Community Thanksgiving Sermon – Thanksgiving is an act of Faith
Story to open
If you had been a Pilgrim, would you have given thanks?
Consider what they had been through, the men and women who broke bread together on that first Thanksgiving in 1621. They had uprooted themselves and sailed for America, an endeavor so hazardous that published guides advised travelers to the New World, "First, make thy will." The crossing was very rough and the Mayflower was blown off course. Instead of reaching Virginia, where Englishmen had settled 13 years earlier, the Pilgrims ended up in the wilds of Massachusetts. By the time they found a place to make their new home - Plymouth, they called it - winter had set in. The storms were frightful. Shelter was rudimentary. There was little food. Within weeks, nearly all the settlers were sick.
"That which was most sad and lamentable," Governor William Bradford later recalled, "was that in two or three months’ time, half of their company died, especially in January and February, being the depth of winter, and wanting houses and other comforts; being infected with the scurvy and other diseases.... There died sometimes two or three of a day."
When spring came, Indians showed them how to plant corn, but their first crops were dismal. Supplies ran out, but their sponsors in London refused to send more. The first time the Pilgrims sent a shipment of goods to England, it was stolen by pirates.
If you had been there in 1621 - if you had seen half your friends die, if you had suffered through famine, malnutrition, and sickness, if you had endured a year of heartbreak and tragedy - would you have felt grateful?
But feelings and faith are not the same.
As I read through my bible, especially in the Old Testament, I found something unusual. It was a “Thanksgiving Offering.” Prescribed as an optional offering, one would offer an animal along with some of the fruit of the harvest as an act of Thanksgiving to God. It was not a required offering. It was totally at the discretion and free will of the worshipper.
David said in Psalm 107:21-22 "Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men! Let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare His works with rejoicing."
This is where it gets interesting…at least to me.
Nowhere in the Old Testament is a word translated grateful or gratitude. But over 114 uses are found for the word Thanksgiving.
So I looked at the Hebrew for the word “thanksgiving” and found something very surprising.
The word actually has a dual meaning: “to give thanks” and “to confess.”
The translation “to confess” is insightful because biblical confession doesn’t mean to tell your pastor your sins.
It means to “speak out of your mouth the same thing that is in your heart.”
To speak words of thanksgiving would be pour out of your mouth that which is in your heart what you believe to be true about God and His character and His love and provision for you.
2 Cor 4:13 "Having the same spirit of faith we believe, and therefore we speak also."
The outward vocal utterance expresses the inward thought.
The verses I read from Psalm 107 combined giving thanks, giving sacrifices of thanks and DECLARING His works with rejoicing.
There you have it.
The core concept of Giving Thanks- Something that comes from the heart through the mouth.
Unlike the tithe, which was required “giving”, the thanksgiving offering was an offering that was given from the heart by faith.
Many of you from the Catholic and Anglican backgrounds have a grasp of what the word Eucharist means. I hope so at least. Most of you equate it with communion.
The meaning of the word Eucharist is “thanksgiving.”
The context for giving thanks is the offering of the Son of God on our behalf for our sins!
There is one more subtlety you should know.
The root of the word Eucharist is charis, which means grace (something we do not deserve).
God’s grace elicits a heart response of giving thanks.
Why are we told to give thanks? Let me share with you three reasons.
Because Thanksgiving is an act of faith.
Most of us tend to give thanks after we are blessed, not beforehand. Unfortunately, that is a self-centered approach to thanksgiving and not a God centered one.
Colossians 4:2 Devote yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of thanksgiving;
Philippians 4:4-7 where Paul says, “Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice! 5 Let your gentle spirit be known to all men. The Lord is near. 6 Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. 7 And the peace of God, which surpasses all comprehension, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”
We are urged to pray with thanksgiving.
What does that look like?
David Kuo says, “To express thanks is to actualize the gratitude we feel in our hearts. By uttering our thanks, we give mere gratitude the creative power of the spoken word. Our gratitude then becomes a witness to ourselves and to others.”
Our thanksgiving is not merely making a down payment on our prayer by faith.
Giving thanks is an act of faith in God regardless of the outcome of our desires.
