Basic Thanksgiving

Introduction

Well, here we are again, the Sunday after Thanksgiving, probably sick by now of turkey, stuffing, pies, and cookies, with the reality of Christmas only 4 weeks and 2 days away, weighing heavily on our minds. I don’t know how your thanksgiving went, but we were together with family, enjoyed an abundance of food, and had a time of worship through singing, rehearsing the greatness of our God.

So, is this annual tradition set aside for the purpose of giving thanks all that’s necessary? When we break thanksgiving down to its most essential elements, its core, you know basic thanksgiving, what do we see? What effect should basic thanksgiving have on blood bought, justified, redeemed people like us?

I believe that this is what the apostle Paul meant when he said:

Colossians 3:15 ESV

And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful.

King David, in reminding us how awesome our God is, what God has done, also reminds us that our basic response to these truths is to be thanksgiving and praise, with a warning of the consequences of unthankfulness.

Text: , page 499 (pew bible)

Main Idea: “Since the transcendent creator God is also immanently our Shepherd, we as His sheep show His ownership of us by responding in willful, worshipful, continual, thanksgiving to Him.”

Background:

opens with praise and worship and ends with warning to listen and obey God.

It consists of 3 stanzas, each beginning with a truth about our eternal God, and ending with our response to that truth.

It is both a prophetic psalm in that it echos themes found in the OT prophets, and a historical psalm that illustrates the necessity of complying with these prophetic themes in a case and point example from Israel’s history.

1. Thanksgiving Begins with God the Creator (vs. 1-5)

a. God the Creator is the Exclusive Who of our Worship (vs. 1-2)

LORD (Yahweh) - the self existing, eternal covenant keeping God (vs. 1)

Rock - immovable foundation or bed rock (vs. 1)

God (El) - the name associated with God, the creator (vs. 3)

b. God the Creator Impassions the How of our Worship (vs. 1-2)

Sing to the LORD - rehearsing God attributes through melodious songs

Make a joyful noise - idea of applause or cheering as fans cheer for their team

Come into His presence with thanksgiving

Thanksgiving used 37x in the bible, OT: 24, NT: 13.

Picture of Thank offering from Leviticus 22:29

Leviticus 22:29 ESV

And when you sacrifice a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the Lord, you shall sacrifice it so that you may be accepted.

According to the rabbis the thankful Israelite would bake 40 loaves of bread (30 unleavened/10 leavened) mentioned in . After baking his loaves of bread he would choose his finest lamb or goat and travel to the Temple in Jerusalem. This walk could be an hour or days journey depending on where you live, just to say, “todah, Lord!”

When the thankful Israelite would arrive at the Temple he would give a portion of his bread (about 5 loaves) to the priests. The priest would take the offered lamb or goat and sacrifice it to the Lord; that whole lamb would be offered up to God. After it’s been cooked the priest would take that barbecued lamb off the altar and give it to the thankful Israelite who was required to eat all of it by the end of the day: “The flesh of the sacrifice of his peace offering for thanksgiving shall be eaten the same day it is offered. He shall not leave any of it until morning” ().

“So how would he eat all of that food?” The thankful Israelite would take his abundance of meat and bread that he used to show thanks to God and bless family, friends, and even strangers with a filling meal. As they would sit around to eat, inevitably they ask why the Israelite was so thankful to the Lord, which gave him an opportunity to glorify the Lord and what He has done in his life.

So the point is, it is because of the sacrifice of this innocent animal that allowed and qualified the people of God to bless family, friends, and even foreigners with food and fellowship in the presence of the twice holy God!

How much more should we be thankful for the lamb of God who was sacrificed on our behalf and therefore of all people of all times, we enter His presence with thanksgiving!

c. God the Creator Demonstrates the Why of our Worship (vs. 3-5)

Great: out of the ordinary in degree, magnitude, or effect)

The Lord is a great God (in himself; inherent greatness; nothing makes God great)

Great King above all gods (compared to all the other “gods”)

The proof of His greatness (created and sustains all that exists)

He knows and holds: depths of the earth, and height of the mountains

He made and formed: the sea, the dry land

2. Thanksgiving Continues when Sheep Know the Shepherd (vs. 6-7)

a. Knowing the shepherd breeds a posture of humble adoration (vs. 6)

This posture is one the recognizes the bigness and infinite value of God and the smallness of man, and his lack of value apart from God.

This posture understands the utter dependency of how the thing made relates to the maker

b. Knowing the shepherd acknowledges his ownership of the sheep (vs. 7)

Note: There is no mention in this passage of favorable circumstance, health, wealth, or lack of trials, it is simply the reality of the shepherd owning the sheep that brings contentment and peace.

Psalm 23:1 ESV

1 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.

1 Corinthians 6:19 ESV

Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own,

1 Corinthians 6:19–20 ESV

19 Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body.

Shows the intimate relationship between God and His people (ie., our Maker, our God, the people of his pasture) (vs. 6-7)

Shows the intimate relationship between God and His people

Shows God’s provision for His people (pasture), and protection of His people (his hand) (vs. 7)

Shows God’s provision is contemporary (today) (vs. 7)

Shows this is exclusively for God’s people (if you hear his voice) (vs. 7)

John 10:27 ESV

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.

3. Thanksgiving Ends when Hearts are Hard (vs. 8-11)

a. Hard hearts begin when enlightened people doubt and complain (vs. 8-9)

Verses 8-9 refer to the time when the Children of Israel complained because there was no water to drink (), (Meribah: quarrelling, Massah: testing) though they had been enlightened by seeing God work:

Ten Plagues ()

Passover ()

God’s presence in the pillars of Cloud & Fire ()

Crossing the Red Sea and the drowning of the Egyptians ()

Sending manna from heaven ()

b. Hard hearts that persist reveal the presence of enlightened but unregenerate people (vs. 10-11)

Notice their characteristics:

go astray in their heart

have not known my (God’s) ways

The true test of an unregenerate person is the immutability of their hardened heart.

Notice that from the time span of shortly after the exodus where the Israelites were complaining because they had no water (), to the bad report given by 10 of the 12 spies sent to spy out the land at Kadesh Barnea () , within a year. Though Yahweh had proven his love and faithfulness, the hardened hearts of the people proved they were not truly people of God and would not enter the promise land.

The writer of Hebrews having asked us to consider Jesus Christ, the apostle and high priest of our confession, gives the same warning that Moses did in the OT, :

Hebrews 3:7–11 ESV

Therefore, as the Holy Spirit says, “Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as in the rebellion, on the day of testing in the wilderness, where your fathers put me to the test and saw my works for forty years. Therefore I was provoked with that generation, and said, ‘They always go astray in their heart; they have not known my ways.’ As I swore in my wrath, ‘They shall not enter my rest.’ ”

Heb 3:

And again he warns...

Hebrews 3:12–14 ESV

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called “today,” that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end.

So how do we tell the true sheep from the false…perseverance…hold our original confidence firm to the end!

So What?

Does the reality that God is and sees, and knows all, cause you to desire to come into His presence with thanksgiving and praise?

Does the reality the God is and sees, and knows cause us to desire to come into His presence with thanksgiving and praise?

Can you be thankful, even if everything in your life is falling apart, simply because our sacrifice of thanksgiving, Jesus Christ, has been given on your behalf, qualifying you to enter God’s presence?

Do you have a persistent hard heart that sees nothing good in life, and at the very core of your life, God is not there?

Then I implore you, repent of your sin, and place your life and trust in the finished work our Jesus Christ our Lord and master on the cross, our sacrifice of Thanksgiving.