A Heart of Gratitude Toward God

This sermon was delivered on the first Sunday of November, during the American Thanksgiving season, with its anchor text from Colossians 3:15-16. The pastor opens by contrasting the prosperous life of Vietnamese Americans with the desperate circumstances of fellow Vietnamese living in Cambodia and Laos, where approximately 750,000 people endure poverty, malnutrition, statelessness, and discrimination. This stark contrast serves as the foundation for awakening genuine gratitude.

The pastor then uses the metaphor of arithmetic to illustrate two types of people. The ungrateful person tallies others' faults, adds to personal desires, multiplies resentments, and divides away responsibilities. The grateful person counts God's blessings, subtracts unnecessary things and personal bitterness, multiplies God's grace and forgiveness, and shares generously with others. Gratitude is not an innate human quality but must be learned and cultivated, as expressed in the Vietnamese proverb 'tiên học lễ, hậu học văn.' The Psalms are cited extensively: all five books conclude with doxologies of praise, and at least 38 Psalms contain direct expressions of thanksgiving.

Three practical expressions of gratitude are outlined. First, giving thanks involves expressing appreciation sincerely and specifically in words, illustrated by the story of the ten lepers in Luke 17 where only one—a Samaritan—returned to thank Jesus. Second, remembering kindness means engraving the goodness of others deeply in one's soul, as Psalm 103:1 urges the soul to praise the Lord from its deepest place. Third, repaying grace is illustrated through the Vietnamese folk story of Luu Binh and Duong Le, in which Duong Le sacrificed his own wife's happiness to secretly support his friend—a repayment that far exceeded the original kindness received.

The pastor also warns against the gradual erosion of gratitude: what begins as thankfulness can drift into entitlement, and then into bitterness when expectations are unmet. This applies not only to children but to adults in family and social life. Romans 1:21-23 is cited to show the spiritual consequences of knowing God yet refusing to glorify or thank Him, leading to darkened hearts and idolatry.

The sermon closes with a prayer asking God to help each person live with genuine gratitude expressed through words, memory, and concrete action. A quoted saying summarizes the central message: 'Whoever forgets the language of gratitude can never speak the language of happiness.'