Thanksgiving Thoughts

[00:00:00] Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. [00:00:10] Well, Happy Thanksgiving. [00:00:12] What do you. [00:00:15] There's a response to that, huh? [00:00:18] And the same to you, Pastor. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. And also with you. [00:00:25] Yeah, yeah. So what are you thankful for this year? [00:00:31] You know, when it comes time for Thanksgiving, all the children do projects and they write out what they're thankful for. And it's a good exercise to stop and think, well, what am I thankful for? And often there are a lot more things than maybe you realized as you went about the busyness of your life or as you worried about such and such a thing. And, you know, it's always kind of nice to stop and think, well, there are some things to. To be thankful for and think of some positive things. [00:01:00] Right. [00:01:02] Well, but what if the negative, difficult things outweigh the happy, positive things? [00:01:11] Then what do you do? [00:01:14] Just give thanks for a second for these things and then keep focusing on the tough things or what? There was a Wall Street Journal, I don't know, it's probably an opinion piece in the last couple of days that it was trying to make the case for something like unthanksgiving. [00:01:35] Like, I had a picture of somebody writing a list of what they were not thankful for. [00:01:40] And the argument was, well, if we just like brush over all those things and sweep them under the rug, then we're not going to deal with those things and we're going to put on a good face at Thanksgiving and act like we're thankful for. For. Well, for the way things are going when really we're not. And so we might as well instead make a list of the things we're not thankful for and then we can deal with those things and be more authentic. [00:02:07] Which was interesting, but it assumed that. [00:02:12] Well, it assumed that it's not actually a good idea to always give thanks in every circumstance, like Paul says. [00:02:22] And really it takes a different kind of perspective to do that. [00:02:26] Takes faith perspective. I mean, from a Christian perspective, we have everything in the world to be thankful for all the time. Our thankfulness doesn't rely on our present circumstances or the good things that we're enjoying at the moment, physically speaking. [00:02:45] But actually we're looking forward to something in the future to be given to us. It doesn't matter what happens right now. Just look at the apostles going out and gladly speaking God's word and being killed for it, having everything taken away from them, or Christ going to the cross, the same thing. [00:03:09] Well, could they do that with Thanksgiving? Yes, and they did. One time they get put in prison early on in Acts, the apostles do they get put in prison. And they rejoice that they were counted worthy to share in Christ's sufferings. [00:03:24] That's the kind of thanksgiving that we have as Christians, that kind of attitude. [00:03:32] Well, the Israelites found themselves in a similar situation many times wandering in the wilderness. It's like, well, thanks God for taking us out of Egypt. Usually it was more like, Moses, why did you take us out of Egypt? [00:03:48] But now we don't have any food. Now we don't have any water. [00:03:53] How are we going to provide for ourselves? [00:03:55] And they would grumble, and then God would provide for them. Well, in our Old Testament reading tonight, we have some of what Moses tells them before going into the promised land. So the whole commandment that I command you today, you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply and go in and possess the land that the Lord swore to give to your fathers. So they're about to go in. [00:04:22] And you shall remember the whole way that the Lord your God has led you these 40 years in the wilderness that he might humble you. [00:04:31] Has God humbled you recently? [00:04:33] Are you thankful for that? [00:04:37] That he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not? And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna. [00:04:51] So they were without the food that they would have expected and enjoyed, and instead they got the food that they named, what is it? [00:05:02] The flake. Like, stuff that came like dew in the morning. I don't think it ever says that it was delicious. [00:05:13] He humbled you and let you hunger. Thank God for that. Well, he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you manna, which you did not know. There it is. [00:05:28] Nor did your fathers know that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God. [00:05:41] So all of this was to teach them something to redirect their attention from. [00:05:48] Well, from having it easy, having everything they need to direct their attention away from a focus on, well, the kinds of things we usually give thanks for at Thanksgiving on the surface, to point them away from the surface level to God's word. [00:06:10] Because