Let me take a detour here and tell you about the difference between faith and belief: Many people in and out of churches today have belief. 97% of Americans confess a belief in God. But something is missing.
Faith is relational trust in God that translates into action.
Belief is mere mental acknowledgement of facts or truths but does not necessarily translate into action.
An example is when the famed high wire performer Blondin had a cable erected across Niagra Falls. He walked over it several times and then pushed a wheel barrow across the high wire. As he reached the other side he asked the crowd, “Who believes I can push a man across this wire on the wheel barrow.” The crowd roared with approval. Then he asked, “who is willing to get in the wheel barrow?” And the crowd went silent. No one offered. No one REALLY had faith. They believed the intellectual premise that he COULD do it, but they didn’t have the faith to trust him with their own lives.
How does YOUR FAITH interact with your thanks? Is it based upon trust(ing God with your life) and does it translate into action?
Because Thanksgiving is an act of worship
Psalm 95: 2 “Let us come before His presence (face) with thanksgiving,”
How do we come before His presence?
Over and over throughout the scriptures, we are exhorted to come into the literal presence of God with thanksgiving.
Thanksgiving is the preliminary act of worship for the worshipper:
Psalm 100:4 Enter His gates with thanksgiving And His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him, bless His name.
Psalm 69:30-31 I will praise the name of God with song And magnify Him with thanksgiving. And it will please the LORD better than an ox Or a young bull with horns and hoofs.
It is why, in our church, we have a time of testimony early in our service where people are given the opportunity to publicly acknowledge the goodness of God. It leads to God-centered worship.
Because Thanksgiving acknowledges the nature of God
Psalm 118:1 Give thanks to the LORD, for He is good; For His lovingkindness is everlasting.
He is good.
What is thanksgiving?
Giving thanks is an act of humble recognition and dependence that God is the supplier of your needs.
It recognizes what God has done and who He is.
“1 Thess 5:18 “in everything give thanks; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”
It doesn’t say FOR EVERYTHING.
Nor does it say “in good times give thanks…”
Instead, it says “In EVERYTHING” Now that takes faith!
That was the attitude of the Pilgrims. They weren’t thanking God for what He had done or not done, they were thanking Him in every circumstance, because they believed that God remains the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.
Do we thank God only when we
Have a job, have your health, have a roof over your head, etc?
How about thanking God in the midst of losing everything due to a flood, a storm or a theft? How about thanking God in the midst of losing a loved one? How is that for faith?
You see, thanksgiving is an acknowledgement that all things come from God and that God is the author of our lives, regardless of the level of comfort we have.
Thanksgiving acknowledges that we understand that God is in control, God is sovereign and that God DOES have our best in mind.
Finally…
What is the danger of counting your blessings as the basis of thanksgiving?
When we count our blessings as the basis of giving thanks, we will tend to not be thankful or worshipful when things don’t go the way we think they ought to.
How do we react when a loved one dies, when we are sick, lose our job, or when our car stops working? Do we still live with a heart of thanksgiving or do we get angry at God for making our lives difficult?
When our thanksgiving is conditional, we put ourselves in the place of God, deciding what is good and what is not.
And, when we count our blessings as the basis of thanksgiving, it can quickly deteriorate into the habit of counting upon our blessings.
Folks, the central symbol of our faith is not the horn of plenty but the cross of suffering.
During most of His life, Jesus could count no earthly treasures.
He had no home and no steady income or salary. His family had been estranged from him. In his hour of need even his closest friends deserted him.
His body was broken and his spirit was crushed.
By all human reckoning at that moment of suffering he was alone.
When you strip away every illusion of success. When all earthen treasures fail. There is only one thing remaining, but that is the greatest treasure of all, the love of our Father in Heaven through Jesus Christ our Lord.
As your response to the word of God this evening I invite every person here to take a moment, to take a turn, to stand up and proclaim your thanksgiving to God for one or two things that you want to acknowledge your thanks to God in. I urge you to speak out of your heart thanks, especially thanks for the hard, difficult and distasteful things you have endured. Your declaration of thanks is your act of faith and trust in God today.
