Scripture
The first Pilgrims arrived on the shores of what is now the United States of America in 1620.
The Pilgrims would not fully understand in their lifetime the reason for the suffering that they endured. The first Thanksgiving Day occurred as a unique holy day in the fall of 1621. The Pilgrims had fresh memories of the difficult, terrible winter they had just been through a few months before. Scores and scores of babies, children, young people and adults had starved to death. Many of the Pilgrims had come to a point where they were even ready to go back to England. In fact, they had climbed into a ship in the harbor heading back to England, ready to give up. It was then that they saw another ship coming the other way. On that ship was a Frenchman named Delaware, who came with some medical supplies and food. The Pilgrims then had enough hope to disembark, go back and to try to live in the midst of those adverse sufferings.
And so they came to that first Thanksgiving with the spirit of giving and of sharing.
Three years after the Pilgrims settled at Plymouth, Governor Bradford of Massachusetts made this first Thanksgiving Proclamation:
"Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as he has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience;
"Now I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all you Pilgrims, with your wives and your little ones, do gather at the meeting house, on the hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November 29th, of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty three and the third year since we Pilgrims landed on Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to your pastor and render thanksgiving to our Almighty God for all his blessings."
383 years ago Governor Bradford urged Christians to set aside time on Thanksgiving Day to hear the Word of God and to thank him for all his blessings. And that is what we are doing today in anticipation of Thanksgiving Day.
Today, as we think about Thanksgiving, I want to address the subject of ingratitude. Ingratitude is one of the ugliest attitudes anyone can possess. Luke drives home this point in a fascinating passage in Luke 17:11-19:
11 Now on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. 12 As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance 13 and called out in a loud voice, “Jesus, Master, have pity on us!”
14 When he saw them, he said, “Go, show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were cleansed.
15 One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. 16 He threw himself at Jesus’ feet and thanked him—and he was a Samaritan.
17 Jesus asked, “Were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 Then he said to him, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well.” (Luke 17:11-19)
Introduction
In Jesus’ day lepers were quarantined in colonies, some distance from cities and towns because their dreaded disease was so contagious. That’s why the group of ten stood some distance away as Jesus and the others entered the village.
Jesus’ seemingly strange command for the ten to show themselves to the priest was part of the normal process, as prescribed in the Law of Moses.
When a person was confident that he had recovered from the disease of leprosy, he was to submit to a purification ceremony from the priest to ensure—as much as was possible in ancient times—that he was indeed healed and could rejoin normal society.
In this remarkable account, the healing occurred miraculously and unmistakably as the ten men were on their way to see the priest after Jesus had commanded them to do so.
It is almost inconceivable that anyone could be cured from a terrible and frightening disease such as leprosy, which isolated a man or woman from family and friends and cut him or her off from normal events in society and the synagogue, and not be abundantly and permanently grateful. But that is exactly what happened with nine out of the ten lepers Jesus healed.
Furthermore, the thankful one was a Samaritan, which meant he was from the half-breed ethnic group that was the product of Jewish intermarriage with the Canaanites and Assyrians. Samaritans were despised by devout Jews, and as a result a mutual hatred had developed between the two peoples. So it was indeed remarkable that a Samaritan should be the only one thanking Jesus, a Jew.
Lesson
The story of the ten lepers is a powerful illustration of just how ugly the sin of ingratitude is. If you are struggling with an attitude of gratitude on this Thanksgiving Day, let me suggest some hindrances to gratitude. Now, there are many hindrances to gratitude, but today I am going to mention just three.
I. You Are Not Really Saved
The first hindrance to gratitude may be that you are not really saved.
Jesus said to the thankful leper, “Rise and go; your faith has made you well” (17:19). Literally, in Greek Jesus said, “Rise and go; your faith has saved you.” This thankful leper really was saved. And as he recognized that it was Jesus who not only saved him but also healed him, he returned to thank Jesus, because giving thanks to God is the normal and natural response of the Christian. As the Psalmist said, “I will give you thanks, for you answered me; you have become my salvation” (118:21).
Ingratitude is expected from those who have no saving relationship to Jesus Christ. That is why the other nine lepers who were healed did not return to give thanks to Jesus.
In Paul’s indictment of the godlessness and wickedness of people in Romans 1:18-32, his accusation is very specific. Romans 1:21 begins with the phrase, “For although they knew God.” This means that everyone coming into the world knows about God, even though they do not know him savingly. But then Paul continues and says, “They neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him” (emphasis added). The person who is not saved spurns the very notion of grace, the undeserved goodness granted by God. And that is why the nine lepers did not return to thank Jesus.
Helen Keller, who died in 1968 at the age of 78, was both blind and deaf. This is how she expressed her thanks: “For three things I thank God every day of my life: Thanks that he has vouchsafed me knowledge of his works; deep thanks that he has set in my darkness the lamp of faith; and deep, deepest thanks that I have another life to look forward—a life joyous with light and flowers and heavenly song.” Only Christians give thanks to God for who he is and for what he has done. Unbelievers have no desire to give thanks to God.
Author Fleming Rutledge wrote, “The life of thankfulness—biblically speaking—is lived in view of the hard things of existence. As the life of thanksgiving deepens, we discover that the more mature prayers of thanksgiving are not those offered for the obvious blessings, but those spoken in gratitude for obstacles overcome, for insights gained, for lessons learned, for increased humility, for help received in time of need, for strength to persevere, for opportunities to serve others.”
If you have no desire to give thanks to God for who he is and for what he has done, you may not be saved.
