Sunday Service 6th July

Acting on Thankfulness

6/7/25

Call to worship

Hymn  710: I have a dream

Time for all 

Hymn 685: For everyone born, a place at the table

Reading:  Genesis 9: 18-29

        Romans 11: 33-36 Peter

Prayer

Hymn 181: For the beauty of the earth

Sermon

Prayer

Hymn 462: The King of Love my shepherd is

Benediction

Welcome to our meditation for 6^th July.

A couple of weeks ago we were talking about deliberately choosing to reflect on happy thoughts, to try to see the positive things.

Especially to try and not be dictated to by negative emotions.

Today thought we look at how hard that is, and the danger of not acting on gratefulness.

But we will reflect on that after the prayer and readings from Peter.

Sermon

A couple of weeks ago we were talking about trying to find happiness in all circumstances.

That sadness, anger and frustration are sometimes valid emotions to feel especially when our lives are radically changed for the worst, or if family and friends are going through a terrible time then these are valid emotions.

However, there is a belief that whatever emotion we have, that that is it.

So if we are sad then that is the only reality, and we are not allowed to even think of another reality.

But Paul was trying to get us to see another truth

The truth is that we can temper our emotions, with other real emotions, other real truths, that help us to overcome our darkest emotions.

So we can embrace our dark emotions and hold them into the light.

And maybe also feel hope, or peace, or contentment when things are going badly.

To do so encourages us to have a grateful heart, and to act with a grateful heart.

Today, we look at the danger of not living with that grateful heart,

and also the consequence of a life lived with a grateful heart.

This is one of those weeks when we see the consequences of our choice.

So let’s start off with the positive first.

Paul.

Paul is writing his letter to the Romans and we heard today a small portion of that letter. A psalm of gratefulness to God for what God had done.

This passage comes at the end of a passage on God’s work of salvation.

In fact thankfulness flows throughout this letter.

Right at the start of the letter there is a prayer of thanksgiving.

Then Paul talks about the mess the world is in and how God throughout history has been working away to heal the world...and us.

The first miracle is that Gold cares enough for us that he wants to help us live our life to the full.

The second miracle is that through Jesus...God gives us the possibility to find the help we need.

We can live a God-guided life,

a God-inspired life,

a God-loved life because Jesus lived that life,

he was the example we can follow,

and with his spirit within us, we can work towards that life every day, every moment of every day.

When we fall, he will reach out his hand to help us up,

when we fail he will forgive us and allow us to continue on,

when we give up, he will encourage us to start again.

And at the end of that explanation Paul then has another psalm of thanksgiving, the Psalm that we read this morning.

Now this isn’t just platitudes for Paul.

This is a habit, a discipline, Paul has been following for a long time.

As I mention a couple of weeks ago;

Paul was shipwrecked, but survived, and expressed thankfulness for that.

He didn’t need to, he could have cursed the fact that he had nearly drowned, he could have been fearful of ever going on a boat again.

But he chose thankfulness.

He had been stoned a couple of times and survived.

Stoning wasn’t just wee stones being flung at you; it was a mad crowd flinging bricks at you. It was extremely painful, many died being stoned, many never really recovered from it.

Paul could have given up, felt that he had done his bit for the mission and it was someone else turn to put themselves forward. But he didn’t, he had a heart of thankfulness.

He was whipped with 39 lashes many times. How many scars would he have had on his back?

I wonder if it was worse the second and third time it happened...because he knew what to expect.

Paul could have had a hatred for those who did that to him, he could have had such a grudge for the faith that forced him to go through such pain for the cause,

but instead he gave thanks for surviving, so that he could carry on his mission, even though it may lead to another whipping.

If I was Mike (the minister in Menstrie who was an army chaplain) I could tell you about those who came back from the Afghan war.

They survived bombings,

they survived worrying that the very people you were trying to help might be the very people that would put a bomb under your vehicle or set you up to be trapped by a Taliban hit squad.

