Thankfulness Makes Us Happier: Proverbs

Once a year, a whole bunch of Americans gather together to catch up with family, to give thanks and meditate on the things that we’re thankful for, and to argue about politics, right?

Your grandma bakes a turkey, your mom makes some sides, your weird uncle shows up in his Make America Great Again hat, your weird aunt shows up with her Hillary Clinton shirt for some reason—that was literally three elections ago—your kids put their headphones in and listen to music to tune out all the bickering at the table, and then at one point the patriarch of the family fires a gun into the air to get everybody’s attention and says, “Let’s all name one thing we’re thankful for.”

That’s kind of a portrait of the average American Thanksgiving, right?

Personally, I love the Thanksgiving festivities, because I love the food. I love that you don’t have to buy anybody a gift. I love that airline tickets are cheaper at Thanksgiving than any other holiday. I love that there is always a Bob Newhart Show marathon on some channel, if I just channel surf for long enough.

I love all of that stuff.

But this is not a Thanksgiving themed sermon.

I guess I should have pretended it was, I would have seemed clever.

But this is actually not a Thanksgiving themed sermon.

We’re not gonna talk about turkey or the pilgrims or whether the Cowboys are finally gonna win a game on Thanksgiving this year, but we are going to talk about something we’re gonna call cultivating thankfulness.

Cultivating gratitude.

Thankfulness Is One of the Keys to Human Happiness

As human beings living on planet earth, one of the most important things that we can ever do is learn to cultivate a mindset of thankfulness.

I’m actually really bad at this, because if you know me particularly well, you know that I have a naturally kind of pessimistic personality. I have a naturally kind of gloomy personality. I hate the sun, I love when it rains. My favorite movies are always really sad. I like Phoebe Bridgers way more than Taylor Swift. I’m a naturally kind of dreary person—and so Thankfulness is not my natural state, gratitude is not my natural tendency.

I think that that’s actually not good. That’s actually causing me a lot of problems, that’s actually harming me pretty significantly.

And there’s a good chance, if you’re like me, that’s harming you too.

Because one of the things that we’ve learned over the past few decades is that thankfulness is one of the keys to human happiness.

Know what I’m talking about?

Thankfulness is one of the keys to human happiness.

Proverbs 14:30 says:

“The life of the body is a heart at peace,
but envy rots the bones.”

—Proverbs 14:30, WEB

Proverbs 15:15 says:

“All the days of the afflicted are wretched,
but one who has a cheerful heart enjoys a continual feast.”

—Proverbs 15:15, WEB

And Proverbs 17:22 says:

“A cheerful heart makes good medicine,
but a crushed spirit dries up the bones.”

—Proverbs 17:22, WEB

God’s word says that thankfulness is life giving. Thankfulness is transformative, because thankfulness may not change our circumstances at all, but what it does is it changes our experience of our circumstances.

And modern science has actually borne that out.

Literally, when we look at the data, studies consistently find that gratitude is one of the greatest predictors of overall happiness.

One study found that people with higher gratitude levels tend to live longer.

Another study found that people with higher gratitude levels tend to have lower stress levels.

Another study found that people with higher gratitude levels tend to have greater resilience in the face of adversity and trauma.

Another study found that people with higher gratitude levels correlate or tend to have a stronger immune system.

Another study found that people with higher levels of gratitude tend to have lower blood pressure and reduced risk of heart disease.

Another study found that people who used a gratitude journal for at least 12 straight weeks experienced a 30% reduction in depression levels, slept longer each night, and had better overall sleep quality.

Another study found that people with higher gratitude levels are less likely to experience burnout.

Another study found that people who rank higher on the gratitude scale are more likely to let things just kind of roll off them and not take them to heart, even when they’re treated poorly by other people.

Another study found that people with higher levels of gratitude are more likely to be content with what they have. They’re less likely to feel pressure to acquire more and more and more possessions. They’re less likely to be jealous of other people.

Another study found that people with higher gratitude levels tend to have better rational decision making skills, especially financial decision making skills.

Another study found that partners who regularly express their gratitude to each other tend to form closer relationships.

Another study found that when bosses or leaders express their gratitude more often, 81% of their employees worked harder and were more productive.

And we could go on and on and on, but that’s just some of the really easily accessible data out there.

Thankfulness is one of the keys to human happiness.

God’s will for us and his design for us is that we flourish when we cultivate gratitude, and we wither when we don’t.

