Giving thanks while the ship is sinking

Acts 27:13-44

(Started with Korean story – or maybe from India because people from India knew this story as well and, as they pointed out, there are no tigers in Korea – for the Children’s Chat)
The Ungrateful Tiger

A long time ago, high in the mountains, the people of a small village came together to decide what to do about tigers wandering near their home.

“We have to do something! With all these tigers wandering around we’re too scared to go out of the village” said one man.

“Yes! we have to do something. Last week a tiger ate one of my legs” said another, pointing to his leg that was not there.

After much talking the villagers decided the best thing to do was to dig deep holes to trap the tigers. Everyone helped, including the bigger children and the man who’s leg was not there. They dug deep holes near all the tracks leading to the village.

A few days later a young man came to visit his uncle and heard loud howling sounds as he walked along a track to the village.

“What’s making all that noise?” he asked. “Whatever it is it doesn’t sound very happy”.

The young man followed the howling sounds until he saw a deep hole with a tiger in it. The tiger tried to jump out and each time he fell back and howled.

“Hello Mr. Tiger” said the young man. “How did you get down there?”

“I don’t know” cried the tiger. “I was walking along in the forest as tigers do, looking for something to eat, when suddenly I fell into this deep hole”.

The tiger pleaded with the young man to help him. “Please, please help me get out of here. My wife and children will be worried about me. If you help me I’ll be very grateful”.

The young man was a very kind person. He found a large tree branch that had fallen on the ground and pushed and pulled it to the side of the deep hole.

“Watch out Mr. Tiger” yelled the young man as he pushed it down inside.

The tiger sprang up the branch and out of the deep hole.

“Ah! that’s better” said the tiger pleased to be free.

The young man felt suddenly very nervous, standing next to the large tiger and decided to leave.

“I must be going now. Good-bye Mr. Tiger” he said.

“Not so fast” said the tiger. “I’m going to eat you”.

“But, but, you said you’d be grateful if I helped you” stammered the young man.

“I am grateful” said the tiger. “But it was humans who dug that hole to trap me and since you’re a human I am going to eat you”.

“That’s not fair” cried the young man.

“I’m a tiger and that’s what tigers do. Eat people” growled the tiger

“I helped you and now you’re going to eat me just because I’m human” said the young man. “I think we should ask some one else to judge if that’s fair or not”.

The tiger agreed and they went to look for someone to act as a judge.

They found an Ox and told him the story. “I think it’s fair for the tiger to eat you” said the Ox. “Humans treat us Oxen very badly. We’re made to work all day and when you want to, you kill us and eat us”

The tiger moved closer to the young man, who quickly yelled “Let’s make it two out of three”.

The tiger agreed and they went to ask the biggest tree in the forest. “I think it’s fair for the tiger to eat you. You humans chop us down whenever you want to and set fire to the forest and burn us”.

The tiger looked pleased and showed his big teeth as he smiled at the young man.

The young man was so frightened his legs began to shake. He saw a hare hopping along. “Please Mr. Hare, help judge if Mr. Tiger should eat me”.

The hare listened to their story then said “Before I can judge I must see exactly what happened”.

They all went to the deep hole where the young man had rescued the tiger.

“Now show me exactly where you were” the hare said to the tiger. Anxious to hurry up and eat the young man, the tiger jumped down into the hole.

“Was this branch in the hole?” asked the hare.

“No it wasn’t” answered the tiger. The young man and the hare pulled the branch out.

“My judgment is that it’s not fair for you to eat the young man” said the hare. “Just because it was humans who dug the hole doesn’t make it fair for you to eat him. You should have been grateful for his help”.

The hare hopped away and the young man hurried off to the village leaving the ungrateful tiger howling in the deep hole.

Being thankful is a universal value. The story Debbie told comes from Korea (or perhaps India) and on the internet, there are stories from around the world about the importance of being thankful. From early 19th century Germany comes a Grimm Brother’s tale about a man who was ungrateful to his father and suffered the rest of his life with a toad sitting on his face. The universal lesson seems to be that we should not be ungrateful.

When Paul wrote to Timothy about the negative character of people in the last days, he made a list that included being ungrateful. Listen to the character traits that surround ungratefulness in Paul’s list.

II Timothy 3:1-3
But mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days.  2 People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,  3 without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good,  4 treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God—  5 having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.

That’s not good company.

When Paul was describing to the church in Rome a world that had fallen away from God, he wrote about people not fulfilling their duty to thank God.
Romans 1:21
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.