faith comes first. Seek first the kingdom of God. Then all these things will be added to you. [00:06:20] So you might say that we are to ask for and give thanks for spiritual gifts before temporal physical gifts. [00:06:32] Your clothing did not wear out on you, and your foot did not swell these 40 years, God gave them what they needed, the bare essentials. [00:06:43] Know then in your heart that as a man disciplines his Son, the Lord your God disciplines you. [00:06:52] Okay, so the Israelites experienced suffering and challenges and difficulties, great difficulties. And God gives them here a way to interpret that. It's like you find yourself suffering Israelites. [00:07:09] Here's what God says to that. [00:07:11] He's your Father and He's disciplining you like his son. [00:07:16] Well, don't you think that applies to us as well? I mean, here we have a key to interpreting our own suffering and challenges and difficulties. [00:07:25] We can remember that God is our Father. He's made us His Father by giving us his son, Jesus, to become our brother, to make Himself our brother and make us his brothers. [00:07:40] You could say sisters, symbolically brothers. [00:07:44] And to make us part of his family, to give us a new birth, a new identity through baptism into Christ. [00:07:55] So God is our Father and He's disciplining us. Okay, so let's say you're going through a challenge right now. Something difficult. [00:08:07] Well, is the Lord disciplining you? [00:08:10] Like, is it that you did something wrong and now God's punishing you to give you what you deserve? [00:08:18] Well, maybe not exactly. [00:08:23] That's the situation Job found himself in. He was suffering in all kinds of ways. And his friends and his wife came and said, you did something wrong. And Job said, I don't think that's why God comes and says that all the friends had bad advice. [00:08:41] It's not so much that we look at what we've done in our life. I mean, okay, we could be. We could be suffering the consequences of something we've done. That certainly is the way God has set things up. Right? It's not that there's no consequences for. But sometimes there isn't. Sometimes the evil prosper and the righteous suffer. [00:09:03] But we know that God is our Father and He loves us. And through discipline, he humbles us and points us well to His Word. And what does His Word have for us? His Word has everything for us. [00:09:19] That's what the apostles were willing to die for. [00:09:23] It's His Word and promises. So what does God promise you in His Word? [00:09:31] Forgiveness and salvation and life forever with him, no matter what comes. Maybe death first if he doesn't come back before then. [00:09:43] But after that, after our suffering, then the glory to be revealed to us isn't worth comparing to that suffering that we experienced. That suffering through which God humbled us and taught us and gave us his gifts. [00:09:58] Well, he tells the Israelites why God disciplined them well, here's the like, here's the outcome. Discipline's always got a goal for my children. I discipline my children because I want them to become, I tell them like I want you to become a good God fearing man, you know, who can serve others, whatever, you know. So there's always something on the other side of discipline. A goal, a destination. [00:10:24] For the Lord your God is bringing you out of the wilderness, out of your suffering. [00:10:32] The Lord your God is bringing you into a good land. A land of brooks, of water, of fountains and springs flowing out in the valleys and hills. A land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates. A land of olive trees and honey. A land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing. A land whose stones are iron and out of whose hills you can dig copper. And you shall eat and be full. And you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. [00:11:06] Now, of course, we could think of those images in Revelation where we see all tears taken away and God there in the midst of the city. And we think of the end, the hope that's not here yet. [00:11:21] But these things are already here for us. Through faith, by faith, we can feed in God's green pastures, guided by our shepherd, distill waters. Even in the midst of suffering, God gives us his hope, his love and joy. [00:11:47] This land flowing with brooks of water and fountains and springs, with plentiful resources in which we will eat and be fully and thank the Lord our God for the good land he's given us. [00:12:06] This is, well, this is the church. As we enjoy one another's fellowship, as we speak God's word to one another and show one another his love. And as we go out of here and tomorrow, spend time with family and pay attention to one another and share the love of Christ with one another. [00:12:30] You are a spring and a brook. God is using you and the overflow of what he's given you to bless others and to bring others into Christ's love. [00:12:42] Thanks be to God. In Jesus name, amen.