Relevant Passages: Philippians 4:6; 1 Thessalonians 5:17, 18; Colossians 2:6,7

In light of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday I thought it appropriate to come back to the matter of thanksgiving. This is my third time up to the plate. We did last Wednesday and Sunday and we had a Sunday night Thanksgiving service. So I want to come back to it again. It struck me more than it ever has just how prominent it is in our Bibles and should be in our lives. And the Bible clearly mandates it, it is not suggested, it is a command. And not just once in a while, but always and in everything. Those two things are clear in the New Testament, “Always and in everything.” Paul, in Philippians 4, for example, “In everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving.” And then 1 Thessalonians 5, “Pray without ceasing and in everything give thanks.” Then you have that Colossians 2 passage, the apostle uses that word abounding, “abounding in thanksgiving.”

Think of that word, abounding. Not like the drip, drip of a leaky faucet, but more like an overflowing river in the midst of springtime. That is what he has in view, abounding in thanksgiving. I do think the best way I could argue from my Bible to maintain a consistent thanksgiving, is by focusing upon the three-person God; God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. The primary recipient of our thanksgiving is God. It is not that we cannot thank people, but we should be thanking God first and foremost. And we worship a three-person God.

It has always struck me that when Jesus is in the upper room on the last night of His life, His disciples are in a place of troubling and emotional pain. They know that things are not going to go well, they know that one is going to betray Him and they know one is going to deny Him. But do you know what He talks about more than anything else, He broadcasts the Trinity, the three-person God to His disciples. In that same upper room discourse of John 13-17, He also mentions “joy” five times. Joy and thanksgiving almost go hand in hand, don’t they. Joy produces thanksgiving and thanksgiving increases joy.

We start with the Father, the first person of the Trinity. We can thank Him, can’t we? Did you know that every gift you have in Christ is given to you by the Father, He is the ultimate source. The Father, the Father, the Father, He is the great giver. And we can thank the Father. Jesus tells us to pray, “Hallowed be Your Name, Our Father which art in heaven,” for His daily provision, for His daily protection and pardon; provision of food, protection from the evil one and pardon of sin. We are constantly going to the Father for those needs.

When it comes to the second person of the Trinity, Jesus, we can always thank Him. We can thank Him for the life He lived, a life without sin; we can thank Him for the death He died, a substitutionary death; it is a death that procured reconciliation, redemption; it is a death that propitiated the very wrath of God. We can thank Jesus also for conquering death by that third day of resurrection. So we can thank Jesus for His life, for His death, for His resurrection, for His intercession, He is a great high priest.

And what about the third person of the Trinity? He is often forgotten. What do you thank Him for? It is a multi-faceted ministry. I am going to throw out some of the words that are used to describe what the Spirit does: He reveals, He instructs, He convicts, He regenerates, He sanctifies, He guides, He comforts, and He helps. Then you also have the gifts of the Holy Spirit and the fruit of the Holy Spirit. We can be thanking God the Holy Spirit also for peace, love, gentleness, and kindness.

So when we go to God in prayer, always having our prayer perfumed by thanksgiving, we shouldn’t forget the Triune God; Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That is the best place to start. We start by giving God glory but also thanking God for what He has done. That explains why we can do it always, always in every circumstance and situation. The three-person God is always there to help, to guide, to strengthen and to take care of us.