Sermon - Be Thankful - Littleby Baptist Church - November 24, 2019

I was ready for us to continue our series in Matthew 25 this morning but felt like we should take a break. We will come back to it next week and wrap it up in two weeks as we head into the Christmas season.

Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. There is no agenda, no stress, it is time to be with family, friends, and good food. Before I forget, our door is always open on Thanksgiving. If you are out and about or have no where to go, you are welcome to join us.

With Thanksgiving upon us, it seemed fitting to pause and talk about being thankful. We are going to look at two examples this morning starting in Exodus.

Exodus 15:1-18

“15 Then Moses and the Israelites sang this song to the Lord. They said: I will sing to the Lord, for he is highly exalted; he has thrown the horse and its rider into the sea. ² The Lord is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation. This is my God, and I will praise him, my father’s God, and I will exalt him. ³ The Lord is a warrior; the Lord is his name. ⁴ He threw Pharaoh’s chariots and his army into the sea; the elite of his officers were drowned in the Red Sea. ⁵ The floods covered them; they sank to the depths like a stone. ⁶ Lord, your right hand is glorious in power. Lord, your right hand shattered the enemy. ⁷ You overthrew your adversaries by your great majesty. You unleashed your burning wrath; it consumed them like stubble. ⁸ The water heaped up at the blast from your nostrils; the currents stood firm like a dam. The watery depths congealed in the heart of the sea. ⁹ The enemy said: “I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil. My desire will be gratified at their expense. I will draw my sword; my hand will destroy them.” ¹⁰ But you blew with your breath, and the sea covered them. They sank like lead in the mighty waters. ¹¹ Lord, who is like you among the gods? Who is like you, glorious in holiness, revered with praises, performing wonders? ¹² You stretched out your right hand, and the earth swallowed them. ¹³ With your faithful love, you will lead the people you have redeemed; you will guide them to your holy dwelling with your strength. ¹⁴ When the peoples hear, they will shudder; anguish will seize the inhabitants of Philistia. ¹⁵ Then the chiefs of Edom will be terrified; trembling will seize the leaders of Moab; all the inhabitants of Canaan will panic; ¹⁶ terror and dread will fall on them. They will be as still as a stone because of your powerful arm until your people pass by, Lord, until the people whom you purchased pass by. ¹⁷ You will bring them in and plant them on the mountain of your possession; Lord, you have prepared the place for your dwelling; Lord, your hands have established the sanctuary. ¹⁸ The Lord will reign forever and ever!”

Moses and the Israelites were thankful for all that God had done for them.

To say they were thankful for God’s intervention, is probably a pretty big understatement. They knew that without God intervening they would still be slaves to the Egyptians. They knew that it was God’s power that brought the plagues, they knew it was God who gave them the treasures they escaped with, they knew that God parted the Red Sea and closed it up behind them.  

The Israelites were now nomads with their only possessions being what they or their animals could carry, yet they were thankful!

Psalm 100

“¹ Let the whole earth shout triumphantly to the Lord! ² Serve the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. ³ Acknowledge that the Lord is God. He made us, and we are his— his people, the sheep of his pasture. ⁴ Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and bless his name. ⁵ For the Lord is good, and his faithful love endures forever; his faithfulness, through all generations.”

This Psalm is traditionally sung by Jews as they present their thanks offering to God. It is a great reminder to us who have been grafted into His family, that we are His people, His sheep, and that we are to give thanks to Him, sing praises to Him, and that He alone is worthy.

Regardless of what is going on, we need to offer thanks to our God. The Israelites had no home, yet they were thankful. They were faced with uncertainty, and they were thankful.

When we think about all the stuff going on in our lives, it is easy for us to focus on the negative. Medical issues, fights with a loved one, money struggles, work concerns, and more. What we need to do is stop for a moment and truly look at our lives. Think about the good things. Your family, a place to live, a car to drive, a source of income, your church family, that we live in a country where we can still worship freely, and more.

Each of us here this morning has something to be thankful for, and most likely we have a lot of somethings to be thankful for. Even if life seems to be knocking you down right now, no matter how bad it gets, how dark it seems, there is something to be thankful for.

Let’s read Psalm 100 again.

Psalm 100

“¹ Let the whole earth shout triumphantly to the Lord! ² Serve the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. ³ Acknowledge that the Lord is God. He made us, and we are his— his people, the sheep of his pasture. ⁴ Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and bless his name. ⁵ For the Lord is good, and his faithful love endures forever; his faithfulness, through all generations.”

