Don't Skip Thanksgiving!!

Introduction

Good morning!

I want to start the morning off right this morning by taking a quick survey.

If you will do me a favor I would love for you to participate, I think it will tell us a lot about ourselves as a church.

We are going to do a quick survey about the Christmas spirit and particularly Christmas decorations!

So…raise your hand if you decorate and get in the Christmas spirit BEFORE Halloween?

raise your hand if you decorate and get in the Christmas spirit immediately AFTER Halloween?

raise your hand if you decorate and get in the Christmas spirit after Thanksgiving?

OK…everyone that raised their hands for anything but the last option is just wrong.

That really had no bearing on my message today, I just wanted to get it out of the way since I have the mic and I get to speak today.

One thing that you should know about me is that Thanksgiving is probably my favorite holiday of the year so I love to see it celebrated.

I guess I probably lied just a bit, the survey DID have a little to do with the message today

You see, it seems like over the course of time the Thanksgiving holiday has come to mean less and less to our society and I really believe that this is harmful!

My belief is that a lot of this is on purpose and is done by a society and culture that is increasingly hostile to things of God

I believe Thanksgiving is the one holiday that the world cannot seem to corrupt as they have most others, so instead of changing the meaning like they have tried to do with Christmas (consumerism, selfishness, etc) the world has just started skipping over thanksgiving.

I like Thanksgiving so much because it is a random day that does not signify any “special” event that happened on a specific day.

Instead, it is simply the 4th Thursday of November and it is a day set aside for one purpose…to give thanks to God almighty.

To me, it still retains a purity that has steadily been in the process of being removed from other holidays.

Further, I believe this holiday is a day that is absolutely biblical in its principle.

Giving thanks and acknowledging God is at the center of who we are as followers of Christ.

The Bible talks about it at length and from Genesis all the way to Revelation.

Now obviously we can, and should, give thanks far more often than just one day set aside every year but having a special day set aside solely for giving thanks is such an amazing opportunity and we should give it the attention it deserves!

This morning I want us to take a look at how “a man after Gods own heart”, King David, gave thanks.

We will pull 6 different principles of thanksgiving out of a prayer that he prayed in 2 Samuel 7.

Lets start with some background and talk about who king David was and what his life was like leading up to this point.

David was a man from humble beginnings, that is important, God values humility and God often uses the humble and the people that do not have richness in a materiel form for great things. So, a little about David:

David was the youngest of 8 sons

David did not have the honor of serving in King Sauls army when his brothers did because he was too young at that point, so he was told to stay home and take care of the sheep

He was from a small village of Bethlehem, it was not a wealthy town

He likely had very little to look forward to in terms of future inheritance

He started life at just about the bottom of the ladder.

However, by this point in 2 Samuel David had went through many things and had experienced many times the richness of Gods blessing:

David had been anointed the next King of Israel

David had been given the honor of serving king Saul himself

David had slain the giant, Goliath, the leading warrior of the Philistines

David had been protected after King Saul tried on many occasions to kill him

David had become the king and solidified Gods kingdom and driven out their enemies

David had been given the honor of bringing the ark to Jerusalem

David had been blessed in these ways, however, David had also experienced the opposite emotions of the joy that came with blessings.

David had been betrayed by the king

David had been hunted by enemies from all sides

David had been left with nothing but the clothes on his back as he had to flee

David had been through loads of trauma in his life up unto this point.

Despite the blessings life had not been easy

At this point in his story David was now in Jerusalem and had built a luxurious palace for himself

David now wanted to build a temple for God

These are the things that had led to David praying to God in this chapter and expressing his desire to build a permanent home for the God that had blessed him.

At the beginning of this chapter we find Gods answer to David.

God promised to make a lasting dynasty from David

God promised David fame, sons, grandsons, and victory over enemies.... basically all that a man would want.

What God did not grant to David was the ability to build the temple

God, at this point, was content to live in the Tabernacle ( a tent) where He had lived since leading the Israelites out of Egypt

God did, however, promise that Davids son would have the privilege of building that temple

Here in Gods answer to David we see a very important principle that is not really the point of todays message but is amazing just the same

God has a plan for our lives

God is intent on using His servants

It may not be the way WE plan or what WE want to do but it is always the best

When we are faithful to God, He is faithful to use us and bless us

Now, here in the latter part of 2 Samuel chapter 7, after all of these events in Davids life and the answer of God which actually denied David something that he wanted to do, we see an amazing account of thanksgiving from King David

I want to read to you the text of 2 Samuel 7:18–29 , We will have the ESV version on the screen, but I will read to you the New Living Translation because in this instance I love the feeling that it captures.