And because that is true, one of the most important things that we can ever do is learn how to sow the seeds of genuine life-giving, Christ-exalting thankfulness in our hearts so that we can enjoy the abundant harvest of God-given joy that comes from it.

And we are going to spend this morning diving deep into God’s word to learn exactly how to do that.

We are going to mine our way through God’s wisdom in the Proverbs to learn how to build a life of gratitude and thankfulness out of the fertile soil of our own hearts.

Sound good?

Okay, here we go.

Thankfulness and Contentment Do Not Come Naturally to Us

The first thing we have to talk about when we talk about thankfulness and contentment is that neither of these things come naturally to us.

Know what I’m talking about?

Thankfulness & contentment do not come naturally to us.

As fallen and sinful humans, we have this problem. And our problem is that we are impossible to satisfy.

Right?

Nothing is ever enough for us. We always want more.

I love the way that Proverbs illustrates this. It says in Proverbs 27:

“Sheol and Abaddon are never satisfied;
and a man’s eyes are never satisfied.”

—Proverbs 27:20, WEB

What is this saying?

It’s saying that our eyes and our heart are like a pit in the ground that just swallow up everything. Our fallen and sinful human hearts are bent and broken in such a way that no amount of wealth and no amount of power and no amount of acceptance and no amount of love and no amount of anything will ever feel like enough.

Know what I’m talking about?

We think “if I could just get this, then I’d be satisfied,” and then we get it, and we’re not satisfied, right?

If I had this house, I’d be satisfied. Then we get the house, and we’re not satisfied.

If I had this car, I’d be satisfied. And then we get the car, and we’re not satisfied.

If I had this boat in my front yard, I’d be satisfied. And then we get the boat, and we’re not satisfied.

If I had a partner who looked like this, I’d be satisfied. And then we get that partner, and we realize we don’t actually like them all that much, and we’re not satisfied.

And so on and so on and so on.

And by the end of our relentless quest for satisfaction, we have got a whole bunch of credit card debt but absolutely no sense of fulfillment as a result of it.

I love the way that the great Victorian preacher and Evangelist Charles Spurgeon put it. He said:

“You say, ‘If I had a little more, I should be very satisfied.’ You make a mistake. If you are not content with what you have, you would not be satisfied if it were doubled.”

—Charles Spurgeon

Here’s the thing: If you’re not satisfied making 40,000 a year, you wouldn’t be satisfied making 120,000 a year. If you’re not satisfied driving your 2004 Toyota Corolla, you wouldn’t actually be satisfied driving a 2024 Mustang either. If you’re not satisfied with your wife whose looks have faded through the years and who is frequently annoyed with you, you wouldn’t be satisfied with a girl half her age who is in perfect shape and thinks you walk on water either—eventually she would get boring and your eyes would start wandering somewhere else after that.

If you’re not satisfied with this job that pays your bills and covers your health care but is kind of boring, you’re not going to be satisfied with your dream job either.

Because the problem isn’t with any of these things. The problem is with you. The problem is with your heart.

Now, don’t misunderstand all of this:

Ambition is good, you should be ambitious. It’s good to better your situation when you can. It’s good to want a better life for your family. It’s good to want a better life for your kids. It’s good to want a better life for yourself.

You should work hard. You should seek good things for yourself.

There’s nothing inherently good about getting the scraps from the table. If you can work your way up the ladder, that’s good.

But the compulsive pursuit of wealth and power and accomplishment isn’t going to give you any of those things.

It’s going to give you misery.

If you hinge your happiness on what you can acquire, you are going to spend your life miserable—because there is no amount of stuff or people or power or love that you can acquire that will ever actually satisfy you.

Because thankfulness and contentment do not come naturally to us.

Discontentment Causes Us to Compromise Our Values

And because that is true, we do a lot of crazy stuff.

You know what I’m talking about?

Because of the fact that contentment does not come naturally to us, we make a lot of insane decisions.

Specifically, it causes us to compromise our values.

This relentless pursuit of satisfaction by acquiring and accumulating more and more and more puts us in this position where the only way to get those things is to compromise our values.

I love the way the Proverbs put it:

“Better is little, with the fear of Yahweh,
than great treasure with trouble.

Better is a dinner of herbs, where love is,
than a fattened calf with hatred.”

—Proverbs 15:16–17, WEB

And:

“Better is a little with righteousness,
than great revenues with injustice.”

—Proverbs 16:8, WEB

“Better is a dry morsel with quietness,
than a house full of feasting with strife.”

