a function of our physical or material position in life, but of the position of our heart with God. The most destitute can be proud; the wealthiest among us can be humble.

In addition to humility, they needed to learn where their source of all sustenance came from. Moses says that God did these things, “that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord” (vs. 3). They wandered in a desert where there was no bread, so God provided bread from heaven. They had no meat, so God sent quail. There were no water supplies easily at hand, so God cracked open a rock and water flowed. There were no major cities along the way where they could buy new clothes for the ones that were wearing out in the wilderness wanderings, so God kept their shoes and clothes from growing thread-bare. These needs were met, not by what we might recognize as normal or natural means, but by the voice of God commanding that their needs be met.

Possibly the deepest fear we face when we wander through a desert is that we simply will not be taken care of, that our needs won’t be met. We are accustomed to working to pay the bills and applying our own skills and talents to our lives so things go as smoothly as they can. But when we are met with the barrenness of a land with no food or water, our abilities run out quickly. And often this is the only place where we learn – really learn – that the voice of God is our only source of provision.

And then we know that the abundant provision of the Promised Land is the voice of God working to provide for his people. “For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land” (vs. 7).

To drive the point home, when he was hungry after forty days of fasting in the wilderness, Jesus Christ rebuked Satan’s temptation to turn stones into bread by quoting from Deuteronomy 8. Jesus refused the bread of temptation in favor of the food that can only come from the voice of God himself.

Hope

Romans 8:23-25

Hope is a powerful desire deep within every human being. All of us hope for the better, the good, the resolution of tension and difficulty. All of us anticipate and work for the betterment of our own conditions and those of the ones we love. Hope is such an important part of the human make-up that its loss is devastating and often fatal. When a human gives up hope, or has enough of their hopes dashed, all meaning and purpose to life can slip away.

In Romans chapter 8 Paul speaks of the Christian’s hope of the glory of God and the kind of hope we have in a broken world. If the glory of God is far greater than the suffering and pain in this world (vs. 18), then what does it mean to hold onto the hope of this glory in a decaying and difficult world?

First of all, it is undeniably true that we groan under the weight of this world. “And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.” (vs. 23) And though we groan, we do not suffer meaninglessly; we have the foretaste of the glory of God living and breathing in us. We have the firstfruits now of the feast of God’s glory to come because the children of God have been given the Spirit of God. We know there will be complete forgiveness because the Spirit is at work forgiving now. We know there will be a complete transformation of the human soul because the Spirit is at work transforming now. We know there will be a complete healing of body and soul because the Spirit is at work healing body and soul now. We know the feast is coming because we are eating the appetizers.

And into this hope, Paul says, you were saved. (vs. 24) We were given a firm and true hope when we became children of God.

False hope is a dangerous and manipulative tool. Because every human being is built to hope, there are people and ideologies that will play on that hope and destroy lives, draining them of every effort and energy in order to get their way. These people and ideologies promise the world and simply do not have the power or intelligence to make good on their promise. In false hope, human lives are utterly ruined.

But the hope of God is founded on the truth and power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. When you were saved you exchanged all the snake-oil of this world for the truth of the hope we have in Jesus Christ. His kingdom will come and his will will be done on earth just as it is in heaven, and followers of Jesus Christ partake in that kingdom here and now. Just as false hope ruins lives, the true hope of Jesus Christ restores them. It gives meaning and redemption even in suffering and pain. It provides the taste of the glory of God in a world that causes so much groaning.

It is true that we “wait for it with patience,” (vs. 25) but we can wait in truth and security because we know the power and the glory of God. God has not orphaned us here in this world – He has sent his Spirit to be a Counselor, Teacher and Guide, and even the firstfruits of the glory of the kingdom of God.

Lose every hope you have in the people and structures of this world. Do not lose your hope in the truth and the power of the kingdom of God. For you were given this hope when you became a child of God.