Giving thanks has always been a part of God’s people.
Ill. The story is told of two old friends bumped into one another on the street one day. One of them looked forlorn, almost on the verge of tears. His friend asked, "What has the world done to you, my old friend?"
The sad fellow said, "Let me tell you. Three weeks ago, an uncle died and left me forty thousand dollars."
"That’s a lot of money."
"But, two weeks ago, a cousin I never even knew died, and left me eighty-five thousand free and clear."
"Sounds like you’ve been blessed...."
"You don’t understand!" he interrupted. "Last week my great-aunt passed away. I inherited almost a quarter of a million."
Now he was really confused. "Then, why do you look so glum?"
"This week... nothing!" (From Joel Lohl, “Thanksgiving in the Land of Plenty”, SermonCentral.com).
This is a humorous story, but is indicative of how many live their lives.
God has blessed us like no other nation since Israel in their early kingdom days. We are the envy of the world. We are the richest large nation in the world.
If you make $42k a year, you are making the just average income for a household. If you make only half of that ($21K), you are in the top 11 percent of wage earners in the world.
Did you catch that? Just half of the average income in the United States is still in the top 11 percent in the world. (www.worldsalaries.org)
Yet, we are not the most happy people in the world. As a matter of fact, the 19.2 percent depression rate in the USA is second in the nations of the world, second to only France (21%). (www.huffingtonpost.com)
We often are too much like the friend I mentioned. We live in a sense of entitlement, believing that God’s loving gifts and blessings are due to us. We have become used to them and continue to take them for granted.
When natural disaster hits around the world, people are so thankful to see us sending goods and services to help. But when natural disaster hits us at home, we begin to cry, “Where is the government when we need it? Where is FEMA? Where is the aid we need?” The victims of world disasters look at us and shake their heads. Can we be more pathetic?
Now there is the move to wealth redistribution. The mantra: “No one deserves to be rich if there are poor people anywhere.” That attitude is sinful in that it creates entitlement attitudes in the less fortunate to the point that they cannot recognize the blessings of God in their lives. It is covetousness surrounded by a lack of gratitude for the place God has us. We choose to ignore His blessings and spend more time complaining what we don’t have.
This is very similar to the attitude we read about today in our passage. Look with me at John 6:25-35.
35 When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, "Rabbi, when did you come here?"
26 Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. 27 Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal."
28 Then they said to him, "What must we do, to be doing the works of God?"
29 Jesus answered them, "This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent."
30 So they said to him, "Then what sign do you do, that we may see and believe you? What work do you perform? 31 Our fathers ate the manna in the wilderness; as it is written, 'He gave them bread from heaven to eat.'"
32 Jesus then said to them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave you the bread from heaven, but my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world."
34 They said to him, "Sir, give us this bread always."
35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.
The people found Jesus on the other side of the sea. What does that mean?
You see, Jesus had just fed 5000 with few loaves and fish. Then He departed to go to the other side of the sea. The people ran around the sea to meet Him on the other side. This was no small journey. Best guess, 6-8 miles.
They were very serious and sincere in looking for Jesus. Yet, Jesus greeted them with not much of a welcome.
“You are looking for me, not because you saw God operating in my life or heard God speaking in my message, but because I filled your belly.”
He then instructs them to adjust their priorities from their bellies to their hearts. He told them to focus on who He was and the work He was doing, not what they could get out of it.
But they followed by asking, “What can we do to do the work of God.” That is the religion of the world. “What can we do? We want to do something, not trust in anyone.”
Jesus, right back at them, said, “What you must do is to believe in Me, trust in Me.”
The people then begin to show how the materialistic attitude ruins the entire stew. “Well, if you want us to believe in you, you are going to have to show us something.” They then brought up how their forefathers had manna for breakfast, lunch and dinner. They pointed out how God said He would supply all their needs.
In other words, “Jesus, you fed us just one meal. You are going to have to do better than that.”
There is a three letter word answer for that. “WOW!” This is the attitude that I am referring to; the entitlement, self-serving, self-centered attitude. It kills Thanksgiving and destroys gratitude. It breaks the heart of God like it would any parent.
Ill. Many years ago, Laura and I compared our Christmas shopping and giving to children of friends and siblings. We struggled to give the right gifts, hoping to give something special.
Some of our friends’ families had plenty, and were never impressed with our gifts from meager means. Others were thrilled with what we gave them. They never had very much.
I have reflected upon this for years. In my heart, I would rather live in poverty and proper gratitude to God than in wealth and despise God’s gifts. Yet I struggle in accomplishing that. I struggle with thanksgiving. I question my gratitude.
