You Need To Be Thankful In Everything You Do

We’ve got a great sermon for you called “Be Thankful.” This is so important that we need to dedicate some time to talking about how you need to be thankful in your everyday life.

And even more thankful than you already are. You might say, “You know what, Spencer, I’m a pretty thankful person. I’m pretty grateful for everything God’s done for me. I know I’m privileged, I know that I’m loved, and you’re thankful for the life that you have.”

Guess what? You can be more thankful than you are. In addition, you can inspire others to be thankful as well. You can be a great example, and you can help them be more thankful.

You say, “How?” Well, guess what? Watch and listen to this sermon and learn how, and then apply these so that you can help others be more thankful.

You can show them how you can have a mindset to be more thankful yourself, and you can transform your mind and be renewed, exactly like the Bible says. God wants you to be thankful for everything, every single day. Be thankful every single day.

We have a sermon called “Appreciate the Little Things.” You can check that out in a card up here, or go to our website, type in “Appreciate” or “The Little Things,” and you will learn more about that. You’ll find it, but that’s what you need to do.

Let’s go to Ephesians 5:20. We’ve got a lot of verses today, so I hope you’re ready. If you have your Bible, please go with us; otherwise, everything will be referenced in the description below, so you can come back to it at a later time and read these scriptures.

It’s so important that you do that. Spend some time after this, maybe tomorrow morning or something. Read each of these verses, meditate on them, think about them, and figure out how they can be incorporated into your life.

Think about who you can share them with. You could text the verse to someone, you could share it to them, inbox them, DM them, whatever, and share these with other people.

Ephesians 5:20 says, “Always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” So you have to give thanks to God the Father, in the name of Jesus.

Why? Because there is power in Jesus’ name. We had a sermon on that, “The Power Of Jesus’ Name.” You can check it out. It was part of a great series, “Be Thankful All The Time.”

God wants you to realize what a blessing it is to be alive. You say, “Yeah, but my life isn’t that great.” Guess what? Can you see—can you see me right now? How much would you take if I could pay you to take out your eyes? I’ll buy them from you. One million? Two million? Would you give them up?

What about—can you hear me? What about if I took your ears? What would they cost? What is it worth to you? You say, “I’m not rich.” You are rich. How much are your eyes worth? What are your ears worth? What about your hands? Talk to someone that doesn’t have hands—see how great their life is compared to yours.

God wants you to realize what a blessing it is to have what you have, to be healthy. Like you’re healthy to be uniquely you. You say, “Yeah, well—I’m not as healthy as you.” Guess what? You don’t know what I’ve been through in my health.

All right, yet here I stand telling you to be thankful, and I can’t tell you to be thankful unless I’m thankful. I’ve been through more healthwise than you could even imagine. You could find out—you could Google me and read up on it, and learn a fraction of what it is.

But the point is that no matter what you’ve been through, you’ve gone through, you’re going through, or you will go through. You need to be thankful that you’re alive. God has a purpose for you.

What a blessing it is to live where you live. Do you have running water? What about electricity? Electronics, your phone. There’s more technology in your phone than what sent people to the moon.

Are you kidding me? The palm of your hand has more than they could have even dreamed of having—it’s incredible. What blessings we have today, even living where you’re living. Everything is a blessing, and you need to be thankful. Let’s check out 2 Corinthians 9:15.

2 Corinthians 9:15, “Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift.” All of these things are truly indescribable: eyes, fingers, ears. The ability to smell, the ability to taste my food, to have teeth to chew it, so I don’t have to drink my food all the time. Indescribable!

The value that has. The ability to live where I am safely without fear of being bombed or killed, or attacked. The ability to have running water, to go to my faucet and turn it on to wash my hands 10 times a day or 100 times a day, whenever I touch something.

“Oh, I should just rinse them off.” How many people can’t do that? A lot. The ability to take a nice shower after a day of working outside and getting dirty and sweaty, and being able to wash off when a lot of people just have to go to bed that way.

Think about all those things we have to be thankful for. How many millions or billions of people around the world are worse off than you? A lot. So be thankful and rejoice.

