Sermon for Sunday November 19th, 2006

FOR HIS ABUNDANCE, WE OFFER THANKSGIVING by Bruce Ball

1 Thessalonians 5:18-5:18



We come together in the house of the Lord this morning to offer praise to our God. But to praise Him properly, we must be willing to sacrifice something very near and dear to us. What would that be? I think the one thing that would be a proper sacrifice for Him this morning, is if we would sacrifice our need for independence and to be in charge of ourselves. When we give up that, we are humbling our hearts, and when we have a humbled heart, God is then able to work miracles in and around us, for His glory.

Since Thanksgiving Day is just a few days away, I would like to concentrate on giving thanks this morning. Have you ever taken the time to ponder over what giving thanks really means, or how we should do it?

You have heard me quote 1 THESSALONIANS 5:17 often in my sermons. And by now, I hope all of you know that it says, “... pray continually.” But today, I want to read to you the very next verse.

1 THESSALONIANS 5:18, says,
“... give thanks in all circumstances.”

In PSALM 35:28, it goes on to say,
“My tongue will speak of your righteousness and of your praises all day long.”

Let’s be honest. None of us pray all the time and most of us don’t give thanks in all circumstances for those things God has given us. And I would even go so far as to say that most of us do not praise God all day long, either.

Let’s review the sequence of what happens when God delivers blessings to us.


1. GOD GIVES LOVINGLY

How thankful do you think you would have been if you were among the first pilgrims? There were three boatloads that came over from England to make a home in this new country. On the voyage over, the wind blew them off course and instead of landing in Virginia, they landed in Massachusetts. And they landed just before the onset of winter.

When winter came, it came with a fury, and within a month, half of them were sick. They had the crudest of shelters and very little in the way of supplies. Over half of them died that first winter, sometimes at the rate of two and three a day!

Come springtime, those that were left had next to no supplies left. Thankfully, the Indians showed them how to plant and raise corn. Their first harvest was barely enough to keep everyone fed. The sponsors of their trip refused to send any more supplies and I can imagine that, being human, many of them probably wanted to go back to England.

I guess it is human nature to choose to go back into bad situations rather than go forth into an unknown situations. After all, the Israelites did the same thing. Just a matter of weeks after being delivered out of bondage and they were complaining and saying they should just go back to Egypt.

What did the pilgrims have to be thankful for? Well, for starters, they had their lives, and because the Indians showed them how to plant and harvest corn, they had enough supplies to get through the second winter. But how was their Thanksgiving different than our day of Thanksgiving?

The pilgrims prayed as if their lives depended on it, we don’t. The pilgrims knew that every thing they had was a direct blessing from our Lord; sometimes we forget that. The pilgrims yearned to give thanks for all they had, most often we don’t.

Thanksgiving Day is this coming Thursday, and I thought it appropriate to have a message that reminds us what thanksgiving is really about. When the word ‘thanksgiving’ is mentioned, what do we think of? We think of food, don’t we? I believe we should be thinking, not of food, but of the fact that God has given us that food. I think we should instantly be reminded of how much thanks we owe God for the abundance we take for granted.

I want you to think of some of the blessings that God has given you in your lifetime.

First of all, God has given you physical life. No matter how rough you road has been that you have traveled on, it must not have been too bad, because you are here today and you have a home, food, and transportation. What else has He blessed you with? He has blessed you with reasonably good health, with intelligence, and other emotional gifts.

But there is something else He has given you. He has given you spiritual gifts, too. He has given you the wisdom to seek Jesus in your life, and He has given you the love for others that you invite others to come worship with you.

The list in both these categories could go on and on, but I want to concentrate on just one blessing for a moment; a blessing that surpasses all the rest in importance to us. God, in His great love for you, gave up His Son so that you might choose to be reconciled back to God.

There was a judge whose daughter had received a speeding ticket. He told her that he would have to treat her like any other defendant when it came to her appearance in court, and that he would have to show her the same justice he would show anyone else.

