Bill Johnson - An Unlikely Weapon, Discovering the Power of Thanksgiving
But the costly times of thanks bring loss; there’s the bad report. You immerse it in grace. I thank you because you’re bigger than this. That’s what thankfulness does: it captures our moments, the seemingly random parts of our lives that could easily work against us. I don’t believe we’re ever supposed to be thankful for evil itself, but I cannot afford to live impressed by the devil’s work.
Thanks. Good morning, still morning. A couple of weeks ago, I was in Alaska with four of my grandsons. I took them fishing for salmon. The salmon pretended like they didn’t want to sacrifice their lives to sustain revival, but I knew they did. We captured the opportunity and have been celebrating Jehovah Jireh ever since. We honestly had such an amazing time. We flew in these little Cub planes, five of us, and landed on a beach to fish. We saw grizzlies; a grizzly came within about 30 yards. That was very entertaining!
The door flew open on the plane when my youngest grandson on the trip, Cruise, was next to the open door. He thought he was going to die, so I had to do a little repair on that door. But, thank you Jesus for seat belts! So, you always wear seat belts. We did well. I’m sure you weren’t praying for us, but you would have had you known.
I’m thankful I got home, but my mother-in-law, my wife’s mom, was in rapid decline. Last Monday night, I got to spend the night with family around her bed. She lived through the night and into the next day, and I returned the next night, happening to be there when she stepped into glory. You know, hard moments are often your most important moments, and you don’t want to miss an opportunity to be exposed to eternity. It’s a gift from God.
We spent the time together as a family. I remember I think it was the night before; she was in a coma. I went over to hug her goodbye as I was going back to the house after spending the night there. As soon as I hugged her, she just began to worship again. She was really worshiping now, but she had practiced for a long time before she got home. It was quite amazing.
I got home in the wee hours after she stepped into eternity, laid down for a couple of hours to get some sleep, and then got up to go to jury duty. Thank you! I experienced something I’d never experienced before: a marshal woke me up in the jury room because I fell asleep. I asked how they could have known I was asleep—only because of the travail in intercessions I was making, I’m sure! Oh, in Weaverville, I was marriage counseling and fell asleep. They never listened to me anyway, so it was all right. That one made sense. I’m serious—I actually fell asleep while we were conversing and realized I had been sleeping. I woke up, and they were just still talking.
So, it all seemed to work out good to me! Oh, where was I? All right, good morning! Nice to see you; I’m glad you showed up. I haven’t done an extended fast for over a year. The spring of last year, I did a long one, and I mention it only because that’s the only time I watch the Food Channel, which gives me hope. It helps me have a sense of anticipation that my life is not over and there will be food yet again.
So, I watch the Food Channel religiously when I’m fasting. I do mean that religiously. I watch a number of things and download the recipes they give. It’s the only time I do that. But I told you before, the last time I did a 40-day fast years ago, I bought 29 cookbooks. If you’ve ever bought anything on Amazon.com, you know you buy something, and then it says people who bought that cookbook also bought these.
I’m not into words; I’m into pictures. Pictures tell me. So, I look at the pictures and go, «I see why they bought that one; look at that!» I need to eat that and that, and so I bought cookbooks. I bought the last time I fasted, so I had double the collection. My daughter inherited my collection—I forgot about it because I don’t use them.
I’ve never admitted this before; I’ve not cooked one thing out of any of those cookbooks. They are there to inspire me; they have pictures. I become inspired on the Food Channel. The show I found out has a name—it’s called Chopped. They put random ingredients together, like random ingredients, and the chefs competing don’t know what’s there. Then they lift the veil, and there are all these ingredients; you know they’ve got spicy mustard and sardines and cauliflower and all things that aren’t related at all.
They put them together, and they say, «This is your challenge.» These guys are masters at cooking, and they take these random ingredients and make some exotic, enjoyable meal. Romans 8 says «buy cookbooks when you fast.» That’s what it says! Romans 8 says that He causes all things to work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose.
All the ingredients, the ingredients you wouldn’t have shopped for or bought, all the ingredients of your life that you never signed up for, all the stuff that you regret—all the ingredients—as well as the good things you have faith in, the breakthroughs; the Master Chef is able to take this hodgepodge of ingredients and create a masterpiece. That’s His covenant with you—that’s His covenant with me.
