Giving Thanks, Even In 2020

From Mark Prater, Executive Director of SGC Global…

How many times have you heard the phrase, “Well, of course, it’s 2020!” to describe another unusual event seeming to characterize this year? Let’s face it, 2020 was a challenging year filled with cancellations, restrictions, mandates, angst, disappointments, and frustration. As we near the end of 2020, we just want it to be over.

But I want to propose something that may seem counterintuitive, and yet very biblical. I believe that given the unique challenges we have all faced in 2020, this is a great year for us, as Christians, to be exuberant in expressing thanks to God. In fact, Scripture tells us that it is God’s will that we give Him thanks in all circumstances: “give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thess. 5:18, ESV) It’s that phrase, “in all circumstances” that tells us there is no aspect of our lives, or of this unique year, that is excluded from us giving thanks.

To say it another way, we should be able to thank God for the cancellations and disappointments we have experienced this year because our gratitude is an expression that He rules and reigns! In his book, Thanksgiving: An Investigation of a Pauline Theme, David Pao writes, “For Paul, to give thanks ‘in all circumstances’…is a call to lead a God-centered life. To ‘give thanks in all circumstances’ is to live under the Lordship of Christ in all that we do.”[1]

Why should we be exuberant in giving thanks to Christ in a year we just want to end? Because our thanksgiving is an acknowledgment that as our Lord, He rules and reigns over all the circumstances we have faced this year. Therefore, in light of this God-centered biblical truth, I want to tell share with you just some of the things I thank God for in Sovereign Grace this year that reveal His good rule and reign in our lives.

I thank God for how the members of Sovereign Grace Churches have grown in Christ this year.

As I’ve talked to members of our churches in Sovereign Grace this year, a consistent refrain that I hear is how God has used a global pandemic to cause them to reflect upon what’s most important, including their relationship with Jesus Christ. Members of our churches have not only reordered their priorities, as I’ve listened to them, I hear a greater satisfaction in, and love for Jesus Christ.

I thank God for how He has tested the unity in our churches this year.

God has been good to use the challenges of 2020 to test the unity we have in Christ in our churches this year. Differences regarding masks, political affiliation, and whether ethnic prejudices exist or not, have uniquely highlighted the need for us to be people who are “eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace” (Eph. 4:3). I thank God for how He has used 2020 to show us that true, genuine, lasting unity can only be experienced in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I thank God that He has tested our unity in Christ, and we have been found to be a people who “are standing firm in one spirit, with one mind striving side by side for the faith of the gospel” (Phil. 1:27b).

I thank God for how He has used 2020 to reveal the power of the gospel

In a year of cancellations and shutdowns because of COVID-19, God has shown us that the power of the gospel can’t be shut down by a virus. Even when our churches couldn’t gather together in the Spring, the gospel was still being proclaimed and the lost saved, like a 49-year-old man in Fayetteville, AR who heard the gospel from the members of Living Hope Church and was born again. By God’s grace, we also planted churches in Sydney, Australia; Santa Cruz, Bolivia; Addis Ababa, Ethiopia; and Prattville, AL during a global pandemic. These are just some of the ways I see that God has used 2020 to show us yet again, the power of the gospel, which I thank God for!

I thank God for how He used 2020 to show us that we are sojourners who are headed home.

I thank God for how He has used the daily COVID numbers, unique frustrations, and growing divisions in our fallen world to remind us as Christians that we are sojourners who are headed to our eternal home. Hasn’t 2020 has heightened your appreciation for the promise of eternal life that we have in the finished work of Jesus Christ? In a year marked by trouble, Jesus says to us, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (John 14:1-3). I thank God for how He has used the challenges of 2020 to remind us that we are sojourners headed to our promised eternal home.

These are just some of the things I thank God for in Sovereign Grace this year. Now, let me ask you, what do you give God thanks for, even in 2020?

[1] Pao, David W., Thanksgiving: An Investigation of a Pauline Theme (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2002), 104.