Week 12- What Gratitude Isn't (Part II)
MONDAY — Read the passage with your team.
19 Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; 20 you were bought at a price. Therefore, honor God with your body.
1 Corinthians 6:19-20
15 Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise—the fruit of lips that confess his name. 16 And do not forget to do good and to share with others, for with such sacrifices God is pleased
Hebrews 13:15-16
3 He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.
Isaiah 53:3
21 His master replied, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’
Matthew 25:21
What does this passage have to say about gratitude?
Why is that important?
TUESDAY — Discuss the passage with your team.
1) Last week, in Ephesians 1, you read that God has given His people the gift of the Holy Spirit, a guarantee that we cannot lose His love. Because God forgives our sins, should we continue to sin, knowing that God will forgive us? Of what should the gift of the Holy Spirit (who dwells in a believer) remind us (1 Corinthians 16:19b-20)? What should that recognition produce in you (v. 20)?
Gratitude is not … a license to sin.
2) An athlete uses his physical skills daily in the pursuit of his sport. What should the truth that your body is “not your own” (v. 19) lead you to do? Because you were “bought at a price” (v. 20) and God has freely given you the life (and athletic abilities) that you have, how should you use the body and gifts He has given you? For what purpose? With what attitude? Is there any place for complaining about the gifts God hasn’t given you? What habits need to be eliminated from your life as an athlete?
WEDNESDAY — Discuss the passage with your team.
3) Christ’s sacrifice is a gift that none of us deserves; those who have received it recognize He has cancelled a debt that none of us could repay. So...we should be brimming with gratitude to the Savior of our lives, right? What does Isaiah 53:2b-3 tell us about the people’s response to Jesus? Does this response to the promised Messiah shock you? Does your own life demonstrate a consistent gratitude toward Christ for His sacrifice, or do you also reject Him and esteem Him not? Why is it so hard to live a life that honors God, to show gratitude to Him?
4) What is the only way for a person to “continually offer to God a sacrifice of praise” (Hebrews 13:15)? Through whom? Why, then, does a person who doesn’t know Christ tend to resent or disdain any mention of God? What is necessary in your life to produce gratitude?
Gratitude is not … something we can produce in ourselves.
THURSDAY — Discuss the passage with your team.
If we can’t produce gratitude in ourselves, and must rely on God to produce it, what is the point? Are we really giving Him anything?
5) According to Hebrews 13:16, what is the outflow of gratitude? If you are thankful to God, what will you do...and what is God’s response to that? Is God unable to do good to others and meet their needs without your efforts? Why, then, does He use you to do so?
6) Matthew 25 tells the story of a king (God) who gives His servants talents to use. To the servants who thankfully receive the talents and use them faithfully, the kink replies with commendation (v. 21). In what is the servant invited to share? Do your gifts of gratitude please God? (For an interesting take on this, see the bottom of the page.)
Gratitude is not … a waste of time.
5) Are you thankful for the athletic gifts God has given you? Do you use them to their utmost? For your gain, or to present the glory back to Him?
FRIDAY — Discuss sport applications of gratitude, and pray together.
· Ask your athletes to briefly reflect on what they’ve learned about gratitude this week, and to repeat some of those things. (Remind them of some of the Biblical truths about gratitude you’ve discussed, if necessary.)
· Ask your team, “Based on what we learned about gratitude this week...What does a grateful athlete do?” Do not settle for vague answers; challenge your athletes to go beyond general qualities of a grateful athlete, and to determine what those qualities look like in action.
· Add the results to your team’s list of descriptions of the “grateful athlete”, and be sure the list is displayed somewhere that is constantly visible, as a reminder to the team.
· Pray together as a team. Encourage your athletes to pray for your team’s growth in regard to the discipline of gratitude — especially in relation to some of the issues and challenges that you discussed together this week. Challenge them to also ask for forgiveness, when applicable. Give time for athletes to request prayer (regarding gratitude or anything else), and pray together.
"Every faculty you have, your power of thinking or of moving your limbs from moment to moment, is given you by God. If you devoted every moment of your whole life exclusively to his service, you could not give Him anything that was not — in a sense — His own already. So that when we talk of a man doing anything for God or giving anything to God, I will tell you what it is really like. It is like a small child going to its father and saying, “Daddy, give me sixpence to buy you a birthday present.” Of course, the father does, and he is pleased with the child’s present. It is all very nice and proper, but only an idiot would think that the father is sixpence to the good on the transaction. When a man has made these two discoveries, God can really get to work. It is after this that real life begins. The man is awake now."
-C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
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