| November 25, 2001 | Thanksgiving | Phil. 4:6-7, Deut. 26:1-11 |
Somewhere along about the time when I was in high school, I decided
that God did not exist, I decided that there was no one out there.
That seemed convenient for me at the time, because if you can
convince yourself that there is no God, then it becomes easier
to live your life any way you want to. If there is no God, then
there is no judgement, and as long as you are a courteous person,
and don't hurt or injure other people, then ethics and morality
become relative. They become whatever your conscience will let
you get away with. But that's another sermon for another time.
Something that is somewhat of a problem for an atheist, is Thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving does create a few problems if you are trying to live
consistently with the notion that God does not exist. I always
liked Thanksgiving. I liked the good food, the time together with
family or friends, turning on the football game and then falling
asleep on the couch because I ate too much turkey. That was nice.
Anyway, on this particular Thanksgiving, Barbara and I had invited
some friends over for dinner, they were not Christians, but when
we sat down to eat, he asked me if I was going to give thanks.
Being the heathen that I was, I was not in the habit of giving
thanks. But it did seem the decent thing to do, after all, it
was "Thanks-giving." But then it kind of hit me. How
can you be thankful if you don't believe there is anybody out
there to thank? Why would anybody want to say grace if there is
nobody out there listening? If there is no God, saying grace is
hypocritical, ignorant, superstitious, you name it. None the less,
I was grateful. There were a lot of things in my life that I was
thankful for. I felt very disconcerted that I had no one to be
thankful to. And God began to knock a few holes in my wall of
unbelief. Six months later, He knocked that wall down, but that's
also another sermon for another time.
The point of all this is; Thanksgiving requires two persons. One
person who is good, gracious, generous, and provides for the needs
of another; and another person who recognizes what is happening,
and appreciates it.
There are two things I want us to take away from this morning's
message: what Thanksgiving can mean to us, and what Thanksgiving
can mean to God. How God blesses us, and how we can bless God.
If you have your Bibles with you today, and I hope you do, turn
to Philippians 4, verse 6. Or look on your handout.
" Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and
supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known
unto God.
Phi 4:7 And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding,
shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."
Be careful for nothing. Don't be anxious about anything. Quit
worrying and fretting about things. Worry and anxiety is the opposite
of peace. And the way that you transition from worry and anxiety
to peace is found in those few words between the start of verse
6 and the end of verse 7.
Verse 6 says not to be anxious and distressed about anything,
but in everything - everything, all of life's situations, all
the things that happen to you every day, all the bad things as
well as the good things; in everything, let your requests be made
known unto God, and He will bless you with His peace. I left out
something, didn't I? It says that in everything, by prayer and
supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests
be made known unto God, and He will bless you with His peace.
Big difference.
There is a world of difference between just letting God know what
I want or need, and thanking Him, being thankful
for every thing that is happening in my life while I tell Him
about my needs. I suggest to you that whether or not the peace
of God will keep your heart and mind through Christ Jesus depends
on whether or not you are thankful to God regardless of the circumstances
of your life.
Have you ever had an attitude like: "Oh Jesus, thank you
for dying on the cross for me, but I sure wish you'd do something
about my job; it stinks. And my parents are a pain, and my kids
are obnoxious, and my wife is driving me crazy or my husband is
a jerk, and my car stinks and my neighbors stink, and my life
stinks, but I sure am glad I'm saved." You're making real
sure that Jesus has His work cut out for Him, aren't you? God
is really gonna' have a problem giving you any peace. The problem
is not that your situation stinks, it is your stinkin' thinkin'.
God never promises to take us out of a situation, He promises to bless us right where we are, right in the middle of our situation as we thank Him.
Peace is a way of thinking. Peace is something that
we have in our hearts and minds regardless of our circumstances.
Look at the verse again: in everything, in every situation, in
every circumstance, good or bad, happy or sad, in everything,
pray, give thanks, be thankful, and tell God what you need. And
Jesus Christ will give you a peace which passes understanding.
