(27) At the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem, the Levites were sought out from where they lived and were brought to Jerusalem to celebrate joyfully the dedication with songs of thanksgiving and with the music of cymbals, harps and lyres. (28) The singers also were brought together from the region around Jerusalem…(29) for the singers had built villages for themselves around Jerusalem.
(31) I had the leaders of Judah go up on the top of the wall. I also assigned two large choirs to give thanks. One was to proceed on top of the wall to the right…(38) The second choir proceeded in the opposite direction... (43) And on that day they offered great sacrifices, rejoicing because God had given them great joy. The women and the children rejoiced. The sound of rejoicing in Jerusalem could be heard far away. Nehemiah 12
Remembering Gratitude
The parents of a young soldier killed in action gave their church a gift of money as a memorial to their son. During the presentation service, the mother of another soldier whose son was overseas whispered to her husband, “Let’s give the same amount for our son.” “What’s the matter with you?” he asked. “Our son hasn’t died in battle.” “That’s just it,” the mother replied, “Let’s give because he has been spared.” (1)
This week our nation approaches on bended knee a holiday that has escaped the hype of Madison Ave. Except for a couple of touch football games and Santa arriving in New York the world of commercialization sleeps quietly for one day. The “butterball hide” of Thanksgiving has escaped once again. You just can’t mess it up no matter how hard you try. There are just some things that can’t be exploited.
You Can’t Exploit
You can’t exploit prayers of thanks, long distance calls, or mothers fussing around in the kitchen.
You can’t exploit a heritage that traces its roots to the pilgrims and a ship called the Mayflower. A heritage that includes that first celebration of thanking God for those still alive, because they buried more than they built houses for that first year.
You can’t exploit the themes that Thanksgiving brings to mind: bravery, sacrifice, dignity, honor, freedom and faithfulness. Those are words that don’t have an exploited bone in their body.
Most of all, how do you exploit a holiday that calls for us to turn our hearts heavenward? During Thanksgiving even those who strangely profess to be unbelievers can’t help but bow their heads in gratitude.
This Thanksgiving the United States and Canada will, once again, be the only nations that celebrate a holiday dedicated to “giving thanks.” What a proud heritage! With the turkey, dressing, and pumpkin pie comes the gratitude, “We are proud to be Americans.”
Over the next several months we will compile all kinds of lists. Shopping lists for special meals, wish lists written out for the grandparents by the kids, and a list of New Year’s resolutions forged out by exhausted, broke, and overweight Americans. On our way to the New Year it will be easy to overlook the most important list - a list of all the things we are thankful for.
One of the greatest acts of thanksgiving is buried deep within the pages of an old historical book called Nehemiah. As I was preparing for this message, the last place I expected to find much on thanksgiving was from the crusty arrangement of building events in and around 445 BC. It never occurred to me to turn to Nehemiah for a message on Thanksgiving. Nehemiah was involved in rebuilding a wall, but when it comes to rebuilding our lives, God uses the mortar of thanksgiving and the trowel of gratitude. Join me as we take a look at a people whose hearts were filled with gratitude.
The event that warranted such thanksgiving was the completion of a well-engineered, broad, stable, and well-constructed wall of protection around the ancient city of Jerusalem. The people had moved into the city and begun building their own homes, now they were ready to dedicate the wall of the city to Almighty God. What were the components of this dedication?
When we dedicate our new church, we can come to Nehemiah chapter 12:27-47 and find the blueprint for a successful dedication. Let me suggest you use these principles in your own life when you dedicate a home, a child, or a new business to God. When Nehemiah wanted to create an atmosphere of thanksgiving he knew exactly where to turn.
“ At the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem, the Levites were sought from where they lived and were brought to Jerusalem to celebrate joyfully the dedication with songs of thanksgiving and with the music of cymbals, harps and lyres.” Neh. 12:27
One translation uses the phrase, “so they might celebrate the dedication with gladness.” The Hebrew word for gladness places this spin on the text, “gaiety, mirth, pleasure and delight.” Nehemiah brought in the specialists that knew how to make the occasion joyful, thankful, and fun. Let’s have a blast in God’s presence! The whole day was to be an unforgettable occasion etched in the minds of all Israelites.
Let’s go to the gala affair and see who’s on the guest list. Let’s taste the appetizers. And listen to the speeches, toasts, dedications, and prayers.
Clean Up Your Life
“ When the priests and the Levites had purified themselves ceremonially, they purified the people, the gates and the wall” Nehemiah 12:30.
