How To Be Thankful In Any Circumstance
Text - Luke 2:36-38
Introduction
Today is a special service because it is Thanksgiving week and I want to emphasize the need to be thankful to God.
Thanksgiving is not something we should emphasize just one day out of the year, but on every day.
The holidays are perhaps the hardest time of year to be happy and thankful because of all the pressure associated with them.
If your house is anything like mine on Thanksgiving day it looks like a hurricane went through it. The kitchen is filled with dirty dishes, pots and pans. The kids are screaming as they run through the house. Relatives are tense because they haven’t seen each other for some time. Then when you sit down at the dinner table to eat, everyone starts arguing because there aren’t enough drumsticks to go around.
By the way, do you know what you get when you cross a turkey and an octopus? You get enough drumsticks to go around!
For some people, Thanksgiving and Christmas are happy times of the year, but rather a time to be dreaded. They don’t think of giving thanks at Thanksgiving because of all the bad memories associated with it.
Someone once sent me this recipe for how to take all the stress out of Thanksgiving:
Step 1: Go buy a turkey; Step 2: Take a drink of whiskey; Step 3: Put turkey in the oven; Step 4: Take another 2 drinks of whiskey; Step 5: Set the degree at 375 ovens;
Step 6: Take 3 more whiskeys of drink; Step 7: Turn oven the on; Step 8: Take 4 whisks of drinky; Step 9: Turk the bastey; Step 10: Whiskey another bottle of get; Step 11: Stick a turkey in the thermometer; Step 12: Glass yourself a pour of whiskey; Step 13: Bake the whiskey for 4 hours; Step 14: Take the oven out of the turkey; Step 15: Take the oven out of the turkey; Step 16: Floor the turkey up off of the pick; Step 17: Turk the carvey; Step 18: Get yourself another scottle of botch; Step 19: Tet the sable and pour yourself a glass of turkey; Step 20: Bless the saying, pass and eat out.
The setting of our text today takes place when Joseph and Mary went to Jerusalem to circumcise Jesus. There they met two people. One was called Simeon and the other was Anna. Here in our text we find a story about a woman named Anna, a prophetess and the daughter of Phanuel.
During Anna’s life she had experienced many hard times and heartbreaks. Notice what it says about her in verses 36-37.
Luke 2:36-38 There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was very old; she had lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37and then was a widow until she was eighty-four. 38At that very moment she came up and began giving thanks to God...”
An elderly couple, Georgia and Fred, sit down to their Thanksgiving dinner. Before eating, his wife speaks up. "Can I ask you a question, Fred?" "Sure Georgia," Fred says, waiting to dig into his meal. "Has our 50 years of marriage made you grateful?" she asks. "Yes, indeed!" Fred replies. "For the twenty years I was a bachelor!"
It is easy to give thanks to God when everything is going right in your life and you’re feeling well. It’s easy to be thankful during the good times when everything is great and fantastic. But what about on the bad days, the rotten times, when you’re having problems and things aren’t going well for you? When things just couldn’t get any worse? When your family is upset and your children aren’t doing what you have asked them? When you and your spouse are fighting with each other?
Has anyone ever been there before? How many of you have had a rotten day? ... today! I see those hands
Well you know it is going to be a rotten day when you put on your bra backwards and it fits better. You know you’re going to have a rotten day when you call suicide prevention and they put you on hold. Or when your birthday cake collapses from the weight of all the candles. Or you turn on the news and they are showing emergency routes out of your city. Or when your twin sister forgot it was your birthday. Or when you walk into your office and your boss tells you not to bother taking off your jacket. Or the bird that’s sitting outside your bedroom window singing is actually a very large buzzard. Or when you’ve just walked through a department store and realized that your dress has been stuck in the back of your pantyhose. Or your “lovely” blind date turns out to be your ex-wife. Or when your income check bounces. Or when your wife says, “Good morning Fred” and your name is George.
You know it’s going to be a bad day when things kind of things happen. But give thanks! You will could never appreciate the good days if you didn’t have some bad ones. And God allows us to experience some bad days in our life in order to make us more appreciative and mature Christians. He wants us to see the importance of always giving Him thanks.
1 Thessalonians 5:18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.
CIRCLE THE PHRASE “IN ALL CIRCUMSTANCES”
That means, on the good days and on the rotten days. How do I give thanks like that? How can I be thankful in all circumstances? This morning I’d like us to consider three things Anna did that will help you to give thanks in any circumstance.
Corrie ten Boom was an inspiration and challenge to thousands of people after World War II. Hearts were stirred and lives changed as she told with moving simplicity about God's sufficiency to meet her needs, even as a prisoner in a Nazi concentration camp.
Not only was the camp filthy, but there were fleas everywhere. Corrie's sister Betsie, who was imprisoned with her, insisted that 1 Thessalonians 5:18 was God's will for them: "In everything give thanks." But giving thanks in a flea-infested place seemed unrealistic to Corrie—until she realized why the guards didn't come into their barracks to make them stop praying and singing hymns. They wanted to avoid the fleas! So, the prisoners were free to worship and study the Bible. The fleas, yes, even the fleas were agents of grace, and something to be thankful for.
What are some of the "fleas" in your life? They aren't the big difficulties, but the petty annoyances. They are the little trials from which we can't escape. So, when you are tempted to grumble, remember the fleas and give thanks.
For all the heartaches and the tears,
For gloomy days and fruitless years
I do give thanks, for now I know
These were the things that helped me grow! —Crandlemire