Thanksgiving, Praise and Worship - Part 1

What I want to speak on this morning are three words that the vast majority of Christians confuse, and those words are thanksgiving, praise, and worship. Now, I would say that my guess is that 99.9% of Christians, of believers, would not be able to tell you what is the difference between thanksgiving, praise, and worship. It's like a big mixture. Now, nothing's wrong in it. If you mix chicken curry with ice cream and pickle and eat all together, it's okay. It goes into your stomach, but it's tastier if you eat it separately. Separately, that's all I say. So, you don't get sick if you don't know the difference between thanksgiving, praise, and worship, but when you put it separately, you may discover something about yourself which will help you to be more Christ-like. So, Psalm 138, the first three sentences, notice David says, I will give you thanks, I will sing praises, I will bow down. Thanksgiving, praise, and worship. They are three different things, and though we may not know the difference, provided we are doing all three, we are okay. Definition is not as important as practice. If your digestive system is working okay, it doesn't matter if you can't explain it. But here, it's a little more than that, because these are three things that don't come naturally to us. Prayer comes naturally to us. And even, you know, I think for 30 years, we have tried to teach people to learn to praise God. And I think very few have learned it. What I mean is, you do this, do some homework when you're at home. Try to spend one minute. That's not a lot of homework, right? 60 seconds? Try to spend one minute praying to God and asking for nothing. Only thanking and praising. You'll find one minute so difficult. I mean, you'll find it here on Sunday morning. On Sunday morning, we tell people, let's praise God. People are saying, bless this meeting. Bless this meeting is a prayer. There's nothing wrong in it. As I said, you can mix the ice cream with the pickle, it's okay. There's nothing wrong in it. And there's nothing wrong in praying on Sunday morning. There's no rule that you must worship on Sunday morning. The only reason is, because we don't have the habit of giving thanks or praise to God, we are losing a tremendous lot in our Christian life, and we're not even knowing it. I believe many, many problems in our life is because we have not learned to thank God or to praise Him or worship Him. We think everything is going to be done by prayer. No. So, I want to share something with you along this line. Let me show you another verse in the New Testament. In Revelation chapter 4, remember what we read in Psalm 138, I will give thanks, I will praise, I will worship. It's a very good threefold decision for all of you to take this morning. Say to the Lord, say it many times in the coming days. I will give thanks to the Lord, I will praise Him, I will worship Him. I will give thanks to the Lord, I will praise Him, I will worship Him. Just keep saying that this week and say, Lord, I want to practice it. And as you understand these three things, you'll find it makes a big difference. Now, Revelation chapter 4 and verse 9, it says here, when the living creatures give glory, that's worship, honor, that's praise, and thanks to Him who sits on the throne. So, what do they give to God who sits on the throne? Worship, praise, and thanksgiving. Good for us to learn all three because we're going to join that crowd one day in heaven where we are going to give worship, praise, and thanksgiving to God. Now, I want to say one more thing, and that is, when we learn to give thanks to God, it becomes a habit in our life. We also learn to give thanks to men. We need to be grateful to men. It's a, not only a Christian, even a gentleman will learn to give thanks. We teach our little children to say, thank you. Somebody gives them a gift. We say, thank you, uncle, thank you, auntie. Why do we teach them that? Because it doesn't come naturally. You don't have to tell your child, grab that. No, that comes naturally. Grab it out of the other fellow's hand. But you got to teach them what doesn't come naturally. Say, thank you. Say, sorry. Those are things that don't come naturally. And we teach our children that, but you know, we adults need to learn that ourselves. We haven't learned to say thank you to all the people who do things for us. In fact, thanksgiving is, we are such fantastic misers, M-I-S-E-R, misers, when it comes to saying thank you to somebody who's done something for us. We say thank you to a doctor, but we take so much for granted, particularly in the church. We know how to give thanks to strangers, doctors, government officials who help us, but in the church, everything's taken for granted. My dear brothers and sisters, that is why you don't grow spiritually. That's why you don't get victory over sin. Because God sees that you treat some of those heathen people, some strangers, better than you treat your own brothers and sisters. It's like that wife who told her husband, if you will talk to me just as kindly as you talk to the strangers who come to the door, that's enough for me. We take so much for granted when it comes to people we call our loved ones. We love other people more than we love our loved ones. That's the tragedy. So, thanksgiving is something we give to God and to men, and I want to surprise you. Praise is also something that we give to God and to men. It's only when it comes to worship that we give that only to God. He alone is worthy of worship. So, let's look at these three words. Let me give you an example of a very godly man in the Old Testament who had a habit. We read off in Daniel chapter 6 and verse 10. Daniel chapter 6 and verse 10. It says he had a habit here. It says of giving thanks to God three times every day. What a wonderful habit to have, to give thanks to God three times every day. Morning, afternoon, evening. It's like the doctor gives you a prescription and says take this tablet three times a day. We don't forget it because we want to be healed. I mean, uneducated, illiterate people forget when they are told to take a tablet three times a day. But we who are educated and literate think of a time when a doctor gave you a prescription to take a tablet three times a day. Did you forget it? Maybe once in a while, but most of the time we don't forget it because we are so keen on being healed. You're told to give a tablet three times a day to your child, you will not forget it.