Setting a Thankful Mood

[The following is a manuscript of my message delivered on Sunday, the 13th of November, 2022, at Pilgrim Reformed Church.  Our YouTube streaming channel is: 

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCDIz4WuP8igQstkEOq1AMTg.]

In our Invocation, Ezra told us to give thanks to the Lord, for He is good and His faithful love for us lasts forever.  God gave of His own Son to offer us eternal life in paradise if we would only accept Jesus as our Lord and follow His voice.  We are truly blessed.  God is good, all the time.  And all the time, God is good.

Our Bible is filled with scripture that tells us to be thankful to our loving God, and there are also passages that explain why we should be thankful.  The Apostle Paul often does both, and even gives us examples of how to show our thankfulness.  Please listen and follow along to what Paul wrote to the Colossians in chapter 3 of his letter to that church in Colossae, verses 12 through 17, and I’ll be reading this from the New Life Version of our Holy Bible…

12 God has chosen you. You are holy and loved by Him. Because of this, your new life should be full of loving-pity. You should be kind to others and have no pride. Be gentle and be willing to wait for others. 13 Try to understand other people. Forgive each other. If you have something against someone, forgive him. That is the way the Lord forgave you. 14 And to all these things, you must add love. Love holds everything and everybody together and makes all these good things perfect. 15 Let the peace of Christ have power over your hearts. You were chosen as a part of His body. Always be thankful.

16 Let the teaching of Christ and His words keep on living in you. These make your lives rich and full of wisdom. Keep on teaching and helping each other. Sing the Songs of David and the church songs and the songs of heaven with hearts full of thanks to God. 17 Whatever you say or do, do it in the name of the Lord Jesus. Give thanks to God the Father through the Lord Jesus.

--Colossians 3:12-17 (NLV)

Let us pray…  Father God, thank You for choosing us to be Your children, to be holy and loved by You.  Without Your steadfast love and faithfulness, we would be forever lost in our sin.  Thank You, loving God, for having mercy upon us and sending Your own Son to redeem us of our sin.  Forgive us, please Father, when we are disobedient, when we stray from the path Jesus set before us.  Forgive us when we don’t stop long enough to realize just how truly blessed we are, when we fail to show our thankfulness.  Please help us show a greater appreciation for all You have done and continue to do for us.  May the teachings and words of our Christ remain fresh and alive within us.  And Father, please protect us from Satan and from those who do his work.  Please keep us strong in our faith, of one mind and one purpose in our love, worship, and service, and healthy and safe through these trying times.

Speak to us now, Father, that we might hear Your voice through Your Spirit within us and better understand the message You have for us this day.  Please continue to smile upon us and bless us with Your tender mercies.  And guide us with Your firm hand.  This we pray in the glorious name of Christ Jesus our Lord.   Amen.

Do you remember the movie about a “bubble boy” that was based on a true story?  Well, there was a 12 year old boy named David who was born without an immune system.  He underwent a bone marrow transplant in order to correct the deficiency.  Up to that point he had spent his entire life in a plastic bubble in order to prevent exposure to common germs, bacteria, and viruses that could kill him.  He lived without ever knowing human contact.  When asked what he'd like to do if and when released from his protective bubble, he replied, "I want to walk barefoot on grass, and touch my mother's hand." 

How many blessings do we simply take for granted?  How many of us would rejoice to touch a loved-one’s hand again?  Here was a little boy who had never even touched his mother’s hand, never felt her loving embrace, never run barefoot through the grass.  Can you imagine how he would feel if the whole world were finally opened up to him?

Well, we should be able to image it, because this is what we have every day!  Sure, we may not all be able to touch our mother’s hand any longer, but we have memories of doing so.  And yes, we each have our challenges and stumbling blocks to overcome, or at least live with.  But we are able to overcome them, we can live with them, because our loving Father in heaven helps us.  Without His help, without His love, we would be far, far worse off than that boy in the bubble.  We would be forever lost, forever doomed with no hope for a better life for all eternity.  So let us remember just how blessed we are, and let us give thanks to our Lord God.

Family, our national day of Thanksgiving is a little over a week away, so this morning I wanted to set the mood for being thankful.  Because really, we should give thanks every day, and in everything, in every situation, in the good times and the bad.

I don’t think we have very far to look to find something to give thanks for.  We just enjoyed another successful fundraiser.  We remain financially stable as a church when so many others are struggling.  And yes, we worked hard to prepare for and run that fundraiser, yes we have good people watching over our finances and keeping our spending down.  But let us not think for even one moment that any of this is of our own making.  For without God’s blessings, no matter how hard we work or how diligently we perform, anything we try will fail.

Look at our 5K Run for Grace.  We’re a small church.  We knew nothing about hosting a charity run.  And yet every single year, God has smiled on our efforts and blessed us so we could be a blessing to the Workshop.  These are just a few examples of how God has blessed us, in ways both large and small.

Like I said earlier, our Bible provides us with a great deal of information regarding God’s blessings.  The invocation and our church reading both came from the Old Testament, from Ezra and King David.  Let’s look at a few from the New Testament, beginning with James, the brother of Jesus, who tells us why we should be forever thankful in the 1st chapter of his letter to the early church, verses 17 and 18…

17 Whatever is good and perfect comes to us from God. He is the One Who made all light. He does not change. No shadow is made by His turning. 18 He gave us our new lives through the truth of His Word only because He wanted to. We are the first children in His family.

