Prayer of the Day: Almighty and most merciful God, whose compassions are new every morning and whose faithfulness never fails, grant us thankful hearts to remember Your past mercies, to see Your gracious hand in all our blessings, and to trust in You for all that is yet to come; through Jesus Christ, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Through the LORD’S mercies we are not consumed, Because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; Great is Your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I hope in Him!”

In Christ Jesus, our merciful Savior upon whom we rest our hopes, dear fellow redeemed:

Gratitude is a concept so very important for us in our Christian lives! It is important, for its presence or absence affects every one of our relationships either positively or negatively. This is true whether we are talking about our relationship with God or with one another. Gratitude is that feeling of appreciation and thankfulness which arises within our hearts when we recognize that someone has been kind to us. Such feelings motivate us to offer thanksgiving both to God and to other people. Let us, therefore, consider this morning how GRATITUDE IS BORN IN HEARTS THAT TAKE TIME TO COUNT UP PAST MERCIES! Let us do just that—count up past mercies bestowed upon us by God. For then our hearts will be filled with gratitude towards God as well as towards others through whom many of those mercies come. Based on Jeremiah’s words in our text, we will recognize that the mercies we receive are mercies we do not deserve, but which just keep on coming, and that all our blessings are in fact mercies proceeding from the LORD!

I.

It is difficult for gratitude to take root and grow in a heart filled with pride. A heart filled with pride believes it deserves everything it receives and so feels no gratitude. Instead of looking back with thankfulness or rejoicing in present blessings, the heart filled with pride looks ahead to what it has become accustomed to receiving, believing it to be its right.

Jeremiah’s attitude, in stark contrast, reveals knowledge which the Spirit of God alone places in the penitent sinner’s heart. He writes, “Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not.” Jeremiah was living through what few if any of us has ever endured. His homeland had been invaded by the forces of Nebuchadnezzar. The city, in which he lived, and the temple, in which he had both served and worshipped, had been destroyed. They lay around him in smoldering heaps of burnt stones and charred timbers. In stark contrast with its former glory, Jerusalem was described by Jeremiah in this way as he began Lamentations: “How lonely sits the city that was full of people! How like a widow is she, who was great among the nations! The princess among the provinces has become a slave!” (1:1) Yet, amid devastation, we do not find Jeremiah complaining and blaming God for his situation and that of his homeland. He was not suggesting that God was somehow at fault in this matter or that it was unfair. Rather, he recognizes that if they had received what they deserved, they would no longer be living. Their many sins deserved the just judgment of God. But Jeremiah states that God’s compassions never fail. Instead of complete and utter judgment, Jeremiah experienced mercy and grace—forgiveness and the promise of future blessings through a Savior of whom he was privileged to prophesy!

In the same way true gratitude will only grow in our hearts when we too, realize that we do not deserve the mercies we so richly receive. Who among us can claim that during the past year, we have been free from sin—that all our thoughts have been pure, that all our words have been encouraging, that all our actions have been selfless and helpful to others? None of us can, for our confessions each Sunday morning are accurate. We do sin in thought, word, and deed, and we do so often. Truly, were God to deal with us directly and in accordance with what we deserve, we would be condemned. Yet, our Savior God has loved us and given His Son for us, so that the judgment which we so rightly deserve was endured by Jesus on our behalf. “What wondrous love is this, O my soul, O my soul,” we sing, “that caused the Lord of bliss to bear the dreadful curse for my soul!” (Worship Supplement 2000, 723:1) The fact that we are the objects of God’s redeeming love in Christ is the foundation of the gratitude we find in our hearts! GRATITUDE IS BORN IN HEARTS THAT TAKE TIME TO COUNT UP PAST MERCIES…mercies we do not deserve, but mercies we have so richly received beginning with God’s forgiveness of our sins!

II.

Let us count some of those past mercies, for as Jeremiah explains they are mercies that just keep coming! Jeremiah writes, “His compassions are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness!” Let us count some of our everyday blessings—those we often do not think about. This morning all of us no doubt woke up in a bed covered by sheets and blankets in our own or perhaps a shared bedroom. We entered a bathroom in which we could turn on lights. There was heat and running water—a sink, a toilet, and a bathtub or shower. We had a razor with which to shave, soap with which to wash up, soft towels with which to dry off. We had deodorant and toothpaste, make-up for some and cologne for others. We put on several layers of clothing, picking them out from an assortment in a closet or a dresser often overflowing with items we often do not use. Do you know that I have just described material blessings which separate us from probably 90% of all other human beings, and I have not yet even gotten us to breakfast! Consider then our refrigerators full of food; our toasters, microwaves, ovens, and dishwashers; our single, double, and triple garages filled with cars, trucks, SUVs, four-wheelers, and boats! Truly “His compassions are new every morning,” but their presence will not lead our hearts to gratitude if we never think about them and the One who gives them to us, but rather take them for granted!

