Wanda likes
to watch the Hallmark Channel. She had
it on last weekend, and they were having a marathon of Christmas movies.
I had to check the calendar. Yup, it’s still November. We seem to have moved right from Halloween
into the Christmas season. I was
thinking that there used to be some sort of holiday in between there. It had to do with giving thanks or
something. What was it called
again? Oh, yeah, Thanksgiving. That’s it.
We seem to have kind of forgotten
about Thanksgiving any more. I mean,
we’re still aware that it exists. Most
of us still want the days off from work.
Many of us will be traveling somewhere, or else having people travel to
see us. But we don’t really talk about
it much. Anymore, the big holiday over
that weekend is not Thanksgiving, it’s Black Friday, with all the doorbuster
specials.
Maybe that’s why we don’t talk
about Thanksgiving much. Nobody can
make money on it. With Halloween, we
sell all kinds of costumes and decorations and tons of candy. For Christmas, we have even more
decorations, plus gifts of every shape, color, and size. What can we do for Thanksgiving, sell
turkeys? Market Pilgrim costumes? It just doesn’t work. There’s no real money to be made in being
thankful. So, Thanksgiving tends to be
ignored and forgotten.
This year, we’re going to take the
small step we can to remedy that. For
the next three weeks, we’re going to have a sermon series on Thanksgiving. For this first message in the series, we’re
going to ask the question, “Why should we be thankful?”
We know we’re supposed to be. The Bible talks about thankfulness all the
time. In the Old Testament, one of the
required offerings for the Hebrews was the Thank Offering. One of the purposes of the tithe, giving the
first ten percent of our income to God, is to thank God for everything we
have. In our communion liturgy, which
we read last week, we say, “Let us give thanks to the Lord our God. It is right to give our thanks and praise.” Even Jesus, when he was giving the first
communion to the disciples, gave thanks to God.
So we know we’re supposed to be
thankful, but why? Why do we need to
tell God “thank you” all the time? Are
we just trying to make God feel good?
Are we just trying to please God so God will give us more? Or is God so vain that God needs to hear us
express thanks all the time?
Well, that’s obviously not why we
give thanks. I mean, I suspect God is
pleased when we take the time to give thanks, but it’s not like we can fool God
or butter God up so God will do more things for us. God knows perfectly well how good God is. God does not need us to say it. So why should we be thankful?
And especially, why should we be
thankful when it does not seem like things are going all that well for us? I mean, it’s not that hard to see why we
should give thanks when we have everything we want. We can get why Bill Gates should be thankful—if he spent a
million dollars a day he’d still never run out of money. We can get why LeBron James should be
thankful—he’s one of the most talented athletes who ever lived. But why should you and I be thankful? We’re just ordinary people. We’re not the richest, we’re not the most
talented, we’re not the best at anything.
Yeah, there are people who are worse off, and we recognize that, but
there are plenty of people who are better off, too. What reason do you and I have to be thankful?
Then, too, there are people sitting
right here in this sanctuary today who have some really serious stuff they’re
dealing with in their lives. There are
people here who have serious health problems, or who have close relatives or
friends who do. There are people here
who are having serious financial problems, and who don’t know if they’re going
to have the money to pay their bills.
There are people here who’ve lost loved ones recently. There are people here who have other serious
problems, too. In fact, as I’ve said
before, just about everyone here is going through something pretty
serious. I may not know about it, you
may not know about it, but the problem is still there. When we’re going through that kind of stuff,
it’s pretty hard to think of reasons to be thankful.
God understands that. When the Bible tells us to be thankful, it’s
not telling us to pretend our problems don’t exist or that they’re not
serious. We’re not supposed to just
ignore our problems and paint a big smile on our faces. It’s not telling us to feel guilty when we
have trouble feeling thankful, either.
When things are going badly for us, and we’re not feeling particularly
thankful, God does not want to give us guilt on top of everything else.
Here’s the thing. It’s like we’ve said before in different
contexts: the Bible tells us to be
thankful because God knows we’ll feel better and we’ll be better off if we can
find reasons to be thankful, despite our problems. It’s not a matter of pretending things are different from how
they are, and it’s not a matter of feeling guilty when we’re worried about our
problems. It’s a matter of trying to
find a way to trust God and be thankful despite our problems.
Why will being thankful make us
feel better? Why will being thankful
make us better off? Paul nails it in
our reading from Philippians for today.
Listen to it again:
Do not be anxious about anything,
but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your
requests to God. And the peace of God,
which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in
Christ Jesus.
The peace of God. That’s what we get when we’re thankful. Paul does not tell us to ignore our
problems. Paul does not tell us to
pretend our problems don’t exist or that they’re not serious. What Paul tells us to do is to take them to
God. Paul says that in every situation,
no matter how bad it looks, we should present our requests to God.
Now, notice one thing. Paul does not say God will do whatever we
request. Paul does not say God will
solve our problems or take them away.
What Paul says is that God will give us the strength to deal with our
problems. Listen to this part of our
reading from Philippians:
I have learned to be content
whatever the circumstances. I know what
it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content
in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in
plenty or in want. I can do all this
through him who gives me strength.
Again, Paul does not say God will
magically make our problems go away.
What Paul says is that, when we pray to God, we can let go of our
problems. We can turn things over to
God, knowing that the all-powerful, all-loving, all-knowing God is working on
the situation. We can trust that, if
God is working on the situation, then the situation will go the way it’s
supposed to go. That may or may not be
the way we want it to go, but it will be the way that’s best.
Knowing that, we can be content in
every situation. We don’t have to
worry. We don’t have to live our lives
in anxiety and fear. Instead, we can do
our best and turn things over to God.
We can trust that if we do what we’re supposed to do, God will do what
God is supposed to do. Then, we may not
get what we want, but we’ll get what we need:
the peace of God, a peace that really does go beyond all of our
understanding, in our hearts.
We’ll have problems all our
lives. Sometimes, those problems will
be serious. Sometimes, they may even
seem overwhelming. But even then, there
are still things we can be thankful for.
We can be thankful that God is there.
We can be thankful that God cares about us. We can be thankful for the chance to pray to God. And we can be thankful that we can have
salvation by God’s wonderful love and mercy, through our faith in our Savior,
Jesus Christ. If we can remember to be
thankful for those things, and turn things over to God, we can have the peace
of God in our hearts and in our lives.
And that’s something we can always be thankful for, because there is no
greater feeling in the world.
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