Philippians 4:4, “Rejoice in the Lord always.” And it’s so important, Paul says, “I’ll say it again—rejoice.” No matter what happens, be thankful. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, “Be joyful always. Pray continually. Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

In all circumstances, whether good or bad, continue to give thanks to God. Consider the third-world countries. There are some places in Africa, children can’t even go outside.

Why? You say they’re in Africa—they practically live outside. They do? But they can’t go outside without the fear of being killed or eaten. They have to be constantly alert. They can’t go outside and play in the backyard safely without having someone watch to make sure that there isn’t some danger coming.

They have watchmen standing with spears. Sometimes in villages, on a rock, looking out on the horizon, to watch while the children play. Or watching while they have their cows out there or whatever. Because guess what? There could be a lion coming up to eat them.

There could be a tiger—there could be another clan or tribe getting ready to come and kill everyone. There could be a rebel group that’s just coming in to wipe them out, the whole village, in mass genocide. Any given moment of any given day, they don’t know.

Think how blessed you are not to have to think about that. There are stories, and in movies, some movies do a good job of depicting this.

When people come over from Africa, and then they’re on, like, a ranch or something in Montana or wherever, and they’re going outside and they say, “Wait a minute, do we need to be aware of any—anything?”

And the owners are like, “What are you talking about?” “Any wild animals?” “What?” “Well, you know? Are there any, anything that’s going to eat us?” “No, go out there and look around, go look at the horses or the cow, go play. Nothing, don’t worry about it.”

And they’re like, “Wow!” Think about going swimming in a lake in the United States. What do you have to worry about, seriously? Most of them in the United States are pretty safe.

Yeah, down south in the southern states, sure, you could have snakes or some spiders or crocodiles or anything like that—that could come after you. But rivers, generally pretty safe. No sharks, no nothing that’s really going to harm you.

Over in those countries, they have snakes that’ll come and kill them even while they’re in the boat. They could be canoeing, and a kid sitting there would be gone because some snake came up and just grabbed it and pulled it in to for its lunch. Or a crocodile or an alligator or something.

We have no idea how good we have it in America or in Europe or in whatever country you are in. Canada, even in Russia, with things going on.

Australia, yes, you have dangers in areas, but think about how many people are worse off than you. And remember, be thankful in all circumstances.

It could be tough, it could be tough—you have no idea how fortunate you are to live where you are living. The thought of wild animals—lions, bears, cougars—coming and getting you, hauling you away.

Or rebel armies coming out of nowhere and just slaughtering a village for fun. You have no idea. The ability to have food every day—how many children overseas don’t even have food?

We have a campaign—we’re going, we want to feed a million children every single day. So if you’d like to be a part of that, go to our website. You can type in “Million” on the search bar, and you can type in “Feed Children.” We want to do that.

We want to partner with organizations, we want to feed 1 million children every single day, and we are going to do it. We are not just wanting to do it—we are going to do it. Not me personally, but we are going to help do it.

And you can be a part of that. Be thankful and rejoice always. Let’s go to Psalms. Psalms has a lot of verses about this.

So let’s go to 107, Psalms 107:1, “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. His love endures forever.” That’s Yahweh. “Give thanks to Yahweh, for he is good, his love endures forever.” Psalms 106:1 “Give thanks to Yahweh, for he is good. His love endures forever.” Keep going.

What else? We got Psalm 105:1. What does that one say? “Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name; make known among the nations what he has done.” Psalms 105, 106, and 107—read them. Be thankful all the time.

Tell other people how great God is. Don’t be bragging about your life, but just tell them how blessed you are. Remind them how blessed they are, because guess what? You have a lot to be thankful for, even if you think you don’t.

Be thankful, many of these verses include a prayer with thanksgiving. How do you thank God? You have to pray to him. You can’t just say, Somehow I want to be thankful to God. Well, guess what? Thank you, God.

Guess what? That’s a prayer, just like how can I thank my friend who gave me something? You need to tell them. You gotta tell God that you’re thankful. Pray to him. A lot of these chapters—read them.

They include “Give thanks to the Lord.” And then afterward, there is a prayer of thanksgiving or a song of thanksgiving. Guess what? Even though it’s already written, it can be yours. You can read this and mean it in your heart and say it out loud to God, praying the scripture.

