Thanksgiving

There was a great festival in the Old Testament called the Feast of Tabernacles. It is sometimes called the feast of booths. I remember having a rabbi for a professor in Hebrew and one day he talked about the feast of booths. His pronunciation was not too good and I thought he was saying, feast of booze. The OT story of the feast of booths or tabernacles was at the end of the general harvest and people were expected to come to Jerusalem for the great occasion.
Deu 16:13 After you have finished the grain harvest and the grape harvest, take your sons and daughters and all your servants to the place where the LORD chooses to be worshiped. Celebrate the Festival of Shelters for seven days. Also invite the poor, including Levites, foreigners, orphans, and widows. The LORD will give you big harvests and make you successful in everything you do. You will be completely happy, so celebrate this festival in honor of the LORD your God.

They were to live in make shift shelters during the 7 days of celebration. "You shall live in booths seven days; all citizens in Israel shall live in booths, in order that future generations may know that I made the Israelite people live in booths when I brought them out of the land of Egypt" (Lev. 23:42-43). This was to remind them of their past and what God had done for them.

2. While the celebration of the harvest in Israel began in the time of Moses, celebration of the harvest did not begin in America until much later.
In 1789, following a proclamation issued by President George Washington, America celebrated its first Day of Thanksgiving to God under its new constitution. That same year, the Protestant Episcopal Church, of which President Washington was a member, announced that the first Thursday in November would become its regular day for giving thanks, "unless another day be appointed by the civil authorities." Yet, despite these early national proclamations, official Thanksgiving observances usually occurred only at the State level.

Much of the credit for the adoption of a later ANNUAL national Thanksgiving Day may be attributed to Mrs. Sarah Joseph Hale, the editor of Godey's Lady's Book. For thirty years, she promoted the idea of a national Thanksgiving Day, contacting President after President until President Abraham Lincoln responded in 1863 by setting aside the last Thursday of November as a national Day of Thanksgiving. Over the next seventy-five years, Presidents followed Lincoln's precedent, annually declaring a national Thanksgiving Day. Then, in 1941, Congress permanently established the fourth Thursday of each November as a national holiday.

3. Thanksgiving is a time of reflection on your life. Let’s look at some of the possible places to begin giving of thanks.

I. Give thanks for your life.

1. I suspect that most of us do not think much about our coming into existence. We are here and that we take for granted. I have often thought about my existence. When you think about the event of conception we have a lot of sperm swimming toward the egg. Generally there is only one winner. In some cases two when there are twins born. The fact that I am here today is due to that little sperm swimming faster than any other sperm. The conclusion could have been different if another sperm had beat mine to the egg. I would not have been born. I cannot grasp all that is involved in what I am saying, but I am extremely thankful that I have been given life. Being given life means I have had wonderful experiences of growing up, going to school, learning to work, having a wife and family and grand kids, having a career that involved me with many people from all walks of life. You are part of that experience of life in which I have come to know so many of you and rejoice in knowing you.
God is the Creator and source of your life....Give thanks.

2. Life is a gift. Life is a treasure. Don’t squander it

II. Give thanks to people who are around you.

1. Giving thanks is an expression of gratitude. Gratitude should be a way of life for us.
Let me give an example. We have a closet at home and the light for the closet is on the outside behind the door. For several years we lived with it that way. Many times we would turn the light on, go in, and then coming out we would not turn off the light. This meant the light was on sometimes all day long. Since the switch was so close to the door jam I thought of the bright idea of putting a button switch in the door so that when the door was opened, the light would come on, and when the door closed it would go out. We still have the outside switch but it does not work any more. It is funny that sometimes I see the switch being moved even though it does not work.
This all came about one vacation time when my son came home. I asked him to help–meaning doing–put the switch in. I am not too comfortable working with electricity but he is more knowledgeable since he had a course in high school on electricity. We worked on it, it took a little time, and soon it was working.
Now, at the time I thanked my son for his work. That was several years ago. When he comes home I remind him of what he did for us, and I express appreciation and gratitude for what he did and his abilities. I try to do this a couple of times a year to show my gratitude and thanksgiving as well as to make him aware that I care.
Are there people who have done things for you and you have been blessed and who need a reminder of your gratitude?