The day came when she appeared. He watched her walk down the aisle and stand in front of him, looking up at him. He asked, “How do you plead?”, and she hung her head and started to weep. Knowing she had to enter a plea, he asked her again. Through her tears, she said, “Guilty” and began to sob.

The judge banged his gavel and said he fined her $100.00. And then he stood, took his robe off, and walked down to his daughter, putting his arm around her and holding her. With tears in his own eyes, he reached for his wallet and took out $100.00 and paid her fine in full.

We can all relate to a story like this that shows the love a father has for his children, can’t we? And that is a perfect illustration of what our Father in heaven has done for us. God is a righteous and holy God. And he is a just God. He wrote the rules before He made you and I, and like the judge had to treat his daughter the same as everyone else in court, God has to treat each of us the same, too. All of us have been given the same chance to follow His rules, and to gain entry into His house, we must follow His rules.

So, what has God done for us? For those of us who try to follow the rules, God has paid our fines in full. That is the one blessing that God has given us which is greater than all other blessings combined.


2. WE RECEIVE SELFISHLY

The grocer saw the mother and the little boy and knew they came in together to buy groceries every week. Wanting to keep his good customers happy, he went to them and offered the boy an orange. The boy looked at the man, and the mother said, “Now, Johnny, what do you say to the man?”

Little Johnny handed him the orange back and said, “Peel it first.”

Sometimes, we get so focused on what we want, we don’t think about giving thanks. And, sometimes, we think so hard about what we want from God, we forget to ask God what He wants from us.

In areas of Mexico, there are hot springs and cold springs right beside each other. The local women often bring their laundry and wash them in the hot springs and rinse them in the cold springs. But instead of being thankful that God has given them this natural and free Laundromat, they gripe because there is no soap!

A young man was getting ready to graduate from college, and he was sure that his wealthy father was going to buy him a car for graduation, because they had gone and looked at cars together.

Come the night of graduation, the father calls the son into his study. He tells his son how proud he is of him and hands him a nicely wrapped gift. The boy unwraps it to find a Bible. He asked his father why he gave him a Bible, and the father said it was his graduation present.

The young man became furious and said, “With all your money, all you could buy me was this Bible?” And he threw the Bible back on his father’s desk and stormed out of the house, never to come back again.

Years passed and the young man became quite successful. One day he received word that his father had passed away and he needed to come home. He caught the first plane out, and when he got home he realized just how long it had been since he saw his father. As he began to look around, he went into his father’s study, just to find the Bible, still half-wrapped sitting on the desk where he had thrown it.

He picked it up and started softly thumbing through it, when a key dropped from the back of the Bible. He picked it up and saw a card still in the Bible. He opened the card and read what his father had written”

“Congratulations on your graduation, Son. Here is a Bible and the key to your new car you picked out. The car is to get you to where you are going, and the Bible is to keep you on the right road while you are traveling there. Love, Dad”

In the card was a receipt for a the car. It said, “Paid in full.”

How many times have we not received blessings from our Heavenly Father because they weren’t wrapped like we think they should have been? How many times have we been so focused on what we want that we didn’t recognize the blessing God wanted us to have?

Years ago, I heard a preacher say that God is so much smarter than we are, and that when we have decisions that must be made, we should rely on His judgment, not our judgment. I think that makes perfect sense, but like all humans; I also struggle with the ability to do that. When a decision comes up, the first thing I think of is what I want, not what God wants for me. Why do you suppose we do that?

In 1 SAMUEL, it talks about our pride and arrogance. We view ourselves as the center of our lives, but that keeps God from being the center of our lives. We rely on ourselves, thinking we have what it takes to get us through, but we should be relying on God because only He has what it takes to get us through.

In EXODUS 34:9, there is a description that fits most of us today. That description is not flattering, but it is true. It is “stiff-necked.” We are stiff-necked people, whether we are willing to admit it or not. We are just like the ancient Israelites.

