Extreme Thanksgiving
Ephesians 5:20
If we ever needed a year of Extreme Thanksgiving, it’s this year – 2020.
Massive Covid sickness and death, lockdowns, businesses gone under or burned down, schools shut. People locked down – can’t have church, can’t sing in church, can’t have gatherings, can’t go to school, and you can’t have Thanksgiving with your family.
And your neighbors have been encouraged by the government to turn you in if you become an enemy of the state by having Thanksgiving with your family. The physical, emotional, relational, spiritual, and financial toll seems too high to even measure.
Although there have been worse times in our culture, this is the worst many of us have seen in our lifetimes. What we need this year is to learn to live in Extreme Thanksgiving, and that’s okay because Christianity is an extreme lifestyle. There is nothing mediocre, nothing casual about seriously following Jesus Christ. Religion has tried so hard to water down Christianity. But the Christ-following of the Bible is the most extreme lifestyle a person can ever live, including when it comes to being thankful.
We all know we are supposed to be thankful, and most of us express what we are thankful for each Thanksgiving Day, and there are plenty of things to be thankful to God for this Thanksgiving.
There is good that God is doing in your life. No matter how hard this year has hit you, there are blessings in your life that come from God, and I pray this Thanksgiving that you will see them. And maybe in the midst of the current difficulties, you might even see God’s blessings more clearly.
But what I wanted to talk about today is extreme thanksgiving.
Extreme thanksgiving is not connected to any good circumstance or material blessing.
Extreme thanksgiving is the fruit of a deep relationship with God that surpasses all circumstances (good or bad). Extreme thanksgiving flows from WHO GOD IS and WHAT GOD IS DOING in our lives. That is what we want to look at today.
A.W. Tozer in The Pursuit of God: “The man who has God as his treasure has all things in one, and he has it purely, legitimately, and forever.”
The source of our extreme thanksgiving is that God himself is our treasure. God himself is the reason for our thankfulness. And if we will begin to grow in that great truth, we will begin to grow in a life of extreme thanksgiving.
The Apostle Paul exhorts us in every book he writes to live a life of extreme thanksgiving, not tied to any circumstance, and one of the best verses of this crucial truth is Ephesians 5:20 – let’s turn there. The context is being filled with the Spirit of God, and verse 20 is part of the fruit (the evidence) of us being filled with the Spirit of God. Ephesians 5:18 starts it by saying, be continually “being filled” with the Holy Spirit. And then, the following verses describe what it looks like when we are being filled with the Holy Spirit.
Ephesians 5:19–20 (ESV)
19 (1) addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, (that is a fruit of being filled)
(2) singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart,
20 (3) giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
This is just one example of the extreme level of thanksgiving that is available to us – right now.
Again – Ephesians 5:20 (ESV)
20 giving thanks always (in all ways) and for everything (every circumstance and situation) to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Guys, we can know that our relationship with the Lord is reaching an extreme level when we begin to be thankful to God – all “ways” and in every “thing.”
It might help to know the Greek word translated “for” (in Ephesians 5:20) (giving thanks … FOR everything) The word “for” can also be translated over, beyond or in place of.
Because extreme thanksgiving is thanksgiving
OVER our circumstance (in spite of them)
BEYOND our circumstances (what God is doing beyond them)
IN PLACE OF our circumstances (a matter of focus/perspective)
And how does the end of Ephesians 5:20 tell us to do this?
Ephesians 5:20 (ESV) giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
When you pray, and at the end, you say, “In Jesus’ name,” that’s not a magic concoction. (That’s Harry Potter.) It’s not just some kind of magic thing you say at the end of the prayer to get your will done on earth as you would have it in heaven, (or the other way around). Listen, when we pray “in Jesus’ name,” it means according to WHO Jesus Christ IS. According to his full character and nature. When you pray “in the name of Jesus” you’re saying, “as it lines up with the character and nature of Jesus – so I pray.”
“In the name of” means according to WHO Jesus Christ IS.
We give thanks to God always and in everything, according to WHO Jesus Christ IS in our lives. Not because of what we see, but because of who is at work in our lives.