II. You Doubt God’s Sovereign Power
The second hindrance to gratitude may be that you doubt God’s sovereign power.
Clearly, the healed leper recognized that Jesus was the one who had sovereignly healed and saved him. The other nine presumably did not properly connect their healing to Jesus’ sovereign power because they did not return to thank Jesus.
If you don’t think God is really in charge, if you’re not sure God is really all wise, if you’re not sure he knows everything about everything, if you’re not sure he really loves you as his own, if you’re not sure he really has your best interest in mind, if you’re not sure he’s trying to perfect you into the image of his Son, if you don’t understand your God and his purposes, then you may not be thankful. Even if you do understand these truths, you can forget some of them, and that also may hinder gratitude.
Meditating on a powerful passage such as 1 Chronicles 29:10-14 can do much to remedy any doubts or forgetfulness we may have concerning the Lord. God’s sovereignty was part of David’s great prayer of thanksgiving and commitment after the people so generously gave of their wealth for the building of the Temple:
David praised the LORD in the presence of the whole assembly, saying,
“Praise be to you, O LORD,
God of our father Israel,
from everlasting to everlasting.
Yours, O LORD, is the greatness and the power
and the glory and the majesty and the splendor,
for everything in heaven and earth is yours.
Yours, O LORD, is the kingdom;
you are exalted as head over all.
Wealth and honor come from you;
you are the ruler of all things.
In your hands are strength and power
to exalt and give strength to all.
Now, our God, we give you thanks,
and praise your glorious name.
“But who am I, and who are my people, that we should be able to give as generously as this? Everything comes from you, and we have given you only what comes from your hand” (emphasis added).
As we have just concluded our Forward by Faith Capital Stewardship Campaign, we also give thanks to God. As God’s children we recognize that every single penny that has been committed to Forward by Faith comes from God. And for that we give him thanks.
One of God’s faithful missionaries, Allen Gardiner, experienced many physical difficulties and hardships throughout his service to the Savior. Despite his troubles, he said, “While God gives me strength, failure will not daunt me.” In 1851, at the age of 57, he died of disease and starvation while serving on Picton Island at the southern tip of South America. When his body was found, his diary lay nearby. It bore the record of hunger, thirst, wounds, and loneliness. The last entry in his little book showed the struggle of his shaking hand as he tried to write legibly. It read, “I am overwhelmed with a sense of the goodness of God.” Think of that! No word of complaint, no whining, no grumbling at the circumstances—just praise for God’s goodness.
Allen Gardiner had a very real trust in the sovereign power of God. That is why he could write of God’s goodness on his deathbed. If we believe that God is truly sovereign, we will express thanks to him in all circumstances.
III. You Are Selfish
The third hindrance to gratitude may be that you are selfish.
The nine lepers who were healed thought only of themselves. They did not give thanks to the one who had healed them.
Selfishness is that attitude that says, “No matter what I’ve got, I don’t have what I really want, I don’t have enough. I want more. I want my circumstances different. I want my children different. I want my life different. I want my ministry different. I want my spouse different. I want my job different. I want a lot of things different. I want more of this and less of that.”
Selfishness is most often motivated by worldly culture, which claims that its pleasures, possessions, places, pursuits, prestige, and people are the real keys to happiness. If greed and materialism drive us, we’ll have great difficulty being thankful because we’ll always want more, and what we do have will never be just right. However, if we humbly submit to whatever God’s will is for us and believe that he will give us what we need when we need it, it is much easier for us to thank him at all times. We should have the attitude of Paul who said, “Nobody should seek his own good, but the good of others” (1 Corinthians 10:24).
This is the attitude David Livingstone had. He wrote in his journal on one occasion concerning his “selfless” life:
"People talk of the sacrifice I have made in spending so much of my life in Africa. Can that be called a sacrifice which is simply paying back a small part of the great debt owing to our God, which we can never repay? Is that a sacrifice which brings its own blest reward in healthful activity, the consciousness of doing good, peace of mind and a bright hope of glorious destiny hereafter? Away with the word in such a view and with such a thought! It is emphatically no sacrifice. Say rather it is a privilege."
Serving God is indeed a privilege. Most of us frankly do not have the honor of serving God in difficult circumstances like David Livingstone or so many other people today. If you have no desire to thank God, it may be that you are selfish.
Conclusion
I love the story of Helen Hayes, who wasn’t a cook at all. Finally, after many, many years of eating out at restaurants on Thanksgiving Day she decided that her family ought to have Thanksgiving dinner at home. And so she told her husband and son, “Now, I’ve cooked turkey for the first time and I’m going to bring it to the table. If it’s not good, I don’t want anybody to say a word. We’ll just quietly get up from the table, and without any negative comments, we’ll just go to a restaurant and have a Thanksgiving meal.” So she went into the kitchen to get the turkey. As she came into the dining room she saw her husband and son both sitting at the table with their hat and coat on!
Unlike Helen Hayes, God is perfect and he never makes a mistake. God’s goodness and mercy is always available, and is overflowing and abounding toward us. The gift of Jesus Christ is that unspeakable gift for which we are thankful. All good gifts that flow down from the Father of lights, victory over sin and death, divine guidance, complete provision for all our needs, the hope of heaven, the power of the Word and on and on we go. We have lots of reasons to give thanks.
The leper was miraculously healed by Jesus. He rightly went back to Jesus and thanked him for his grace. That is the right attitude to have. This Thanksgiving let us not be guilty of ingratitude. Amen.
