Hebrew 10:11-25
11 And every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins. 12 But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, “he sat down at the right hand of God,” 13 and since then has been waiting “until his enemies would be made a footstool for his feet.” 14 For by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.
15 And the Holy Spirit also testifies to us, for after saying,
16 “This is the covenant that I will make with them
after those days, says the Lord:
I will put my laws in their hearts,
and I will write them on their minds,”
17 he also adds,
“I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”
18 Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.
19 Therefore, my friends, since we have confidence to enter the sanctuary by the blood of Jesus, 20 by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain (that is, through his flesh), 21 and since we have a great priest over the house of God, 22 let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. 23 Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. 24 And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
A salesman got lost in a rural area and stopped at a farm to get directions. As he was talking to the farmer he noticed a pig with a wooden leg. "How did the pig get a wooden leg?" he asked the farmer.
"Well," said the farmer, "that is a very special pig. One night not too long ago we had a fire start in the barn. Well, sir, that pig set up a great squealing that woke everyone, and by the time we got there he had herded all the other animals out of the barn and saved every one of them."
"So that’s how he hurt his leg?" asked the salesman.
"Oh no," said the farmer. "He was fine after that, though a while later I was in the woods out back and a bear attacked me. Well, sir, that pig was near by and he came running and set on that bear and chased him off. Saved me for sure."
"So the bear injured his leg then," said the salesman.
"Oh no. He came away without a scratch from that, though a few days later my tractor turned over in a ditch and I was knocked unconscious. Well, that pig dove into the ditch and pulled me out before I drowned."
"So he hurt his leg then?" asked the salesman.
"Oh no," said the farmer.
"So how did he get the wooden leg?" the salesman asked.
"Well," the farmer told him, "A pig like that, you don’t want to eat all at once."
What a thankful farmer!
There are four primary human emotions—mad, glad, fret, and sad. How many of these emotions are positive? Mad—negative, glad—positive, fret—negative, sad—negative. So out of four primary human emotions, only one is positive. Positive emotion keeps us healthy and negative emotion makes us sick.
God wants us to be happy all the time. The Bible says, “Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” (1 Thess. 5:16-18)
This verse gives us two secrets to joy (or to have the positive emotion—gladness). It says, pray without ceasing, and give thanks in all circumstances. And it says, it is “the will of God.” How many of you want to do the will of God? Then, this is the will of God: God wants you to be joyful all the time. Two things can keep you joyful all the time—pray without ceasing, and give thanks in all circumstances.
This is the Thanksgiving week, so I will focus on the part of God’s will that requires you to give thanks in all circumstances.
The lectionary reading today gives us the reason to live a thankful life. Even though it didn’t use the word thanksgiving, it tells us the reason to be thankful because our sins are forgiven, once and for all, through Jesus Christ, and he has opened a new and life-giving path to journey on.
Every human being, from all cultures lives with some kind of guilt because as human beings we all mess up every now and then. Every culture has a way to unload the guilt; some use a more civilized way and others more radical way.
There is a tribal group in Burma that used to be known as headhunters. They used to go about according to the seasons, to hunt for human heads and offered them to the gods to clear their sins. When the missionaries came they told them that they don’t need to sacrifice human heads anymore because Jesus Christ, who is God himself, has sacrifice for them once for all.
At first they seem to understand the gospel and stop killing human beings. There are similar tribal groups all over the world, and there is a story about this particular tribe that became Christian and stopped hunting for heads for several years. But one year, there was a drought in the region and people began to regress, saying that there was a drought because they haven’t sacrifice human heads for a long time. They asked their highly respected missionary to permit them to sacrifice a human head so that it will rain again.
The missionary told them no. But the villagers insisted and eventually ask the missionary to leave their village. Since he couldn’t persuade them not to hunt for human head, the missionary said, “I will let you do it only once. This is the condition: you must not hunt for any human during the day because it will scare the victim. You must hunt at night. I have heard that there will be a stranger headed this direction tonight.” They agreed. And that night they waited on the path where the missionary told them that a stranger would come, and they caught a man in the dark and beheaded him.
When they took the head to the light, they found out that it was the head of the missionary. Then the whole village broke down realizing that the missionary had sacrificed himself to make them stop killing. From then on they fully understand the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and stop beheading for good.
