Hello, my name is Brien Sims and I am the new preacher at Camp Point First Christian Church. Considering what we have come here to celebrate, I would say that I too should be very thankful to have the opportunity to speak to you all this evening. We will be talking about the subject of thankfulness this evening. For some of us being thankful can be harder than others. The idea has been over used and undervalued. Just as the worth of the dollar has depreciated over time, so has the usefulness of the words ‘thank you.’ Hopefully it won’t take too much to get us back on track like the two men in a field. “Two men were walking through a field one day when they spotted an enraged bull. Instantly they darted toward the nearest fence. The storming bull followed in hot pursuit, and it was soon apparent they wouldn’t make it.
Terrified, the one shouted to the other, "Put up a prayer, John. We’re in for it!"
John answered, "I can’t. I’ve never made a public prayer in my life."
"But you must!" implored his companion. "The bull is catching up to us."
"All right," panted John, "I’ll say the only prayer I know, the one my father used to repeat at the table: ’O Lord, for what we are about to receive, make us truly thankful.’"”
Hopefully it doesn’t take a bull chasing us to make us pray for a thankful heart. I didn’t want to do a sermon on the 357.5 reasons why you should be thankful. So I decided I would tell a true story as far as I know of it about a boy named Stevie, a truck stop, a sick mother, and a lot of kind-hearted people.
Titled: Something for Stevie
I try not to be biased, but I had my doubts about hiring Stevie. His placement counselor assured me that he would be a good, reliable busboy. But I had never had a mentally handicapped employee and wasn’t sure I wanted one.
I wasn’t sure how my customers would react to Stevie. He was short, a little dumpy with the smooth facial features and thick-tongued speech of Down syndrome.
I knew some people would be uncomfortable around Stevie so I closely watched him for the first few weeks. I shouldn’t have worried. After the first week, Stevie had my staff wrapped around his stubby little finger, and within a month my truck regulars had adopted him as their official truck stop mascot. After that, I really didn’t care what the rest of the customers thought of him. He was like a 21-year-old in blue jeans and Nikes, eager to laugh and eager to please, but fierce in his attention to his duties. Every salt and pepper shaker was exactly in its place, not a bread crumb or coffee spill was visible when Stevie got done with the table.
Our only problem was convincing him to wait to clean a table until after the customers were finished. He would hover in the background, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, scanning the dining room until a table was empty. Then he would scurry to the empty table and carefully bus the dishes and glasses onto cart and meticulously wipe the table up with a practiced flourish of his rag. He took pride in doing his job exactly right, and you had to love how hard he tried to please each and every person he met.
Over time, we learned that he lived with his mother, a widow who was disabled after repeated surgeries for cancer. They lived on their Social Security benefits in public housing two miles from the truck stop. Their social worker, who stopped to check on him every so often, admitted they had fallen between the cracks. Money was tight, and what I paid him was the probably the difference between them being able to live together and Stevie being sent to a group home.
That’s why the restaurant was a gloomy place that morning last August, the first morning in three years that Stevie missed work. He was at the Hospital getting a new valve or something put in his heart. His social worker said that people with Down syndrome often had heart problems at an early age so this wasn’t unexpected, and there was a good chance he would come through the surgery in good shape and be back at work in a few months.
A ripple of excitement ran through the staff later that morning when word came that he was out of surgery, in recovery and doing fine. Frannie, my head waitress, let out a war hoop and did a little dance in the aisle when she heard the good news. Dan, one of our regular trucker customers, stared at the sight of the 50-year-old grandmother of four doing a victory shimmy beside his table. Frannie blushed, smoothed her apron and shot Dan a withering look.
He grinned. “OK, Frannie, what was that all about?” he asked. “We just got word that Stevie is out of surgery and going to be okay.” “I was wondering where he was. I had a new joke to tell him. What was the surgery about?” Frannie quickly told Dan and the other two drivers sitting at his booth about Stevie’s surgery and then sighed. “Yeah, I’m glad he is going to be ok,” she said, “but I don’t know how he and his mom are going to handle all the bills. From what I hear, they’re barely getting by as it is.” Dan nodded thoughtfully, and Frannie hurried off to wait on the rest of her tables.
Since I hadn’t had time to round up a busboy to replace Stevie and really didn’t want to replace him, the girls were busing their own tables that day until we decided what to do. After the morning rush, Frannie walked into my office. She had a couple of paper napkins in her hand a funny look on her face. “What’s up?” I asked. “I didn’t get that table where Dan and his friends were sitting cleared off after they left, and Pete and Tony were sitting there when I got back to clean it off,” she said, “This was folded and tucked under a coffee cup.” She handed the napkin to me, and three $20 fell onto my desk when I opened it. On the outside, in big, bold letters, was printed “Something For Stevie.”
“Pete asked me what that was all about,” she said, “so I told him about Stevie and his mom and everything, and Pete looked at Tony and Tony looked at Pete, and they ended up giving me this.” She handed me another paper
napkin that had “Something For Stevie” scrawled on its outside. Two $50 bills were tucked within its folds. Frannie looked at me with wet, shiny eyes, shook her head and said simply “truckers.”
That was three months ago. Today is Thanksgiving, the first day Stevie is supposed to be back to work. His placement worker said he’s been counting the days until the doctor said he could work, and it didn’t matter at all that it was a holiday. He called 10 times in the past week, making sure we knew he was coming, fearful that we had forgotten him or that his job was in jeopardy.