The greater reality, let me rephrase that, the greater our awareness of that truth, of that reality, the greater our bent will be to be thankful in everything. Ignorance in that one area of God’s sovereignty causes us to trust ourselves over Him. The absence of thankfulness is self-trust. Thankfulness is one of the most profound weapons that God has given us in our arsenal. I hope to take you through a number of verses to show you some concepts on why God is building in us to be a thankful people. I think probably most everybody in the room would say they are thankful. Our problem is that we cultivate a thankful heart over many things; we acknowledge God’s in charge. He’s the one who provided the job, He gave me this child, whatever it might be. We have our list of things, but we almost all have something over here that we’re not thankful for, and we justify it because it’s the work of the enemy—something bad happened in my life, this or that.
We have a special category for things, hoping that God will just vindicate us, not realizing that being thankful, He said, «In everything give thanks.» He didn’t say, «In almost everything give thanks,» nor did He say, «Just do your best, I’m rooting for you; just do your best, just hang in there.» He didn’t say that. He said, «In everything give thanks.»
Here’s this glaring problem, this conflict, this disappointment—whatever it might be—this is here, and I’m cultivating thankfulness here, but I’m unwilling to deal with this very thing that haunts me. What’s the problem? Any area of my life in which I am unable or unwilling to give thanks for will have a measure of influence and control over my life, and not for good. It will have a voice where it shouldn’t have a voice. «God, why is this constantly tormenting me?» Because you’ve not buried it in thankfulness. «Why is this thing constantly there, never going away?» Because you’ve chosen not to express trust in this one thing.
We pray about the problem, but we don’t often give thanks for the effect it’s having on the recipe. If we could see Romans 8:28 more clearly, I think we’d be much quicker to give thanks for the IRS audit, the bad medical report, the loss of employment, or whatever it might be—the stuff that goes on in all our lives. He doesn’t tell us to be thankful for evil. We are thankful that we have a sovereign God who is able to use what the enemy intended for evil for our benefit. It’s the expression of thankfulness that immerses that which is contaminated into the grace of God to where God now uses it for our benefit.
In Psalms 100, it says, «I will enter His gates with thanksgiving in my heart; I will enter His courts with praise.» Thanksgiving is all about presence. I will enter His gates—where’s the destiny? The destiny is the throne room of God. I will enter His gates with thanksgiving, our interest in His courts with praise. Thanksgiving is the specific response to the actions of God, the works of God. Praise is our response to His nature and character. Thankfulness is always meant to introduce us to an increasing revelation of His nature. Moses said, «Let me know Your ways that I might know You.»
The revelation of nature is the invitation for encounter. So when God gives us His protocol, it’s not a formula we use to manipulate God; it’s how He functions. It’s almost like this is what the presence of the Glorious One demands. His commandments are not restrictive; they’re not punishments; they are always invitations to life. Every commandment is an invitation to greater experiences in the life of Christ.
So He gives us this mandate: Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise. What’s the result before the glory? Thankfulness is an expression of trust that keeps us conscious of the presence of God. Thankfulness is an expression of trust that keeps us conscious of Him, keeps us conscious of the presence of God.
One of my favorite stories in the Bible is Moses up on the mountain with Almighty God, face to face. He comes down with direction; God has shown him what he’s supposed to build. They’re going to build this tabernacle, but when he comes down, he sees Israel playing the harlot. They’re in absolute grotesque sin. He walks into the middle of that, does all kinds of stuff to restore order and bring them to repentance, and then he builds what God showed him to build.
The key verse for me is this: Moses built according to what he saw on the mountain. I think I can say this accurately: Most believers catch a vision on the mountain and lose sight of it in the midst of a problem. Moses succeeded in building what he saw up there when he got down here. It’s the most challenging thing. And what does thankfulness do? The specific acts of thanksgiving—not just the attitude of gratefulness, which I think is vital—but the specific acts of thankfulness connect us to our history with God and help to heal and restore memories as they’re supposed to be embraced. Those memories are what help us carry on the mandate of the Lord. Moses did according to what he saw on the mountain; it was the memory of that that helped him succeed in his most perilous times.
Memories! Thankfulness is what keeps us connected to our history with God. Our history is not just mine; it’s our history with God. I want you to look at John chapter six with me. We’ll go through a couple of verses. John chapter six is where Jesus is feeding the five thousand. In verse 11, it says, «And Jesus took the loaves, and when He had given thanks, He distributed them to the disciples and the disciples to those who were sitting down.»
