Psalm 105:1-3
O Give Thanks unto the LORD
Our country was founded on many concepts that are either being downplayed or
forgotten all together.
1. There is the concept of HARD WORK. I have talked to several employers who
have told me the same thing. "People want to get paid a lot of money, but
they don’t want to work." Perhaps that is a generic statement, but I have
heard it from enough Christian businessmen to believe there is something
to it.
2. The concept of PAY YOUR OWN WAY. Charity, or "financial aid" as it is called
today, is and always has been an important aspect of this country’s
character; however, in our past, it was considered a temporary means of
helping to get someone "back up on their feet." Today’s attitude is
"You owe me."
3. The concept of THANKSGIVING. The very first holiday Americans celebrated
was Thanksgiving. The history of the Thanksgiving holiday demonstrates
something about what America WAS like.
In the winter of 1620, the Pilgrims landed in the area which today is called
Plymouth, Massachusetts. The winter was harsh and the settlers were unprepared
for the weather. Many died. When spring came, the colony began planting their
first crops. That fall, with help from their Indian neighbors, they gathered in
their first harvest.
With a spirit of excitement, the Pilgrims invited the Indians, who had helped
them, to join in a three-day feast to celebrate God’s faithfulness. The meal
consisted of wild turkey, venison and vegetables. This was the first
thanksgiving feast and it took place in 1621.
Two years later, in 1623, Governor William Bradford, of the Plymouth Colonies,
made the proclamation:
"Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest…
I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all you Pilgrims, with your wives and
your little ones, do gather at the meeting house, on the hill, between the
hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November 29th, of the year of
our Lord, one-thousand, six-hundred, and twenty-three, and the third year since
you Pilgrims landed on Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to your pastor and render
thanksgiving to Almighty God for all His blessings."
Today, Thanksgiving is touted as a day for families, for ballgames, and to kick
off for Christmas shopping. The notion of giving God thanks for God’s blessings
is only mentioned by a few and most of them are in church. Our history is being
rewritten and the holiday redacted to remove any reference to the God we are
supposed to thank.
I read the following story a few years ago:
A fourth grader was assigned to write the history of Thanksgiving for a school
report but the class was also cautioned about making their report a religious
speech. So the child summarized his report as follows:
"The pilgrims came here seeking freedom of, you know what.
When they landed, they gave thanks, to you know who.
Because of them, we can worship each Sunday, you know where."
For our country, Thanksgiving has always been more than a day to thank "you
know who" for "you know what." It has been a day to thank the Lord God Almighty
for the many blessings He has given this great country.
George Washington’s 1789 Thanksgiving Proclamation
"I do recommend and assign Thursday, the 26th day of November next, to be devoted
by the people of these States to the service of that great and glorious Being who
is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be; that
we may then all unite in rendering unto Him our sincere and humble thanks for His
kind care and protection of the people of this country…
Lincoln’s Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1863
"It has seemed to me fit and proper that (God’s gifts) should be solemnly,
reverently, and gratefully acknowledged with one heart and one voice by the
whole American people. I do, therefore, invite my fellow citizens…to set apart
and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and
praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens."
While the giving of thanks to the Almighty God may no longer mean much to the
majority of Americans, it still means something to God. God has always encouraged
us to thank Him.
This morning, let’s remind ourselves of the importance of Thanksgiving.
I. Giving thanks to God is a choice.
A. Let me read the verses where God gives the Thanksgiving Offering to
the Jews.
Lev 7:12 If he offer it for a thanksgiving, then he shall offer with the
sacrifice of thanksgiving unleavened cakes mingled with oil, and unleavened wafers
anointed with oil, and cakes mingled with oil, of fine flour, fried.
13 Besides the cakes, he shall offer for his offering leavened bread with the
sacrifice of thanksgiving of his peace offerings.
1. Notice the first word of this passage, IF.
2. God never says you must give thanks to Him. He says, IF YOU WANT
TO GIVE THANKS TO HIM.
B. That choice is echoed in other passages.
Leviticus 22:29 AND WHEN YE WILL offer a sacrifice of thanksgiving unto the
LORD, offer it at your own will.
1. In fact, every sacrifice is given as an option.
Lev 1:1 And the LORD called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle
of the congregation, saying,
2 Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, IF ANY MAN OF YOU BRING
AN OFFERING UNTO THE LORD, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of
the herd, and of the flock.
2. No offering, given to the Lord, was to be a forced offering.
3. Even to this day, God would not force anyone, anywhere to thank
Him.
C. However, it is God’s desire that we give thanks to Him.
1. \\#Luke 17:11-14\\ Ten men who were lepers were healed of their
disease by Jesus. The story ends this way:
Luke 17:15 And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and
with a loud voice glorified God,
16 And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a
Samaritan.
17 And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the
nine?