Even though the occasion called for great celebration a serious element needed to be included. It must be noted that before the people could experience joyful celebration, they had to get their hearts right with God. To really get in on the celebration and get God’s blessing you must remember, “Holiness always precedes happiness,” as Chuck Swindoll says. (2)
This is a great point to leaders as well as laity. The first step to a happy life is right living (holiness). There is not a person who hasn’t tried to fake a clean heart and failed. Moral carelessness and sin give joy, laughter, and gladness a hollow ring.
Everybody Join the Celebration
“At the dedication of the wall of Jerusalem, the Levites were sought from where they lived and were brought to Jerusalem to celebrate joyfully the dedication with songs of thanksgiving and with the music of cymbals, harps and lyres. The singers also were brought together from the region around Jerusalem…for the singers had built villages for themselves around Jerusalem.” Nehemiah 12:27-28
Now, the celebration was about to begin. Ladders were brought and secured. The aged were given extra help and the little ones were given extra time. Nehemiah went up and down the wall shouting, “Everybody up on wall! Come on up!” And up the people came. Amazed at the view, they were filled with a sense of satisfaction as they saw what God had done from a completely different angle. The broad wall was able to hold hundreds for the processional that was about to begin. Ezra took the first choir and off they went. Nehemiah took the second choir and they headed in the opposite direction.
Friend, you’ll never convince me this was a solemn assembly that marched around like pallbearers, tight-lipped, marching in cadence with all eyes ahead. This was a charismatic choir shouting the high praises of God at the top of their lungs. They were loud, like the roar from the stands when the home team gets the final out and sends the visiting team home without a win.
“The sound of rejoicing could be heard far away” (Nehemiah 12:43).
On The Count of Three Let’s All Offer Thanks
(31) I had the leaders of Judah go up on the top of the wall. I also assigned two large choirs to give thanks. One was to proceed on top of the wall to the right…(38) The second choir proceeded in the opposite direction. (43) And on that day they offered great sacrifices, rejoicing because God had given them great joy. The women and the children rejoiced. The sound of rejoicing in Jerusalem could be heard far away” Nehemiah 12:31, 38, 43.
Let me make one final comment. Nehemiah places the emphasis on what was in the heart of the people, not the type of music or the style. It was the rejoicing that was heard afar. People don’t hear the words and notes; they hear the joy in the heart.
People who are lonely, hurting and depressed are not attracted to the choir, style or volume; they are impressed with people who testify to a joyful and happy spirit. Why? Because people need their lives rebuilt. That’s what the theme of Nehemiah is all about: the rebuilding of lives that have been broken by sin.
This Thanksgiving, I invite you to consider setting three items on your Thanksgiving table. I call them Truths That Transform.
Truths That Transform
1. Thanksgiving Is the Most Valuable Attitude in Life
“Be joyful always, pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus” 1 Thessalonians. 5:16-18.
Thanksgiving draws on the hearts of believers and unbelievers alike. Each person comes under a strange compulsion to express gratitude to the Lord. For those who don’t know Christ, this results in a strange warmth, the source of which they are unable to identify. Why? Because offering thanks and gratitude always carries a great reward.
For the believer, a heart seasoned with thanksgiving provides entrance to the place of God’s provision. Because this truth is so elementary it can be easily overlooked. Often, simplicity is equated with insignificance, but nothing could be further from the truth. Thanksgiving always provides an entry into God’s presence.
“Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving…” Psalm 95:2
“Enter His gates with thanksgiving…” Psalm 100:4
I carry a deep conviction that thanksgiving is the foundational attitude of living. It is number one in my mind. If your heart isn’t seasoned with thanksgiving, you are greatly handicapped in life.
Let me suggest one reason we are so prone to forget this important attitude. When we receive something on a regular basis, even if it is a gift, we come to expect it. One author calls this attitude an “entitlement mindset.” Unfortunately, this attitude holds the people of our nation hostage. It fills the hearts of people in every corner of our society. Because we are so blessed to live in a land of plenty, we become complacent and many times we fail to give thanks.
“So Pastor,” you ask. “Is there an adequate ransom for my liberation?” Yes, let me give it to you!
“Every good and perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights…” James 1:17.
Every gift you enjoy today, this week, and for the remainder of this year will come from Almighty God. Everything…
From the drop of rain that cools your dry lips, to the mouth of food that satisfies your hunger - God is the provider.
From the sunrise that informs you another day has been commissioned for your enjoyment, to the smile of a child watching ducks waddle into the water - God is the provider.
Do you realize that you were born in a land you didn’t build? You have a prosperity that you didn’t accumulate? You have a freedom that you didn’t establish? Let’s not take anything for granted.
2. Thanksgiving Is the Key to Your Mental Health.
“For although they knew God, they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts became darkened” Romans 1:21.