Verse 23: Other boats came from Tiberius near the place where they ate bread after the Lord had given thanks. Pay attention here; the Holy Spirit marked the location. So, here we’ve got a location where Jesus multiplied food, and thousands of people ate after Jesus broke bread and gave thanks. The Holy Spirit wanted that place to be remembered. What was it remembered for? It was when Jesus took loaves, broke them, and gave thanks.
What’s the point? What did He have? He had not enough, and He gave thanks, holding not enough. The sacrifice of Jesus was in response to human need, but the daily invasions of God are not according to human need; they’re according to faith and obedience. To ignore the protocol of God to apprehend what’s in our life that we refuse to give thanks for is to mark a part of our life we don’t need His grace in. In the midst of lack, Jesus gives thanks.
In verse 23, it says, «What’s that place?» «Ah, that’s the place where He took bread and gave thanks.» He gave thanks for what wasn’t enough. First Corinthians 11 is a good one. This is where Paul receives this revelation about the Lord’s Supper and communicates the greatest truths we have in Scripture on the subject here in chapter 11 of First Corinthians. He said, «I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you that the Lord Jesus, on the same night in which He was betrayed, took bread, and when He had given thanks, He broke it and said, 'Take and eat.'»
Okay, what’s the point? On the night Jesus was betrayed, He took bread and gave thanks. See, thankfulness took, in John 6, a situation of extreme lack and turned it into extreme abundance, where they ended up with more than they started with in the leftovers. Now Jesus takes this moment, the most difficult moment, where He has poured Himself into 12 people, 12 guys for three and a half years, at the end of which one has a better idea and, for personal gain, sells the access that he has to Jesus and betrays Him.
On the night Jesus is betrayed, Jesus is fully aware of what Satan has inspired Judas to do. He takes the bread, breaks it, and what does He do? He gives thanks. See, thanksgiving sanitizes your touch on the matters of your life. It decontaminates us from having influence—remaining flesh influence that defiles that which God is doing—and it’s thankfulness that keeps us in a place where everything in my life is now usable by God because I have cleansed myself. If you will, I don’t know if I’m using the right language, but you can help me out and figure it out. I’ve sanitized my own involvement in the affairs of my life through thankfulness toward this. Now it is in the hands of the Lord to use on my behalf for His glory.
Thankfulness transitions that very tool that the enemy intended for evil. Perhaps the best example of this is found in First Timothy chapter 4. If you would look there with me in light of the last passage of betrayal, what thanksgiving does—with the specific deliberate acts of expressions of thanksgiving—is it delivers me from the influence of the spirit of offense and bitterness. I personally think the two greatest dilemmas for the body of Christ that hinder us from maturity are unforgiveness and disappointment. Sorry, these two areas have the most crippling effects on the hearts and minds of God’s people.
Those two things—resentment, bitterness, and disappointment— and what thankfulness does is it grabs the moment back, even though the waters have passed under the bridge. Even though the disaster has happened, even though I can’t see any possible way for God to get glory out of this, it is a part of the recipe, and as a part of the recipe, I am going to give thanks. Because in the giving of thanks, I don’t want to say God can’t use it without my thankfulness; it’s just somehow I get to be a participant when I yield and acknowledge trust in Him over this challenging and difficult area.
I remember years ago, maybe 15 years ago, Benny and I were eating at The French Laundry. Let’s give thanks together for quality food! I remember it was the first time we had been there, with Bob and Cindy Kilpatrick. There are like nine courses, and they brought this bowl of two of the things I least like on earth; they are never to enter these lips: I did not like caviar and did not like oysters. My wife, actually, not very many knew, tricked me one day when she was in a cooking class. She had a spoonful of what looked like blackberry jam. When you anticipate the sweetness of blackberry jam and get a mouthful of fish eggs, it’s not right! The spirit of deception was all over that moment, I’m telling you. There was a sink close by; I got rid of it.
I had the same fondness for oysters. So now I’m at The French Laundry, and I could take you to the table I was sitting at, the chair I was in, and they brought this bowl of what’s called oysters and pearls. Literally, Chef Thomas Keller is world-famous for this dish. Oysters and pearls: oysters and caviar with this sauce! I’m looking at it: oysters I don’t like, caviar I don’t like, and I don’t know what the sauce is. I said, «I’m spending too much money for this meal to not at least taste it.»
