Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving Service

11/22/23

Hello, My name is Jacob Ward, I have the honor and privilege to serve as the NextGen minister at Local Christian Church in Ashland planted by this very church. I was blessed also to work at this Church for 2 years and this was the church where I started my faith journey so It is good to be back! I want to give a quick update on Local, we've been doing great it's been a blast out there and God has been showing up in a major way, so far we have had 4 baptisms already. We want to thank all who have supported us and are continuing to support us either through prayer or resources. It truly means the world to us and we're excited to see where God takes us. We are truly thankful for you all.

Speaking of being thankful for things, I’m thankful for this perfectly seamless transition into our topic today being thanksgiving.

As most of you know (I hope) thanksgiving is tomorrow! I personally love thanksgiving because I am a 25 year old man who is extremely food motivated. But I also love seeing all the family and getting together to share a meal in a house that ends up being 7000 degrees because of all the food and talking. Truly a wonderful time that I am thankful for.

Today were going to be looking at a passage of Scripture that I think shows the importance of being thankful and that is Ephesians 5:1-21 if you all are following along.

“5 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

3 But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. 4 Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving. 5 For you may be sure of this, that everyone who is sexually immoral or impure, or who is covetous (that is, an idolater), has no inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and God. 6 Let no one deceive you with empty words, for because of these things the wrath of God comes upon the sons of disobedience. 7 Therefore do not become partners with them; 8 for at one time you were darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light 9 (for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true), 10 and try to discern what is pleasing to the Lord. 11 Take no part in the unfruitful works of darkness, but instead expose them. 12 For it is shameful even to speak of the things that they do in secret. 13 But when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, 14 for anything that becomes visible is light. Therefore it says,

“Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.”

15 Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, 16 making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. 17 Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. 18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, 19 addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, 20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

So what we have here is an excerpt from the book of ephesians written by Paul that is very challenging and very convicting.Honestly there is so much to unpack here but we don't have time for all of it so I’m just going to focus in on just a small portion. It starts off with a very serious charge, “Be imitators of Christ”. This is something that Christians are very familiar with hearing but sometimes I think we downplay how hard this actually is to do. Thankfully, Scripture makes it pretty clear most of the time how to actually do this. We see in verses 3-4 that there is a list of things not to do. “3 But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints. 4 Let there be no filthiness nor foolish talk nor crude joking, which are out of place, but instead let there be thanksgiving.”

These are things we know as Christians we are not supposed to do. These are things that Paul clearly lays out as wrong for us and even goes as far as to say that those who habitually do these things will not inherit the Kingdom of God. Paul talks about those who do these things are living in the darkness and you can tell by these actions. Paul warns us not to partner with them in these things. Now this doesn't mean that a believer never does these things, they do, and they have, and they will. But the believer does not make a habit of these things and they turn to God after in repentance because doing these things breaks our hearts the same way it breaks Gods.

Now that's a lot of things not to do, Thankfully when the Bible lists a lot of things not to do, it doesn’t just leave it at that. That would be like pulling cracked bricks out of a wall and then expecting the wall to continue standing, you have to replace those bricks with healthy bricks. The Bible always gives a replacement for those do nots, in this case it is “thanksgiving.”

This Scripture’s main point is to tell us to walk in light instead of darkness and to understand what is pleasing to God. There are many things that go into those two things but the one I’d like to focus on is the thanksgiving part. Being thankful even in hard times is pleasing to God but if we're being honest here, as humans being thankful is not in our nature.

Some things that are in our nature are; sexual immorality, impurity, covetousness, filthiness, foolish talk, crude joking, disobedience, darkness.

Well if that is what we are inclined to do, and the Bible is telling us not to, how do we not do those things?

The answer is in verse 18. “18 And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit,”

It is by the power of the Holy Spirit that we are able to replace these things in our life that are the actions of darkness into actions of light that are pleasing to the LORD. We have to lean on God and ask His Holy Spirit to work in us to change our actions from darkness to light. I will confess right now I do not have the power to walk in light on my own, I do not have the power to please God with my actions on my own. I have to rely on the Holy Spirit.

When we are filled with the Spirit we are in submission to God and His will. When we are baptized into Christ the Holy Spirit begins to live inside of us, but that does not always mean we are being filled with the Holy Spirit. So in submitting to the Spirit and through prayer we are filled with the Spirit. When we are filled with the Spirit we start 19 addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, 20 giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, 21 submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.”

This is part of what it means to walk in light. Guys the world is in darkness, I don't need to tell you that. There is so much evil going on in the world and it always has been and it always will happen. There is nothing new under the sun. But while most are grumbling and cursing and disrespecting each other and walking in that darkness, what would make us shine like a candle in a dark room is our ability to give thanks to the LORD, even in the darkness.

Paul would know this more than anyone else. In Acts 16 we have a story of Paul and a man named Silas in a town in Macedonia where they were severely beaten and arrested for casting out a demon from a lady because the higher ups were making money off of her. They are thrown into prison and have every right to be upset or to complain but instead they spend their time singing songs of praise and worship to God. While they are in chains and probably still very hurt, they are praising God. Not because they are in the darkness, but because God is still good regardless of the darkness. Then while they are praising and worshiping an earthquake happens and the jail doors are open and they are freed and even baptize a guard and his family into Christianity.

Now I alone am not strong enough to be thankful if I was thrown in prison and sing songs of praise to God. Neither was Paul. It was because Paul was in full submission to the Holy Spirit.

I'll leave you with this charge, tomorrow most of us will have the opportunity to be with family and friends we don't see often and I imagine among them will be those who are lost and need Christ. Thanksgiving seems to draw in politics and negative talk about what's happening all over the world like moths to a flame.

We have the unique opportunity to share our thankfulness to God despite the darkness of this world because of what He has done for us. We as Christians can be thankful no matter the circumstances because we have something that no darkness could ever take away. Jesus Christ, the Son of the living God, came down to earth and lived a perfect sinless life and was crucified for my sins on a cross, dying for a crime He did not commit. Dying the death I deserved, then three days later Jesus resurrected out of the grave and overcame it so that I may do that one day as well. Because of this, no evil can be done to me that would outshine the thankfulness I have for our Lord because He saved me.

pray