18 There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.
2. The silence that story ends with is deafening.
a. There were ten men healed, yet only one returned to thank God.
b. I am certain that every man had his own reason for not
returning to give thanks.
(1) Each man, no doubt, had a family he had not been with in
years.
(2) I’m certain that they were all so happy and filled with
wonder, that they probably were not thinking clearly.
(3) I imagine each was anxious to get on with their lives.
c. However, instead of there being a single voice of praise that
afternoon, there should have been a chorus.
3. A man named Doug Henry wrote his own explanation of why the
other nine did not return to thank Jesus.
How the Nine Justified Their Ungrateful Heart
The first one waited to see if the healing was real.
The second one waited to see if it would last.
The third said he would go to thank Jesus later.
The fourth decided that he must have never had leprosy.
The fifth said he would have gotten well anyway.
The sixth one gave the glory to the priests.
The seventh one reasoned that Jesus didn’t do anything anyway.
The eighth one proclaimed that any Rabbi could have done it.
The ninth one said, “I was already much improved.”
D. While God gives us a choice to thank Him or not, it is my belief that
those who choose to thank God, will have more things to be thankful
for than those who do not.
1. \\#2Chro 20:1-17\\ The Moabites, the Ammonites, and others came
against Jehoshaphat, the king of Judah. As the people sought
the Lord for guidance, God gave them some unusual instructions.
2Chron 20:16 To morrow go ye down against them: behold, they come up by the
cliff of Ziz; and ye shall find them at the end of the brook, before the
wilderness of Jeruel.
17 Ye shall not need to fight in this battle: set yourselves, stand ye still,
and see the salvation of the LORD with you, O Judah and Jerusalem: fear not, nor
be dismayed; to morrow go out against them: for the LORD will be with you.
2. In essence, God said, "You will not need to fight. Just show up
and watch."
3. \\#2Chron 20:20-21\\ says that has the people marched to the
place where the Lord told them to go, they began to sing praises
to God.
2Chron 20:22 And when they began to sing and to praise, the LORD set
ambushments against the children of Ammon, Moab, and mount Seir, which were
come against Judah; and they were smitten.
II. Giving thanks to God is a sacrifice.
A. God created a physical sacrifice in the Old Testament called a
Thanksgiving Offering. Our thanksgiving today is no less a
sacrificial offering to God.
B. Two things about a sacrifice.
1. A sacrifice costs you something.
a. The very word used implies something costly is being given,
SACRIFICE.
b. Does it cost us something to thank God? Yes it does.
(1) It costs us some of our time.
(2) It costs us some of our attention.
(3) It costs us some our pride.
c. It is this last reason that so many refuse to thank God.
(1) For a human to thank God demonstrates the relationship
between man and God, a relationship that carnal man
does not like to acknowledge.
(2) When we thank God, we are demonstrating that God is the
Giver and we are the receivers.
(a) Does God thank us?
(b) No. Why? Because we have nothing to give Him.
(c) Should we thank God?
(d) Yes. Why? Because we would have nothing except
God gave it to us.
James 1:17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh
down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of
turning.
(3) It grates against man’s pride to acknowledge that we can
not provide for ourselves, that we are dependent upon
the God of Heaven for our existence.
(4) BUT WE ARE! We are dependent upon God for life, strength,
ability, reason, and breathe.
(5) Man likes to think of himself has a man-made success.
(6) I remember watching a 1965 movie, entitled Shenandoah.
One of the main characters in the movie is a farmer
whose deceased wife insisted that he say grace before
each meal. So before every meal he prayed this prayer:
“Lord, we cleared this land. We plowed it, sowed it, and harvest it. We cook the
harvest. It wouldn’t be here and we wouldn’t be eating it if we hadn’t done it
all ourselves. We worked dog-bone hard for every crumb and morsel, but we thank
You, Lord, just the same for the food we’re about to eat. Amen"
(http://bionicatheist.wordpress.com/2008/07/17/jimmy-stewart-in-shenandoah/)
(7) What that carnal character did not realize was that was
God’s ground he was plowing and
God’s seed he was planting and
God’s water he was using to water the ground and
God’s sunshine he was using to grow the seed and
God’s nutrients that were feeding his crops and
God’s air he was breathing and it was all by
God’s grace that he was alive to do any of it.
(8) Yes, man must sacrifice his pride to give thanks to God.
2. Sacrifice is an act of worship.
a. Jews and Christians are not the only ones to offer sacrifices
to a deity.
(1) Heathens offer their sacrifices too.
(2) In all cases, to offer a sacrifice is an act of worship.
b. To worship God is to show another relationship which man does
not like to acknowledge today.
(1) It is the relationship of Master and servant.
(2) When we worship, we are acknowledging ourselves as the
servants and God as our Master.
c. That fact is another reason the giving of thanks to God is
deemed as contemptible today.
