Proud People Don’t Give Thanks
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00:00:05.000 | Proud people don't say thanks.
00:00:07.000 | That was the title of Pastor John's Thanksgiving sermon way back in 1983.
00:00:11.000 | Yes, 30 years ago.
00:00:13.000 | And with Pastor John on the final leg of his trip through the Middle East,
00:00:17.000 | today on the Ask Pastor John podcast we're doing something totally different.
00:00:20.000 | We're digging back into the sermon archive to resurface a clip from that sermon in 1983.
00:00:25.000 | This sermon is based on Romans chapter 1, verses 16 to 23,
00:00:29.000 | and it's a passage worth reflecting on annually when Thanksgiving comes around.
00:00:34.000 | Here's a brief clip of what Pastor John had to say in that message 30 years ago.
00:00:39.000 | So for those who love the truth, creation becomes a dazzling lesson book in theology.
00:00:48.000 | It teaches the open mind that there is a deity,
00:00:53.000 | an infinitely marvelous being who made the world and everything in it.
00:01:01.000 | It teaches that this being has stupendous power and that the power is eternal.
00:01:07.000 | The world in its molecular and visual and galactic order and structure bears witness to an architect.
00:01:16.000 | And if that architect made everything that is, then he himself was not made, but must have been always and is eternal.
00:01:26.000 | An eternally powerful, infinitely marvelous maker of all things is evident in the lesson book of creation.
00:01:34.000 | And that's not all you can learn from the lesson book of creation.
00:01:37.000 | If, in fact, there is an all powerful, infinitely marvelous maker of all things,
00:01:43.000 | then I know something very personal.
00:01:46.000 | He made me.
00:01:47.000 | And everything I have, I have from his hand as a free gift.
00:01:53.000 | I am made creature, utterly dependent.
00:01:56.000 | And everything that I enjoy is a gift from the hand of an all powerful creator.
00:02:03.000 | I stand before the irresistible logic of the lesson book of creation,
00:02:08.000 | and I have to admit that everything without exception is a free gift.
00:02:14.000 | And that has tremendous implications.
00:02:17.000 | It's inconceivable that the creator should ever owe me anything.
00:02:23.000 | It is inconceivable that a creature should be owed anything by his creator.
00:02:31.000 | For when could I have ever given anything to God which was not his, so that then he would owe me back?
00:02:38.000 | For from him and through him and to him are all things, the apostle says.
00:02:45.000 | I am not my own.
00:02:47.000 | I belong to another.
00:02:50.000 | Creation, on the one hand, testifies that we are creatures, that God is all glorious, eternally powerful,
00:02:57.000 | and we should cherish him and give him continual and heartfelt thanks day and night.
00:03:02.000 | But for some mysterious reason, every single human heart hates that message and therefore suppresses it with all its might.
00:03:16.000 | Or as verse 25 says, we exchange the truth about God for a lie.
00:03:24.000 | Here, I'll trade. Give me your lie, I'll give you the truth of creation.
00:03:30.000 | And the reason I think we do that is because the truth of creation is humiliating.
00:03:37.000 | From sea to shining sea, creation shouts that God has eternal power, God is infinitely glorious,
00:03:46.000 | God made me and everything I enjoy, and as for me, what is left for me?
00:03:52.000 | Just humbly thank the Lord, just give him glory through gratitude.
00:03:56.000 | That's all that's left for you.
00:03:59.000 | Gratitude as a recipient, always a recipient, but proud people don't say thanks.
00:04:08.000 | Gratitude is the echo of grace reverberating through the hollows of the heart, but proud people don't need grace.
00:04:15.000 | And proud people have all the hollows of their heart crammed full up with wisdom.
00:04:22.000 | Claiming to be wise, they exchange the glory of the immortal God for images.
00:04:29.000 | Proud people don't say thanks.
00:04:32.000 | Tight-lipped, they take the diamond of God's glory, enter into the pawn shop of pride,
00:04:38.000 | hock it for the broken marble of self-reliance, and then they go home and they put their little marble
00:04:47.000 | with its cat's eye and cracks on the mantle of their mind and find one hundred ways every day to bow down to that idol.
00:04:59.000 | My desire for you this morning is your gratitude.
00:05:04.000 | Proud people don't say thanks.
00:05:07.000 | I want you to have the deepest, most authentic, most joyful thanksgiving of your life on Thursday.