Because of who Jesus Christ is in our lives, we give thanks to God
OVER our circumstance (in spite of them)
BEYOND our circumstances (what God is doing beyond them)
IN PLACE OF our circumstances (a matter of focus/perspective)
That is the beginning of extreme thankfulness, and that will radically change a Christian’s life.
So, how do we begin to grow into an extreme thanksgiving lifestyle?
#1) Learn to trust God completely
The first step is learning to trust God completely, and in order to trust God completely, there must be a complete surrender to God’s plan and God’s direction in our lives. We have to say, “God, you alone know.” God is already in our future. He’s already there. He knows, and he knows what is absolutely best, and we don’t. So, when we trust him, we have to say, “God, you’re already there. I trust you completely. I surrender to what you know is best.”
I think most Christians end their journey to extreme thanksgiving right here! Because it is contrary to everything in our flesh to trust God completely and to surrender completely to his plan and direction for our lives. God sees it all. We see it in a time continuum, but God sees it all as one picture. His ways are higher; his thoughts are not our thoughts. As the heavens are high above the earth, so his ways are high above ours (Isaiah 55:8-9).
And if we don’t trust God completely and if we are not completely surrendered to God’s plan and direction for our lives, then we will be constantly challenging God, debating with God, and doubting God – all of which will keep us forever far away from extreme thanksgiving.
In order to trust God completely, we need a huge, foundational belief that undergirds everything we face in this life. We need a rock-solid faith in this absolute truth.
If you are a Child of God today, through faith in Jesus Christ, then God is at work right now for your good and for his glory – always and in every “thing” in your life.
Romans 8:28 (NIV)
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Listen very carefully, please. Bad things happen in this world, and for some of us, really bad things happen. And I’m not saying the bad is good. I’m not saying the bad becomes good. I’m saying God is at work in the bad for your good, and the good that God is at work for maybe your healing from the bad.
But – if you do not believe that God is at work for good in your life, in all things, then extreme thanksgiving will always evade you.
Because extreme thanksgiving looks past the temporary to the eternal, looks past the present, and trusts God with the future.
Extreme thanksgiving is always trusting that God is at work for our good and for his glory always and in every “thing.”
So – #1) Learn to trust God completely
#2) We must … fix our eyes
Turn over to 2 Corinthians 4:17. We must fix our eyes firmly on God’s eternal plan, and we must not fix our eyes on our present troubles.
2 Corinthians 4:17 (NLT)
17 For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!
From an eternal perspective, our present troubles are small and won’t last very long.
Yet these current small and temporary troubles are producing for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and a glory that will last forever.
The word “producing” here means to cultivate, to prepare like you would cultivate the ground to produce a crop.
It’s not just that we have to put up with these small and temporary troubles. It’s that they are actually cultivating and producing for us the eternal glory that God has planned for us, which is an awesome perspective if you will embrace it.
Then, the next verse,
2 Corinthians 4:18 (NLT)
18 So we don’t look (don’t fix our eyes) at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things (circumstances) we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see (the glory they are producing) will last forever.
If you always fix your eyes on the temporary troubles that you can see, you can forget ever living in extreme thanksgiving.
But if you will fix your eyes on the glory God is producing for you that you cannot see, then God will begin to transform the way you look at things, and as Wayne Dyer is famous for saying, “When you change the WAY you look at things, the THINGS you look at will change.”
To begin to live in extreme thanksgiving we must fix our eyes firmly on the glory God is producing for us through our present circumstances.
#1) We must learn to trust God completely
#2) We must fix our eyes on God’s eternal work in us
#3) We cannot live for today
The world says, live for today. God says, live for eternity. If you are living for what you can get today, if you are living for what God can do for you today, then you are living in a place where extreme thanksgiving will be completely foreign to you. Because first, today will never be enough (you will always want more), and second, Jesus promised us (John 16:33) in our today’s, we will have trials and tribulation.
John 16:33 (NLT)
33 . . . Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”
God has blessed you in the midst of the trials and difficulties that are in this world, and that is a great reason to be thankful.
But, the greatest that leads to extreme thanksgiving is that Jesus Christ has overcome this world.