Being thankful is our natural and godly response to all that God does. We are meant to give thanks and we should give thanks. Many books have been written about being thankful but I know you are thankful that I will not preach a book this morning and just make four observations.

The first observation is that thankfulness is directed first and foremost to God, not to any other created being or object.

In the Hebrew Old Testament, thanksgiving is always, without exception made to God. When Moses led Israel across the Red Sea, it was not Moses who was thanked but God. When food and water were provided for Israel in the wilderness, it was not Moses who was thanked but God. When a battle was won by Israel, it was not Joshua or David who were thanked but God. There is no distinction in the Hebrew between praise and thankfulness and when the occasion required it, thanks and praise were directed to God.

The Christian New Testament, except for four rare exceptions, directs thankfulness to God as well. The Bible is clear that when we express thanks, we are to do it to God.

Leviticus 1-7 describes several different sorts of offerings to be made to God. The burnt offering was at the center of worship at the temple. The sin offering brought restoration to the person or place that had become unclean. The guilt offering made restitution for a misdeed made unknowingly. And the thank offering was given to Israel as a way of expressing gratitude to God. When the religious life of Israel was instituted by God, thanksgiving was a critical part of what God had intended for Israel. Giving thanks and praise to God is a fundamental responsibility for all Christians.

If giving thanks is meant to be done to God, does this mean we are not to thank each other when someone does something nice for us? What about all those years of training when our parents told us to “make sure you say ‘thank you’”?

It may help for us to understand if we think about our sin. Although our sin is normally done towards another person: we lie to someone, steal something from someone, spread gossip about someone; although our sin is normally done toward another person, the Bible teaches us that when we sin, we sin against God. David, when he wrote Psalm 51 in response to having been confronted by the prophet Nathan about his sin involving Bathsheba and her husband, Uriah, made this confession
Against you, you only, have I sinned
and done what is evil in your sight,

Our sin affects other people but our offense against God is so much greater than our offense against any other person that it can be said that we have sinned only against God.

In the same way, we can express thanks to other people for the good things they do, but we need to see that God is the source of all goodness and so it is to him that we express our thankfulness and praise.

I remember receiving financial gifts that allowed me to pay for my seminary tuition. I sent a thank you to the person who gave me the gift but what I most remember is being thankful to God that he was providing for me what I needed.

When someone does something good for us we thank them, but we are grateful to God for taking care of us and we thank him for his marvelous provision.

On the other side of this, when we do something good or worthy of praise, we give room for God to receive praise and thanksgiving. When Paul took up a collection from around the Gentile world for the Christians in Jerusalem, he said that this collection would result in God receiving thanks.
I Corinthians 9:12
This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God.

What do you do when you are a musician or actor and people applaud at the end of your performance? I wondered about this over the years and observed Christian groups that would stand on stage and raise their index finger to indicate that the praise for their performance should go to God. They stood, accepting the applause of the audience and deflected it to God.

Bobby McFerrin, who is famous for a song he sang, “Don’t Worry, Be Happy,” when he received a Grammy music award for his recording, quoted this verse from James 1 on stage:
Every good and perfect gift is from above

When you do something good and you receive praise or when someone thanks you for what you did, accept the praise and thanks and deflect them to the one from whom every good and perfect gift comes.

Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, has given 30 billion dollars US to his foundation and plans to give 95% of his estate away before he dies. Warren Buffet just gave 37 billion dollars, 85% of his estate, to the Gates Foundation. It has to be admitted that with the small percentage of their wealth they keep, they will never really be in financial need, but still, what a gift! What should the world say to this? We should say thank you for your generous gift and excellent model of giving. There are many in the world who are hoarding their wealth and not using it for the good of mankind. So we say thank you.

But why do they give? It is not natural to give away what you have accumulated.

John D. Rockefeller made his fortune in oil and set a precedent by giving away vast sums of money. Where did he get the idea to do this? His philanthropy got its start in a Baptist revival in western New York when he was a young man. All his life, Rockefeller gave money to the church and mission societies and colleges and universities. As he aged, his donations were increasingly made to secular institutions, but it is clear that his philanthropy and the American value of philanthropy has its roots in Christian experience. God has put into the culture of the US a value of giving so that people in the US give more to charity than any other country in the world. Private citizens gave 1.78 billion dollars US to relief for tsunami victims. Is this to the credit of the US? Yes, in a way, but we need to look deeper to see where credit should really go. It is to the credit of God that this value was instilled in the culture of the US through the many Christian revivals in US history.