‘Give thanks to him and bless his name. For the Lord is good, and his faithful love endures forever; his faithfulness, through all generations.’

We are to Give God Thanks for He is Good and His Love endures forever. Even if we are getting hit from what seems like every direction, we do have more to be thankful than we might realize.

Moses and the Israelites were thankful, even with the uncertainty hanging out there. Let’s take a look at another example, Paul. Here was a man who saw it as one of his missions in life to persecute Christians. In Acts chapter 7 we see that he was there when Stephen was martyred for his faith in our Lord Jesus. In Acts chapter 8 we read that he ‘was ravaging the church’.

Acts 9:1-2

“9 Now Saul was still breathing threats and murder against the disciples of the Lord. He went to the high priest ² and requested letters from him to the synagogues in Damascus, so that if he found any men or women who belonged to the Way, he might bring them as prisoners to Jerusalem.”

He would seek out those who believed that Jesus was God and drag them off to prison. He wanted to destroy the Christian church and wipe out all who believed in that false teacher Jesus. He might have been angry that some of Jesus’ followers moved His body to make it look like He had came back from the dead.

Paul was out to get as many Christians as he could, throw them in jail, and have them tried, and possibly executed. Then things changed.

Acts 9:3-6

“³ As he traveled and was nearing Damascus, a light from heaven suddenly flashed around him. ⁴ Falling to the ground, he heard a voice saying to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” ⁵ “Who are you, Lord?” Saul said. “I am Jesus, the one you are persecuting,” he replied. ⁶ “But get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.””

I can almost imagine Paul’s first thought to be something like ‘you have gotta be kidding me’, but in that moment as he heard Jesus’ voice while being blinded by the Glorious Light of Jesus’ presence, Paul received the ultimate reality check. Any doubt he had would have been gone.

In that instant Paul went form a man who thought those who followed Jesus were wrong, to seeing firsthand that Jesus is truly the Son of God. In that instant he would have realized that the Disciples did not move His body, cause if Jesus is appearing to him right now, He must have been resurrected.

Paul realized that Jesus Christ is Lord and that His resurrection was real!

If you were to ask Paul what he was thankful for, the empty tomb would make the list. Without it, he would have never met Jesus on the road to Damascus, his life would have continued on that cold dark path it was on. With the tomb being empty, his life was changed forever.

2 Corinthians 9:15

“Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!”

Straight from Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, we read that he was thankful for the gift of Eternal Life given to him by his Lord Jesus.

Paul had thought his dogmatic adherence to the Old Testament Jewish Law would lead him to righteousness. We know that his pursuit of the law was leading him nowhere. He was an angry man out to hurt other people. He was lost, broken, and in need of a Savior. Paul needed that ‘indescribable gift’ that can only come from Jesus.

Paul thought he would earn his way to righteousness, but as we see in his letter to the Ephesians that he realized the truth.

Ephesians 2:8-9

“⁸ For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves; it is God’s gift— ⁹ not from works, so that no one can boast.”

This amazing, awesome, indescribable gift is not something that can be earned from works. It is a gift that is being freely given to all who have faith. Faith brings salvation, which wipes away our sins and gives us a clean state.

Imagine how you would feel when you realized that you had a hand in the persecution and death of others who believe in Jesus. That guilt would be overwhelming, but the gift that Jesus is giving to those who have faith in Him wipes all of that away. We become a new creation, those past sins are gone, it does not matter what it is, if Jesus is your Lord, if your Faith is in Him, the gift He has given you has wiped all that away.

I bet Paul was beyond thankful that Jesus wiped away all the things he had done. I know I am thankful that He wiped away all of my sins and that still today He forgives me for the things I continue to do wrong.

If there is nothing else in your life that you can think of, be thankful that He has cleansed you of your sins. Be thankful that He continues to wipe away your sins. Be thankful for that amazing indescribably gift made possible by that empty tomb.

If you have yet to repent of your sins and accept this amazing gift, I invite you up during our final song. If you have anything you would like to pray about, remember the altar is always open.

1 Thessalonians 5:18a

“give thanks in everything”

Let’s give thanks for all that God has done, is doing, and will do in our lives.

I pray you have a wonderful Thanksgiving and that you see God at work in your life!

Robert