A peace which is independent of the situation. The key to
whether or not we have that peace depends on whether or not we
are thankful in the midst of that situation. If
there is no thankfulness, there will be no peace.
Notice that it does not say we have to be thankful
for a particular situation, it says to be thankful, to have
a thankful attitude while we tell God about it, and let
Him know what we would like Him to do for us about it. There
is a big difference. If you have just had a tragedy in
your life, it does not say to be thankful for that
tragedy, it says to have thanksgiving toward God while you are
telling Him your needs and desires. And then He will fill your
heart and mind with His peace through Christ Jesus. No matter
what your present situation, if you are not thankful, if you do
not have a thankful attitude, you will not have peace.
Because God gives His peace based on your choice of whether or
not you will be thankful, not on what your situation is.
Maybe you think that what you really need in your life is a change
of situation, and then you will have a peaceful
heart and mind. Not so. What you really need is to learn to be
thankful right where you are.
If you can't be thankful now, changing your situation won't give
you a bit more peace than what you currently have, because peace
is not a function of your situation, it is a function of your
thankful attitude toward God.
"Oh God, if only I had a different husband, or a different
wife, or a different job, or a different whatever, then I would
have peace!" No you wouldn't. Unless and until you learn
thankfulness right where you are, nothing will improve. You might
have more superficial peace, but you won't have any more real
peace.
None of us wants to have any tragedies in our lives, and I hope
none of us have any, but all of us have problems. And problems
are not all bad. God allows us to have problems for our good.
If we never had any problems, we would forget how badly we need
God. Problems remind us of our dependency on God. Problems show
us how inadequate we are to meet our needs on our own.
Problems give God an opportunity to show us that He wants to meet
our needs, and that He is able to meet our needs. Every once in
a while it is good for us to come to a point of crisis, so that
God can give us a miracle. If we never had any problems, if everything
always went as smooth as silk, how many of us would still pray
as often as when we have problems? Our problems
help keep us in a good relationship to God, don't they?
When we have problems and we go to God with them, it helps to
keep our relationship with God healthy. Those of us that are parents;
if your kid never came and asked you to help sort out some problem,
you'd start to wonder if something was wrong, wouldn't you? It
is normal for a child to ask for help, right?
There's a reason for that. Our relationship with our children
should pattern our relationship with our Heavenly Father. When
our kids to come to us with their problems, it shows us that they
have faith that we can help them through it. That is how we should
approach God. Asking with thanksgiving regardless of our problems
shows faith.
We believe that God is good, that He cares for us, and that He
has our best interests at heart. He only allows things into our
lives according to His wisdom and care for us. We may not always
enjoy a particular situation, we may not always like it, but when
we thank God for His love and goodness in our life, then we acknowledge
that He really is doing things for our good, regardless of the
situation.
Something else about Thanksgiving that we notice about these verses,
look at verse 7; "And the peace of God, which passeth all
understanding"
When you quit being anxious about your situation and start to
have a thankful heart and attitude even while you are telling
God your troubles, God will give you a peace you can't even understand.
It says here that it will be a peace that passes understanding.
You won't be able to understand why you have that kind of peace.
You won't have a good explanation for it.
Something wonderful about Christianity is that it is perfectly
reasonable, it is perfectly rational. Everything about the Bible
makes sense, everything fits together, nothing contradicts anything
else, Christianity is a reasonable faith. It is rational faith
for rational people. There are parts of it that we cannot see,
there are parts of our faith that require faith, (that's why it
is called faith) but none of it is irrational. Sometimes we discover
that even though parts of it make perfect sense, they are perfectly
rational, suddenly our faith goes beyond that and becomes incomprehensible.
Beyond understanding. Not irrational, just incomprehensible. It
makes perfect sense, I just don't understand it. It makes perfect
sense, I just can't get a hold of it. It is beyond me. It's not
unbelievable, it's just more than I can explain. That's what this
verse is saying. It is a peace that passes understanding.
