Thanksgiving

Introduction:

1.History of Thanksgiving:

When the first settlers came to North America during the early winter of 1620, they did not know much about the land on which they had set their foot. Because of them being unprepared, during that first winter, 46 out of 102 initial settlers died, almost half of them. However, when spring came, the first settlers were helped by the native Americans to adapt to their new environment. The Native Americans taught them to cultivate certain crops, to use certain medicine, to fertilize the land and so on and so forth. Because of all these efforts, in the next fall of 1621, the pilgrims were prepared with a bountiful harvest and enough shelter to withstand the harsh northeastern winter that is to come. As a result, they decided to celebrate with a feast that lasted for three days. This is the traditional american story of thanksgiving. It is an event that celebrates God for survival. The reason for their thanksgiving was their survival.

2. History of biblical thanksgiving:

The first time the word thanksgiving occurs in the Bible is in Leviticus 7:11–12 ““Now this is the law of the fellowship sacrifice that someone may present to the Lord: If he presents it for thanksgiving, in addition to the thanksgiving sacrifice, he is to present unleavened cakes mixed with olive oil, unleavened wafers coated with oil, and well-kneaded cakes of fine flour mixed with oil.”

The text here shows a connection between an animal sacrifice brought before the Lord for thanksgiving or an harvest offering brought before the Lord for thanksgiving. Interestingly enough, the text does not introduce the concept of thanksgiving sacrifice as something new. On contrary, it talks about it as if though the people of that day were familiar enough with it that they did not need any introduction to it. How is that? Where do we see the first sacrifice of thanksgiving in the Bible? It’s hard to tell but, in my opinion, Noah’s offering from Genesis 8:20-21 was the first thanksgiving offering given to God as way to thanking him for his deliverance from the flood.

I. What is thanksgiving and where does it comes from?

a) What is the opposite of gratitude or thankfulness? - Entitlement. An entitled person will always expect things to happen as they want because they somehow think that they deserve it or that it is owed to them. Entitlement si expectation based on deserved behavior. I think I deserve it, therefore I expect it.

Why entitlement is the opposite of gratitude?

Because, generally speaking, people cannot be grateful for a service or thing that is owed to them. For example, a master won’t give thanks or recognition to a slave for doing its job. Or, to use another example, if someone owes you money, you don’t thank them whenever they are paying you back, because you are rightly entitled to get the money back.

If entitlement is an attitude expectation based on deserved behavior, then thankfulness is an attitude (notice, an attitude expresssed itself through deeds and words) based on perceived grace, or undeserved favor.

b) Thankfulness is the way we acknowledge the undeserved or unexpected favor that we’ve received from someone else either verbally or behaviorally. In other words, when we sincerely say thank you to someone we verbally acknowledge that they have done something good for us that we did not expect or did not deserve. The more undeserving or unexpected the favor, the more thankful we are.

A grumbler is an entitled person who expect things to happen always as they want because he think he deserves them.

Why does he think he deserves them?

Because they are not aware of who they really are and who God is. Who we are and what we’ve done and who he is and what he’s done.

If we want to be more grateful, then we need to be more aware of the things in our life that we take for granted thinking that they are supposed to be in our life when in fact a lot of people don’t have them.

Examples of God’s grace.

1. Measure of grace to have earthly life. Matt 5:45-46

Matthew 5:45–46 CSB

so that you may be children of your Father in heaven. For he causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love those who love you, what reward will you have? Don’t even the tax collectors do the same?

2. Another measure of grace by forgiving, saving and transforming you. Are you willing?

II. Benefits of gratitude?

-peace

-patience

-change