Whether your talent is giving money or performing on the stage or organizing a party, accept thanks, but realize your gift and opportunity came from above and deflect that thanks to God from whom every good and perfect gift comes. When you receive a gift say thank you but then lift up your heart in thanksgiving to God for the generosity and love that led the person to give you the gift.

Our thankfulness is to be directed first and foremost to God. A second observation about being thankful is that we are to be thankful despite the circumstances.

Most of us have been trained as Christians that when we eat, we should first pray and thank God for what we are about to eat. Even at restaurants, we close our eyes and pray, giving thanks to God for the meal.

This is what Paul did in today’s text, except that he was not in a restaurant. He was not sitting in someone’s home around a table. He was sitting on a ship heaving up and down in the wind and waves of a powerful storm that had been beating on the ship for two solid weeks. Ropes had been strung around the hull of the ship to help hold the wood together. Now as they were about to throw overboard everything that could be thrown in a desperate attempt to keep the ship from sinking, Paul spoke to them:
Just before dawn Paul urged them all to eat. “For the last fourteen days,” he said, “you have been in constant suspense and have gone without food—you haven’t eaten anything.  34 Now I urge you to take some food. You need it to survive. Not one of you will lose a single hair from his head.”  35 After he said this, he took some bread and gave thanks to God in front of them all. Then he broke it and began to eat.

Does this surprise you that Paul gave thanks to God before breaking the bread and eating it? (Obviously, his mother never told him to wait an hour after eating before swimming.) Maybe it is not a surprise since it is in a crisis that people often pray the hardest. But when people in a crisis pray, it is usually the prayer of Peter who after walking on water to Jesus sank and began to drown, “Help me Lord.” What is surprising about Paul giving thanks is that it was not a “Help me Lord,” prayer but a prayer giving thanks to God for the bread they were about to eat.

The night Jesus was arrested, knowing he would be taken and crucified, knowing he would suffer and die, Jesus gave thanks.

Paul, who suffered so much, wrote in I Thessalonians 5:16-18
Be joyful always;  17 pray continually;  18 give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.

Peter, when he wrote to Christians experiencing persecution encouraged them:
I Peter 1:3-6
Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,  4 and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you,  5 who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.  6 In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.

In every situation, in every circumstance, we are to give thanks. Even when facing death we can be thankful. Paul wrote in I Corinthians 15:56-57
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

We can be thankful in every circumstance because no matter what happens to us in this life, no matter what horrible event we suffer, we will be victorious through Jesus our Lord. This is not trite religious truth. This is bedrock truth that has enabled saints throughout the history of the church to stand up for Jesus and endure suffering.

Regardless of our circumstance, we are to be thankful.

This leads me to my third observation: Be authentically thankful.

In the first few years of my Christian life, in Boston, I knew people in other Christian groups who followed the teaching of leaders who instructed them to praise the Lord in all circumstances. So they went around with smiling faces, always saying, “Praise the Lord!” and always being thankful. To not have a smile on the face and not be thankful was a sign of a weak faith.

How can you argue with this? Paul taught that we are to be thankful in all circumstances. But I did not like the way this teaching was applied.

“My wife and kids died in a car accident, I lost my job, my friends have deserted me, I have no money, but “Praise the Lord!’” How authentic is that?

As long as I am sharing about things I don’t like, I have also had negative attitudes toward courses that teach the power of positive thinking. I know some of you may have benefitted from such courses and I am glad for that. But what I don’t like is that they put a superficial covering over you so you can act in a certain way, but they don’t deal with who you are deep within. They put a veneer of positive thinking over you and encourage you to go out into the world with this thin veneer of positive thinking.

The teaching that we are always to be smiling and giving praise to Jesus despite anything that happens to us is likewise superficial.

When my wife dies or children are sick or die, when I lose my job, when my friends desert me, these are serious events and I need to be genuine and real and grieve and weep. It is OK to be depressed when something like that happens. It is OK to be angry at God when something like that happens. It is inappropriate to stand in the midst of tragedy and smile and say, “Praise the Lord!”

Paul wrote that we are to give thanks in all circumstances, but I don’t think giving thanks should be the instantaneous response. There has to be room for authentic response to tragedy and suffering. It cannot be a rule I follow, to praise the Lord in everything. It must be a genuine, authentic response to suffering. I suffer, I grieve, I reflect, I pray and then I conclude that despite the suffering I will give thanks because there is a reality beyond this one.

