Thanksgiving 2015

Thanksgiving 2015

Scott Bayles, pastor

Blooming Grove Christian Church: 11/15/2015

There is a lot to love about Thanksgiving. I love the turkey and stuffing. I love pumpkin pie. I love spending time with family and playing football in the backyard. But the best part of Thanksgiving is that it prompts so many of us, even for just a moment, to reflect on the things for which we are thankful.

Have you thought about what you’re thankful for this year? In the spirit of Thanksgiving, TimeOut.com (a parenting website) asked New York kids ages 2 to 12 what they are thankful for. There’s nothing more adorable than asking a child a serious question to see what their candid response will be.

• Lexi, age 7, from the Upper West Side, said, “I’m thankful for my family and friends. And I love to read, so I’m thankful for books—especially Diary of a Wimpy Kid!”

• Griffin, age 4, from Brooklyn, said, “I’m thankful for red apples. The green ones will make you sick.”

• Elijah, age 3, “I’m thankful when bees don’t sting me, but when they do, mud feels me better.”

• Jaisy, also age 3, said, “I’m thankful for my rock moves.”

• Kenzie, age 9, says, “I’m thankful for everything good—and bad—that has ever happened to me. The good makes the bad okay and the bad isn’t really bad because there’s so much good. So, maybe I’m really just thankful for the good since there isn’t really any bad. Ugh, I’ve confused myself. I’ll just say I’m thankful for my sister’s rock moves.”

• Anya, age 10, said, “I’m thankful for a safe warm home and a full refrigerator.”

• Jackson, age 9, from Manhattan, says, “I’m thankful for my grandparents and uncle that have slept at our apartment since Hurricane Sandy.”

• Jillian, age 12, says, “I’m thankful for the doctor who fixed my heart.”

I’m convinced the human spirit shines most brightly when it’s cloaked in gratitude. G.K. Chesterton once said, “I would maintain that thanks are the highest form of thought, and that gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.”

The truth is—when we choose to see life through the eyes of gratitude, it changes everything. Especially ourselves. I like how Richelle Goodrich puts it. She writes, “Gratitude paints little smiley faces on everything it touches.”

As you know, the Bible has a lot to say about thanksgiving. It encourages and even commands us to “be thankful” (Hebrews 12:28) and “give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:18). The word “thanks” appears in the Bible exactly 100 times (at least in the NIV). One of my favorite occurrences is found in Psalm 95:

Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. 2 Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song. 3 For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods. 4 In his hand are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him. 5 The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. 6 Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the Lord our Maker; 7 for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. (Psalm 95:1-7 NIV)

Maybe you haven’t been feeling very thankful lately. Maybe life hasn’t been going your way and gratitude has been replaced with grumbling. In this psalm, the author not only invites us to enter into God’s presence with thankfulness, he also offers three reasons why we should be grateful to God. Regardless of your situation or circumstances, each of us can give thanks to God for these three things. So what do we have to be thankful for? First, we can give thanks for God’s character!

• GOD’S CHARACTER

After inviting us to “come to him with thanksgiving” the psalmist writes: “because the Lord is the great God, the great King over all gods” (vs. 3 NCV).

He starts off with God’s very nature, his character. This is about who God is; rather than what God has done. In a word, everything about God is great. His love. His mercy. His patience. His presence. His faithfulness. His forgiveness… it’s all great!

One of my favorite contemporary Christian hymns is Christ Tomlin’s How great is our God! When Chris sat down to write that song, he began with those words—the chorus—how great is our God. And, at first, that’s all he was able to come up with. In an interview, he said he didn’t really know where to go from there. He prayed to God, “…this is all I have Lord, there’s no other words I can summon in the English language to describe how great you are.” For a long time, he just sat there with those words, like a question hanging over his head that he couldn’t find an answer for.