So I took a bite of oysters and pearls; the angels began to sing! The heavens opened; I could see, you know, in the Old Testament where his eyes were brightened when he had the honey—that was me! I was in that moment. I turned to Benny and said, «Honey, I want a chili bowl full of this stuff; this is so good!»
Things I don’t like became my favorite things when they came under the influence of the Master Chef. And every one of us has oysters and caviar in our lives, things we’re not fond of, but the Master Chef is at work, and with thankfulness, we yield interest to the process where God gets glorified by the very parts we regret the most.
First Timothy chapter 4, verse 1 says, «Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons, speaking lies in hypocrisy, having their own conscience seared with a hot iron.» Here’s this last-day warning of the power of deception, and then he goes into specifics. He forbids to marry, commanding to abstain from foods which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who believe and know the truth, for every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving, for it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.
Now think through this situation. What is the warning? The warning is of the perils of the last day and literally the spirit of deception that’s trying to draw people into the collapse of faith—a place of moral and spiritual failure. He warns about some of the things that people will believe that will dissuade and deter them from their simplicity of faith in Christ, and he mentions food. Somehow he takes this most natural element of food and says, «If you receive it with thanks, I’m going to put it in my terms so that I can illustrate my point. If you receive this, that the enemy put in front of you, through deceiving spirits for the collapse of your faith—when you receive this with thankfulness—that thing that was the tool to be used against you now becomes a tool that is for you.»
It’s almost like—I see it this way—now God is sovereign; He can do whatever He wants. I don’t feel that we somehow limit or restrict Him; He’s sovereign God. But He has protocol, very specific processes through which He wants to perform. They become more challenging the older you get in Christ. You’ve got a lot of leeway when you first come to Jesus, and He tightens the screws the further we walk with Him. It’s not punishment; it’s because He wants to release greater glory, and that greater glory requires more refined, specific, intentional obedience.
There’s a sanctifying effect of thankfulness, a sanctifying, cleansing effect. It decontaminates my own heart and its attachment to different parts of life. I remember, a number of years ago, we had a single mom who was down to her last four dollars. Later I heard the story; she was down to her last four dollars and thought, «I’ll just come on Sunday morning and get a coffee at Hebrews and then just see what the Lord does.»
So she got here and was ready to get her Hebrews glory; let’s be honest, glory! And she thought, «No, I’m just going to skip it; I’ll just put it in the offering.» She took what was huge to her that what was insignificant in the measure of the entire offering, and it was her sacrifice. See, thanksgiving is supposed to be a sacrifice, and it’s not a sacrifice if it doesn’t cost me. If I have a thousand dollars in my pocket and I give away ten dollars, it wasn’t a sacrifice—I won’t even miss it. But for the gal who’s got four dollars in her pocket, she decides to put that in the offering—that’s everything.
What she didn’t know is that was Father’s Day. On Father’s Day, we like to honor single moms, so having just placed her last four dollars in the offering, I had single moms stand up, and we blessed them. She overwhelmingly walked out of the place with over four hundred dollars that morning, with this peace of this poor cashier!
Now, let’s be honest; if it worked that way all the time, we’d have God the slot machine going every week: «Here’s four more!» But what the Lord does is He gives you that breakthrough at the beginning of your journey that you are required to remember for the remainder of your journey because you’ll have ten more of those situations following in which there is no quick deliverance.
The experience is not for us to figure Him out. The experience is for us to endear our hearts to the One who always has a solution in every situation. I get to figure out the process and go on this relational journey to see His breakthrough.
And in this situation, it’s thankfulness, the specific act of thanksgiving for the very thing I least like in my life. It’s that act of thankfulness that delivers me. I’ve had more challenging situations in the last six to eight months than I’ve had at any time in my life. I’m preaching this to myself. This is the result of me saying, «All right, what can I do? What should I do? What must I do to fully place every aspect of my life under the grace and tenderness of the Lord?» I don’t want anything standing out because I ignored it, missed my chance, or just wasn’t feeling it.