Why would you pray the scripture? It’s already been written. This scripture is divine. This word is alive and active—you can use it. You can speak it, and it is alive. It has more power than any words you can think of because it is alive and active.

So guess what? Pray these prayers, pray these scriptures in your words of thanks to God. They have more meaning and more power.

Give thanks in your prayer language. Speak in tongues. You can do that. You can pray in a prayer language to God. Be filled with the Holy Spirit, and you will have that after the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

If you don’t know what I’m talking about, you can get it right now. Be baptized in the Holy Spirit and receive your prayer language in Jesus’ name. Amen.

You can do that. It’s literally possible, yes. You may not go out babbling about causing confusion, but you will have a prayer language. And the more you use it, the more your vocabulary will increase.

There are several different ways you can speak in tongues, and I can do it, yes, but it is my language with God. I don’t know what it means. I have no idea. I don’t think that it’s another Earthly language. I don’t think it’s tongues for others. I think it’s truly what I know is from me and God.

Yes, I hope I can get more. I want more, you can too, and when you start, don’t be embarrassed. It’s between you and God. It’s a few syllables. We’re going to have a series about this later on, so keep tuned.

But right now, we’re talking about being thankful. That’s another way you can be thankful to God—you can talk to him in that language. But for now, pray the Scriptures.

These verses include a prayer with thanksgiving. You have to pray to thank God. Prayer is how you talk to God. Let’s go to Colossians. Colossians 4:2.

Colossians 4:2, “Devote yourselves to prayer.” Being watchful and thankful, you gotta pray. Pray to God—that’s how you talk to him. Let’s go to 1 Timothy 2, Verse 1.

1 Timothy 2:1 says, “I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession, and thanksgiving be made for everyone.” So not only should you be thanking God by prayer through everything, but you should be doing it on behalf of other people, thanking God for them.

Thanking God for their life, thanking God for their blessings, encouraging them to do the same, so that in everything you do, you are praying to God and you are being thankful.

You are living a life of thanksgiving. It’s not simply a season, or a holiday, or something we celebrate. No, it is a lifestyle. It is a choice that you need to do, and you need to live. It is an example for others.

Don’t be complaining, we have a sermon series about grumbling and arguing called “No Negativity,” so check that out. Because you can’t have any of that in your life.

When you come home from a long day of work, the first thing you’re doing when you get home or the first thing when you get in your car is you’re calling up someone, your spouse, or your, your partner, your friend or your parent, or your kid.

And you’re complaining to them, telling them about your day. Or you’re venting to them. No, that’s not being thankful. “You’ll never believe what so-and-so did today.”

No, put it out. Don’t even go there! You say, “Well, I have to—that’s how I unwind.” Talk to God. You can complain and vent all you want to God—he’ll hear you. He’ll listen to you. But the second, the instant you do it with other people, you are poisoning the water.

You are ruining the well. You are tearing down their spirit, it’s not good. It is not beneficial. It cannot be in your life, even for a second. So get rid of it right now, in Jesus’ name. It is not good. Get it out.

There will be no venting or complaining to others now. If there’s a problem, you can bring up the problem kindly, exactly like Jesus did. Compassionately, caringly, and you can work on a solution.

But save your complaining and your negativity for God. You can tell it to God, and you can pray to God. You can read the Bible. You can be inspired, and you can change.

You can pray for others—that’s what you need to be doing. And when you tell other people about your day, it can’t be to complain or to vent. But you can inform them of what is going on in a way that is not complaining.

And you can be thankful in all circumstances that—that person is the way they are. Because they’re teaching you patience. Or that that person is doing what they’re doing because then they’re making you better at your job. Whatever it is. Find it, and be thankful in all circumstances.

Because guess what happens if you decide that you are not going to be thanking God, or that you simply forget to thank God? There are consequences.

Let’s go to Romans 1, Verse 21, 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.”

Remember what I said. If you’re complaining to someone else, you’re tearing down their spirit. You’re poisoning the well. You’re pulling the life out of them. You are? What does this say? If you’re not giving thanks, but if you’re complaining with negativity instead, then what happens?