2 Samuel 7:18–29 NLT

Then King David went in and sat before the Lord and prayed, “Who am I, O Sovereign Lord, and what is my family, that you have brought me this far? And now, Sovereign Lord, in addition to everything else, you speak of giving your servant a lasting dynasty! Do you deal with everyone this way, O Sovereign Lord? “What more can I say to you? You know what your servant is really like, Sovereign Lord. Because of your promise and according to your will, you have done all these great things and have made them known to your servant. “How great you are, O Sovereign Lord! There is no one like you. We have never even heard of another God like you! What other nation on earth is like your people Israel? What other nation, O God, have you redeemed from slavery to be your own people? You made a great name for yourself when you redeemed your people from Egypt. You performed awesome miracles and drove out the nations and gods that stood in their way. You made Israel your very own people forever, and you, O Lord, became their God. “And now, O Lord God, I am your servant; do as you have promised concerning me and my family. Confirm it as a promise that will last forever. And may your name be honored forever so that everyone will say, ‘The Lord of Heaven’s Armies is God over Israel!’ And may the house of your servant David continue before you forever. “O Lord of Heaven’s Armies, God of Israel, I have been bold enough to pray this prayer to you because you have revealed all this to your servant, saying, ‘I will build a house for you—a dynasty of kings!’ For you are God, O Sovereign Lord. Your words are truth, and you have promised these good things to your servant. And now, may it please you to bless the house of your servant, so that it may continue forever before you. For you have spoken, and when you grant a blessing to your servant, O Sovereign Lord, it is an eternal blessing!”

Here we see a beautiful and complete example of what things should be involved in true thanksgiving to God

We will go through these pretty quick but if you are taking notes I would definitely write these 6 points down

These 6 things can be the foundation of beginning to show true thanksgiving to God that is more than just so many words but that is truly from the heart

First, in verse 18 we see that a necessary part of thankfulness is hard times

David acknowledges that God has “brought him this far”

David readily admits that there have been things that required God to bring him through

The hard times, often BAD times, that happen as part of our lives in this fallen world allow us to put into perspective the amazing and great things that our God does for us.

I feel safe saying that without bad times we would be unable to realize and appreciate the great times.

We must thank God for even the hard times because even then He is faithful and working

Next, in verses 18 and 20 we see an example of Davids humility before God

As part of our thanksgiving we need to readily admit that we are undeserving of anything.

We must realize how small we are

When we realize this, it makes the fact that God has decided to bless us all the more amazing!

in verse 20 David admits that he is not good

he knows that God already understands this but he still verbally admits it to God

In doing this David is honest before God, hiding nothing

The point is this:

To show true thanksgiving to God we must never act like we did anything that made him owe us a blessing. We must be humble

In verse 21 we see the next principle…we must acknowledge the FAITHFULNESS of God!

David acknowledges that God promised him something and now knows without a shadow of a doubt that it will happen

When we give thanks to God we should always take account of the promises that God has fulfilled to us

Next in verses 22-24 and verse 26 we see David give praise to God for the great things that God has done.

Many of us have been raised and ingrained with the head “knowledge” that God is great

I think many times that we do not truly take the time to ponder that

We say it without thinking

David verbally acknowledged Gods greatness and spent time recounting the great deeds of God

Much like the last point, we must take account of and acknowledge the battles that God has won and the great deeds He has done

Next is something that we may not think of often in terms of thanksgiving... Submission

In all of these verses David describes himself as “Gods servant”

David is smart enough and humble enough to know that he is not Gods equal but he goes further and readily describes himself as being in submission to God

A critical part of giving thanks is also giving our life and priorities to God

A true SHOWING of thanksgiving comes with an action

To truly give thanks it must be more than words, it must also be action in the form of submission.

Finally, in verses 27-29 we see that David was bold enough in his faith to ask God to continue the blessings that He had begun.

God takes pleasure in our obedience to Him

He takes pleasure in blessing His children

It is ok and even good to ask for more, according to Gods will

It shows faith to ask for God to continue His blessing, by asking we acknowledge Gods power and ability to change our lives

So, here is the list if you want to write these down. These are the 6 principles of Thanksgiving that come straight from a prayer to God from a man after Gods own heart:

We must thank God for even the hard times because even then He is faithful and working.

To show true thanksgiving to God we must never act like we did anything that made him owe us a blessing. We must be humble.

When we give thanks to God we should always take account of the promises that God has fulfilled to us.

Much like the last point, we should take account of and acknowledge the battles that God has won and the great deeds He has done.

To truly give thanks it must be more than words, it must also be action in the form of submission to God. We belong to God

Lastly, it shows faith to ask for God to continue His blessing. By asking, we acknowledge Gods power and ability to change our lives

I titled this message “Don’t forget about Thanksgiving” because often in our fast paced, and I hate to say, but many times GODLESS society we are expected to gloss right over Thanksgiving

We are expected to celebrate Halloween and all of the junk that can come with that and then move straight to Christmas

I am not anti Christmas, and I really don’t care when you decide to decorate but I do hate that we have been conditioned to forego this special time that we were given to devote a day to give praise and thanks to God

Make no mistake, I believe this is on purpose

I believe there is nothing that the enemy would like more than for us to get into the habit of skipping a time of thankfulness to God

Instead of fast forwarding to Christmas I want to encourage each of you to spend some time every day leading up to this Thursday intentionally:

remembering the hard times

humbling yourselves

remembering promises fulfilled

remembering battles won

Submitting to God

And asking for continued blessing through His will

At this time the band will play and I would encourage you to bring your needs and your thankfulness to God, on your knees, at the alters. If you do not know Christ I want to encourage you to come and give your life to the one and only savior. This is the gift that we have received that we must be the MOST grateful for, the greatest gift of all is our salvation and it is here for anyone that would believe in and follow Jesus Christ. Come now if you have a need or something to give thanks for.