Where Does Our Thanks Lead Us?

Where Does Our Thanks Take Us?

Leviticus 10:1-5 Acts 16:16-34 Psalm 100 11/24/2019

In a few days, some of us will have traveled many miles from where we are right now, in order to be with family and friends for Thanksgiving. For some of us it will be a time of great joy, but for others getting together with some family members is like jumping in a pool knowing there is an alligator in the water, but you can’t see it. You want to get out as soon as you got in.

Yet we are going to make the trip, because its Thanksgiving Day and that’s what we’re supposed to do. If you go down to Emmanuel Baptist Church on the corner of East 79th and Quincy, you would see on their church bulletin board, Thanksgiving is not a day, it’ a way to live life.

Being thankful always takes us somewhere. Has someone done something for you in your life, where you just wanted to get back and let the person know how much you appreciated what they had done for you? Last week we saw that being thankful led one of the 10 lepers who had been healed by Jesus back to Jesus to give thanks.

But being thankful can become twisted in where we should place our thanks. There was a very powerful king in the bible by the name of Nebuchadnezzer. He looked at the nations he had conquered, all the wealth he had accumulated, and all the admiration he had from his people, and his thanks led him to say. “I have all of this because of who I am and what I’ve done. His thanks led him to worship himself.

If you were out in the metroparks looking over a cliff, and you lost your balance, but just as you started over the cliff you noticed a branch was hanging over low enough for you to grab on. You grabbed that branch and it kept you from plunging to your death. What words are coming out of your mouth the moment you realized you have been saved? To whom does the atheist or agnostic give thanks in that moment?

I think there are two things that cause us to want to fall to our knees to worship God. The first is when we are in awe of God because of what God has done in creation. When I watch shows like the Blue Planet or Our Oceans on Netflix and see what God has done and what God has created, I can’t help but think inside, “God you are an awesome God.”

The second thing that causes us to want to fall to our knees to worship God is when we are so thankful for what God has done. When I think about the God who says this about himself in Isaiah 44:24 “ This is what the Lord says, your Redeemer and Creator; I am the Lord who made all things. I alone stretched out the heavens. Who was with me when I made the earth.”

When we recognize that it is God who not only created us, but desires to be in a relationship with us even with all the wrong we have done, our thanks should cause us to fall to our knees to say thank you Lord. When I think about what Jesus thought of us as he hung on the cross, refusing to come down because He knew if He had of quit, there would have been no hope for us, we should just want to fall on our knees and worship out of thanks.

Yet if we are not truly thankful for what Christ has done, it leads us to a sense of false worship in our worship of God. The worship becomes about us, and how we feel, and what we are willing to offer to God. We offer a worship to God that is not much different than a child throwing a bone to a dog and expecting the dog to be grateful.

When it comes to worship, worship is not a place we go to and it’s not a description of a service. Worship involves us taking our minds off ourselves and focusing in on God and what God has done. Worshipping God is not something anybody can do for us.

It is a simple choice that we make to do it or not do it. Each Sunday, each service, we make a deliberate choice. I will either surrender my heart to God in worship during the service or I will not do it. Sometimes we are tempted to worship God, in our own little way, and we say “God, you either accept this or leave it.”

If you read the Old Testament, God was very specific in how people were to worship him, especially the leaders. There were specific fragrances that were to be a part of worship of God. Moses’ brother Aaron, was the high priest for the nation. He had several sons, but two of them were named Nadab and Abihu and both were priests.