Your thinking becomes futile, your foolish hearts become darkened. Do you want to be foolish? No. So give thanks all the time. Do you want to darken someone else’s heart? No! You want to bring joy, bring life, so do that with thankfulness.

Tell others as well—encourage them to be thankful. Because if they are out there complaining, they’re poisoning wells. If someone comes to you and complains all the time, how does it make you feel?

Does it drain your energy? Of course it does. It’s negative. Negative is not good. We want positive, so be positive. Be thankful—give glory to God. You have to pray to God.

Give Glory, read the Bible, then encourage others to do the same. Inspire them by example. In any circumstance, in all circumstances. Let’s go to Chronicles.

This is the Old Testament. We’ll check out a verse there. 1 Chronicles 16:8 “Give thanks to Yahweh. Call on his name. Make known among the nations what he has done.”

Why is this important? Because if you’re simply thanking God on your own, all the time, that’s great. It is in your prayer language or by reading the Bible in a quiet room in your house. An inner room, maybe in your war room—your prayer room.

You can do that—that is encouraged all throughout your day. Being uttering to God thanksgiving and prayers of thanksgiving and gratitude. That’s awesome, but you need to help others do the same. You need to inspire others to do the same. You need to be giving glory to God in anything that happens.

Now I’m not simply starting to say that you need to start just saying, “Oh, praise the Lord, oh,
praise the Lord, oh, look at this, praise the Lord, I found the right page.” No, that’s in vain. There are people in your life that do that. You can recognize them and start to pay attention. Because you can see that and maybe correct it.

When people are just up there, willy-nilly, “Oh praise the Lord, oh praise the Lord for that. Oh, oh, I got to work on time today, praise the Lord.” Like, there’s no sincerity there.

That’s in vain. That’s against what God says. You do not need to be doing that. You need to be sincere in thanking God. No sarcasm, no vain efforts allowed. Be sincere.

If you’re truly thankful you got to work on time, and you want to tell someone about it, then tell them about it and sincerely give the glory to God. Say, “I wouldn’t have gotten to work on time if not for God’s provision in my life.”

And when they start to ask you, like, “Why do you talk about God’s provision? Like we all get to work on time.” Then you can tell them because this is what he has done for my life. This is who I was before I knew him.

And if you say, “I knew him all my life,” guess what? You’ve changed. I could say, “God has done so much in my life,” and I could tell you that even though I’ve been a Christian since I was 2 years old, guess what? I wasn’t always preaching and on fire like this.”

There’s been a transformation, and there will continue to be one as I continue to grow more in the faith. You can have the same, and tell others about it, and be sincere. Give the glory to God in everything you do.

Let’s check out one more verse: Psalms 9:1 “I will praise you, oh Yahweh, with all my heart. I will tell of all your wonders.” Let this prayer be yours, and be thankful.

Tell of your wonders, tell of the wonders that God has done in your life, and if you say, “I can’t think of any, how about the tree outside?” God made that. That’s wonderful, isn’t it? When you look at the beauty around you, God did that.

Tell of those wonders. Was not the tree designed to praise God? Stretching upward toward Heaven, tell people. Enlighten them, share it with them, and encourage them to give thanks as you lead by example.

Let’s pray,

Lord, thank you so much for this great message. Please inspire them to be thankful in all circumstances. They truly need to understand this, so God help us all to do that.

Help me to be more thankful in my everyday life. Help them to be more thankful in their everyday lives, and God, inspire them to inspire others. Let them live by example, as you did, a servant leader.

Let them lead others as you are leading us. Lord, inspire everyone to dig into these verses and to truly make these psalms their prayers. That they would read them when they don’t know what to pray.

Boom! Read a psalm to pray to you that they would always have them on their lips. Meditating on them day and night, uttering them throughout the day.

Prayers of thankfulness, prayers of honor, and glory to you.

In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Thank you so much for being with us today. I am thankful that you have taken the time to watch and learn from us here at Social Media Ministries.

I’m thankful for your support, for your subscribing, for your sharing, your liking, and your comments. Please continue to inspire others to be thankful as well.

Have a great week, and God bless.