"How To Use Five Kernels Of Corn"
(Adapted from a message by Bruce Howell)
Psalm 103:1-5
Thanksgiving Message
Chester’s FBC, Chester, Illinois Mike Fogerson, Speaker
INTRODUCTION:
A The Pilgrim fathers who landed at Plymouth Rock over 300 years ago knew nothing of the affluent times which you and I enjoy today in this great country of ours.
a During that first long winter at Plymouth Colony, seven times as many graves were made for the dead as home for the living.
* The ship which was to bring food and relief brought 35 more mouths to feed, but not an ounce of provisions.
b Touching indeed is the picture of William Brewster, rising from a scanty Plymouth dinner, consisting of a plate of clams and a glass of cold water, to thank God "for the abundance of the sea and the treasures hid in the sand."
They had a custom of putting 5 kernels of corn upon each empty plate before a dinner of "thanksgiving" was served. Each member of the family would pick up a kernel and tell what they were thankful for. It was to remind them that the first Pilgrims were in such dire straits that their allowance was only 5 kernels of corn per person each day.
PS 103:1 Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. 2 Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits-- 3 who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, 4 who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, 5 who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
B Today, we are going to look at our five kernels of corn and how we can use them to be thankful.
a (ETS) The psalmist gave thanks to God for the blessing he had received.
b (ESS) Every believer has reason to give thanks to God.
C (Obj.) I hope you will know five things you can thank God for this Thursday.
a (PQ)What are thankful to God for this Thanksgiving?
b We have many reasons to be thankful. Let’s take 5 grains of corn, and using Psalm 103:1-5 as a basis, think of 5 things to praise God for.
I The first kernel we can thank God for is. . .HE FORGIVES.
". . .who forgives all your sins. . ." v.3a
A Forgiveness of sin is the first thing that David praised/thanked God for.
a David was just like us, he was a sinner. (Adulterer, involved in a conspiracy that cost Bathsheba’s husband, Uriah, his life.)
The psalmist had messed up, not always made the right choices, and didn’t always honor God with his decisions.
b David is saying Do had pardoned/removed ALL of sins. .
Guilt, punishments, and penalties!!!
B The forgiveness of our sin is the greatest thing we could ever thank God for.
(Yes, even greater than being a daddy, husband, pastor!!!!)
a Our sin caused a split in our relationship with God. (Capital Crime)
(It only takes one sin to cause the split. This last Summer Sammy Sosa was fined and suspended for seven games when his bat broke while hitting a ball. From the bat came cork. An ensuing investigation checked more than 70 of Sosa’s bats and not a single one of them was corked. Nonetheless, his suspension stood because it only took one corked bat to become disqualified. We can have 70 good bats, but it just takes one to disqualify us!)
b The loving judge pardoned me in August, 1978. (I’ll never forget he forgave me!)
If you have forgotten about it,. . . maybe it didn’t happen!
C God permanently removes our sins from us!
a Isaiah 43:25c (NIV) "I, even I, am he who blots out your transgressions, for my own sake, and remembers your sins no more." Isaiah 43:25c (MsgB) ". . . I don’t keep a list of your sins."
b The deepest part of the ocean is 35,802 feet deep. 16,045 lbs. pps. The water temp. is about 31F. The only that lives at depth is tube worms and clams!
Micah 7:19 (MsgB) And compassion is on its way to us. You’ll stamp out our wrongdoing. You’ll sink our sins to the bottom of the ocean.
II The second kernel we can thank God for is . . .HE HEALS.
". . .and heals all your diseases." v.3b
A David thanked God for healing/making him well.
a The psalmist knew that all the healing and well-being that he had ever experienced was from God’s healing ministry.
b The healing was not limited to just physical for David.
PS 147:3 He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
B Does God heal everyone’s disease? NO. He does cure ALL disease.
a Nothing is beyond God’s healing ministry.
"Incurable" is not in God’s Medical Dictionary.
If you have ever got better from a cold or battled cancer. . .your healing has come from the Great Physician.
b God’s greatest healing is not when he mends broken bones, but when he mends broken hearts.
Hearts hurt by betrayal, words, bitterness, brokeness. (All which are conditions caused by sin!!!)
God heals the disease of broken, battered, and bruised hearts!!!
III The third kernel we can thank God for is . . . HE REDEEMS.
". . .he redeems your life from the pit." v.4a
A The pit was a grave, snare laid to capture animals, NOT GOOD!
a David thanked God because instead of letting David stay in the pit, God brought and bought him up out of it.
b David knew he deserved the pit, he had earned the pit.
PS 40:2 He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire;
he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.
B Redeems literally means "to buy something back."
a Our sin comes with price. A wage. (DEATH) Rm. 6:23
b Do you know the price God paid to "lift us from the pit?"
(Do not elaborate. Just ask the question and go strait to "C".)
C The London Times publishes the prices paid for art objects in all of the salesrooms of the world. If a painting is sold in N.Y, Paris, Rome, or London, the times gives a full description and price paid for the painting.
a You can tell how valuable a piece is by the amount paid for it.
b We can judge our value to God by the amount he paid for us. The amount he redeemed us for.
John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotton...."
(I would like to have a slide that has. . .
Fades in to a picture of the Chester Popeye Sign by river. Dissolve
A picture of the world taking up the whole slide fades in.
