“Major Barbara”
George Bernard Shaw’s play of 1905 is still a world wide favorite, and was performed in the Shaw Theatre, Niagara-on-the-Lake just this past August.
Major Barbara’s father, Andrew Undershaft was critically viewed by his ex-wife and children alike for his trade in cannons and gunpowder which were sold to the highest bidder and used in warfare and bloodshed. A wealthy man, he offered to subsidize a financially-strapped Salvation Army Shelter. When he agreed to make some payment to the struggling centre, Major Baines (the head officer) cried “Thank God!” to which Mr. Undershaft replied, “You don’t thank me?”
• Human nature always looks to be acknowledged, even with a simple “thank you” (nothing wrong with that).
• Jesus – Luke 17:11-19 – healed ten men with leprosy. One returned praising God and thanked Jesus for what he had done. Jesus questioned why the other nine had not returned to do the same. What Jesus demonstrates in this expectation of expressed thankfulness is not about him receiving appreciation for his service, but is an indication that thankfulness is a witness to having been in touch with God and it seems the nine missed that.
I signed up for a gym membership in May, at the Stone Tree – gonna’ work off that ‘bubble in the middle’, starting out at a whopping 200 pounds! At the end of my fourth month I had an assessment. I weighed in at a light 199 lbs – a hundred and what?! You mean after four months work I only took off a pound?! How is that possible?
It’s called “diet” – not as in “dieting” but moderation; or sensible eating; balance; adopting a new way of thinking and behaving. (There is also the toning – weight up but inches down!)
i. Thanksgiving Sunday – not an emphasis on a spiritual workout today followed by excessive natural behaviour the remaining 364 days ‘til next Thanksgiving – challenge to adopt a new way of life, of behaving, of thinking.
ii. Cannot isolate the charge to thankfulness in verse 7 from the remaining passage of Colossians 2. Thankfulness is one component of many that is reflected in the person who is living the disciple-of-Jesus lifestyle. This is to say, where there is lack of thankfulness, there is a deeper reality, which is a lack of grounded-ness in experience of God and faith in Jesus Christ.
♂ Warren Wiersbe (Pastor, radio personality, teacher) suggests that “a thankful spirit is a mark of Christian maturity. When a believer is abounding in thanksgiving, {they are} really making progress!”
So, how do we experience living that is “…overflowing with thankfulness” (NIV)?
1. By Being in Relationship with Christ
7Let your roots grow down into him and draw up nourishment from him… (NLT)
• The branches of a tree are a testimony to the depth of the tree’s roots; the limited reach of the branches is a reflection of the limited reach of the roots.
• The extent of thankfulness expressed in daily living is only matched by the nourishment we draw from being in relationship with Jesus.
♂ E.g. Author and speaker Jill Briscoe offers a personal example of daily living reflecting a life rooted in Christ and drawing nourishment from relationship with him. She writes: “I was grateful and excited. My daughter, Judy, agreed to accompany me to Australia where I was to speak at a conference. I was thankful to enjoy a few weeks of my daughter’s company, and we excitedly planned our trip together. However, two days before we were to leave, my back went out. I became more thankful than ever for Judy. Later, as we climbed aboard the plane, Judy asked, "Are you OK?" "The long rest will help," I replied hopefully. But by the time we arrived in Sydney, I couldn’t move! Airline personnel carried me off the plane and laid me gently on the airport floor. I looked up at a circle of worried faces. The welcoming committee, clutching huge bunches of flowers, did not look at all thankful to see their guest speaker from this angle!
That night, wide awake from jet lag, Judy and I began to plan. "You’ll have to help me, Judy," I told her. "I’ll try to take two meetings a day, but you’ll have to do the rest."
"Mother, I’ve only given two talks to the youth group," she protested.
"What were they about?" I asked.
"Stress and anxiety," she answered, grinning.
"Perfect," I replied. "I’ll help you with them."
That night we worked together on her talks.
At the first meeting I noticed Judy praying for me as I spoke. And when she spoke, the women loved her.
Somehow we struggled through together—and we began to be thankful again. We thanked God for each other, for the privilege of ministering together, and for the funny things that gave us relief along the way. We thanked God for showing Judy her own unique gifts.
We had nearly given up, but God gave us the grace and the strength to go on and to finish the course. By the time we boarded the plane to fly back home, we had a new vision of a ministry together that has now come to fruition in new and deeper ways.
I have often revisited the lessons we learned on our trip. Above all, I’ve tried not to "waste" the pain that God allows in my life—to let the pain drive me to Him, not away from Him—and to be thankful in all circumstances.
• Cannot think and behave this way without an influencing Force that is called relationship with God.
• Likewise, a lack of thankfulness, usually characterized by criticism and negativity, demonstrates the shallow experience of a follower of Jesus, due to the failure of not drawing nourishment from being in relationship with Him.
♂ E.g.