A person whose heart is empty of thanksgiving soon becomes crippled and darkened in their mental health. Without the cleansing showers of thanksgiving, seeds of criticism and negative thinking begin to skew our perspective in life. Thinking that is void of thanksgiving will always open the door to vain imaginations, resulting in belief systems that are erroneous and distorted. The first step in defeating Satan is not binding the enemy; it is “giving thanks.”
The solution to ungratefulness is to find ways to be thankful. After Abraham Lincoln was assassinated, his family and friends went through his personal items. They discovered in his wallet an old newspaper clipping from a British writer who wrote that Abraham Lincoln would one day become the greatest of America’s presidents. He would be remembered in history as the greatest of all.
Lincoln carried that clipping in his wallet. He had folded it and unfolded it so many times that it was literally falling apart. You can just see Lincoln sitting by an old kerosene lamp in the corner of the White House after a day filled with threats, criticism and rebukes, reaching into his wallet and taking out the newspaper clipping and reading it over and over. He knew that somebody in England thought highly of him to consider him a great president.
Knowing that someone thinks we are great helps us keep our minds from slipping into ungratefulness. God does that everyday because of your relationship to His son Jesus Christ. God is enjoying us as we give Him thanks on a regular basis. (3)
1. Thanksgiving Is So Easily Overlooked.
“Jesus said, ‘Were there not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give thanks to God except this foreigner?’” Luke 17:17-18
Many years ago a story was told of a devout king that was disturbed by the ingratitude of his royal court. He prepared a large banquet for them. He spared no cost and lavished them with food and entertainment greater than they had ever enjoyed. Then the king and royal guests were seated. By prearrangement, a beggar suddenly appeared and shuffled through the royal event stopping long enough to eat at different places in the royal gathering. Near the king and queen he gorged himself on unlimited helpings of meat. He moved sinisterly around the table until he gathered near other royal relatives and smiled as he devoured new desserts cooked by the chef. Without a word, he smiled and left the room.
The guests that evening were furious. They insisted the king give them permission to go after the guy, seize him and tear him apart because of his ingratitude. Once the anger peaked and his loyal subjects’ eyes were glazed over with revenge, he quietly asked them to be seated. He stood in their presence and said, “The beggar has done only once to an earthly king what each of you does daily many times over when you fail to offer thanks to God.” (4)
This happens in our lives when we fail to seize an opportunity to give thanks. Jewish society swept the world of leprosy under the rug. It required that they do three things whenever they encountered someone in public:
1. Tear their clothes
2. Bare their heads
3. Cry out, “unclean”
Jesus was traveling between Samaria and Galilee in northern Israel. As He traveled, He happened upon this group of tattered refugees. At a distance stood 10 lepers who made eye contact with the Savior of the World.
“As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance.” Luke 17:12
No matter what disease we carry in life - leprosy, bitterness, unforgiveness, cancer, sin, etc. - God’s great desire is to close the distance that we experience because of it. We close that distance with thanksgiving. You see, dear one, thanksgiving is a constant reminder of God’s provision and the blessings we don’t deserve.
“They stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!” Luke 17:13
The ten lepers were in a war with death; parts of their faces, toes, hands and feet already eaten away. Notice, their request was not for healing but that Jesus would, “Have mercy on us!”
All of us are walking lepers, crying out to our world that we are unclean. Each of us is just hoping that someone will have mercy on us.
In his book Where Is God When It Hurts?, Phillip Yancy writes about a study he did with people who had contracted Hansen’s disease, a common form of leprosy that numbs the pain cells of the hands, feet, nose, ears and eyes.
Eyes-- don’t blink. They have no sensation to blink and this causes the eyes to dry out and results in permanent damage to the eye socket and eye.
Ankles-- if someone sprains an ankle, he just learns to adjust the way he walks, completely unaware of any damage or infection.
If someone with the disease drops a potato into the fire, he will reach his hand in and get it out, unaware of his own burning flesh.
How could a person who has experienced God’s healing from such a horrible disease fail to render thanks? That same question haunts each of us as we are clearly reminded that we have received such a healing – from sin. Ten were healed. Only one returned to give thanks. No other account in God’s Word provides such a graphic reminder of how inclined we are to fail to give thanks. Too often, instead of thanking God, we wait for Him to thank us for all the “great things” we’ve done.
A Persian king was lifted out of a life of poverty and deposited into the luxury of the royal throne. After he became the king, he sent some servants to the old shack where he once lived, the place of his birth and rearing. The servants were instructed to gather every relic of that part of his life. They brought from his home: broken toys, an old patched shirt, an old wooden bowl from which he ate, an unstable rocking chair and many other worthless memories of his childhood. He arranged all these in a special room in his palace and each day he would go into this room and sit for an hour and offer thanks recalling the memories of his humble past. On the wall hung a prayer: “Lest I forget!” (5)
Edited by Diane Gardner
