Gratitude Toward God
Pastor Tan Thai · Nov 1, 2022
This sermon calls believers to cultivate gratitude during the Thanksgiving season by recognizing God's blessings in daily life. The pastor guides the congregation to express thankfulness through three concrete actions: saying thank you, remembering grace received, and repaying kindness.
This sermon was delivered on a Sunday in November during the Thanksgiving season, grounded in Colossians 3:15-16. The pastor emphasizes that gratitude is a clear biblical command for believers, and that this value also resonates deeply with Vietnamese cultural tradition, which has long honored the importance of recognizing and repaying kindness.
To help the congregation recognize their many blessings, the pastor contrasts the circumstances of Vietnamese living in the United States with those of compatriots in Cambodia and Laos, who face poverty, lack of legal citizenship, and severe hardship. This comparison highlights concrete blessings such as freedom, health, opportunities for work and education, family, salvation, and the fellowship of the local church. The pastor also uses the metaphor of two types of arithmetic: ungrateful people count others' faults and add to their desires, while grateful people count God's blessings, subtract bitterness, and multiply grace by sharing with those around them.
Scripture is cited extensively to show that gratitude must be learned and practiced. The pastor quotes 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, the closing doxologies of each of the five books of Psalms, Psalms 103 and 150, and Romans 1:21-23 as a warning against knowing God yet failing to give Him thanks. The story of the ten lepers in Luke 17 is also referenced, with the pastor noting that only one of the ten healed men returned to glorify God.
Three concrete expressions of gratitude are presented. First is saying thank you through sincere, direct words, even in close relationships such as between spouses or parents and children. Second is remembering grace received, by keeping the kindness of others engraved in one's heart and memory, especially for those who have passed away. Third is repaying kindness through tangible action, vividly illustrated through the Vietnamese folk story of Luu Binh and Duong Le, in which Duong Le sacrificed his own happiness to repay a friend's earlier generosity.
The sermon closes with a call for each person to acknowledge God as the source of all blessings and to avoid the ingratitude described in Romans 1:21-23. The pastor cites Jesus' words in Acts 20:35 and Luke 6:38 to encourage the congregation not merely to receive but to give generously, contributing back to society and to future generations.