EVERY CREATURE OF GOD IS GOOD!
1 Timothy 4:4-5
[4] For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving:
[5] For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer.
When God first made heaven and earth, He made everything good, every creature, and every creation, because He wanted His highest creation, men, and women, to enjoy themselves. Well, that hasn’t changed. It is true, sin has marred our lives, and life in this world has become a vale of tears. Nonetheless, our heavenly Father continues to shower His children with every good and perfect gift to support their lives on this earth and to make them enjoyable.
This wonderful truth hasn’t always been obvious. Some people in young Timothy’s congregation felt that Christianity has to be sad, that Christians have to go around with long faces, denying themselves normal, natural human enjoyments. Members of his congregation wanted to put limitations on what Christians could eat or drink. Some even taught that having sex was sinful. St. Paul set the matter straight when he wrote to his young preacher, “For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving.”
The problem that faced this congregation hasn’t changed much through the years. Every age has had those who teach that sex is sinful, that those who enjoy sex in the holy institution of marriage are less sanctified than others are. Just after the time of the apostles, a religious group, known as Essences, taught this very thing. They moved into the desert, but soon their group died out. Even today, some religious groups feel that their pastors should be more holy than their members should. Consequently, they forbid their priests to marry.
Food comes under the same category. Many Reformed congregations clutter up their doctrine with restrictions on what you may eat and whether you can smoke or whether you can drink. Then there is that vast population where appropriate pills and diet and exercise rule the day. Mark well, there is nothing wrong with diets, or with studies on nutrition, but there is everything wrong with making healthy bodies a prerequisite for heaven.
These teachings all fall under the category of asceticism, that is denying yourself gifts that God wants you to enjoy. Asceticism is, in fact, another form of works, another delusion of the devil to destroy salvation by grace. The devil would have us believe that if we deny ourselves in some way or another, our Father in heaven is going to be pleased with us and the causes of Christianity will be advanced.
It is important that we note from the outset that there is a difference between denying yourself something and denying yourself. When Jesus says, “If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow me,” Luke 9:23, He is not telling us that we should give up this thing or that thing for His sake. He is urging us to give up ourselves, our ego, our pride, our self-estimation. This is a message that we need to hear all the time, for pride is the “great transgression” that hovers over us constantly. Pride makes us irritable and angry with each other and other people. Pride makes us always right and puts us just a little bit above everyone else. Pride destroys everything that this beautiful text would teach us. Our pride leads us to feel that if God gives us all His gifts to enjoy, then we can use them any way we want. The results of that kind of thinking are disastrous: drunkenness, and over-eating and addiction to pornography and the lusts of the eyes. Perhaps it was the misuse of God’s gifts that lead the early Christians to lay restrictions on their use.
Yet St. Paul tells us in the text that restrictions on how we live our lives won’t work. That only leads to another kind of self-righteousness. What is needed is a heart of faith, a heart that recognizes that who we are and what we have are gifts of a merciful Father. That is why he added a very important “if” to our text: “if it is received with thanksgiving,” and “if it is sanctified by the Word of God and prayer.” To receive God’s gifts with thanksgiving is to recognize that they aren’t our’s in the first place. They are gifts: “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above.” James 1:17. God richly blesses our lives, not that we recklessly squander His gifts on ourselves, or that we practice the denial of them, but that we use them to His glory. “Whether therefore ye eat, or drink, or whatsoever ye do, do all to the glory of God.” 1 Corinthians 20:31
That is what thanksgiving is all about. Everything in our lives, our family, our friends, our food, our problems, yes our every breath is a gift from above. If we don’t recognize that, to whom will we be thankful? If you give your son or daughter a gift they think they have coming, whom are they going to thank? How easy it is to forget that every blessing we enjoy is a gift from our loving Father. Our sinful inner nature tends to make us thankless, to keep on taking God’s good gifts as if they were our own, without ever a thought of thanksgiving. Thanksgiving comes hard! In fact, it is not possible until God crushes our proud and greedy spirit with the admonitions of his word. “Charge them that are rich in this world, that they be not high-minded, nor trust in uncertain riches, but in the living God, who giveth us richly all things to enjoy;” 1 Timothy 6:17.
Now the Apostle tells us that God’s gifts are sanctified by the word of God and prayer. Only through the study of God’s word do we receive the strength to consecrate God’s gifts, to use them to His glory and to enjoy them in a spirit of prayerful thankfulness. Thankfulness is a fruit of repentance. Just as every day, we confess our worthlessness and plead for God’s forgiveness, so everyday we thank Him for His goodness and mercy.
Giving thanks is a good habit. There is nothing as beautiful as a family gathered around the table, giving thanks for what they eat. We have the wonderful example of our Savior at the feeding of the 5,000. “And he took the seven loaves and the fishes, and gave thanks, and brake them, and gave to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitude.” Matthew 15:36. When our Savior appeared to the disciples on the first Easter evening, He gave us an example for all time. “And it came to pass, as he sat at meat with them, he took bread, and blessed it, and brake, and gave to them.” Luke 24:30.
Prayer is a wonderful habit, and yet how easily the devil can change a good habit into a meaningless recitation. This doesn’t mean that we should change our habits, that we should give up family prayer, or that we should substitute human words for God’s word in order to make prayer meaningful. The problem is not with godly prayer, but with us. Our prayer becomes meaningless only when we don’t think about what we say. Those words of prayer, “Come, Lord Jesus,” are absolutely beautiful and come directly from Scripture, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” Revelation 22:20. What more could we ask than that our Savior, who promises to be wherever two or three are gathered together, would sanctify our conversation at the table and bless the food we eat. Those precious words that many of us say at the end of the meal, “Oh, give thanks unto to the Lord,” come directly from Scripture. Seven times in the Psalms, the Psalmist sings those exact words, “O give thanks unto the LORD, for He is good: for His mercy endureth for ever.” Thank you, Lord, for the rich blessings of Your grace that make our lives happy here on earth because they assure us of perfect happiness in heaven.
1. Oh, blest the house, whate'er befall,
Where Jesus Christ is all in all!
Yea, if He were not dwelling there,
How dark and poor and void it were.
4. Blest such a house, it prospers well,
In peace and joy the parents dwell,
And in their children's lot is shown
How richly God can bless His own.
------------------------TLH 625 1,4
This sermon was preached by Pastor Robert Dommer on November 11, 2007