Gratitude / A Heart of Thanksgiving
Pastor Tan Thai · Nov 1, 2017
This Thanksgiving-season sermon calls the congregation to recognize and practice gratitude in daily life. The pastor compares the lives of Vietnamese people in the United States with those in Cambodia to highlight how much there is to be thankful for. Gratitude is expressed through three concrete actions: saying thank you, remembering kindness, and repaying it, and especially through giving thanks to God.
This sermon was delivered on the first Sunday of November 2010, opening with imagery of autumn and the approaching Thanksgiving season in the United States. The pastor draws a stark comparison between the lives of over 1.6 million Vietnamese Americans and the approximately 600,000 Vietnamese living in poverty, statelessness, and discrimination in Cambodia, laying the foundation for the theme of gratitude. The contrast between the two situations serves as a powerful reminder that those living in America have countless reasons to give thanks every day.
The pastor argues that gratitude is not a natural human instinct but must be learned and practiced. Vietnamese cultural tradition, reflected in proverbs such as 'when drinking water, remember the source' and 'deep grace, heavy obligation,' shows that the ancestors understood this well. Scripture also emphasizes thanksgiving: Paul instructed the Thessalonian church to 'give thanks in all circumstances' (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18), and each of the five books of Psalms concludes with a doxology of praise to God. The pastor uses the metaphor of 'four types of arithmetic' to describe humanity's tendency to count others' faults, multiply personal wealth, but subtract and divide their service to God and others.
Gratitude is expressed concretely in three ways. First is verbal thanks — saying 'thank you' sincerely and directly, illustrated by the one leper out of ten who returned to thank Jesus after being healed (Luke 17:11-19). Second is remembering kindness, engraving in one's heart the generosity of others even after they are gone, as Psalm 103:1 calls the soul to bless the Lord with everything within. Third is repaying kindness through concrete action, illustrated by the Vietnamese folk story of Luu Binh and Duong Le, in which Duong Le sacrifices his own marital happiness to repay his friend's earlier generosity.
The pastor applies the message practically by urging the congregation not merely to receive but to contribute back to society, citing Jesus' teaching: 'It is more blessed to give than to receive' (Acts 20:35) and 'Give, and it will be given to you' (Luke 6:38). The sermon closes with a warning from Romans 1:21-23 about the danger of ingratitude toward God — leading to idolatry and spiritual darkness — and ends with a prayer that each person would cultivate and express a heart of gratitude toward both others and God.