Thanksgiving
Sermon • Submitted • Presented
0 ratings
· 1 viewNotes
Transcript
Harvest Feast (2023)
When I was in grade school, around Thanksgiving time an art project we would do as a class is make a turkey from the outline of our hand; our fingers would be feathers and our thumb would the the turkey’s head. And on each finger the child would write one thing they are thankful for. I think one year I had family, football, Pokemon, and maybe God.
Now I think in our thirst for zealousness and piety we may think that what should be on those feathers should be the big stuff: salvation, baptisms, Coming out of a serious sickness. Of course in anything I say after this I am not belittling the beauty of thanksgiving for those big items God does for his people.
But I do think maturity in the Christian life is seen in a very important aspect that perhaps we can overlook: the heart growing more and more sensitive to the every day, mundane aspects of creation all around; what I will call the simple blessings.
In many places God tells a sinner to calm his heart, to stop being like the wild waves of the seas, to be at peace and be still. It’s because the chaos of a worried heart has not taste for the simplicity of the everyday blessings God provides. Perhaps one of the biggest curses of a heart that is engulfed in sin and far from God is not that they have no appetite for the major miracles God puts on display, but rather they have no appetite for the everyday blessings that are objectively worthy of thanksgiving and praise.
A person who chooses to get drunk at the bar instead of enjoy precious time with wife and kids has no appetite for the simple pleasures of a simple family life.
A person engaging in pornography has lost his appetite for the simple pleasures of the wife of his youth.
Sin is what we pursue when the simplicity of everyday blessings no longer can pierce our callous heart. And as we all know, with each sin a rush of excitement is introduce, only to happen again if we take another step into darkness. And before we know it we are in a sea of darkness with no hope of true happiness around for miles.
But God provides rest for the weary soul that then is able to be at peace and be still, and enjoy the simple pleasures that God has for us, each and every day, each and every hour, each and every moment.
And this is what we see in Psalm 104.
First a heart filled with happy praise to our God:
1 Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, you are very great! You are clothed with splendor and majesty,
Now, with such an opening, we might think this Psalm is going to be filled with the crazies light show, with grow displays of God’s miraculous ability to wow the heart. And often times that is exactly how Scripture operates. Just look at the Psalm before (103). It starts the same way and the fuel for such thankful worship is God’s miraculous work of salvation for his people.
But the main thrust of this psalm is to showcase everyday things we can easily take for granted:
2 covering yourself with light as with a garment, stretching out the heavens like a tent.
The expanse above with its many lights at night and one great light at day. How often on our way to work or our way back we see both and don’t think anything about it. For the Psalmist in a mode of praise and thanksgiving, this is actually displaying who God is and is worthy of
1 Bless the Lord, O my soul! O Lord my God, you are very great! You are clothed with splendor and majesty,
How many times I had a display of God above me, crying out his glory, while I am fixated with the storms of my sin with all sorts of reason to grumble, complain and begrudge the day before me.
Like an unbeliever I had say to me that he has no reason to give God praise even while he used his hand to keep the sun out of his eyes has he spoke to me.
The greatest tragedy of sin is it makes a storm in the heart that stops it from tasting the simplicity of God’s myriads blessings to the soul.
3 He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters; he makes the clouds his chariot; he rides on the wings of the wind; 4 he makes his messengers winds, his ministers a flaming fire.
God’s presence is as vast as the sky above and even as we feel the wind on our face, it is a reminder of just how much God’s presence is everywhere in his creation.
The heart plagued with sin will demand a showing with God, will exclaim with a straight face that God is distant, even as the breeze causes the hair on the back of the their neck to stand up.
Oh for a heart that would see the sky above and feel the breeze and feel the very presence of God in it all.
Next he goes back to the flood, in which the world was changed forever. You can imagine the psalmist, as he is in awe of the creation around him is taken back to when these things began to look the way it now does:
5 He set the earth on its foundations, so that it should never be moved. 6 You covered it with the deep as with a garment; the waters stood above the mountains. 7 At your rebuke they fled; at the sound of your thunder they took to flight. 8 The mountains rose, the valleys sank down to the place that you appointed for them. 9 You set a boundary that they may not pass, so that they might not again cover the earth.
What a thought, when you see the makeup of the geography all around you, that it was done so on purpose by our God above to glorify his name.
Whether its the flat lands of northern Ohio, or the rougher terrain of southern Ohio, or the mountains further south, this all was developed from the flood as a testimony to God structuring his creation in a way the pleased him and should please us.