John 3:16 fades in over picture of the world as I read John 3:16.
IV The fourth kernel we can thank God for is. . .HE CROWNS.
". . .and crowns you with love and compassion. " v. 4b
A Instead of giving David what he deserved (pit), God gave David what he desired for him to have. A crown!
a David deserved to be humiliated, instead he was heralded.
David deserved to be forsaken, instead he was forgiven.
David deserved to be condemned, instead he was accepted.
b David was thanking God because he was crowned with grace!!!
B A.A. Anderson wrote, "God makes you feel like a King on the day of his enthronement."
a Like Governor Blagoivich giving you his seat at his inauguration.
b "love and compassion"
COMPASSION means he knows our faults, frailties, short-comings.
and he LOVES us anyway!
V The fifth kernel we can thank God for is . . .HE SATISFIES.
. . .who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles." v.5
A David was always satisfied with God!
a Ps.107:9 (NAS)"For He has satisfied the thirsty soul, And the hungry soul He has filled with what is good."
b His strength was renewed over and over again!!!
David’s satisfaction with God caused him to thank Him.
B There’s a paradox here. We’re satisfied but never satisfied.
a My wife makes the world’s best Texas Sheet Cake. When I eat some, I’m satisfied. . .but I’m going to want more! I’m going want to eat some that cake again and again!
b That’s the way it is with God satisfying us. WE want it over and over and over!
C He’ll renew us like the eagles!!
a An eagle can live to be over 40 years old in the wild!!!
1,000 pps in their talons.
b God renews all the days of our lives. He perpetually satisfies us!
(IL.) Flower with a small veil of water on the stem. If our lives draw from the great resources that are Christ, we will grow into his likeness.
Conclusion:
(ETS) The psalmist gave thanks to God for the blessing he had received. (ESS) Every believer has reason to give thanks to God.
A We’ve looked at five kernels of corn to think of 5 things we can praise God for.
Forgives
Heals
Redeems
Crowns
Restores
B (Obj.) I hope you will know five things you can thank God for this Thursday.
a We can bitter, better, Thankful/thankless,
b Greatest thing we can thank him for. . .salvation.
C (PQ)What are thankful to God for this Thanksgiving?
It is gratitude that prompted an old man to visit an old broken pier on the eastern seacoast of Florida. Every Friday night, until his death in 1973, he would return, walking slowly and slightly stooped with a large bucket of shrimp. The sea gulls would flock to this old man, and he would feed them from his bucket. Many years before, in October 1942, Captain Eddie Rickenbacker was on a mission in a B-17 to deliver an important message to General Douglas MacArthur in New Guinea. But there was an unexpected detour, which would hurl Captain Eddie into the most harrowing adventure of his life.
Somewhere over the South Pacific the Flying Fortress became lost beyond the reach of radio. Fuel ran dangerously low, so the men ditched their plane in the ocean... For nearly a month Captain Eddie and his companions would fight the water, and the weather, and the scorching sun. They spent many sleepless nights recoiling as giant sharks rammed their rafts. The largest raft was nine by five. The biggest shark...ten feet long.
But of all their enemies at sea, one proved most formidable: starvation. Eight days out, their rations were long gone or destroyed by the salt water. It would take a miracle to sustain them. And a miracle occurred. In Captain Eddie’s own words, "Cherry," that was the B- 17 pilot, Captain William Cherry, "read the service that afternoon, and we finished with a prayer for deliverance and a hymn of praise. There was some talk, but it tapered off in the oppressive heat. With my hat pulled down over my eyes to keep out some of the glare, I dozed off."
Now this is still Captain Rickenbacker talking..."Something landed on my head. I knew that it was a sea gull. I don’t know how I knew, I just knew. Everyone else knew too. No one said a word, but peering out from under my hat brim without moving my head, I could see the expression on their faces. They were staring at that gull. The gull meant food...if I could catch it." And the rest, as they say, is history. Captain Eddie caught the gull. Its flesh was eaten. Its intestines were used for bait to catch fish. The survivors were sustained and their hopes renewed because a lone sea gull, uncharacteristically hundreds of miles from land, offered itself as a sacrifice. You know that Captain Eddie made it. And now you also know...that he never forgot. Because every Friday evening, about sunset...on a lonely stretch along the eastern Florida seacoast...you could see an old man walking...white-haired, bushy-eye browed, slightly bent. His bucket filled with shrimp was to feed the gulls...to remember that one that, on a day long past, gave itself without a struggle...like manna in the wilderness.
***Notice: I have used Sermon Central Sermon for a very long time. If this or any of my sermons are similar to a sermon that is currently already on Sermon Central by another pastor or teacher....chances are I have used it. Actually, there is probably absolutely nothing in this sermon that hasn’t been preached before! If I used your sermon and haven’t given you credit, please write me and I’ll give you credit by name. I have in no way intentionally withheld credit to any work I’ve used/borrowed from. PLEASE NOTE THAT IF I HAVE "USED" YOUR WORK IT WAS BECAUSE I THOUGHT YOU HAD A SUPER SERMON! I prefer to preach with an outline and just rearranged your sermon. My intent is to make sermons relevant and easy for outline guys to use. If you use MY work, feel free to claim it. I do not care!!! Simply realize that I have borrowed from other preachers, too.
Mike Fogerson, Pastor, Chester’s First Baptist Church