Mike could tell you how many didn’t come back with thankfulness that they had survived. That so many came back suspicious of others, with post traumatic stress, many came back with suicidal thoughts.

Paul chose instead to take all his trauma and have a heart of gratefulness, and he expressed it.

He wrote it down, he told folk how thankful he was for their help.

And that encouraged them as well as strengthened himself.

And that is what I would encourage us to do; to not only be thankful, but express our gratefulness to others.

Write a letter to someone who has helped you recently.

They may not say anything, but you will have touched them more deeply than you think.

One of the things they advised us to do at university when we were training for the ministry was to keep letters of thanks. Often they are not that important at the time and the temptation is to just smile and chuck then in the bin.

But every now and again I would go through a dark time...and sometimes what got me through it was those thank you letters.

They just reminded me that I was doing some good in the world; that occasionally I had been a help in the past, and I could be a help in the future.

The alternative is Noah.

We all remember the beginning and the middle of the Noah story.

Noah was the one with faith when the rest of the world had given up.

A disaster is coming and Noah listens to God’s warnings.

He builds and ark that saves not only his family, but so many animals.

At the end of their ordeal God puts a rainbow in the sky as an assurance that Noah won’t have to go through that ordeal again.

Noah and his family can live a life of security, through them humanity can start again and do better.

That bit of the story we remember.

The bit we shy away from is the bit that happens later.

Noah gets drunk, Noah makes a right fool of himself.

Then the next day he feels embarrassed.

But in pride he can’t blame himself for what has happened, he blames his son who has seen his shame, who has glimpsed what his father is really like.

And in his anger at being seen as far less than perfect, he curses his son and his linage to slavery; a curse that has consequences for generations, a curse that still has consequences throughout the world.

I don’t know why Noah felt his had to get drunk.

Maybe at night he still saw the faces of his neighbours who had drowned,

that he felt survivors guilt that he couldn’t convince them to join him on the ark.

Maybe he felt guilt because he didn’t want to convince them to get on the ark; he was sick and tired of people making fun of his faith and when they wouldn’t listen he was secretly pleased.

Maybe at the time he felt they deserved their fate, but now, but now he knew he could have done more, and he chose not to.

Maybe he struggled to have faith in God.

It was one thing God putting a rainbow in the sky and God telling him that was a sign that everything would be all right. But every time lightening flashed across the sky, every time thunder boomed out, his mind flashed back to that first storm, and cold sweat would run down his back because there wasn’t time to build another boat.

Or maybe he just thought to himself, ‘I am the man of the house, if it wasn’t for me none of these people would be here, they owe me, I can do what I want.’

Whatever the reason...

He wasn’t living a life seeking to be grateful, he was living a life of fear, or selfishness, or arrogance.

And all the good that he could have done, got lost in his anger and pride.

Living a life where we express gratefulness where we can, where we look for things to be thankful for...

that isn’t a simple choice thing,  

it isn’t an optional extra to our faith.

Thankfulness and gratefulness are the bedrock of a life that makes a difference for good.

That’s why it is so important for us to work at it.

Not just for our sake, not for God’s sake, but for the sake of the world.

Let us pray

Heavenly Father

How might we give thanks, without words but in our living?

How might we give thanks in act and in being?

How might we give thanks in ways that speak, without shouting it out for all to hear?

Could we give thanks in every breath we take.

In the way we reflect on our memories.

In the way we question where our good fortune comes from.

In the way we listen to every sound and hear a wonder.

In the way we never take the next meal for granted.

In the way we look at each new dawn.

In the hope we try to feel no matter what we face.

In every joy that we acknowledge instead of just letting it pass us by.

In every worry that reminds us of just how much we already have.

In every comfort that helps us feel a peace.

In every promise that helps us have faith in the future.

In every yesterday and the truth that we lived through it and had a chance to learn and grow.

In realising that every tomorrow is a gift undeserved, but freely given.

How might we give thanks this day?

Could we give thanks in just being who we are?

May we make each day a gift for thanksgiving

by living it completely.

Amen.