--James 1:17-18 (NLV)

God created everything there is, and since God is perfect, everything that comes from Him is perfect.  And because He is good, everything that comes from Him is good.  Anything that is not so good or that is imperfect comes from man’s own efforts, or from Satan.

God does not change; there isn’t even a trace of the slightest change.  And He gave us new life through Jesus because He wanted to, He wanted us to be His children.  Aren’t those pretty good reasons to be thankful?

In case we need more, let’s turn to Jesus Himself.  Jesus always gave thanks to His Father God even for what we might consider the simple things: for reveling the truth to those who will listen (Matthew 11:25, Luke 10:21), before feeding the 5000 and the 4000 (John 6:11, Matthew 15:36, Mark 8:6), when He raised Lazarus from the dead (John 11:41), after His resurrection with two disciples headed to Emmaus (Luke 24:30).  Jesus also gave thanks when He instituted what we call the Lord’s Supper, at the last supper that He shared with His disciples on this earth.  Please listen to how the Apostle Luke described that Passover meal, from the 22nd chapter of his Gospel account, verses 14 through 20…

14 When the time came, Jesus and the apostles sat down together at the table. 15 Jesus said, “I have been very eager to eat this Passover meal with you before My suffering begins. 16 For I tell you now that I won’t eat this meal again until its meaning is fulfilled in the Kingdom of God.”

17 Then He took a cup of wine and gave thanks to God for it. Then He said, “Take this and share it among yourselves. 18 For I will not drink wine again until the Kingdom of God has come.”

19 He took some bread and gave thanks to God for it. Then He broke it in pieces and gave it to the disciples, saying, “This is My body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of Me.”

20 After supper He took another cup of wine and said, “This cup is the new covenant between God and His people — an agreement confirmed with My blood, which is poured out as a sacrifice for you."

--Luke 22:14-20 (NLT)

The next three days would be tough on our Lord, and He knew it.  This would be the last time He would share bread and wine with His closest disciples, with the men who had walked alongside Him the last three years.  It was a bittersweet time, for even though the coming hours would be painful, they would offer redemption for man’s sin.

So Jesus paused and gave thanks to God, for the bread and the wine, sure, but also for the role that He would play in the salvation of mankind.  And He reminds us that His blood seals the promise God made with us, this new covenant we now live under.  Our Lord’s blood, poured out as a sacrifice for us.

For my last example, I’d like to return to the writings of Paul, and this time to a letter he wrote to the church in Thessalonica.  Please listen to the instructions Paul left us in the 5th chapter of his 1st letter to the Thessalonians, verses 16 through 18…

16 Rejoice always, 17 pray without ceasing, 18 in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

--1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (NKJV)

It really is that simple.  We’ve been given a bunch of reasons why we should be thankful to God, and then Paul boils it down to this: for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for us.

We should rejoice always in God’s loving mercy.  We should pray without ceasing - for ourselves, for our loved ones, for folks we don’t know but who we know need help, for the persecuted, for the lost, even for our enemies.  And we should give thanks in all things, in every situation, under any circumstance.  No matter what we are going through or about to face, we can find much to give thanks for.  For we are a blessed people.

I think Thanksgiving Day has lost a little of its original purpose.  Instead of being a day for all of America to stop and give thanks to God for His many blessings, for some it has become nothing more than a day or two off from work, an excuse to overeat, a chance to sit back and watch football on TV or play a game in the front yard.

I pray that at least for us, it is more than that.  I also pray that we are truly thankful for all God’s blessing more than just one day a year.  No, instead, let us rejoice always and pray without ceasing.  And let us give thanks in everything, for this is the will of God, in Christ Jesus, for us.

In the blessed name of our Lord Jesus.  Amen.

Let us pray…  Father God,  You created everything that exists and it is good and perfect because You are good and perfect.  You chose us to be Your children and we are loved by You.  Thank You, Father, for pouring out so many blessings upon us.  Thank You for loving us.  Sadly, Father, we too often take Your blessings for granted, or we don’t actually see them as the blessings they truly are.  Forgive us, please Father, these times of our blindness.  Forgive us when we fail to see all that You give us, when we don’t pause long enough to notice.  Forgive us when we focus our time on the wrong things.  Please continue to smile upon us.  Remind us of all that our Bible says about how blessed we are.  Help us to show our appreciation in righteous ways.  And Father, please help us remain strong, faithful, and true through all that we face in this age.

Please hear us now, Father, as we pause for just a moment to speak to You through Your Spirit within us, promising to be more obedient to Your commands, and seeking Your help to do so…

Lord Jesus, thank You for setting so many example of how to live a life that is right in God’s eyes.  You came to save us from our sin and give us life everlasting in heaven, and to instruct us on the proper path to follow.  We are a blessed people, and You are our biggest blessing of all.  Thank You, Jesus, for saving us from drowning in our sin.  Please, Lord, strengthen us in our walk through this tumultuous life.  Please give us the courage and the right words to say when we approach others to do as You command us.  Help us be a blessing to them so that they too might live forever.  And Jesus, please heal the hurts that separate and divide us one from another.  Help us remain trusting and obedient no matter what we go through.  Help us keep our focus on the things of heaven and the needs of others rather than on anything this life might offer.  This we pray in Your blessed name, Christ Jesus our Lord and our Savior.  Amen.