When something bad happens I need to genuinely, authentically react but at the same time I can be thankful. Not thankful that the bad thing happened, but thankful that whatever happens in this life, it is not the end of the story.
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.  57 But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

If my wife or children or son-in-laws or grandchild-in-the-making die, I will be sad. I will weep. I will grieve. Knowing me, I will pull into myself and retreat from the world for a time. But I trust that I will also get to the point that with tears in my eyes and a broken heart, I will be able to express thanks to God and take comfort from the reality that I will again be with them in eternity through the power and love of our Lord Jesus.

Our thanks is to go first and foremost to God. We are to be thankful in all situations. We are to be authentically thankful and my fourth observation is that we can choose to be thankful

When I am suffering or when I am stuck in a bad situation, I am, like in all other times of life, facing choices to be made. I can choose to hold on to the grief or frustration and become angry and bitter or I can let go of the grief, after I have grieved, and move on to life. I can choose to be annoyed at the problems of my situation or I can choose to be encouraged by the good things in my situation.

I have seen people in organizations who have focused on the things they did not like and as they did so, they became more and more angry and bitter and were not able to contribute to the health of that organization and had to move on. Others in the organization, while being aware of the weaknesses, were also able to see the positive things happening and focused on them. They have been able to build up the organization and bring strength where there are weaknesses because they have focused on the good God is doing among them.

This is true in relationships as well. As you move along in the years of marriage, what seemed cute and different in the early years becomes irritating. What is irritating can become over time one of the things that breaks up the marriage or if the marriage endures, can eventually become endearing.

I have a friend who had been married for over 25 years and found himself wishing his wife were different. He wished his wife were more intellectually engaged in their relationship. He wished this and that about his wife. He was dissatisfied. And as he found himself in that position, he told me what he did. He imagined that he was a widower with four children. And then he imagined he met the woman he was now married to. She was good with children, attractive, socially skilled, loved Jesus, dedicated, musical. If he was a widower, he would be so fortunate to meet someone like that. And that wonderful woman is the woman who was now his wife.

He choose to focus on the good things about his wife and this allowed him to grow in his relationship with her. Other men and women increasingly focus on the things their spouses lack and the things they do not like and those marriages move toward divorce.

It is not that we paint a rosy picture and pretend everything is wonderful. We do not bury our heads in the sand and ignore the problems. It is important to view the problems and find ways to fix them. But hope does not come from focusing on the negatives in a organization or relationship. Hope comes from focusing on the positive things God is doing. Organizations and relationships are built by people who see the problems and weaknesses but are energized by seeing the positives in the organization or other person in the relationship.

I decided to preach on being thankful because in my devotional life I have felt I was slipping into a routine and becoming distant from God. So I decided about a month or so ago to focus my time in the morning on being thankful. I pray and talk about all the things for which I am thankful that day. When I read the Scriptures, right now I am reading in Matthew, I read the passage and then go through it again, thanking God for what happened or was taught.

Some of you may be good at this, but I encourage the rest of you to put your emphasis in your time with God on being thankful. Build up this part of your spiritual life. Each morning think of ten things for which you are grateful and then thank God for them.

If your ship is sinking this morning, if you are struggling in your work or some relationship, don’t forget to be thankful. Take time to sit down, push to the side your frustration or pain and be thankful to God for whatever you can be thankful for.

If you are suffering in some way, it is OK to grieve. It is OK to be angry. It is OK to be angry with God. But don’t stop there. Don’t get comfortable with your grief, frustration or anger. Move past this and come to the point of authentic thankfulness for what God has done and for what he has promised to do in the future.

All organizations have problems. All work environments have things that will irritate you. All relationships go through difficult times. Sometimes it is time to move from one organization to another. There is nothing wrong with that. But if you decide to stay, focus on what is positive about that organization and allow that to energize you to work to make improvements.

If the relationship you are struggling in is a marriage, it is not OK to move on to a new relationship. But you can choose to see what is good in your spouse and improve your marriage by focusing on that.

I’d like to end this sermon with a little practice. Make a list of ten things for which you are thankful. Write them down on your bulletin. If you do not have a pen or pencil, make a mental list of these ten blessings.

Being aware of blessings will help you to be grateful, help you to be thankful. Think of what it would mean in your life if any of the ten things on your list were taken away from you and you will realize how grateful and thankful you should be.

Be thankful.