You know, there’s something about thankfulness in the Old Testament. In Nehemiah chapter 12, it says that he appointed two great choirs of thanksgiving. All this started after David became king; they started appointing thanksgiving choirs, which means what? You’re assigned to give thanks—don’t wait until you feel it! You’re not required to feel it; you’re required to give it.
If it’s supposed to be a sacrifice, when is it the greater sacrifice? When your favorite team just won or you got a raise at work or you finally bought that house?
All important times to give thanks, unless your team is playing against one of mine, all important times to give thanks. But the costly times of thanks are when there’s loss, the bad report; you immerse it in grace.
I thank you because you’re bigger than this. I know that you will work this into the recipe. You’ve done it before; you took things I despised and made them my favorite things—oysters and pearls. That’s what thankfulness does; it captures our moments. It captures what seems to be the random parts of our lives that could easily work against us, but when we grab hold of what God intended for good, I don’t believe we’re ever supposed to be thankful for evil itself. Never! I can’t celebrate the devil’s work, but I also cannot afford to live impressed by it.
In other words, living in reaction to what he has said or done has to be according to His promises. My encouragement to you today is to be very intentional and deliberate, and you don’t have to feel it. See, in the Kingdom, our emotions—the emotional realm—is trained through obedience. In the Kingdom, our internal world is actually trained through obedience. In the natural, before you came to Christ, you did what you felt like doing. In the Kingdom, you do what is right, and it trains you what and how to feel. It actually heightens your sensitivities to be more trustworthy.
When I was thinking about today, I wanted to talk about a number of different virtues, but I couldn’t shake this one expression. I’ll speak again next week; maybe we’ll move on to some more. We’ll see. But I feel like thankfulness is the most surprising weapon of all—maybe equal to God sending choirs out into battle before the army. That was an unexpected strategy! Well, so is thankfulness in the midst of your worst situation; it’s an unexpected strategy. Nothing is outside the reach of my thankfulness!
All right, once you stand; it’s probably enough. Thankfulness is profoundly— I just remembered an experience with my mother-in-law. When she was dying, before she went into a coma, she would spontaneously come up with things, and the family sitting there would write them down because some were brilliant and some were just hilarious. You know, when you’re between two worlds, you tend to—she wanted to say profound and instead said the word «happy.» So she said profappy!
So we’ve coined that as a family; that’s now our latest expression: «How you doing?» «I’m profappy!»
Don’t be surprised if you see t-shirts with my family: «I’m profappy! I’m profappy!»
The profound impact of thankfulness is that it transforms every situation we become thankful for, and what it does is it connects us with hope—it connects us to hope. Thankfulness comes back to the nature of God and the covenant of God. What is the covenant He has made with us? His promise: all things work together—all the parts of the recipe. He’s going to use them in a way that He’s exalted and we’re strengthened.
Just promise with us, and thankfulness itself restores hope where we have little hope. So let me pray for you.
Father, I ask that you would help us again as a family, with an unusual grace, a profound ability to embrace the surprising things of life and yield them to You with thankfulness. We do acknowledge Your goodness. We recognize that unwillingness to give thanks is, in fact, trusting in ourselves above You. And things have never turned out well in my life when I’ve trusted in me instead of You.
So God, I pray for that realization to rest upon us as a church body for the glory of God. Give special grace throughout this day to look at the most challenging parts of our lives and honestly celebrate with expressions of thankfulness for Your goodness.
I pray this in Jesus' name, Amen.
I want to give the opportunity—I could ask everyone to hold your place, please, because it will help this moment. You still owe me a minute, 48 seconds, so don’t move! There’s always a chance that there can be people in the room who have never been what the Bible calls «born again.» There’s never been that experience, that encounter of receiving Christ by faith—being forgiven of sin, having the Holy Spirit come into your life and change you from the inside out. It’s never been your experience, but you’re here today, and know that you got set up by God.
If you’d be willing to say, «Bill, I don’t want to leave the building until I know I have found peace with God"—if that’s you, then I want you to just boldly, courageously put a hand up right where you are because we want to pray for you and celebrate this next phase, this next part of your life. Pretend real quickly if that’s you, okay?
I’m going to assume you’re all in. We’ve got a banner, and we will have people down here ministering to people. Please find your way down in a moment to do that. I would like to ask the ministry team to come quickly. Everyone else, please hold your place. I’m going to get to the back door. Who’s coming up? Oh, the queen herself is coming up!