And if we begin to live in the victory that Jesus has given us over the world, then we will be able to say with Paul in Romans 8:18,
Romans 8:18 (ESV)
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
Extreme thanksgiving is a matter of where you choose to live – whether in today’s trouble or in eternity’s glory.
Extreme thanksgiving comes from learning to live in a place of:
#1) Trusting God completely
#2) Fixing our eyes on God’s eternal work in us
#3) Living for eternity – much more than for today
Finally, extreme thankfulness is one of the great signs of a heart that is truly connected to Jesus Christ because as Christ followers, our real life and our real blessings come through a Person – not a circumstance.
Colossians 3:3 (NLT)
3. . . your real life is hidden with Christ in God.
Colossians 2:3 (NLT)
3 In [Christ] lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
2 Corinthians 1:20 (ESV)
20 For all the promises of God find their Yes (their Amen) in [Christ]
Remember the A.W. Tozer quote from the beginning of this message.
A.W. Tozer
“The man who has God as his treasure has all things in one, and he has it purely, legitimately, and forever.”
When we realize that God himself is our treasure, then we will be well on our way to living in extreme thanksgiving.
That life of extreme thanksgiving is a life of:
#1) Trusting God completely
#2) Fixing our eyes on God’s eternal work in us
#3) Living for eternity much for than for today
And we can begin today.
As Colossians 3:17 says,
Colossians 3:17 (ESV)
17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Wherever we find ourselves today, we can begin doing everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, and giving thanks to God the Father through him.
We can begin to live in a thanksgiving that goes beyond our circumstances:
Giving thanks always to God
Giving thanks for everything
And above everything and beyond everything to God
giving thanks because of WHO Jesus Christ IS in our lives.
And please hear me. If you have fully surrendered your life to Jesus Christ, then God is WITH YOU, and God is AT WORK IN your circumstances to produce for you an eternal glory that far outweighs any circumstance of today.
I pray you would commit with me today to
#1) Trusting God completely in your life
#2) Fixing your eyes on God’s eternal work in you
#3) Living for eternity more than for today
Massive Covid sickness and death, lockdowns, businesses gone under or burned down, schools shut. People locked down – can’t have church, can’t sing in church, can’t have gatherings, can’t go to school, and you can’t have Thanksgiving with your family.
And your neighbors have been encouraged by the government to turn you in if you become an enemy of the state by having Thanksgiving with your family. The physical, emotional, relational, spiritual, and financial toll seems too high to even measure.
Although there have been worse times in our culture, this is the worst many of us have seen in our lifetimes. What we need this year is to learn to live in Extreme Thanksgiving, and that’s okay because Christianity is an extreme lifestyle. There is nothing mediocre, nothing casual about seriously following Jesus Christ. Religion has tried so hard to water down Christianity. But the Christ-following of the Bible is the most extreme lifestyle a person can ever live, including when it comes to being thankful.
We all know we are supposed to be thankful, and most of us express what we are thankful for each Thanksgiving Day, and there are plenty of things to be thankful to God for this Thanksgiving.
There is good that God is doing in your life. No matter how hard this year has hit you, there are blessings in your life that come from God, and I pray this Thanksgiving that you will see them. And maybe in the midst of the current difficulties, you might even see God’s blessings more clearly.
But what I wanted to talk about today is extreme thanksgiving.
Extreme thanksgiving is not connected to any good circumstance or material blessing.
Extreme thanksgiving is the fruit of a deep relationship with God that surpasses all circumstances (good or bad). Extreme thanksgiving flows from WHO GOD IS and WHAT GOD IS DOING in our lives. That is what we want to look at today.
A.W. Tozer in The Pursuit of God: “The man who has God as his treasure has all things in one, and he has it purely, legitimately, and forever.”
The source of our extreme thanksgiving is that God himself is our treasure. God himself is the reason for our thankfulness. And if we will begin to grow in that great truth, we will begin to grow in a life of extreme thanksgiving.