We can also be “overflowing with thankfulness”
2. By Taking the Word of Instruction to Heart
7Let your roots grow down into him and draw up nourishment from him, so you will grow in faith, strong and vigorous in the truth you were taught. (NLT)
The Message: 7You’re deeply rooted in him. You’re well constructed upon him. You know your way around the faith. Now do what you’ve been taught. School’s out; quit studying the subject and start living it! And let your living spill over into thanksgiving.
• No longer study about being rooted in Christ but demonstrate being rooted by exemplifying a life of thankfulness.
• P.G. Matthew (Grace Valley Christian Centre, Davis California): “Thanksgiving…means to rejoice in God’s presence for blessings freely received from him. It is joy expressed in word and deed toward God for his grace.”
• 10 lepers story – one returned to say thanks. Represents 10% of those blessed by God.
• Why not the others?
♂ Changed physically but not arrested spiritually – missed the experience of Christ
♂ Only one – 10% experienced God in the blessing of being healed.
• What would a survey of this congregation reflect? Would it reveal an experience of indwelling thankfulness?
• Not speaking of an occasional, spontaneous explosion of elation which vanishes with the next difficult blow or situation. It is an experience of indwelling thankfulness – a thankfulness that understands that where I am and what I’m facing is not to be understood as losing something, but embraced as gaining something.
We’ve heard of people leaving behind a legacy. Johnny Cash has his own story of his brother Jack, as told by Barry W. Merritt, in Cash: The Autobiography.
“In his autobiography, Johnny Cash tells the story of his older brother Jack, who was only 14 when he died. Jack worked at the high school agriculture shop, where he had a job cutting oak trees into fence posts. The money he earned helped support their family, which was struggling to survive by working in the cotton fields of rural Arkansas. A terrible accident occurred one day. A table saw severely cut Jack, resulting in his death a few days later.
“Sometime before his death, Jack had announced to his family and the community that he intended to be a preacher. Everyone agreed he would make a fine preacher, for his strong Christian character was already well known.
“Johnny Cash looked up to his older brother, and Jack’s example still influences him to this day. Cash writes, "Jack isn’t really gone, anyway, any more than anyone is. For one thing, his influence on me is profound. When we were kids, he tried to turn me from the way of death to the way of life, to steer me toward the light, and since he died his words and his example have been like signposts for me. The most important question in many of the {challenges} and crises of my life has been, ’Which is Jack’s way? Which direction would he have taken?’ I haven’t always gone that way, of course, but at least I’ve known where it was."
Johnny’s brother had left a faith legacy for Johnny to find his way to God.
• Imagine the thrill of being a living legacy!
• Birchy Bay, Newfoundland – a Memorial Service or a retired CSM (Head Elder) – but he hadn’t died yet! The men of our church wanted to tell him how much he meant to us before he died. A LIVING LEGACY!
• Why “Thankfulness – A Living Legacy”?
♂ Thankfulness is an expression of one’s relationship with God
♂ Thankfulness speaks of one’s maturing relationship with God
♂ Thankfulness speaks of the here and now of Christ’s presence and work – and people need him here and now
♂ Thankfulness counteracts the idolatry of thanklessness – see Romans 1:21ff – even people who know Christ become guilty of inappropriate behaviour and practices (sometimes we call this SIN) when thankfulness is replaced with thanklessness.
CLUB WRAP:
• Not the McDonald’s or Swiss Chalet kind!
• Ingredients
o Tight relationship with Jesus
o Wholesome, purely motivated service and fellowship with God’s people
o Wrapped in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus’ death on the cross for us and the end result is…
An experience of God that flows from a heart of thanksgiving
A living legacy that everyone wants to experience.
E.g. Clark Cothern, Decision, tells of a personal experience he had had.
“I once invited a friend, Gavin, to help my pastor and me guide 30 lively teens through an all-night "lock-in" at church. Early in the evening Gavin challenged me to a game of table tennis in the fellowship hall. Our game quickly grew into a heated competition, as a small crowd gathered to watch us battle it out.
“With the score tied and only three points to go before the end of the game, Tracy, a {14 year old} eighth-grader, grabbed the ball and tried to play keep-away. My first impulse was irritation. But then a Scripture passage that our group had read that afternoon came streaking across my mind: "Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked" [1 Corinthians 13:4-5, NASB).
I politely asked Tracy to return the ball, and then Gavin and I joked with her until she finally tossed the ball back onto the table. We thanked her and finished the game.
“Hours later, after an evangelistic film, we were pleasantly surprised to see Tracy walking down the aisle with a group of six others to receive Christ as Savior. Later that night, when we gathered for testimonies, Tracy told her story: "I grew up in a family where nobody goes to church. I’ve learned to get attention by making people mad at me. But earlier this evening I saw something different."
“Gavin and I looked at each other and raised our eyebrows. "When I stole the ball from those guys," Tracy said, pointing to us, "they didn’t get mad at me. They didn’t fight back. I saw something different in those guys, and I decided right then that I wanted whatever it was they have."
A thankful spirit overrides circumstances – and is only experienced through relationship
A thankful spirit is not born – it is grown (as one learns to live the Word)
It results in a life being a living legacy, an ongoing testimony to God’s changing presence and power!
