Thanksgiving Service

Romans 7:14-25....

Psalm 107:15 “Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness, And for his wonderful works to the children of men!”

Psalm 116:16 “O Lord, truly I am thy servant; I am thy servant, and the son of thine handmaid: Thou hast loosed my bonds.”

Ephesians 5:20 “Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;”

Giving thanks, that is why we celebrate Thanksgiving! Thankful for blessings that has been given to us!

Given to us, by someone other than ourselves.

Truly, everything is given from above! James 1:17 “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.”

All that we have and do not have is from above and for our good!

When I think of giving thanks unto the Lord, I think about the apostle Paul in Romans 7.........

Romans 7:14-25..........

O wretched man that I am......that is what brings me to the thankfulness to the Lord! In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I want us to understand Christian thankfulness.

There are so many reasons we have to be thankful and as I always say the things that most of us are thankful there are many people in this world do not have.

This very week some things have happened that caused me to be thankful for the Grace of God, the little things that God does for us.

In that thought and through a better understanding of God’s Word, I marvel and am amazed that in light of my sin that God would even grant even the smallest of graces!

You might say that I going a little overboard about this, but according to the Scriptures, this is the essence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for sinful man is why He came! He came to pay the penalty of sin and give the example of a sinless life!

That brings us to our text, Paul reveals the inward struggle of the redeemed man.....some argue whether or not this is his plea before Christ or after he believed in Jesus.

It sure seems this the struggle of a redeemed man battling the flesh!

Galatians 5:17 “For the flesh lusteth against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh: and these are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that ye would.”

Let’s read...........

A rather flippant sort of scoffing young man asked a preacher in a mocking fashion, “You say that unsaved people carry a great weight sin. Frankly,” he said, “I feel nothing. How heavy is sin? Ten pounds? Fifty pounds? Eighty pounds? A hundred pounds?” The preacher thought for a moment and gently replied, “If you laid a 400 pound weight on a corpse, would it feel the load?” The young man was quick to say, “Of course not, it’s dead.” To which the preacher replied in driving home the point, “The spirit that knows not Christ is equally dead. And though the load is great, he feels none of it.”

Coming to Jesus Christ brings the sense of sin to the heart and mind. And I believe that a true Christian feels that weight of sin in a way that an unbeliever does not feel at all. And in case you wonder whether, in fact, they are dead to that weight, remind yourselves of

Ephesians 2:1 “And you hath He made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins.”

This is truly an inward struggle and Paul declares the struggle within his own life in this chapter. It is one of the most powerful messages in Scripture for me!

It brings the proud low, if they are honest, but truly the proud are the corpses that cannot feel any weight!

That weight will never be felt by them until they are exposed to the only Righteous human that ever lived, Jesus Christ!

Then they will be humbled, they weren’t so good after all, they were just fooling themselves. Fell into a trap set by satan.

In our Wed. night Bible study we have been reading through Isaiah, a lot of punishment is handed out to the prideful and haughty people. Israel as well as their enemies were punished for the pride of self-righteousness and the pride of physical power, these are truly characteristics of a dead man!

You might not like the idea of preaching this all the time, but it was until I knew Christ that I realized my true need for Him!

So many folks come to Christ to fix something in their life, marriage, financial, family, addiction...........

Jesus Christ is the answer of all problems, but the greatest need for us is deliverance from the bondage of sin!

This is only revealed with a proper knowledge of Christ!

Everything about God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit is spiritual, the law of God is spiritual, we must separate ourselves from the world to believe that is true! Nothing of the flesh is God’s, it is fallen!

Paul said he was sold under sin.......Paul speaks of members, which is the outward fleshly parts of the body......One writer put it like this: “Sin contaminates Paul and frustrates his inner desire to obey the will of God!”

The struggle is real as the kids say, to Paul this struggle was to obey God as he is lead to do and he desires to do, but he/we live in a fallen body and it’s members desire to serve sin/the world.

You can read the struggle and the declaration in verse 18 that there is no good that dwells in him!

Verses 22-23 sum up the story of the life of a Christian, the realization of goodness and righteousness through the life of Jesus Christ and with that realization we also see our own sinfulness that battles against my desire to obey God!

What is the answer? That answer is in the declaration that Paul gives in verse 24......O wretched man that I am.....

Notice he didn’t excuse his sinfulness, he didn’t say “I am just human”

He declared his wretchedness..........When we see our wretchedness and continue to see our wretchedness we can truly speak of the wells of salvation that God has given us through Jesus Christ!

Out of Paul’s declaration of his wretchedness brings forth praise and thankfulness!

I thank God through Jesus Christ......our only Salvation.........as I said a few moments ago, people rush to Jesus for all sorts of help so many matters, but the true condition of man is his sinful flesh and the redemption of man starts and ends withe Jesus Christ!

The confession of the wretched man brings forth life, because he confesses that there no good thing that dwells in him and there is only one well that brings forth good/life and that is Jesus Christ!

God has given the goodness of His Son that we might have life and have it more abundantly! Everything about that is spiritual and if you cannot see that then you have not realized the True Christ!

Out of the well of Jesus Christ is the law lived out perfectly, He gives us the example that we should follow.

We have it written on paper, but we saw the law lived in Jesus Christ, it was through the Godhead’s righteousness and character that the law was given and written down.

You thought the problem was that you didn’t know what to do to save yourself but the Law came as a teacher, taught you what to do and you still couldn’t save yourself. You don’t need a teacher, you need a Savior!

You thought maybe then you needed to be more motivated

The Law is revealed to us in the person of Jesus Christ, it is no longer pages on a book but a life lived!

In the Life of Jesus Christ we see our wretchedness, and our desperate situation and then we find the cross at Calvary where Jesus......... Hebrews 10:10 “By the which will we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all.”

1 Peter 3:18 “For Christ also hath once suffered for sins, the just for the unjust, that he might bring us to God, being put to death in the flesh, but made alive by the Spirit:”

1 Peter 1:18-19 “Forasmuch as ye know that ye were not redeemed with corruptible things, as silver and gold, from your vain conversation received by tradition from your fathers; But with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot:”

Jesus the Christ the Son of the living God, revealed our wretchedness and redeemed us from our death!

You thought the problem was that you didn’t know what to do to save yourself but the Law came as a teacher, taught you what to do and you still couldn’t save yourself. You don’t need a teacher, you need a Savior!

You thought maybe then you needed to be more motivated, but the Law came in like a coach to encourage you in what you need to do and you still couldn’t do it. You don’t need a motivational speaker or a coach, you need a Savior

The law came in like a doctor and perfectly diagnosed your sinfulness but the law couldn’t heal you.....you don’t need a doctor, you need a Savior!

Thanks be to God.......1 Corinthians 15:57 “But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.”

As we draw this to a close, let’s go back and read Isaiah 12:1-3......

This chapter is a poem or song from what writers refer to as the worshipper.........a worshipper is someone that is at the highest peak of thankfulness!

In this poem/song we hear the heart of the worshipper and their understanding of their own salvation!

One writer wrote this about this chapter: “Many don’t ever feel the need for salvation. Instead, they think their lives are fine, and come to God for a little help when they feel they need it. But they never see themselves as drowning men in need of rescue, or see themselves as hell-destined sinners in need of salvation.”

The worshipper is so immersed in this idea that he repeats it in the same verse: God is my salvation … He also has become my salvation.

In this time of Thanksgiving, there is nothing wrong with being thankful for the common graces that we are given.........however, let us always be a worshipper ever living to worship God and His Son Jesus Christ for the salvation that has been given not earned!