—Proverbs 17:1, WEB

And:

“Better is the poor who walks in his integrity,
than he who is perverse in his ways, and he is rich.”

—Proverbs 28:6, WEB

They say, “Why are we so quick to compromise our values? Because we’re not content with what we have.”

I talked with somebody not long ago, and he was talking about the way that his relationship does not honor the Lord, and He knows it, and he feels guilty for it.

He said, “I know I’m not supposed to be sleeping with my girlfriend, but I just can’t stop.”

I said, “How come?”

And he said, “Because if I do, I think she’ll break up with me, and I’m afraid to be single again.”

He’s compromising his values because he’s not content being single. He feels like he has to be with someone, and he’s afraid of going without this person’s love.

I talked to a lady not that long ago who confessed that she kind of cheats on her taxes.

This was a conversation with a random person at a Starbucks—I don’t even know how we got on the subject.

But I said, “Why are you doing that?”

And she said, “It’s because if I don’t do this, then I owe $25,000 extra dollars on my taxes, and that means I can’t get Christmas gifts for my kids, and that means I can’t take my family on vacation, and that means I may never be able to get into a bigger and better house where my kids can all have their own rooms.”

She’s compromising her values because she can’t imagine being content in a life that close to the poverty line.

But in reality, do you absolutely have to have a Christmas gift? Is the world going to end if you don’t go on a vacation? Is it the end of the world if your kids have to share a bedroom?

No, this is not a matter of necessity. This is a matter of desire.

We compromise our values because we aren’t content with the life we’re forced to live if we stick with our values.

And this lack of contentment literally leads us to rebel against the Lord.

The relentless pursuit of more drives us to compromise our values.

The Pursuit of More Is a Dead End

But the problem is that it’s a dead end.

Right?

I love Proverbs 23. It says:

“Don’t weary yourself to be rich.
In your wisdom, show restraint.

Why do you set your eyes on that which is not?
For it certainly sprouts wings like an eagle and flies in the sky.”

—Proverbs 23:4–5, WEB

Wealth can’t satisfy. Power can’t satisfy. Acceptance can’t satisfy. Fame can’t satisfy.

None of these things can satisfy.

You cannot find happiness by pursuing these things.

No. I love the way the 16th century theologian Jeremiah Burroughs puts this. He said:

“Contentment comes not by adding to what we have, but by subtracting from our desires.”

—Jeremiah Burroughs

And because that is true, Proverbs 30 says something that has baffled American Christians for centuries. It says:

“Two things I have asked of you.
Don’t deny me before I die.

Remove far from me falsehood and lies.
Give me neither poverty nor riches.
Feed me with the food that is needful for me,

lest I be full, deny you, and say, ‘Who is Yahweh?’
or lest I be poor, and steal,
and so dishonor the name of my God.”

—Proverbs 30:7–9, WEB

He literally says, “Lord, please don’t let me be rich.”

Please don’t let me become too powerful. Please don’t let me accomplish too much.

He says, “Please just give me what I need and nothing else.”

Teach me to be content. Teach me to accept less than I want.

I think that is such an important word for us as modern Americans living in a culture that has taught us that we should always want more, that we should always keep up with the Joneses, that we should always be competing with everybody else, that we should always be investing in status symbols.

Like, “I can barely pay my rent, but for some reason I’ve got a Mercedes in the driveway.”

“I can barely afford food for my kids, but for some reason I live in a 2500 square foot house.”

“I don’t have a single cent left over to put into my retirement account, but for some reason I’m going on 11 trips to the lake or the mountains or the beach this year.”

Man, you have all this stuff, but you are still not happy.

The reason you’re not happy is because you haven’t learned to subtract from your desires.

And because that is true, one of the things that we should be doing today is praying and asking the Lord to help us do exactly that.

We should say, “Lord, teach us to want less.”

Teach us to desire less.

Teach us to accept less than we want.

Teach us to be content with not getting the life we dreamed of.

Teach us to be satisfied with the life we have.

Contentment comes not from adding to what we have, but from subtracting from our desires.

Find Your Satisfaction Outside This World

But here’s the kicker—this is the most important thing I’m gonna tell you today: The only way to subtract from your desires in this world is by finding your satisfaction outside of it.

The key to contentment in this world is to find our satisfaction outside of it.

What I’m about to say is gonna seem cliche and predictable, but don’t tune me out when you hear it, because I promise this is relevant to you, and this will change your life if you let it in.

Because the truth that God’s word lays down for us this morning is that true contentment comes from being satisfied in the Lord instead of things.

