A Thanksgiving Day Message From Paul

Introduction: Thanksgiving Day is only two days away as I write this in November 2024! Many have written about the first Thanksgiving Day, in 1620’s colonial Massachusetts and there is much supplemental material. The important thing is that those early Pilgrims knew they could not possibly have survived that New England winter apart from God’s help. For that matter, none of us could survive much of anything without our Lord!

And of course, the Bible has much to say about being thankful. Here’s a message based on a sermon I’ve delivered at a few different churches over the years. Certainly Paul had a lot to be thankful for and he expressed this sentiment in his letter to the Philippians.

1 Paul was thankful for what the Lord had done in the past.

Text: Philippians 1:1-6, KJV: 1 Paul and Timotheus, the servants of Jesus Christ, to all the saints in Christ Jesus which are at Philippi, with the bishops and deacons: 2 Grace be unto you, and peace, from God our Father, and from the Lord Jesus Christ. 3 I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, 4 Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy, 5 For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now; 6 Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ:

Acts 16 has the story how Paul, Luke, and some others came to Philippi after seeing a vision of the man from Macedonia. A few comments about Philippi are in order: first, as Luke recorded, this city was a “colony”. In this context, Philippi was more or less a home for retired Roman Army veterans. The residents spoke Latin as well as Greek, plus considered themselves Romans as mentioned later in the chapter.

By the way, the typical Roman soldier enlisted for 20 years (!) and was sometimes paid in salt (“salary” or salt money)! As I understand it, once that 20-year enlistment was over, the soldier was given a pension, Roman citizenship (seldom conferred automatically) and the opportunity to reside in a Roman colony or “little Rome”. Philippi was one of these places.

But to return to the original thought. One wonders if Paul and the other believers in that party ever met that person, but one thing for sure: they found some interested women who listened to what they had to say. One of these women was Lydia who persuaded the men to stay in her household for a season (Acts 16:1-15).

The rest of Acts 16 records how Paul and Silas (at the least) were arrested and thrown into a prison after casting a demon out of a slave-girl. Those who punished them didn’t count on God, though, and certainly not an earthquake! The jailer, afraid for his life, then cried out, like many others through the years, “What must I do to be saved?” This man, and his household, believed and were baptized! These folks might well have been the original “charter members” of the First Church of Philippi!

Sure, Paul might well have been thankful for the people won for Christ at Philippi and the new friends he had made there. The whole letter to these saints has that theme or undercurrent, as some might say, of joy and thankfulness. But under the surface, Paul knew there was much more to be thankful for.

He knew, first, that he had been one of the most zealous persecutors of believers when he was still known as Saul of Tarsus. His testimonies in Acts 22 and 26 demonstrate how grateful he was that our Lord reached down to him and chose him to be a preacher of the grace of God! I doubt he ever (could?) completely forget his past, but certainly he knew there was a moment when he met Jesus—and as a result, he, Saul—now Paul—was changed forever!

And besides, Paul knew, that even if he was in jail, the church at Philippi would continue.

2 Paul was thankful for what the Lord was doing at the present time

Several years had come and gone since Paul’s visit to Philippi and when he wrote this letter. When Paul left Philippi, there were really only a handful of new believers including Lydia and those of her household who believed (if any), and the jailer plus those of his household. That wasn’t very many, admittedly, but in God’s eyes, that was enough.

Isn’t it amazing that the Lord does great things with small things? I mean, at best there were maybe a dozen new believers that we can account for, sort of, but they didn’t retreat into a comfort zone or anything like that. No, they did what they could (and only the Lord knows how much from how many) and by the time of the letter, the church at Philippi had grown in terms of size and other things too! There were at least a few people whom Paul addressed by name, and, the church had grown large enough to ordain deacons and bishops (overseers).