Sermon Tone Analysis

OPENING

What are you thankful for?

If we were to go around the room today and give everyone a chance to share what they are most thankful for, I don’t believe we would have a shortage of things to say.

Each one of us have so much to be thankful for.

It might have been a rough year.

Things may not have turned out like we’d hoped.

We might not have gotten everything accomplished that we wanted to.

Many of us probably gave up on those New Year’s resolutions at least 10 months ago.

But no matter how many ups and downs that 2022 has brought us, we all have a lot to be thankful for.

In fact, the Bible teaches us that we are to be Thankful in Everything.

SCRIPTURE

Everything means everything.

That means being thankful for the bad as well as the good.

You might say, “that’s crazy talk.

Why would I be thankful for the bad, the adversity, the trials, the tribulations I go through?”

But that is exactly the type of heart that a Christian is supposed to have.

A man by the name of Job understood this concept:

You see, Job learned how to take the bad with the good.

Job understood how to be thankful to God despite his circumstances.

Job understood the concept of Romans 8:28 even though that verse of Scripture would not be written by Paul for at least another 2000 years.

All things work together for our good.

That means the good, the bad, and the ugly all come together in a giant casserole dish we call life, but after God puts us in the oven and cranks up the the heat of trials and tribulations, and He seasons our life with His grace, we always come out all good on the other side.

God is working everything out for your good and His glory!

So that means in life we are going to encounter some Blessings in Disguise.

There are going to be some things you are going to have to go through that are not going to make sense while you’re going through it.

You’re going to say, “God, I don’t see how any good can come out of this.”

You’re going to wonder why God would allow you to end up in such a messed-up place.

You may be like Rebecca, the wife of Isaac.

She was unable to have children for several years.

God finally answered her prayer and she became pregnant with twins: Esau and Jacob.

But she experienced complications during the pregnancy and she cried out to the Lord (I love the King James Version):

Genesis 25:22 (KJV 1900)

22 ...If it be so, why am I thus?...

In other words she was saying, “God, I thought you answered my prayer and gave me the promise.

But, if this is supposed to be the answer to my prayer, then why am I suffering and going through such difficulty?”

You might be saying the same thing, “If it be so, why am I thus?”

But you’ve got to remember, “all things work together for good.”

What if those things you’ve been facing are not just trials, what if they are Blessings in Disguise?

What if they are not just setbacks, what if they are Blessings in Disguise?

What if you knew that God was about to turn that mess into a message?

What if you knew that God was about to turn that test into a testimony?

As the song says, “What if the trials of this life, are Your mercies in Disguise?”

What if they are Blessings in Disguise?

So as we get ready to celebrate the Thanksgiving season, I thought it would be good for us to think about and give God thanks for, not just the obvious blessings, but also for those Blessings in Disguise.

To be Thankful in Everything.

This morning we are going to talk about being thankful for Unopened Doors, Unanswered Prayers, and Unexpected Trials.

MESSAGE

First, Unopened Doors can be Blessings in Disguise.

Unopened Doors

We’ve probably all heard these statements: “If God closes a door, He will open a window.”

Or: “If God closes one door, He will open another.”

Neither of those statements are actually biblical.

You won’t find them in your Bible.

You’ll actually hear them in the movie, The Sound of Music.

The truth is that sometimes God shuts doors or leaves doors unopened in our lives.

The Disguise

We can see closed doors as disappointments.

We can see closed doors as “the end.”

But there may be a reason why God is leaving that door closed in your life right now.

The Blessing