I arranged to have his mother bring him to work, met them in the parking lot and invited them both to celebrate his day back. Stevie was thinner and paler, but couldn’t stop grinning as he pushed through the doors and headed for the back room where his apron and busing cart were waiting.
“Hold up there, Stevie, not so fast,” I said. I took him and his mother by their arms. “Work can wait for a minute. To celebrate you coming back, breakfast for you and your mother is on me.” I led them toward a large corner booth at the rear of the room. I could feel and hear the rest of the staff following behind as we marched through the dining room. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw booth after booth of grinning truckers empty and join the procession.
We stopped in front of the big table. Its surface was covered with coffee cups, saucers and dinner plates, all sitting slightly crooked on dozens of folded paper napkins. “First thing you have to do, Stevie, is clean up this mess,” I said. I tried to sound stern. Stevie looked at me, and then at his mother, then pulled out one of the napkins. It had “Something for Stevie” printed on the outside. As he picked it up, two $10 bills fell onto the table. Stevie stared at the money, then at all the napkins peeking from beneath the tableware, each with his name printed or scrawled on it.
I turned to his mother. “There’s more than $10,000 in cash and checks on that table, all from truckers and trucking companies that heard about your problems. Happy Thanksgiving.”
Well, it got real noisy about that time, with everybody hollering and shouting, and there were a few tears, as well. But you know what’s funny? While everybody else was busy shaking hands and hugging each other, Stevie, with a big, big smile on his face, was busy clearing all the cups and dishes from the table. Best worker I ever hired....
Think of how much more we have to be thankful for from Jesus Christ. Colossians 3:15-17 is our text tonight. In these three verses, Paul mentions being thankful and giving thanks three times. Colossians 3 in a nutshell is an exhortation or encouragement to put on the new life Jesus Christ offers to everyone who will accept him as their Lord and Savior. “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” If we have truly accepted Jesus Christ and have put on the new life that only he can give, we have much for which we should be grateful. Yet, we also have ways in which we might enhance our understanding of what God has provided. Paul here gives at least three ways to enhance our thankfulness. His first encouragement is found in verse 15.
Let The Peace of Christ rule your hearts:
First and foremost, what is the peace of Christ? If we are to be brought to a new level of gratitude for the workings of God, then maybe we should define it first. Many texts speak of the peace that God can only give such as Philippians 4:7 which says, “And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.” So the peace which God can give goes well beyond our own human comprehension level. Our finite minds cannot wrap themselves around the infinite and awesome peace which God can give. When can you tell the difference? Think of the difference between knowing something is finally over and not understanding why you are so calm before it has even happened. My friend Tim happened to be driving on his way home to Denver, Colorado when as he approached Kansas City, Missouri he was hit by a semi and pushed under another. After he had gotten out of the car with his passengers the police and other people at the scene were astonished that these young men were completely calm. No other explanation can come close to why they were calm except that they had Jesus Christ. If you could have seen how his car had been turned into a ball of metal you might have a better understanding but I think just knowing that he was pressed between two semi’s should get the idea across. This type of peace should have control of your hearts. That’s what it means by rule. The type of peace exhibited by Tim during a time of chaos is the type of peace that makes you truly thankful you know God.
Let the Word of Christ Dwell in you richly:
In simple terms, let the Bible bring you to thank God as well. If you have chosen to become a Christian and have begun to learn the Word of God and the Word has helped you change your life, then teach and sing with gratitude. Let others know the joy and love you have inside of you because of what you have learned through scripture. Remember the idea of the fruit of the Holy Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23; “but the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against these there is no law.” Because of the Holy Spirit who dwells within you, you will grow and slowly these attributes of your life and faith will grow also. I know I have seen growth over the years that I have been a Christian. Think back to before you were a Christian. I remember most of all hating the world and being quite depressed. Actually I have kept contact with the person who helped me find Christ and she said something very similar. To make a long story short, I am not depressed but quite happy with my life and can honestly attribute that to Jesus Christ and His Word. I can teach and admonish and sing hymns and praise God because I am thankful for what he has done for me.
Whatever you do, be thankful:
This one seems to be the most self-explanatory of the three. You have changed your life and become a Christian and from now on until the day you die you must live your life with Jesus Christ’s name. If you go digging into sin, you take the name of Jesus into sin. If you decide to look at pornography, you take Jesus with you. If you love the Lord and have put on a new life, you will glorify him in what you say and what you do. When you act out of love, give the glory to Jesus Christ and not yourself. He has changed you and your heart and so it is only because of Him that you have acted out of pure love. When you speak words of comfort or even get up and preach and get a resounding applause (hahaha…) give the credit to the one who changed you and be thankful that he came to die on a cross for your sin. Even now he acts as a mediator between us and God relaying our messages to the Father. So send your thanks to Jesus and to the Father.
We have quite a bit for which we should be thankful. Money in a time of need and the caring hearts of many people means a lot to those receiving it. Shouldn’t we, those who call ourselves Christians, be more grateful than even those? We have received eternity in Heaven for free. We will received new bodies with no more pain and suffering and no more tears. When turkey day rolls around this upcoming week, think seriously about the real reasons you have to be thankful. God bless you.