I had a school mate when I was at the San Francisco Theological Seminary that came from such a tribe, called Lushai, or Mizo. He came to study for his doctoral degree to go back and to be a professor at their tribal seminary. He told people that, “We used to be known as headhunters, but today we are known as soul hunters. We live a live of thanksgiving to the missionaries that brought the gospel and, most importantly, the once-and-for-all sacrifice of Jesus Christ.” The headhunter tribe has become a thanksgiving tribe.
American’s are a thanksgiving tribe too. Three years after the Pilgrims settled in America, the governor William Bradford, made this announcement:
TO ALL YE PILGRIMS
Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as He has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience; now, I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November ye 29th of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three, and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor, and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings.
William Bradford
Ye Governor of ye Colony
As Christians, we need to notice from the scriptures that God wants us to give thanks all the time, not just during the Thanksgiving Day once a year. Christians are a thanksgiving tribe. Thanksgiving should be our lifestyle. The joyful emotion is our lifestyle. But some of us sometimes lost the heart of thanksgiving and joyfulness, like he elder brother of the Prodigal Son. How do we keep our heart full of thanksgiving and joy?
From today’s scripture, we can draw three secrets of living a joyful life.
1. Clear Your Guilt For Good.
Everyone of us has a conscience, and it tells us that we all have messed up in life to some degree. Consciously or unconsciously, we live with guilt, and we try to clear our guilt in many ways. Of course none of us would hunt for human heads to sacrifice to the gods to clear our guilt, but as civilized people we still sacrifice something in a civilized way to clear our conscience. Some people try to do good deeds to redeem themselves from the guilt, some people donate money to charity to accumulate good karma, some people spend part of their week doing some religious meditations to purify themselves, and some people sacrifice their time to go to church to wash their conscience clean. When you search your heart, have you been doing something like that as a sacrifice to clear your guilt?
But the scripture we read today says that none of these sacrifices can take away our sins. It says in verse 11, “And every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins.” And it continues to say, “But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins… by a single offering he has perfected for all time those who are sanctified.
The Holy Spirit says, “I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.”
Then, again it says, “Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.” There is no longer any offering for sin is needed. If you find yourself doing certain things in your life out of guilt, you need to accept the forgiveness through Jesus Christ and stop feeling guilty because guilt is a killjoy. Guilt makes you not able to be thankful, and as a result you can’t be joyful if you have guilt.
The scripture says, “Let us approach with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.” Which means our hearts and body are cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ. You should no longer feel guilty.
Even if you don’t believe anything else about Christianity, you should still become a Christian simply for the benefit of being able to live a life with clear conscience because Jesus declares you not guilty.
2. Confess your hope
We often think, confession means, telling God the crimes we have committed. But Christian confession is a confession of hope. Verse 23, says, “Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering,” Why do we have hope? The rest of the verse says, “for he who has promised is faithful.”
Your hope depends on who promised that hope. Do you have hope in George Bush, who promised to stay to course until we win? Three and a half years of war is getting really long, but is there any hope that the war will end soon?
Do you have hope in your husband or wife? They promised to be with you to the end of life for better or for worse. With the divorce rate of 50%. One out of every two marriage ended up in divorce. How much hope you have in your spouse? Of course we have at least 50% of hope.
But the Bible says our hope depends on the person who makes the promise. It says all the promises of God are reliable because he is faithful.
Folks confess your hope in the one that is faithful. A hopeful person is a thankful person. We give thanks to God’s faithfulness that will definitely fulfill his promises.
3. Build a habit of meeting with fellow Christians
In other words, join a small group. Your thanksgiving fire can cool down without a group of people provoking and encouraging one another. Look at these two last verses.
24 And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, 25 not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching.
These two verses can serve as a recipe for small groups. What should the small groups do?
1) provoke one another to love
2) provoke one another to good deeds
3) encourage one another
v.20 says, “By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way.” The word “way” in Greek is ‘hodos,” meaning a way of life, or a path, or a journey. Christianity a journey on this “new and life-giving” path, a path that is full of joy and thanksgiving, and a path that allows you to journey with clear conscience, with hope, and with a group of encouraging people.
So, this Thanksgiving, make a commitment to become a person that lives a thanksgiving and joyful life every moment of your life, by clearing your guilt, confessing the hope, and build a habit of meeting with people on the journey.
May God bless you and have a very happy Thanksgiving!