When you quit being anxious about the things of your life, when
you start having a thankful heart for all that God has allowed
to come into your life, something incomprehensible will happen.
You start thanking God for who He is, who you are, and the life
that He has given you, before you start telling
Him your problems, and He will put His peace into your heart and
mind. A peace that passes understanding.
You make a choice to be thankful for your life and what He has
brought into it, and He will give you a peace that passes understanding.
Don't quit telling Him your problems, don't stop telling Him about
your needs, or the needs of others, but tell Him with a thankful
heart, and see if He doesn't put a peace into your heart and mind
that will just bless you in a wonderful way.
That is how God blesses us. That is a Thanksgiving blessing for
us from God. Take it with you. Rest in it. Rejoice in it. God
wants you to have it, it is His blessing for you.
And now it's our turn. I would like for us to do something special to bless God. This is Thanksgiving weekend, I would like for us to do something special for God to show our thankfulness and appreciation to Him for His blessings to us.
Turn to Deuteronomy 26 and verse 1. When the nation of Israel
had come out of Egypt, God wanted them to have a thanksgiving
every year, the people were to publicly remember and thank God
for what He had done for them, and this is how they did it. Verse
1:
"And it shall be, when thou art come in unto the land which
the LORD thy God giveth thee for an inheritance, and possessest
it, and dwellest therein;
:2 That thou shalt take of the first of all the fruit of the earth,
which thou shalt bring of thy land that the LORD thy God giveth
thee, and shalt put it in a basket, and shalt go unto the place
which the LORD thy God shall choose to place his name there.
:3 And thou shalt go unto the priest that shall be in those days,
and say unto him, I profess this day unto the LORD thy God, that
I am come unto the country which the LORD sware unto our fathers
for to give us.
:4 And the priest shall take the basket out of thine hand, and
set it down before the altar of the LORD thy God.
:5 And thou shalt speak and say before the LORD thy God, A Syrian
ready to perish was my father, and he went down into Egypt, and
sojourned there with a few, and became there a nation, great,
mighty, and populous:
:6 And the Egyptians evil entreated us, and afflicted us, and
laid upon us hard bondage:
:7 And when we cried unto the LORD God of our fathers, the LORD
heard our voice, and looked on our affliction, and our labour,
and our oppression:
:8 And the LORD brought us forth out of Egypt with a mighty hand,
and with an outstretched arm, and with great terribleness, and
with signs, and with wonders:
:9 And he hath brought us into this place, and hath given us this
land, even a land that floweth with milk and honey.
:10 And now, behold, I have brought the firstfruits of the land,
which thou, O LORD, hast given me. And thou shalt set it before
the LORD thy God, and worship before the LORD thy God:
:11 And thou shalt rejoice in every good thing which the LORD
thy God hath given unto thee, and unto thine house, thou, and
the Levite, and the stranger that is among you."
The Israelites were to rehearse a few simple things: our situation
was bad, God intervened, God met our need, we recognize it, we
thank God for what He did, we rejoice, and we share the rejoicing
with everybody around us. A happy time.
The people brought a token of their rejoicing and put it on the
altar, as a testimony that it was the Lord that had done it for
them. A time of Thanksgiving to the Lord. Pretty neat.
On the top of the first page of your bulletins there is a space
where you can put down something that you are thankful for in
your life, and I would invite each of you to do that. After you
have finished, I would invite you to tear that page off, and come
up and share it with the congregation, and then drop it into the
offering basket up here on the altar as a testimony of Thanksgiving
to the Lord.
You don't have to be original, you don't have to be creative,
all that God asks is that you be thankful. Why don't you do that
now, and then come and share with us what you have written, so
that we can all rejoice with you? Barbara has been doing the same
thing with the children, and they will be joining us, and sharing
the things that they are thankful for.