Thanksgiving

November 23, 2008

Introduction

 

   We have been the recipients of the choicest bounties of heaven.  We have been preserved, these many years, in peace and prosperity.  We have grown in numbers, wealth and power, as no other nation has ever grown. But we have forgotten God.  We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us; and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own.

   Intoxicated with unbroken success, we have become too self- sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to God that made us!  It behooves us, then to humble ourselves before the offended Power, to confess our national sins, and to pray for clemency and forgiveness.

   -- April 30, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln's Proclamation for a National Day of Fasting, Humiliation and Prayer 

 

President Lincoln’s words remind me of Deuteronomy 8:17-19, God says, if after I have brought you into the promised land, . . .

17 “then you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gained me this wealth.’18 “And you shall remember the Lord your God, for it is He who gives you power to get wealth, that He may establish His covenant which He swore to your fathers, as it is this day.19 “Then it shall be, if you by any means forget the Lord your God, and follow other gods, and serve them and worship them, I testify against you this day that you shall surely perish.”

This is the week of Thanksgiving.  Thanksgiving, as we know it, has a long history.  It has a history that’s good.  It lifts us up.  It makes us feel better.  It makes us appreciate a little bit more, the good things that we enjoy.  There is a song in our books that says count your blessing.  Sometimes I think we need to do that.

 

Thanksgiving is an upper.  Grumbling is a downer.  We need to be positive in our outlook.  It’s very important to God.

Body

 

I.        God is due praise and thanksgiving, not murmuring and complaint.

 

Numbers 14:27 “How long shall I bear with this evil congregation who complain against Me? I have heard the complaints which the children of Israel make against Me.28 “Say to them, ‘As I live,’ says the Lord, ‘just as you have spoken in My hearing, so I will do to you:29 ‘The carcasses of you who have complained against Me shall fall in this wilderness, all of you who were numbered, according to your entire number, from twenty years old and above.

 

A.  David was one who was very good at praise.

 

Ps.100:4 Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.

 

Ps.107:22 Let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, And declare His works with rejoicing.

 

B.  Paul takes up the theme of thanksgiving in his letters.

 

Col.3:15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you were called in one body; and be thankful.

 

Col.2:7 rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

 

Ph.4:6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God;

 

Col.3:17 And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.

 

II.     Expressing Thanks Should be a Habit -- a way of life

 

1 Thessalonians 5:18  “in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

 

A.  It’s a good habit. We do it automatically.

B.   We need to form good habits and keep them.

C.  It is good to be in the habit of thanking people for the things they do for us.

D.  We need the practice of thanking God at every meal.

 

1Ti.4:4 For every creature of God is good, and nothing is to be refused if it is received with thanksgiving;

 

III.   Expressing Thanks Is Courtesy

 

A.  We expect it of others and they expect it of us.

B.   That is a valid expectation. It is etiquette. It is good manners.

C.  God expects us to be thankful. Surely He has a right to expect us to extend to Him the same courtesy we commonly extend to people.

D.  To fail to thank God would be rude and thoughtless.

E.   Thanksgiving is courtesy, but it is more than courtesy.

 

IV.  Expressing Thanks Is Part of  Worship

 

A.  It was an integral part of Old Testament worship. The Old Testament is filled with examples of personal thanksgiving

 

Psalm 100:  A Psalm of Thanksgiving.

1 Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands! 2 Serve the Lord with gladness; Come before His presence with singing. 3 Know that the Lord, He is God; It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture 4 Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, And into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name.5 For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, And His truth endures to all generations.

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B.   The New Testament is also filled with examples. We can find them in the life of Jesus, in the life of the apostle Paul, and in the life of the church.

C.  Our own contemporary worship experiences should highlight thanksgiving.       It should be in our songs, in our public prayers, in our sermons and in our meditations.

 

V.     Expressing Thanks Is Faith.

 

A.  It is believing that past blessings came from God.

 

James 1:16 Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.

 

B.   It is believing that present blessings come from God.

C.  It is believing that future blessings will come from God.

D.  Thanksgiving is faith, but it is more than faith.

 

VI.  Expressing Thanks Is an expression of Love

 

A.  Love means we never take our gifts for granted.

B.   Love means we never take the Giver for granted.

C.  Love should be expressed in words.

D.  Love should be expressed in deeds.

 

Conclusion

 

May this time of year be a reminder to thank God for all the good things that He gives us.

 

Most of all, we should give ourselves to the Lord.

 

2 Corinthians 8:5 And not only as we had hoped, but they first gave themselves to the Lord, and then to us by the will of God.

 

Have you given yourself to the Lord?

 

Scripture quotations marked "NKJV™" are taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

 

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