Luke 18:11 The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
Think of the three happiest people you know and you will probably find some common traits among them. We often think a person who has a million dollars has more reason to be happy than a person who has a thousand dollars, yet experience does not seem to bear that out. I know people with a lot of money who are happy, and we all know of people with a lot of money who are probably miserable.
By the same token, we all know people who are poor and either happy or unhappy. So, money doesn’t seem to be the major contributing factor to happiness. Then what is it? Well, if you think about happy people, one of the traits they probably have in common is gratitude. Happy people are grateful people. Then, working down the line, because character traits seem to go together, grateful people are humble people. Humility and gratitude go hand in hand. Show me a person who is proud, and I will show you a person who is not grateful and probably, thus, not very happy. Humility and gratitude go hand in hand.
In Luke 18 Jesus spoke a parable “unto certain which trusted in themselves that they were righteous and despised others.” They trusted themselves and looked down on others. The story Jesus tells is about two men who went up to the temple to pray. One was a Pharisee, a religious man, a patriot, and a good man in many ways, though a sinner. The other man was a publican, a turncoat, a traitor, and a very covetous man.
We often think that Jesus saved publicans and sinners because they were lovable, like the “lovable rogue.” No, they weren’t lovable. These were turncoats who were taking money from their own people to send to Rome. Jesus didn’t have mercy on them because they were good. He had mercy on them because they often were bad enough to know that they needed help. They were honest with themselves and knew they needed to trust Christ.
What follows is this prayer of the Pharisee. It begins, “The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.” The Pharisee went on to brag under the pretext of gratitude about all that he was and all he had done. He said, “God, I thank You that I am not as other men are. I am better than them.” He was a man who trusted in himself.
Sometimes we hear about the “humble brag.” There is no such thing. If I am bragging, I am not humble. Now if I am humble, I am not bragging. I don’t think it is wrong to acknowledge God’s gifts. For instance, all of us have been gifted by God. When we think of a gifted person, it means just that. It is a gift. It is from God. So, I can recognize the gifts that I have without “humble bragging.” I can say, “God, thank you that you have given this gift to me. Help me to use it to be a blessing to others and to honor you.” But, humility and gratitude go hand in hand.
That means there are a couple of things with which gratitude is incompatible. Let me name three. First, gratitude is incompatible with pride. If I thank myself for what I have, then I am not thankful. “God, I thank thee, that I am not as other men are.” That was pride. It was not really gratitude. The Pharisee wasn’t asking God for anything. He was telling God everything. He was telling God how great he was. Gratitude and pride are incompatible. They don’t go together. When I am proud, I am amazed at how able I am instead of realizing that God gave me the breath to be who and what I am.
Second, gratitude is incompatible with entitlement. Entitlement is the idea that I deserve something. People that only get what they think they have coming to them are not happy people because they don’t recognize God’s provision in their lives.
Finally, gratitude is incompatible with luck, in the sense that we might think, “I am thankful that I was lucky enough to…” If it is luck, there is no one to thank. Gratitude, by definition, requires a person as an object of that gratitude. So, if you don’t know God, it is hard to show gratitude in the way that we otherwise could. Gratitude is recognizing that there is a God and that He has provided for us, sometimes through others.
If you want to be happy, it is not something you seek. It is the result of something you are: grateful. We can be grateful when we see ourselves as God does.