It’s the Sunday before Thanksgiving. It
hardly seems possible. It seems to me like Thanksgiving should still be
at least a month away. And yet, here it is. Soon it will be
Christmas and then 2017 will be over. And I just finally stopped writing
2016 on my checks.
So, it’s time for the pastor’s annual Thanksgiving message.
And this presents kind of a challenge. Not because of the topic
itself. There are all kinds of Bible verses to use about thankfulness.
But it’s like what I wrote in the church newsletter. You’ve heard
all this before. Some of you have heard literally dozens of Thanksgiving
messages. You know we’re supposed to be thankful to God, not just at this
time but at all times. You know what it says in First Thessalonians Five,
Eighteen: Be thankful in all circumstances. You already know all
this stuff.
The question is not whether we know about it. The
question is whether we do it. And of course, the answer would be
different for each one of us. Some of us probably do live up to that
statement of being thankful in all circumstances. Others of us probably
remember to give thanks when things are going well, but are not so good at
feeling thankful when things are not going the way we want them to.
Others of us probably are not even very good at giving thanks when things
do go well. We’re all at different points on the spectrum.
But no matter where we are, I think most of us could
probably do better than we’re doing. Even if we’re really good at giving
thanks, we can probably still get better. If we’re not so good at it, we
can probably get a lot better. But how? How can we get to where we
really do live with an attitude of thankfulness, no matter what’s going on in
our lives?
Well, let’s look at what the Apostle Paul write in his
letter to the Philippians. Look at how he starts out. “Rejoice in
the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!”
How many of us ever do that? How many of us ever
rejoice in the Lord. Even if we sometimes give thanks to God, even if we
are truly grateful for what God has done, how many of us actually rejoice in
the Lord?
In fact, how many of us even know what it means to rejoice
in the Lord? That word, rejoice, means to feel or show great joy or
delight. And those words, joy and delight, mean to take great pleasure.
How many of us, when we think about God or when we pray to
God, feel joy or delight? How many of us, when we think about God or pray
to God, take great pleasure in doing that?
I’m guessing not very many of us, and not all that often.
And I base my guess, quite frankly, on the fact that I don’t feel those
things that often. Now, maybe that’s not fair. Maybe you’re a lot
better at this than I am. Maybe you feel great pleasure and joy and
delight every time you think about God and every time you pray to God. I
really hope there are some of us here who do. If you do, that’s awesome.
That’s wonderful. You probably don’t need to listen to any more of
the message today.
And there are times when I do feel those things. But
there are a lot of times when I don’t. And so, for those of you who are
still listening and feel like you can improve on this, what do we do? How
do we get that feeling of great pleasure and joy and delight? How can we
get to where we rejoice in the Lord?
Well, let’s look at what Paul says next. “The Lord is
near. 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 Lord is near. The peace of God will guard your
hearts and minds. That would great, don’t you think? To know that
the Lord is near? To have the peace of God guarding our hearts and minds?
I mean, that’s really what we all want, right? If we felt the Lord
near, if we felt the peace of God guarding our hearts and minds, we’d be able
to do what Paul said. We would not be anxious about anything. And
how awesome would that be? To not be anxious about anything.
Because my guess is that almost every person here is anxious about
something. It may be a big thing or it may be a small thing. It may
be something that some people would think of as a small thing, but it’s a big
thing to you.
It would be so wonderful to be able to get rid of all that
anxiety. It would be so wonderful to not have to worry about anything.
It’s our worries that keep us from feeling that the Lord is near.
They keep us from feeling the peace of God. And because we cannot
feel the Lord near, because we cannot feel the peace of God, we cannot rejoice
in the Lord the way Paul tells us to and the way God wants us to. And
because we cannot rejoice in the Lord, we cannot live with an attitude of
thankfulness the way we know we’re supposed to.
But does saying that help us any? Probably not.
Saying “do not be anxious about anything” is easy. Actually not
being anxious is hard. How do we do it?
Here’s what Paul says. “In every situation, by prayer
and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” Paul says
that if we do that, we will feel the peace of God. And then, we’ll be
able to rejoice in the Lord and live with an attitude of thankfulness.
So let’s break that down a little farther. What are we
supposed to do? Present our requests to God. That means any
requests. There is nothing too big for God, but there is also nothing too
small for God. That’s one of the amazing things about God. God
loves us so much that God is interested in every aspect of our lives. God
is interested in the big things, but God is interested in the small things.
Remember, this is the God that knows the number of hairs on our heads.
Basically, if something is important to us, it’s important to God.
That’s not to say God will always do what we want, and we know that.
We have no ability to order God around. But there is never a time
when we request something of God and God says, “Ah, that’s not important.
I’m not interested in that. I’m not gonna pay any attention to
that.” God is interested in everything. God pays attention to
everything. Everything is important to God. So, no matter what our
request is, we can present it to God.
By what method are we supposed to present these requests to
God? By prayer and petition. And when are we supposed to present
them? In every situation.
In other words, we don’t need to wait until we have a
specific prayer time to talk to God. It’s fine to do that, don’t get me
wrong. I have a specific prayer time of my own. But we don’t need
to limit our prayers to that time. In fact, we’re not supposed to.
We can pray to God in every situation. No matter where we are, no
matter what we’re doing, we can pray to God. We can present our requests
to God.
Now all that should help. Knowing that we can pray to
God at any time, that we can present our requests to God at any time, knowing
that there’s nothing too big or too small for God to be interested in, that all
can help us feel the peace of God. It can help us be able to rejoice in
the Lord.
But here’s the big thing. How are we supposed to
present our requests to God? With thanksgiving. Paul says we should
present our requests to God with thanksgiving.
Think about that. Present a request with
thanksgiving. Does that make sense? I mean, I can understand being
thankful after our request is granted. But Paul says we’re not supposed
to wait for our request to be granted to be thankful. We’re supposed to
be thankful as we’re making the request. We’re supposed to present our
request with thanksgiving.
If we’re thankful to God as we’re making our requests to
God, what does that mean? It means that we trust God. It means
that, as we’re making the request, we trust that our request will be taken care
of. Whatever request we make, whatever the situation is, God’s going to
handle it. Once we’ve prayed to God about it, it’s over. It’s in
God’s hands, and we trust that God will take care of it.
It’s trust. It’s faith. It’s believing that,
once we’ve prayed, we can turn the situation over to God. We can leave
the situation in God’s hands. Again, that does not mean God will do
exactly what we want exactly when we want it. That’s not what we’re
thankful for. What we’re thankful for is that we can trust God to do
what’s right. We’re thankful that we can trust God to do what’s best.
We’re thankful that we can trust God to take care of things and handle
them in the right way, not just for us but for everyone involved.
When we present our requests to God, we’re turning our
problems over to God. When we turn all of our problems, large and small,
over to God, and when we do that with thanksgiving, knowing God will take care
of them, we can feel the peace of God guarding our hearts and our minds.
Then, we truly will be able to rejoice in the Lord. And then, we
will truly know that the Lord is near.
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