Lee Strobel, a well-known Christian author and former journalist from the Chicago area, wrote about a family in his book The Case for Christmas. To Strobel, this family served as a remarkable example of gratitude. The family was made up of a disabled grandmother named Perfecta, who lived with her two granddaughters, Lydia and Jenny. A fire had destroyed the tenement building in which they had been living, and the three of them had moved into a two-room apartment. When Strobel visited them to write a human interest story regarding the victims of the fire, they had no furniture in their home apart from a small kitchen table. They had only a handful of rice left upon which to survive. The girls had lost all their clothes except one short-sleeved dress for each of them and one sweater between them. When they walked to school, one would wear the sweater halfway and then the other. Yet, despite their dire straits, they had not given up their faith in Jesus and the little two room apartment seemed to Strobel to be filled with feelings of hope and peace. Some weeks later on Christmas Eve Strobel decided to stop by the apartment to see how the three were getting along. To his amazement the apartment was filled with furniture, appliances, and rugs. There was a brilliant Christmas tree with wrapped packages piled underneath. Dozens of warm coats lay stacked in one corner. The people of Chicago, who had read the human-interest story, had responded in a big way to meet the needs of this family. What amazed Strobel, however, was that Perfecta and her two granddaughters were in the process of distributing the various gifts among their neighbors who also had very few possessions. When asked about this, Perfecta responded: “We did nothing to deserve this—it’s a gift from God. But it is not his greatest gift. No, we celebrate that tomorrow. That is Jesus!” GRATITUDE IS BORN IN HEARTS THAT TAKE TIME TO COUNT UP PAST MERCIES! At times when we go without, we become more aware of the mercies that just keep coming!

III.

Even more importantly, genuine gratitude recognizes that all mercies proceed from the LORD! Perfecta recognized that all the gifts she had received were from God, even though He used the generosity of people in Chicago to provide them. What was more important and impressive, however, was that she considered Jesus to be God’s greatest gift to her and her family. In the same way Jeremiah was able to say: “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I hope in Him!”

What did Jeremiah mean when he said, “The LORD is my portion”? That phrase is used numerous times in the Old Testament to refer to the situation of the priests and Levites. They had not received specific portions of the Promised Land, but were to serve the Lord and receive their support through the tithes the people gave to their God. Consequently, the prosperity of the priests and Levites was tied directly to the service of their fellow believers to the Lord.

“The LORD is my portion,” however, refers to much more than mere physical blessings and support. It speaks to our relationship with God, who is the most important person in any of our lives. The LORD is our heavenly Father to whom we can turn and upon whom we can depend for help at any time and in any place. The LORD is our blessed Savior, Jesus, who is also our dear brother. Jesus entered this world and became one with us. As true God and true man He died for our sins. His life and death has atoned for all your sins. You are forgiven. He did this in order that we might be one with Him in heaven throughout eternity. The LORD is the Spirit of God who lives in our hearts by faith and sustains us amidst every trouble.

Consequently, as Jeremiah sat amidst the rubble of Jerusalem and contemplated his future and that of his people, he did not do so with fear and pessimism, but rather with hope, and with joy, and with confidence. God had promised to preserve His people despite their current dire situation, because through them the Savior was to come. Consequently, Jeremiah could trust in and find his ultimate hope in the LORD! Even so, you and I can trust in the LORD and have absolute hope and confidence as we rely upon Him. We can have the attitude of the apostle Paul who wrote, “If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things?” (Romans 8:31b-32)

My dear friends, GRATITUDE IS BORN IN HEARTS THAT TAKE TIME TO COUNT UP PAST MERCIES! May we see the hand of God in the blessings that surround us. Then we will truly be grateful and be moved to offer our thanksgiving to God and to those whom God uses to bring us His blessings! Amen.

—Reverend Paul D. Nolting

Mankato, MN

---

Ministry by Mail is a weekly publication of the Church of the Lutheran Confession. Sermon archives, and subscription and staff information may be found online at www.clclutheran.org/ministrybymail. Audio Sermons are available at: podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/ministrybymail

All scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.