Thanksgiving Blessings

Intro

Each year on the fourth of July the Nathan’s Famous Hot Dog Company sponsors a hot dog eating contest. In 2013 Joey Chestnut won the competition for the seventh year in a row, setting a new record by eating 69 hot dogs and buns in just ten minutes.

The second runner up “only” managed to eat 51. According to news reports, Chestnut received a prize of $10,000 for his eating performance, and consumed over 20,000 calories during his eating spree.

Few of us are in danger of eating seventy hot dogs in one day, let alone nearly seven a minute for ten minutes straight. And yet we live in a world where “enough” is never enough.

Many people devote their lives to acquiring wealth, possessions, and overall comfort. As a result, rather than living in contentment, they live in a perpetual state of dissatisfaction.

But more than just our possession, as humans, we tend to be driven to make decisions and priorities with the question in mind, “how will this benefit me?”.

Now we may not find ourselves asking that question out loud, but our attitudes and responses to our circumstances demonstrate this to be true.

You want to see how self absorbed we can be, look at what happens when...

our 2 day prime shipping takes 4 days

Walmart doesn’t have the brand we like

we have to wear a mask to go into a store

we can’t go on vacation

our kids have to do cyber learning which let’s be honest has a lot less to do with our kids needing to be in school and more to do with the inconvenience that puts on our schedules.

If COVID-19 has done anything, it is revealed just how discontent we are. It has shown us how selfish we can be. All one has to do is look at the great toilet paper shortage of 2020. This wasn’t the result of a lack of supply, it was the result of people selfishly overbuying.

We live in a world that breeds this kind of thinking. Discontentment is often the root of...

divorce

fatherlessness

depression

drug use

sexual perversion

greed

mistreatment of others

As followers of Jesus we know that this is not what God desires for our lives. Discontentment and selfishness were part of our old way of life, yet so often even as believers we struggle with these same feelings.

So what can we do about it?

Big Idea

What if I told you that there is a cure for this? What if I told you that this cure was available to all of us free of charge? What if I told you that the cure for discontentment was something that all of us have done, but likely don’t do it enough?

The cure for discontentment is thanksgiving. I know, it’s revolutionary...

The reality is that thanksgiving is the enemy of discontentment and dissatisfaction.

We all know how to be thankful, but the reality is, that most of us have a hard time being thankful when we feel discontent. And there is a reason for that. It is because an attitude of thanks, and an attitude of dissatisfaction cannot occupy our hearts at the same time.

So why then is something so simple so hard to do?

1 John 2:15–16 (NLT)

15 Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. 16 For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world.

Power in the Text

The reason it is so hard to not be selfish is because ingrained deep into who we are as fallen people is the desire to have what we want, when we want it.

John says here that as followers of Jesus we have a choice to make about what we are going to love.

The world and by extension, ourselves.

The Father who removes the curse of the fallen nature and by extension a heart that is discontent.

But you know, how many know that oftentimes in order for us to experience what God desires for our lives, we have to be willing to do something first?

Last week, I mentioned Peter having to step out of the boat to walk towards Jesus.

Consider David who had to be willing to face Goliath rather than God just striking him down.

Noah had to build the ark before there was ever a drop of rain. God could have built it for him, but Noah had to be an active participant in what God was doing.

Look at the time Jesus healed the man born blind...

Why did he have to go and wash in the pool of Siloam? Why didn’t Jesus just heal him? In order for him to experience the healing that God wanted to give him he had to take a step. He had to demonstrate his faith through an act of obedience and do what Jesus asked him to.

The truth is, God has provided the cure to discontentment and dissatisfaction. God has made a way for us to no longer be consumed with what the world would tell us is important. And simply put, it is to give thanks.

But not just when it is easy to do so. Not just when things are going well. It is easy to be thankful during a feast, it is a lot harder to do so during a famine.

But look at what Paul says

Philippians 4:4–7 (NLT)

4 Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! 5 Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon.

6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 7 Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

Or how about

1 Thessalonians 5:16–18 (NLT)

16 Always be joyful. 17 Never stop praying. 18 Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.

Paul was someone who knew what it was like to have an attitude of thanks, even when his circumstances were anything but a blessing.

Here was a man who gave up everything he knew to be a follower of Jesus. His position, his future, his relationships, all of it. He did so to embrace a life filled with blessing for sure, but also marked with heartache, pain, imprisonment, abandonment, and eventually death.

And yet, when you read his letters he is consistently thankful and he regularly urges those he is writing to to be thankful. In one such letter he says

Philippians 4:11–13 (NLT)

11 Not that I was ever in need, for I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. 12 I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. 13 For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength.

Application

You see, the reason the world has fallen so short of God’s plan for creation is that we have forgotten, not only what we have to be thankful for, but who we have to be thankful for it.

Romans 1:20–21 (NLT)

20 For ever since the world was created, people have seen the earth and sky. Through everything God made, they can clearly see his invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature. So they have no excuse for not knowing God.

21 Yes, they knew God, but they wouldn’t worship him as God or even give him thanks. And they began to think up foolish ideas of what God was like. As a result, their minds became dark and confused.

When we give thanks, when we have a grateful heart, especially when things aren’t going well, 3 things are going to happen.

We will have a greater depth to our relationship with Jesus.

Jesus shouldn’t just be a band-aid. That person you go to when things are bad, when you are hurting, when you need something. When we give thanks, it forces us to recognize our dependence on God and realize how much more Jesus can be in our lives if we let him.

We will have greater peace in our lives.

Remember, Paul says that when we give thanks, then we can experience a peace that transcends understanding.

Right now, people are looking for peace. There is so much turmoil politically, look at the racial tension and division, look at what is going on with this pandemic. We need peace. But lasting peace will never come as the result of legislation, a political leader, or because we fight hard enough for it.

Lasting peace can only come, when people get on their knees in repentance and dependence on God. When we begin to worship and give thanks to God. Only then will we find the peace we so desperately want.

It will spur us on toward acts of love we never considered before.

What would cause a Holy and perfect God to be willing to reach down, and not just reach down but to give up everything, including his own son on a cross so that we, and undeserving, sinful, and rebellious creation could not only be forgiven, but be adopted as his own sons and daughters?

What would spur God to make us co-heirs with Christs? Why would he be willing to die to give us such a place of honor? It is simple… love.

And when you and I stop to consider what we have to be thankful for, it will spur us on to do likewise. It will cause us to love others in ways that don’t make sense. In ways they don’t deserve it. In ways that others would find strange and unnecessary.

Closing

You know this kind of love for others will not look the same for all of us. Today you heard of a need. A need for families to step up welcome a child into their home.

Not as guests or strangers but as one of their own.

It doesn’t make sense for a family to go through what is not the easiest process, to adopt a child they have no connection to.

It doesn’t make sense to welcome a perfect stranger into your life with the intention of making them a co-heir with your biological children if you have them.

Because, when you adopt, that child becomes your own, not just legally, but in the eyes of God, as a parent you now carry the awesome responsibility of doing everything you can to raise a disciple of Jesus who may not have started their life with your family, but will for the rest of their lives be full fledged members of it.

It doesn’t make sense, but neither does the cross.

So this thanksgiving I want to challenge you to do what doesn’t make sense. To develop a heart of gratitude and to use that to spur you on to acts of love towards others.

Feelings of thankfulness without expression are like wrapping a gift and never giving to the person you bought it for. It means very little.

May our gratitude be expressed in what we do for those who cannot do for themselves.