INTRODUCTION
As we celebrate Thanksgiving this week, it’s worth considering how gratitude is at the center of the great war against evil and the particular battles we face in our day. The basic divide that runs through the center of the human race throughout human history is gratitude versus spite. The unrighteous are those who know God clearly revealed in Creation but refuse to glorify Him as God or be thankful, and those foolish hearts are darkened and make idols and are given over to uncleanness (Rom. 1:21-24).
THE TEXT
“For who maketh thee to differ from another? and what hast thou that thou didst not receive? now if thou didst receive it, why dost thou glory, as if thou hadst not received it?” (1 Cor. 4:7)
THE SUMMARY OF THE TEXT
The wisdom of this world is carnal and is marked by envy, strife, divisions, and rivalry (1 Cor. 3:3-4, cf. Js. 3:14-15). And the root of it all is a wicked pride in man. Like arrogant toddlers waddling around in Huggies, people can get puffed up about almost anything, and they do. But the wisdom of God is primarily marked by gratitude since in Christ all things are yours (1 Cor. 3:21), the Lord will judge and make manifest all the counsels of all the hearts (1 Cor. 4:5), and all that we have is from the Lord (1 Cor. 4:7). Who gave you everything that distinguishes you from anyone else? God. What do you have that wasn’t a gift? Nothing. Why do you strut like you had something to do with it?
HE MADE US
“Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is He that hath made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people, and the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise: be thankful unto Him, and bless His name” (Ps. 100:3-4). In Him, we live and move and have our being (Acts 17:28). Christ is before all things and in Him all things consist (Col. 1:17). All things were not only created by His Word, but all things are held together constantly by His Word (Heb. 1:2-3).
All of this magnifies His kindness and mercy: upholding wicked men, giving life and health and good things to sinners, and then making us alive together in Christ, forgiving our sins, and granting us an inheritance that will never fade. Whatever our duties toward our families, our churches, and our nation, it is all grounded in this thanksgiving and praise and humility. Everything is a gift. And while we must stand against all evil, we must learn to do so with a grin on our face because our Father plays with dragons (Job 41).
NO GRIEVANCE FARMING
Despite all this grace, it is still the temptation of sinners to complain, murmur, and nurse grudges, which are all ultimately directed at God Himself. When Israel murmured about the lack of food and water, they were rebelling against God (Ex. 17:7, Num. 14:22, 1 Cor. 10:10).
In the name of “justice,” sinners plant resentment, spite, and wrath, and expect to reap a harvest of righteousness. But Scripture is clear: “Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God” (Js. 1:19-20). You can’t build a healthy family, community, business, or nation with wrath welling up in your chest. That is the fuel of the enemy.
Righteous, godly anger is very slow and deliberate: it took God hundreds of years to finally destroy Israel and Judah. But many disciples would call fire down on clueless Samaritans and the animals of Nineveh. Godly anger is like the Ents that hold counsel to determine whether to become angry and go to war. Godly anger is surgical, precise, and altogether holy and productive.
NO MARXISM
Marxism is the modern cult religion of class envy. It imagines that peace and prosperity will magically appear in the aftermath of violent revolution, when the oppressed victims overthrow their oppressors. This was initially pitched in economic terms (working class vs. business owners), but it was repackaged in the last 75 years to include sex, race, and then sexual perversions. But the engine that drives it all is spite and resentment for the way God made the world. There are real injustices that get weaponized, but since the “problem” is God and His world, this so-called “social justice” plays fast and loose with the truth, designating classes of people in unbiblical categories.
God created the world hierarchically and diverse. And He created a world where virtue and hard work are generally rewarded, and sin has created thorns, weeds, pain, enmity, and death. The problem is not power, wealth, sex, or skin color. The problem is sin infecting those things, and sinners are tempted to rage and hate, fixating on those things. And the Devil loves it so because he can keep people locked in cages of resentment and false victimhood.
CONCLUSION
So be thankful for your grandma, the turkey, pumpkin pie, how tall or short you are, the color of your skin, and rejoice before the Lord. No guilt for any of His gifts and love your people they way you have been loved in Christ. But no throwing elbows; no wrath in your chest.
We want true gratitude without any whining, true thanksgiving without any spite, true grace without any rivalry.
There is a marked difference between gratitude that simply sees the gifts and bows the head in gratitude on the one hand, and the faux-gratitude that flexes in front of a mirror, while stealing sidelong glances down the table.