00:05:16.000 | Nothing less.
00:05:18.000 | And the reason it can be, in spite of your and my miserable failure to thank God as we ought day in and day out,
00:05:28.000 | is because of this gracious word from our Father in Heaven.
00:05:32.000 | The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
00:05:40.000 | I dwell in a high and holy place and with him who is of a broken and contrite spirit,
00:05:47.000 | to revive the heart of the contrite and to revive the spirit of the humble.
00:05:52.000 | There's our hope. Nowhere else.
00:05:55.000 | For the true child of God, the repeated discovery of sin in his life leads to grief,
00:06:05.000 | which produces repentance, which leads to salvation, which brings no regret, according to the apostle in 2 Corinthians 7.
00:06:15.000 | Have you never been driven to tears precisely because you are forgiven?
00:06:24.000 | I pray that there will be great, heartfelt thanksgiving to God in all your homes this week.
00:06:30.000 | I hope that some of you sing in the garage for the first time, or the shower,
00:06:35.000 | someplace where nobody can hear that awful voice, just God in his delight,
00:06:40.000 | taking in a song of thanksgiving that rises up out of a broken, contrite, forgiven spirit.
00:06:49.000 | I hope some of you write poems of thanksgiving to share with your families this week.
00:06:56.000 | I hope some of you write in your journal prayers of praise.
00:07:01.000 | I hope some of you make long lists on white paper of the hundreds of blessings that God has brought you
00:07:08.000 | in spite of your sin, and which he will continue to bring.
00:07:13.000 | And I hope that some of you spend very special times with God,
00:07:19.000 | and I hope that some of you say to wife or husband or a very special friend, eyeball to eyeball,
00:07:26.000 | "I thank God for you."
00:07:28.000 | We need to say a lot of that this week, OK?
00:07:32.000 | But proud people don't say thanks, and therefore I have tried to lay before you three very humbling truths this morning.
00:07:40.000 | One, the lesson book of creation teaches that there is an eternally powerful, all-glorious being who made me, made you,
00:07:49.000 | and everything you enjoy is a free gift, not something that you have earned.
00:07:56.000 | And our duty, therefore, is simply to glorify him by giving thanks from hearts of deep gratitude.
00:08:03.000 | And the second truth is that none of you ever do that like you should.
00:08:08.000 | An infinite God with infinite mercy and infinite beneficence is worthy of the intensest,
00:08:16.000 | most consistent, heartfelt gratitude and love and devotion every day, all day long,
00:08:25.000 | that any human can possibly give.
00:08:27.000 | Is there anybody in here who does that?
00:08:31.000 | We sin every day.
00:08:34.000 | We are sinners.
00:08:36.000 | The purity of spirit is not something to be left behind.
00:08:40.000 | We have no choice if we're honest.
00:08:43.000 | We must be broken and contrite in spirit.
00:08:47.000 | And the third humbling truth is this.
00:08:51.000 | Almighty God, our creator, in the great love with which he loved us, sent Jesus Christ into the world to endure your judgment,
00:08:59.000 | the judgment of those who are broken and contrite in spirit and look away from themselves to him for hope.
00:09:07.000 | Proud people don't say thanks, but people who believe those three truths say thanks.
00:09:13.000 | And they don't just say thanks, they feel thanks from the bottom of their heart.
00:09:17.000 | The truth that we are utterly dependent creatures, the truth that we are depraved in our condition,
00:09:25.000 | and the truth that we are forgiven by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.
00:09:32.000 | And if those three truths will penetrate your heart this morning, if you'll open yourselves to them and welcome them,
00:09:38.000 | then they will empty you of pride.
00:09:42.000 | And you know what will happen tonight?
00:09:45.000 | You will be filled from the bottom to the brim with tremendous thanksgiving.
00:09:51.000 | Vintage John Piper. I love that early preaching voice.
00:09:54.000 | This clip was taken from a sermon, "Proud People Don't Say Thanks," which he preached at Bethlehem Baptist Church back in November of 1983.
00:10:01.000 | You can find it and another 1,200 of his other sermons all online, all free of charge for you,
00:10:06.000 | and all of them can be found at DesiringGod.org.
00:10:10.000 | Click on resources, click on sermons, and browse the entire collection online.
00:10:14.000 | My name is Tony Reinke, hoping you have a wonderful, thank-filled Thanksgiving.
00:10:19.000 | [Silence]
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