The Apostle Paul exhorts us in every book he writes to live a life of extreme thanksgiving, not tied to any circumstance, and one of the best verses of this crucial truth is Ephesians 5:20 – let’s turn there. The context is being filled with the Spirit of God, and verse 20 is part of the fruit (the evidence) of us being filled with the Spirit of God. Ephesians 5:18 starts it by saying, be continually “being filled” with the Holy Spirit. And then, the following verses describe what it looks like when we are being filled with the Holy Spirit.
Ephesians 5:19–20 (ESV)
19 (1) addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, (that is a fruit of being filled)
(2) singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart,
20 (3) giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
This is just one example of the extreme level of thanksgiving that is available to us – right now.
Again – Ephesians 5:20 (ESV)
20 giving thanks always (in all ways) and for everything (every circumstance and situation) to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
Guys, we can know that our relationship with the Lord is reaching an extreme level when we begin to be thankful to God – all “ways” and in every “thing.”
It might help to know the Greek word translated “for” (in Ephesians 5:20) (giving thanks … FOR everything) The word “for” can also be translated over, beyond or in place of.
Because extreme thanksgiving is thanksgiving
OVER our circumstance (in spite of them)
BEYOND our circumstances (what God is doing beyond them)
IN PLACE OF our circumstances (a matter of focus/perspective)
And how does the end of Ephesians 5:20 tell us to do this?
Ephesians 5:20 (ESV) giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ,
When you pray, and at the end, you say, “In Jesus’ name,” that’s not a magic concoction. (That’s Harry Potter.) It’s not just some kind of magic thing you say at the end of the prayer to get your will done on earth as you would have it in heaven, (or the other way around). Listen, when we pray “in Jesus’ name,” it means according to WHO Jesus Christ IS. According to his full character and nature. When you pray “in the name of Jesus” you’re saying, “as it lines up with the character and nature of Jesus – so I pray.”
“In the name of” means according to WHO Jesus Christ IS.
We give thanks to God always and in everything, according to WHO Jesus Christ IS in our lives. Not because of what we see, but because of who is at work in our lives.
Because of who Jesus Christ is in our lives, we give thanks to God
OVER our circumstance (in spite of them)
BEYOND our circumstances (what God is doing beyond them)
IN PLACE OF our circumstances (a matter of focus/perspective)
That is the beginning of extreme thankfulness, and that will radically change a Christian’s life.
So, how do we begin to grow into an extreme thanksgiving lifestyle?
#1) Learn to trust God completely
The first step is learning to trust God completely, and in order to trust God completely, there must be a complete surrender to God’s plan and God’s direction in our lives. We have to say, “God, you alone know.” God is already in our future. He’s already there. He knows, and he knows what is absolutely best, and we don’t. So, when we trust him, we have to say, “God, you’re already there. I trust you completely. I surrender to what you know is best.”
I think most Christians end their journey to extreme thanksgiving right here! Because it is contrary to everything in our flesh to trust God completely and to surrender completely to his plan and direction for our lives. God sees it all. We see it in a time continuum, but God sees it all as one picture. His ways are higher; his thoughts are not our thoughts. As the heavens are high above the earth, so his ways are high above ours (Isaiah 55:8-9).
And if we don’t trust God completely and if we are not completely surrendered to God’s plan and direction for our lives, then we will be constantly challenging God, debating with God, and doubting God – all of which will keep us forever far away from extreme thanksgiving.
In order to trust God completely, we need a huge, foundational belief that undergirds everything we face in this life. We need a rock-solid faith in this absolute truth.
If you are a Child of God today, through faith in Jesus Christ, then God is at work right now for your good and for his glory – always and in every “thing” in your life.
Romans 8:28 (NIV)
28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Listen very carefully, please. Bad things happen in this world, and for some of us, really bad things happen. And I’m not saying the bad is good. I’m not saying the bad becomes good. I’m saying God is at work in the bad for your good, and the good that God is at work for maybe your healing from the bad.
But – if you do not believe that God is at work for good in your life, in all things, then extreme thanksgiving will always evade you.
Because extreme thanksgiving looks past the temporary to the eternal, looks past the present, and trusts God with the future.
Extreme thanksgiving is always trusting that God is at work for our good and for his glory always and in every “thing.”
