November 30, 2014
Morning Service

Thanksgiving-An acknowledging and confessing with gladness, the benefits and mercies, which God bestows either upon ourselves or others.

·         Thanksgiving Day was proclaimed a national holiday by Abraham Lincoln in 1863, though we all look back to the pilgrims celebration that took place in 1621.  Its true origin can be traced, however, all the way back to a feast God established for Moses and the children of Israel in the chapter 23 of Leviticus.

·         It is a good thing to set aside a day to be dedicated to counting our blessings.  However, thanksgiving and thankfulness are attitudes that we are to convey daily in our Christian lives.

Psalms 100:4-5 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.

·         We are to enter into His house with thanksgiving and praise, being grateful for the opportunity we have been given to assemble together in His Name.

·         Psalms 95 tells us to “come before His presence with Thanksgiving.”  When do we really enter into His presence?  Every morning when we awake we should begin that day with thankfulness and praise.

 

Php. 4:6-7 Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.  (7)  And the peace of God which passes all understanding shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.

·         Thanksgiving is to be part of our prayer life.  We are commanded to thankfully bring our requests before our heavenly Father.  As we pray with the right attitude, notice how He rewards us.  He replaces our anxiety and worry with peace and thankfulness.  My commentary summarized these verses by saying, “be anxious for nothing, prayerful in everything, and thankful for anything.”

·         In I Timothy that we just finished, Paul exhorted him that “first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men.”  He went on to say that this is “good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior.”

·         Prayer in itself is something to be thankful for. We should be thankful that we are even given the privilege to pray.  We have a line of communication with our Creator that is always open.

·           It is clear that in regard to our prayer life, we need thankfulness to be the prevailing attitude we display to God.

 

Col 2:6-7  Therefore as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him,  (7)  rooted and built up in Him, and established in the faith, as you have been taught, abounding in it with thanksgiving.

·         How we live our lives reflects the faith we have in Him.  Paul encourages us here that in our daily walk with the Lord we should be “rooted and built up in Him.”  Our walk is to be a progressive one, one of growth.  As our roots are established in Him and grow deeper, so should our lives show that growth by producing fruit.

·         That walk is to abound with thanksgiving.  We are to be a grateful for all God has given us and the privilege of being called His children.  This is easier when life is good.  We thank Him for our good job, our nice home, our good health and wonderful family without much trouble, but life is not always that way.

·         James tells us to “count it all joy when we fall into various trials.”  It is through these trials that God lovingly “establishes us in the faith.”  We are called to be abounding in thanksgiving, not for only one day a year, but every day, the good ones and the bad ones.  This attitude comes only by being “rooted in Him.”

·         There is no greater witness than for someone to be faced with adversity in this life, but yet continue to display the attitude of thanksgiving.  We are to approach the trials in our lives with thankfulness for the opportunity to shine for our Savior, even if that includes some form of suffering.  We need to only believe and trust God’s Word as it tells us:

 

Rom 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose.

·         That scripture in itself is enough to be thankful for.  God is in control.  He brings things and situations into our lives that will eventually lead us to fulfilling His purpose.  We are part of something bigger than ourselves.

·          We each are asked to carry whatever load He sees fit to give us.  The challenge is to carry that burden or endure that trial while maintaining an attitude of thanksgiving.  In doing this, we bring opportunities to share with others the saving faith that our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ offers to “whosoever will.”

 

With that thought, I want to begin a short list of what I am thankful for.

·         A God whose heart’s desire is for all to be saved.  I Tim. 2:3-4

·         A pastor who is faithful to his calling and preaches the Word.

·         A congregation that is thirsty for that Word.

·         A congregation that truly loves one another as family.

·         A congregation that puts faith into action and fulfills their roles in our fellowship.

·         A God who uses these actions to fulfill His purpose.

 

Lord, may our hearts be full of thanksgiving every day.