Moses is worshiping God, and he asks God to go with and forgive the “stiff-necked” Israelites. What was their problem? They couldn’t seem to rely on God and focus on Him in their lives. And God made a promise to Moses saying that the Israelites would see wonders never seen before in any nation. He said if they would obey His commands, He would drive out their enemies from in front of them.

And God is telling us the same thing today. If we will but turn from our wicked ways, and rely on Him, He will do wonders for us as has never been seen before in the world. But we need to receive His blessings in humility and love, and not throw them down as the young man who graduated college did his Bible.

There were four young men who went into a pizza place after work. There was a sign that said the pizza would be ready in 20 minutes or it was free. One of the men brought out a stopwatch and began counting as soon as the waitress took their order. They all watched with eager anticipation, and when it got down to a minute left, they yelled at her to hurry, as time was running out.

When it got down to the seconds, they all counted down in unison, “3-2-1.” Barely ten seconds late, they scolded her and demanded it was free. Have we ever treated the God of Creation like some waitress at a pizza place? That attitude is why Moses called his people “stiff-necked.” And it is that attitude that kept getting the Israelites into trouble with God.

How many times do we tell God what we want and then start counting down to see if we get it when we want it? Have you ever asked God for something and then got upset that He didn’t answer the way you wanted Him to? God will answer prayers in one of three ways. He will say:

NO. It is not in your best interest that God grants you that request. Or, He will say,
SLOW. You will receive it, but it will be slow in coming and use it carefully. And
GO. Here it is, now use it as best you can to glorify Him.


3. LET’S GET IT RIGHT

On Thursday, kitchens in America will be used more than at any other time of year. And as we focus on kitchens, I want to share with you a list of signs that have been spotted hanging in kitchens.

If you don’t like my cooking, lower your standards

This is a self-cleaning kitchen. You use it; you clean it yourself

We offer 2 choices for dinner; take it or leave it

Don’t criticize my coffee; you will be weak someday, too

And finally: My next house won’t have a kitchen – just vending machines

Most of us could find one or two of these signs to hang in our kitchens, too.

A radio station in Ohio asked people to call in and tell what they were thankful for. The callers ranged from an 8-year old boy who said he was thankful for Thanksgiving because it meant he didn’t have to go to school, to a grown man who said he was most thankful that his family ate at his parents’ home and he didn’t have to eat his wife’s cooking.

As we give thanks for the abundance of food we have received, let us also remember who we are and why we need our Lord.

ROMANS 3:11 tells us – “there is no one righteous – not even one.” According to that, every last one of us is a sinner. Why are we sinners? We are classified as sinners because we focus on ourselves instead of focusing on God. And that is rebelliousness.

The Bible tells us that sinners will have a price to pay. What is the price for our sin? It is our very spiritual life. ROMANS 6:23 begins by saying, “For the wages of sin is death ….” That means that if we sin (and we all have) we deserve to die (which we all do).

If we die, that means our souls are going to be in hell forever. No matter how bad you can think hell will be, it will be millions of times worse than what you can imagine. There are no words to accurately describe hell. And those who think about it make a choice not to go to hell. But the only way not to go to hell is by going to heaven instead. But how do we get to heaven?

The last part of ROMANS 6:23 tells us. It says, “The gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus, our Lord.” What does that last part mean? It means that God has given us one way, and only one way, to escape the torment of hell. That One way is through Jesus as our Christ.

We all have different reasons to be thankful, but more than any other reason, I think all of us should give thanks for the things Jesus did for us.

Thank you, Jesus, for your act of self-sacrifice. You sacrificed your royal place in Heaven so that you might come to us as man; and we worship You for that.

Thank you, Jesus, for making yourself our servant for our sakes. For showing us how to care for one another until You come back.

Thank you, Jesus, for giving your very life on Calvary, so that we might live with You throughout all eternity.

As we celebrate another Thanksgiving Day, let us look upon all the blessings God has given us, and as we do, let us realize that it is in the abundance of those blessings that we see the abundance of His love.