10 You make springs gush forth in the valleys; they flow between the hills; 11 they give drink to every beast of the field; the wild donkeys quench their thirst. 12 Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell; they sing among the branches. 13 From your lofty abode you water the mountains; the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.
Consider the rivers that are numerous across the land and the trees that are homes for the wildlife.
The earth is satisfied with how God takes care of it, and we get to witness it from our bedroom window and praise God for his providential care over the creatures.
14 You cause the grass to grow for the livestock and plants for man to cultivate, that he may bring forth food from the earth 15 and wine to gladden the heart of man, oil to make his face shine and bread to strengthen man’s heart.
The most simple things like grass growing becomes something worthy of thanksgiving and praise as the psalmist considers what good it does for the creation all around.
And the everyday items of bread, wine and oil are considered in a fresh way that offers true thanksgiving.
Now I am truly thankful that I do not live in an age where next seasons storehouse of food was never a guarantee. I can say I have lived my life up to this point never worried if I was going to have another food to survive. But that does not mean that my heart should not be full of thanks as I engage each one of my meals. Seemingly a given blessing, simple because of its redundancy, should not fail to give us thanksgiving in our hearts as if each meal is a struggle for survival. When is the last time you saw cows grazing about the field and held your family's hands extra tight with an extra measure of thanksgiving in your heart as you gave praises to God for the hamburgers, meat loaf, steak, or whatever that was graciously given to you on your plate?
Oh how often I went home overlooking such a wonderful sight in the field and with a mind filled with many distractions I mindlessly lead my family in prayer and have a heart void of thanksgiving for these simple gifts from our God.
“There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.”
“There is not one blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make us rejoice.”
― John Calvin
I find it interesting when Jesus was speaking to people who are filled with worry, and thus blinded to the many reasons for thanksgiving he does not make some complicated case for thanksgiving or to not be worried.
25 “Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?
In the moment of intoxicating worry, the last thing we want to do is slow down and consider something so simple. But yet, its as we do this simple act and consider God our heart is most refreshed which leads to thanksgiving and worship.
A great homework to do in a season of thanklessness: go outside and find something you can study for a while: an ant, a tree, clouds. And make as many observations about it as possible and then connect those observations with how it displays the glory of God.
I will draw this to a close by reading the rest of the Psalm, note the simple blessings it notes. And we will finish with a few thoughts on the last few verses.
31 May the glory of the Lord endure forever; may the Lord rejoice in his works, 32 who looks on the earth and it trembles, who touches the mountains and they smoke! 33 I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being. 34 May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord.
There is nothing better for you, for me, for humanity to see what our God does and copy him. God has created, and God rejoices in his works; specifically his works of creation and providence.
God rejoices at the sky above.
God rejoices at the wind.
God rejoices at the mountains, the valleys, the rivers, the birds, the creatures finding their life in his world.
God rejoices at the grass that feeds the cattle.
God rejoices in providing you a meal.
God rejoices at all his creation: always. Even though he has been their since the beginning and has seen it work like this forever. He still rejoices in it.
It is a delightful thing to rejoice in it all as he does.
How?
35 Let sinners be consumed from the earth, and let the wicked be no more! Bless the Lord, O my soul! Praise the Lord!
Nothing is more wicked then sin. It causes us to look at creation in defiance of God, and leaves us no taste for these simple joys. It is God’s good worth to expel the sin that causes a lack of thanksgiving and worship.
God will do so completely one day, and God is doing so today in his Son Jesus Christ.
11 For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, 12 training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, 13 waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works. 15 Declare these things; exhort and rebuke with all authority. Let no one disregard you.
Jesus has died and rose again to save his people from their sins, to stand righteous before their holy God.
Jesus also died and rose again to save his people from their sins so that they can live this life zealous for good works.
Another words, we can be thankful even in the mundane, or simple every day blessings from God only when we are filled with thankfulness for the greatest of all blessings in Christ.
So if you are considering your own everyday life and are lamenting the fact that your heart is not sensitive enough to these everyday blessings of God’s creation that has not changed since the beginning: the answer is not to just do better, the answer is to first fix your eyes on your eternal salvation that has not changed since Jesus has called you out. To marvel at the cross, at his life, at his forgiveness and to see a fuller realization of that eternal reality is when you are able, more and more, to have a taste to have greater joy for the everyday blessings of God’s creation that is all around you.
I challenge you, by the mercies of Christ, to take the most simple blessing in your life, and meditate on it and pull out every ounce of God’s rich mercy you can and give him the praise that sounds like:
33 I will sing to the Lord as long as I live; I will sing praise to my God while I have being. 34 May my meditation be pleasing to him, for I rejoice in the Lord.