Prayer with Thanksgiving

Driving home: It is pure adoration, the lifting up of the redeemed spirit toward God in contemplation of His holy perfections.

An analogy of the human hand is used to categorize different dimensions of prayer: full (worship, thanksgiving), defiled (confession), and empty (petition, supplication).

Then last week I suggested that the various dimensions of biblical prayer, one convenient way to collate them, to gather them together under workable heads, is to think of the hand.

0:04 - 0:17 Read in full sermon

The point: Never think of worship as something confined to a specific place or time, but seek to have it as an integral part of your prayer experience and devotional exercises.

Martin recounts a personal experience of worshiping God while driving on the Jersey Turnpike, listening to a sermon and watching the sunrise, illustrating that worship is not confined to specific times or places but can permeate everyday life.

And one of the most wonderful times of worship I've had, I think, in weeks or months, was a week ago Friday, driving down to Atlantic City early in the morning, listening to some of the expositions of Donald MacLeod on the person of Christ, and seeing the sun rise over to my left. One of the few times I've driven on the Jersey Turnpike when I could enjoy the scenery, because I had to leave the house at 5.30 in the morning, so there wasn't much traffic as I got further down. And to see the sun coming up and to have the Word opened up in such a way, well, those are some of those times that you j...

6:46 - 8:07 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Amidst all of those sins listed in Romans chapter 1 knowing God they glorified him not as God neither were they thankful. The absence of thanksgiving is one of the crowning marks of a pagan heart and a pagan life.

The absence of thanksgiving in Romans 1:21 is presented as a 'crowning sin' of the unregenerate, highlighting the severity of ingratitude and its roots in paganism.

So it is not just the cultivation of a thankful spirit as the general inward spiritual disposition. It is to be the conscious offering up of thanksgiving which is as deliberate as the man who offers up that sacrifice under the old economy. Our praise is thus deliberately to be brought to God as a gracious requirement that he lays upon his people. And may I remind you that one of the crowning sins of the unregenerate as recorded in Romans 1.21 is this. Neither were they thankful. Amidst all of those sins listed in Romans chapter 1 knowing God they glorified him not as God neither were they than...

20:21 - 21:20 Read in full sermon

Driving home: Amidst all of those sins listed in Romans chapter 1 knowing God they glorified him not as God neither were they thankful. The absence of thanksgiving is one of the crowning marks of a pagan heart and a pagan life.

The biblical account of the ten lepers in Luke 17 is used to illustrate the common human tendency towards ingratitude, as only one returned to give thanks after being cleansed.

And so often I am afraid we show the roots of our own innate paganism by our inability to give thanks. And then you have that classic story in Luke 17.11 of those ten lepers who were cleansed and only one returned to give thanks to the one who had cleansed him. Alright, having established the duty and privilege of thanksgiving from these many passages having already asserted and we could see this in passages such as Revelation 11.16 and 17 and 4.9 that worship and thanksgiving overlap. These are not hard fast categories and we don't want to bind you into some kind of a new legalism by assertin...

21:20 - 22:21 Read in full sermon

The point: Consciously thank God for basic blessings like the breath you breathe, the ability to see, and the ability to walk, recognizing that these are gracious gifts.

The Spanish word 'gracias' (thanks/grace) is used to underscore the point that thanksgiving is a response to things graciously bestowed, connecting the act of thanking with the concept of grace.

Yes, Mr. Clark. In some languages the word for thanks and the word for grace is the same word. In Spanish the word for grace is gracias when you say thank you you say gracias.

26:54 - 27:06 Read in full sermon

The point: Consciously thank God for basic blessings like the breath you breathe, the ability to see, and the ability to walk, recognizing that these are gracious gifts.

The common human tendency to take basic blessings like breathing, sight, and mobility for granted is used to illustrate innate ingratitude, contrasting it with the gratitude that arises when seeing those who lack these abilities.

No. I don't have a right to breathe God's air for another day. The scripture says that in this God we live and move and have our being he giveth present tense to all life and breath and all things and he gives them graciously. I think many of us will have to acknowledge to our shame that a day or days can pass and we do not consciously thank God for the breath we breathe.

27:48 - 28:13 Read in full sermon

In this part of the sermon: Martin concludes by highlighting Psalm 139 as a subject for thanksgiving, specifically praising God for His intricate work in creating each individual in their mother's womb…

The metaphor of God 'knitting' a person together in the mother's womb (Psalm 139) is used to illustrate God's intentional and perfect creation of each individual, emphasizing their unique design and purpose for His praise.

That's right. He said now this is what I want to make. There's my plan. Knit two, purl two, drop two.

52:01 - 52:08 Read in full sermon