Give Thanks

Give Thanks – November 19, 2023

Turkey Take Out

Gratitude

Happy Thanksgiving! It seems so strange that this is Thanksgiving week! It seems early this year, and I guess it is when we look at the calendar. We have 2 weeks until Advent starts, so, we are going to spend the next two Sundays talking about Gratitude, then we will move into Advent as we share across the church about the Best Christmas Ever.

Today, you get a treat… a short sermon as we get ready for Turkey Take-Out! So, let’s get right to it.

What is gratitude? We read all through the Bible that we are to give thanks… we sing songs about giving thanks with a grateful heart, but what does that mean.

Well, one definition is “the practice of actively remembering and expressing the grace and goodness bestowed in our lives. Sometimes that grace is experienced financially, but so often it is experienced in family, or a neighbor, or an experience. Today, we give thanks by offering the gift of food to others… and I am quite sure that some of you will experience grace and goodness in the action of giving.

And, as we prepare for all that is ahead today and this week, I want us to pause for a moment to look at one example of gratitude showed by a follower of God early in the scriptures. Turn with me to Genesis 8…

Noah has been floating around in the boat for weeks or even months. Remember, it rained for 40 days and 40 nights… then the waters had to recede, So, we really aren’t sure how long they were floating around looking for land. But, in verse 15 we see that the water had receded enough for them to get off the Ark, so let’s pick up there.

Genesis 8:15-20

Then God said to Noah, “Come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons and their wives. Bring out every kind of living creature that is with you—the birds, the animals, and all the creatures that move along the ground—so they can multiply on the earth and be fruitful and increase in number on it.”

So Noah came out, together with his sons and his wife and his sons’ wives. All the animals and all the creatures that move along the ground and all the birds—everything that moves on land—came out of the ark, one kind after another.

Then Noah built an altar to the Lord and, taking some of all the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on it.

Noah has been on the Ark for weeks, months, some say even a year. I can’t imagine being on a boat for days with all those animals, much less weeks or months! I’d probably be ready to run away as fast as I could, but not Noah. He ushers the animals off the Ark, sends them off to be fruitful and multiply and what does he do, he builds an altar to worship God.

You need to realize something, this was not a common practice. The Exodus where God passed the Law down didn’t happen for hundreds of years. Moses was the only one in scripture that was recognized as a follower of God at this point, so there weren’t communal worship practices. This was personal worship that came out of his gratitude to God.

Here’s the thing about gratitude though… when we show God gratitude, God responds! Let’s go on in the passage…

Genesis 8:21 – 9:1

The Lord smelled the pleasing aroma and said in his heart: “Never again will I curse the ground because of humans, even though every inclination of the human heart is evil from childhood. And never again will I destroy all living creatures, as I have done.

“As long as the earth endures,

seedtime and harvest,

cold and heat,

summer and winter,

day and night

will never cease.”

Then God blessed Noah and his sons, saying to them, “Be fruitful and increase in number and fill the earth.

Your worship, your gratitude, rises up to God like a pleasing aroma. It’s like driving by Up in Smoke when they are smoking their briskets… that’s a pleasing aroma! Or walking into the church here on an afternoon when the Bread Team is baking the bread to carry out to the community. You can’t help but smile when the aroma crosses your olfactory senses, Amen…

That’s what it’s like for God when we worship, when we offer our gratitude to him.

But our worship isn’t just something that goes up to God. It is something we share. It is something we give.

Our word Gratitude comes from that Latin – Gratia, do you hear it, Grace.

In the Bible, the word for Gratitude is usually Eucharista – from the root charis, again, Grace.

Grace is often defined as unmerited favor… it is - a favor, an act of goodwill, and loving-kindness for which we do not deserve.

And do you know what the word for Communion is in the Greek… Eucharist. The very word for the remembrance of our Lord’s Sacrifice is rooted in grace.

Grace is the act of God giving and there is nothing we can do to earn it, nothing we can do to deserve it, nothing we can do to pay it back… so what do we do?

We pay if forward.

God poured out His love and grace to you and me as God became flesh and walked among us, teaching us how to live and to love. Showing us how to be in relation with God and each other. Telling us that we are to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, give drink to the thirsty, visit the lonely, heal the sick.

And what do you think we are about to do? We are about to pack meals to take to those in need… we are going to feed the hungry and give a drink to the thirsty. Some of you may find someone lonely, that your showing up at their door will make their week. Some of you may find someone who is sick and you can pray for them.

We are going to be a Matthew 25 church!

Why?

Because of our gratitude for all the Jesus did for us when he gave himself for you and me. And, now, we take a few minutes and give ourselves for others.

Let us pray!