Like I said, this sounds cliche, but do not tune me out right now:

Contentment comes from being satisfied in the Lord instead of things.

Hebrews 13 says:

“Be free from the love of money, content with such things as you have, for he has said, ‘I will in no way leave you, neither will I in any way forsake you.’”

—Hebrews 13:5, WEB

First Timothy six, Paul says:

“But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we certainly can’t carry anything out. But having food and clothing, we will be content with that.”

—1 Timothy 6:6–8, WEB

Philippians four. Paul says:

“Not that I speak because of lack, for I have learned in whatever state I am, to be content in it. I know how to be humbled, and I also know how to abound. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret both to be filled and to be hungry, both to abound and to be in need. I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me.”

—Philippians 4:11–13, WEB

There’s a great 20th century theologian named A.W. Tozer who wrote one of the most important sentences in the English language. He said:

“The man who has God for his treasure has all things in one.”

—A.W. Tozer

He says, “You don’t have to pursue treasure out there because the Lord is your treasure.”

You don’t have to pursue purpose out there because the Lord is your purpose.

You don’t have to pursue meaning out there because the Lord is your meaning.

And if you have the Lord, you have everything you need.

That’s what the 20th century philosopher C.S. Lewis was talking about when he said:

“We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered to us.”

—C.S. Lewis

Now look, C.S. Lewis loved beer, he loved sex, and he was an ambitious scholar, so his point is not that there’s something wrong with any of those three things.

But he didn’t find his satisfaction in any of those things.

No. He found his satisfaction in Christ.

He devoted his life not to becoming the most influential scholar in the world, he devoted his life to knowing the Lord and enjoying the presence of the Lord and savoring the love of the Lord and serving the Lord—because He knew that the key to contentment is to find your satisfaction in the Lord, not in the things the Lord created.

You Get God No Matter What Else You Lose

And so, if you trek through the Scriptures, you can actually see God’s word dismantling all of these false assumptions that we have about what it takes to be happy.

God’s word dismantles all these false expectations about what we think we need to live a truly satisfying life.

God’s word tells us that the Lord will never leave you nor forsake you, so it does not matter if money leaves you and forsakes you.

The Lord will never leave you nor forsake you, so it doesn’t matter if power leaves you and forsakes you.

The Lord will never leave you nor forsake you, so it does not matter if your dreams and your goals and your ambitions leave you and forsake you.

Because you have the one thing that can actually bring you the satisfaction that all those other things promise you.

You have God Himself.

You get God no matter what else you lose.

You don’t need wealth because you have Jesus.

You don’t need comfort because you have Jesus.

You don’t need anything beyond the bare necessities because you have Jesus—and Jesus is enough for you.

And so, again and again throughout Paul’s life he says, “I don’t need a comfortable bed, the floor of this jail cell will do just fine.”

I don’t need good food, the scraps that they give me will do just fine.

I don’t need a comfortable nest egg or a 401-K, whatever money I can scrape together making tents and selling them in the town square will do me just fine.

I have food and clothing—that’s enough for me.

He says, “You don’t need any of those things you think you need, because you have Jesus—and if you have Jesus, you can be happy in any situation.”

And that changes everything about how you live your life here on earth.

Because it means that even as you work hard and do your best and seek to better your situation and better yourself, you’re not getting your satisfaction from any of those things—because you’re already getting your satisfaction from Jesus.

The key to contentment is finding your satisfaction in God, not things.

Cultivate Gratitude and Contentment

And the calling that Christ has placed on our lives this morning is to do exactly that.

God is calling us to cultivate this genuine life-giving and Christ-exalting joy, by cultivating gratitude, by cultivating contentment, by finding our satisfaction in the Lord instead of in stuff.

And when we do that, what happens is that it turns our lives upside down in a way that shines out for the world to see.

So that it turns our church upside down in a way that turns our community upside down in a way that then turns the world upside down.

When we live out God’s wisdom revealed to us here in the proverbs, it actually empowers us to carry out God’s mission here in the world together.

And so, my prayer for you is that as we come into Thanksgiving week—whether you celebrate the holiday or not, whether you care about the Turkey Day or not—you will throw yourself into embodying this life-giving thankfulness and contentment that the Lord has modeled for us here in the Proverbs in a way that dismantles your life and rebuilds it with a joy that you have never known before.

And that in that process, you glorify the Lord before a watching world, because He has transformed your life from the inside out for all to see.