I am much like the man in the story who benefited from the loss of his uncle, aunt and cousin. I stand, staring up to heaven, asking, “God, are you mad at me? Where is my abundance? What did I do to deserve this?”
Jesus reminded the people, “It wasn’t Moses who supplied the manna. It was God.”
And He reminds us, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.” James 1:17. It isn’t because of our virtue or worth that we were born in a nation where we are in the top 3 percent of annual wage earners in the world if we simply make the average in our country.
If you make $42k (the national average per household), you make more than 97 percent of the people in the world. (www.worldsalaries.org).
I am not saying that we should use our prosperity as the only basis of our thankfulness. That is what has killed gratitude in our nation. I am saying, we should not allow our prosperity to erode our thankfulness.
You see, it is the Father who gives us true bread from heaven, Jesus Christ. That is the basis of our thankfulness in every area. “For the bread of God is he who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world." Are we similar to these people today?
“They said to him, ‘Sir, give us this bread always.’"
I hope that today you are saying, “I want what Jesus offers.” But the problem was, these people were saying, we want you to keep our bellies full. We want you to bless us. We are in this just for the blessings: Not the regular blessings; the daily sustaining, the protection we cannot see, the demonstrations of God’s presence and love. We want the tastiest treats on our tables, big balances in our banks, and the costliest clothes in our closets. We want people to be able to look at us and say, “Wow, I want your God. He is giving you easy street.”
But what Laura and I felt when our friends’ children tossed our gifts in the corners to play with their glamorous toys, God feels a million times a day.
Joh 6:35 Jesus said to them, "I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.
David said, “I have never seen the righteous forsaken or God’s children begging bread.” (Psa. 37:25) But, honestly, we have all seen God’s children living with a lack of gratitude. In entitlement. We have seen God’s children in complete bewilderment because some blessing had ceased, or some new pain has arisen. We have heard the cry, “Why me, Lord? What did I do to deserve this?”
How can we enjoy Thanksgiving like a grateful people this year? There are three joy killers for Thanksgiving…
I. Pride
Henry Ward Beecher said, “Pride slays thanksgiving, but an humble mind is the soil out of which thanks naturally grow. A proud man is seldom a grateful man, for he never thinks he gets as much as he deserves.”
Pride is a joy killer. Pride says you are responsible for the normal good in your life.
Ill. You can see the natural danger of pride in watching children when you give one child an ice cream cone and another child a carrot. The ice cream cone child will feel superior and worthy. The carrot child (typically) will feel inferior and worthless.
If you can hear this sermon, you are blessed beyond those who have no Church or can hear no sermon. Be thankful. If you are planning a thanksgiving meal, be thankful, for you are blessed for no reason of yours. You are not entitled. You are not worthy.
Pride looks at us as the standard. That standard fails miserably when we put the Holiness of God in the equation.
You can and must seek out and destroy pride in your life by practicing humility and gratitude to re-find the joy of Thanksgiving.
II. Possessions.
Selfishness is a joy killer. Practice Generosity.
Generosity is the realization that all we have belongs to God and we are honored to be responsible for it.
We are managers of God’s wealth and claim none of our own. So when God assigns a portion of His prosperity from my control to help someone in need, it isn’t a battle. If it was never mine to begin with, and I suffer no loss in generosity.
The Bible teaches a beautiful principle of trust in the Father. He wants to bless others through our life. He wants us to be a conduit of blessings. A conduit makes room for more by letting go of what is present now. It passes things through, fully knowing that the God that supplied the blessings will replace the blessings. It is a life that doesn’t clog up the conduit with selfishness and greed. Practice the conduit style of living and God will always prove faithful to flow blessings through your life. And you will always be grateful for what God moves through you.
III. Power.
Earthly values are joy killers. Have heavenly priorities.
Merle Shain said, “The act is unjustifiable that either begs for a blessing, or, having succeeded gives no thanksgiving.”
“Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world--the desires of the flesh and the desires of the eyes and pride in possessions--is not from the Father but is from the world. And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever.” 1 John 2:15-17
Earthly values are what these people struggled with. This isn’t the only time earthly values were in the center of Jesus’ cross-hairs.
After Jesus sent the 70 missionaries out into the villages, they came back thinking their powers were awesome. Power is addicting, as addicting as accumulating wealth. He warned them, “20 Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” Luke 10:20.
Submit your desire for power to Christ, who holds all authority and power.
Possession, power and pride. Doesn’t it seem to almost always come down to battling those enemies of Thanksgiving?
