Thanksgiving 2023

THANKSGIVING 2023

Text: Ephesians 5:20

You know it’s pretty sad, that a lot of folks don’t hear the story of Thanksgiving that I told our kids this morning. Now days it’s all revisionist history and deconstructionist critical theory. But the historical documents bear out the facts, and the truth will win in the end.

I remember when I first heard that story – it was my kindergarten teacher who told it to me. And I remember my mom coming to pick me up and I was retelling it to her, and my mom asked me, “What did they eat at that first thanksgiving?” And I said, “I don’t remember, but you can ask my teacher, she was there.” For some reason, everything changed for me in school after that – I don’t know why.

But in all seriousness, Thanksgiving is a great CHRISTIAN holiday, and yes I say Christian! It’s so much more than just saying, “Thanks for the food.” 1 Thess. 5:18 tells us that we should give thanks in all things for that is the will of God in Christ Jesus.

Those Pilgrims had so much to be thankful for, but in truth – so do we.

So this morning, please take your Bibles and open them up to Ephesians 5:20 (READ).

Now let me give you a little bit of context to this passage before we dig into it. Paul has told his readers to be imitators of God as beloved children. He’s told them to walk in love, even as Christ loved. Then he gave them several warnings about how they should flee sexual immorality, how they should not be partnered with non-believers or false teachers, or those who are in darkness. He tells them not to be foolish, or to engage in debauchery, but rather to be filled with the Holy Spirit. And that was to be an ongoing, perpetual thing. And the result of this being filled with the Holy Spirit – verses 19 and 20 is that we “address one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs. We sing and make melody to the Lord in our hearts, and we give thanks always for everything to God.”

So basically; what Paul is doing here is, he’s encouraging these believers in Ephesus to… when they come together as THE CHURCH, they should be filled with, and express gratitude. They should express thanksgiving. Christians of all people should be the most thankful people in the world.

And often times, what Paul does, when he gives lists… and he does that quite often… but when he gives lists of those signs of the end times, and things that will mark the end times… he always includes that people will be lovers of self, lovers of pleasure, and that they will be unthankful, ungrateful. They will not be thankful.

He does that when he writes to Timothy, he says, “In the last days people will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, lovers of pleasure, and will be ungrateful… incapable of showing gratitude and giving thanks.” In Romans chapter one, Paul says that “People did not acknowledge God, NOR DID THEY GIVE THANKS. And so God gives them over.”

And so throughout the New Testament, we see that people who have been redeemed, who have been saved by the grace of God, rescued from the power, the presence, and the penalty of their sin… people who know that they are justified before God – they can, and should give thanks.

But unfortunately; what happens is – people don’t acknowledge God, they forget God, they become self-centered, and self-absorbed, and instead of having a heart, and attitude of gratitude, they feel that they are deserving of every good gift. They think – of course I deserve this raise, of course I deserve this praise, of course I deserve only good things to happen to me.

And let me just tell you, that’s not Biblical thinking, and that should not characterize the thinking of a Christian. That’s more like Nebuchadnezzar’s thinking than Christian thinking. You all remember the story of Nebuchadnezzar right? One day he’s sitting there, and he’s all puffed up, and he’s looking out over the city of Babylon, and he says to himself, “Is not this great Babylon which I have built by MY mighty power, for the glory of MY majesty.” I – ME – MINE.

NOPE!

And what happens to Nebuchadnezzar? God humbles him. Makes him like a wild animal. He’s out in the fields, and all dirty, and long fingernails, and wild – unkempt hair, and he’s eating grass and bugs, and his mind is totally incapable of logic and reason, and rational thinking. Which is the state of humanity without God. The question is asked, “Why do the nations rage?” And the answer to that is that: They rage because that is the natural state of humanity without God. Human beings are created to be the image bearers of God. We are created in His image and after His likeness, and when a person does not acknowledge God, or retain God in his knowledge, and rejects God, God gives them over, and as they are given over they bear His image less and less, and become more and more like animals and beasts. That’s how you get groups like Hamas. People who just want to cause chaos, and violence, and destruction.