So – #1) Learn to trust God completely
#2) We must … fix our eyes
Turn over to 2 Corinthians 4:17. We must fix our eyes firmly on God’s eternal plan, and we must not fix our eyes on our present troubles.
2 Corinthians 4:17 (NLT)
17 For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever!
From an eternal perspective, our present troubles are small and won’t last very long.
Yet these current small and temporary troubles are producing for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and a glory that will last forever.
The word “producing” here means to cultivate, to prepare like you would cultivate the ground to produce a crop.
It’s not just that we have to put up with these small and temporary troubles. It’s that they are actually cultivating and producing for us the eternal glory that God has planned for us, which is an awesome perspective if you will embrace it.
Then, the next verse,
2 Corinthians 4:18 (NLT)
18 So we don’t look (don’t fix our eyes) at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things (circumstances) we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see (the glory they are producing) will last forever.
If you always fix your eyes on the temporary troubles that you can see, you can forget ever living in extreme thanksgiving.
But if you will fix your eyes on the glory God is producing for you that you cannot see, then God will begin to transform the way you look at things, and as Wayne Dyer is famous for saying, “When you change the WAY you look at things, the THINGS you look at will change.”
To begin to live in extreme thanksgiving we must fix our eyes firmly on the glory God is producing for us through our present circumstances.
#1) We must learn to trust God completely
#2) We must fix our eyes on God’s eternal work in us
#3) We cannot live for today
The world says, live for today. God says, live for eternity. If you are living for what you can get today, if you are living for what God can do for you today, then you are living in a place where extreme thanksgiving will be completely foreign to you. Because first, today will never be enough (you will always want more), and second, Jesus promised us (John 16:33) in our today’s, we will have trials and tribulation.
John 16:33 (NLT)
33 . . . Here on earth you will have many trials and sorrows. But take heart, because I have overcome the world.”
God has blessed you in the midst of the trials and difficulties that are in this world, and that is a great reason to be thankful.
But, the greatest that leads to extreme thanksgiving is that Jesus Christ has overcome this world.
And if we begin to live in the victory that Jesus has given us over the world, then we will be able to say with Paul in Romans 8:18,
Romans 8:18 (ESV)
18 For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us.
Extreme thanksgiving is a matter of where you choose to live – whether in today’s trouble or in eternity’s glory.
Extreme thanksgiving comes from learning to live in a place of:
#1) Trusting God completely
#2) Fixing our eyes on God’s eternal work in us
#3) Living for eternity – much more than for today
Finally, extreme thankfulness is one of the great signs of a heart that is truly connected to Jesus Christ because as Christ followers, our real life and our real blessings come through a Person – not a circumstance.
Colossians 3:3 (NLT)
3. . . your real life is hidden with Christ in God.
Colossians 2:3 (NLT)
3 In [Christ] lie hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.
2 Corinthians 1:20 (ESV)
20 For all the promises of God find their Yes (their Amen) in [Christ]
Remember the A.W. Tozer quote from the beginning of this message.
A.W. Tozer
“The man who has God as his treasure has all things in one, and he has it purely, legitimately, and forever.”
When we realize that God himself is our treasure, then we will be well on our way to living in extreme thanksgiving.
That life of extreme thanksgiving is a life of:
#1) Trusting God completely
#2) Fixing our eyes on God’s eternal work in us
#3) Living for eternity much for than for today
And we can begin today.
As Colossians 3:17 says,
Colossians 3:17 (ESV)
17 And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.
Wherever we find ourselves today, we can begin doing everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, and giving thanks to God the Father through him.
We can begin to live in a thanksgiving that goes beyond our circumstances:
Giving thanks always to God
Giving thanks for everything
And above everything and beyond everything to God
giving thanks because of WHO Jesus Christ IS in our lives.
And please hear me. If you have fully surrendered your life to Jesus Christ, then God is WITH YOU, and God is AT WORK IN your circumstances to produce for you an eternal glory that far outweighs any circumstance of today.
I pray you would commit with me today to
#1) Trusting God completely in your life
#2) Fixing your eyes on God’s eternal work in you
#3) Living for eternity more than for today