2. Giving thanks also helps yourself in the long run.
We have discovered Auburn Apple market where they have good meat. I will call up and talk to Gene and tell him we need 6 1 pound packages of 93 percent lean hamburger. We go a couple of hours later and pick it up. Not too long ago, when I picked it up I told him how I appreciated getting good meat from him. The next time I called we ordered hamburger as well as some beef stir fry and a chuck roast. When we picked it up Elaine and I were delighted with the quality of the cuts of beef stir fry as well as the roast. We thanked him for what he had done. As we departed the store I remarked to Elaine that gratitude gets you better meat. I was surprised at this, but it works to your benefit–gratitude is always appreciated by the receiver of the comments.

III. Gratitude is to be given to God.

1. At meal time. There are several places in the New Testament that we see the giving of thanks. We celebrated the Lord’s Supper and it may be that you did not notice the phrase on the lips of Jesus, “And he took the cup, and gave thanks...” One might think of this only in terms of a ceremony, but there are places for just ordinary eating. In the miracle of feeding the 5000, it says, “and Jesus took the loaves; and when he had given thanks,” the food was distributed to the people.(John 6:11)

2. Give thanks for people becoming Christians. For several months I have been emailing a person in Sweden who is from a Muslim background. He had been reading a website Answering-Islam.org and wrote to me. He found the answers on that website better than a Muslim site called Answering-Christianity. He was concerned about a sin he had commited and wanted a Christian answer. In the course of time he was reading the New Testament and learning more and more about Jesus. Eventually he came to believe in Jesus, and this week I received a note that he was going to be baptized this week. He also said that he had witnessed to a friend and he has become a follower of Jesus. This brought tears to my eyes. I was overjoyed that he was progressing in his faith in Jesus.

3. 2 Cor. 9:15 says, “Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift.” The CEV says,
“ Thank God for his gift that is too wonderful for words!” Paul had been writing about their giving to help people in Jerusalem. Now he mentions the greatest gift of all. That gift is his Son who is our Savior. It is difficult to think what God has done. He comes to us, he gives himself to us, in the person of His Son. Can you imagine giving your child to someone you know will abuse the child, kill the child. I loved my children so much I could not think of doing anything like that. God was not surprised by the treatment that His Son would receive.
Listen to what Romans five says, “Christ died for us at a time when we were helpless and sinful. No one is really willing to die for an honest person, though someone might be willing to die for a truly good person. But God showed how much he loved us by having Christ die for us, even though we were sinful.” 5.6-8)

4. Give thanks for our country and pray for these difficult times. “First of all, I ask you to pray for everyone. Ask God to help and bless them all, and tell God how thankful you are for each of them. Pray for kings and others in power, so that we may live quiet and peaceful lives as we worship and honor God. This kind of prayer is good, and it pleases God our Savior.” (1 tim.2:1-3)
Our country needs the prayers of God’s people. There are many people out of work. People are losing their homes. More people are going to missions where free food is available. Bad policy creates bad situations. Pray for our country.

5. Paul wrote to the church at Phillipi, “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, Always in every prayer of mine for you all making request with joy, For your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now; (Phillipians 1:3-5) Christian fellowship is so great. I have had wonderful experiences of knowing Christians who are like family to me. I thank God for them and rejoice in having them as friends.

Conclusion: Much of what we have been talking about relates to Thanksgiving. I learned something recently that meant much to me. A friend remarked about learning to play jazz that the professor would put music in front of them with mistakes in it. They were to play the mistakes and then create something that would make the mistake sound good. I thought about this in Christian terms. We make mistakes but the forgiveness of God introduces a covering aspect to our lives and what came out as a mistake (read sin) God covered over and made a better melody. God wants to be in our lives making them beautiful and his forgiveness is found in Jesus.