(1) To thank God is to acknowledge that God is the Lord; it
is to say that He is in charge, and we are His
possessions.
(2) To avoid doing just that, man refuses to give God thanks.
d. The catch is that whether you acknowledge it or not, God is
Master and we are His servants.
III. Giving thanks to God is a command.
A. It might seem a little contradictory that I first said that giving
thanks is a choice and then said that giving thanks is a command.
1. However it is.
2. When God gave us a freewill, He gave us a choice to obey His
commands or not, but that does not change the fact that God
has commanded us to do certain things, among them to give Him
thanks.
B. There are many verses where we are commanded to give God thanks.
Psalm 50:14 Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High:
Psalms 147:1 Praise ye the LORD: for it is good to sing praises unto our God; for
it is pleasant; and praise is comely.
1Chron 16:8 Give thanks unto the LORD, call upon his name, make known his deeds
among the people.
C. These commands are not just in the Old Testament.
Colossians 3:17 And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the
Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.
1 Thessalonians 5:18 In every thing give thanks: for this is the will of God in
Christ Jesus concerning you.
Philippians 4:6 Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and
supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God.
D. These commands make it clear.
1. As good Americans, we ought to celebrate Thanksgiving.
2. But as good Christians, we ought to give thanks to God everyday
for the many blessings that He has bestowed upon us.
I want to close by reading something that I wrote. It’s in an answer to a
question that I don’t have the time to discuss in detail this morning, but was
too important not to mention at all.
The question is: Why should I be thankful?
Everyone here can thank God for their heritage.
You have been given life, liberty, freedom, and the privilege to be an
American.
You have the opportunity to worship, to be saved, to be lost, to own a Bible,
to listen to this message, or to get up and walk out if you do desire.
You can be thankful for the education you have received, the fact that you
can read and write, work whatever job you can train yourself to work, that
you have a forty hour work week with time and one-half for every hour over
that you work.
You can live wherever you desire, marry whomever you wish, have as many or
as few children as you want, and raise your children in whatever manner you
deem appropriate.
You have the right to protect yourself, determine your country’s form of
government, elect your officials, run for office yourself if you so
choose.
You have access to a judicial system, an appeal system, a political system.
You are entitled to protection from all crime, including any abuse, fraud,
and thief.
If all of this were not enough, it is just the tip of a large iceberg and this
is just the heritage you have been given and probably take for granted. To
this we can add other reasons.
Everyone here can thank God for at least some blessings.
A full stomach, a job, and luxuries that would make the richest king of the
last century green with envy. Perhaps you own your own home, perhaps you
rent, but either way it is built secure and sound. It is your own private
living quarters, and you leave it everyday with the assumption that your
worldly possessions, which themselves are blessings, will be secured until
you return. You probably have an automobile that has heat, cooling, a radio,
and a music player of some kind. You probably have more clothes than you
could wear in a week and more shoes than you would care to count.
Most have good health. Most are free from perpetual pain, most can stand on
their own two feet and walk unassisted. If you cannot now, you probably
could at one time. Most have strong enough arms to do what you need to do,
and sound enough minds to reason with. If you do not have all of these
things you probably have doctors who help you, medicines that make your
life more tolerable, and family members or friends who help you. And if
even all of this is missing, you can have hope in eternity of having a
body with no pain, no weakness, and no short comings.
And again, if all of this were not enough, it is nothing compared to all the
blessings that you do have and have not considered.
In addition, everyone here could thank God for their spiritual blessings.
Whether you have accepted salvation or not, it has been provided for you.
God came in the flesh to die in your place. He taught us about Himself,
about ourselves, about sin, and about freedom from it. Jesus supplied us
us with the Manual of Life. He gives teaching—with illustrations—on
finances, child rearing, marriage, success, peace, happiness, ethics, and
over coming.
No matter what you have done, your past can be forgiven and your future is
as bright as the promises of God. The remainder of this life is yours;
the Bible is yours; the Holy Ghost is yours; the church is yours; a ministry
can be yours; and eternity is yours.
All of this means you have hope. Hope in this life and hope in the next. Of
all the many blessings God has given you, perhaps that hope is the greatest.
We ask, "Why should we thank our God?’ No, the question should be, "How can we
not thank Him?" How many blessings do we have? How many privileges? How many
opportunities? How many second chances have we had? How many more will He give
us?
Every person has problems. Everyone can look at those problems and glorify them
until they are consumed by them. But the truth is that life is a wonderful gift
and no matter what you have, what you never had, or what was lost to you,
no matter what you took advantage of or what you have wasted away,
no matter what was done to you or what you did to others,
every day is new and filled with the mercies and blessings of God!
You can make whatever you want to with whatever of your life remains.
We ought indeed to give thanks to God!
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