Thanksgiving 2020

Preliminary Remarks:

Invite you to turn with me to Luke 17:11

The story is told of:

A man charged with stealing a turkey appeared in court. He told the judge that his action was an answer to prayer. When the judge asked him to explain, the man said: “Well, judge, it was the night before Thanksgiving, and I didn’t have a turkey. I prayed for the Lord to send me one. At midnight I still had no turkey. So then I prayed for the Lord to send me after a turkey. He did!”

Poor theology, to be sure. But the story does suggest that we are not to just sit and wait for opportunities to come. Sometimes we have to go out and make them.

Herschel H. Hobbs, My Favorite Illustrations (Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1990), 196.

While I don’t intend to talk about turkeys or prayer or how to answer your own prayer or even the holiday of Thanksgiving,

I do want to talk about, however, the importance of thanksgiving as worship.

I think the best place to start for that is our scripture Luke 17:11

It would seem that between Luke 17:10-11 the events of John 11 or the raising of Lazarus occurred as Jesus is making His way to Jerusalem. Here He makes another stop at the border of Samaria and Judea and performs a tremendous miracle.

Jesus uses this miracle and event to teach a powerful truth about thanksgiving and gratitude.

Read: Luke 17:11-19

Luke 17:11–19 KJV 1900

And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan. And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine? There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.

Introduction:

Do you see them - the pitiful and gruesome sight. Ten lepers standing off the road a ways. I don’t know if they camped the all night, waiting for Jesus or just appeared from behind a grove of trees or big boulders.

Lucado describes them as: “A huddle of half-draped faces and bent bodies. Who could discern where one form stopped and the other began, they leaned on each other so?

It was a repulsive sight, lumps on the cheeks, nose, lips and forehead. Ulcerated vocal cords rendered their voices a raspy wheeze. Hairless eyebrows turned eyes into hollow stares. Muscles atrophied and tendons contracted until hands looked like claws.”

Can you hear them as the crowd goes by, “ UNCLEAN! UNCLEAN!”

Leprosy was a horrible degenerative skin disease that ate away at the body. Jewish law demanded they quarantine and isolate. Whenever they traveled they were to cry out “UNCLEAN UNCLEAN” Imagine being the prophet of your own uncleanness, having to declare your unworthiness everywhere you went.

While the crowds began to scatter in fear and tell them to go away- Jesus stands and listens-

Just a simple request - not for money, or food “Jesus Master, have mercy on us.”

Watch Jesus as He sees and hears their prayer,

Look His heart is touched - moved with compassion

I love how Jesus loves these lepers - Here He is the Savior of the whole world on His way to Jerusalem to go to the cross and die and on the way he stops to help some nameless hopeless lepers.

I’m praise God, He came by my Samaria and Judea crossroads too -

What happens next thought is fascinating - Jesus doesn’t walk over to them and lay His hand upon them, or even pronounce them healed.

He does one of the most unusual and outrageous things - He gives them a command to go away

Jesus flunked Pastoral Care 101. He doesn’t say “It must be difficult being a leper...” no He just says, “GO”

When we are at out wits-end we want soothing -when we are in discomfort we want comfort - God doesn’t always give us that -

There are times in life when we call for help - and instead of him handing us the help we want He says “GO”

There’s a message there but I don’t have time to preach it - are you hurting, are you feeling down, despair, Go do something for someone - go love them, serve them, show them Christ it will do wonders for you.

But Jesus says God show yourselves to the priests”

He is following Leviticus 14:2 the law of the leper in the day of his cleansing. Jesus sent them to do the law.

Can you see them hobbling off - no doubt a little confused and frustrated.

But watch them as they are hobbling away - they realize, I’m not hobbling like I was, suddenly a finger begins to grow back, and one of the men’s ears, and their skin - oh their skin looked like it was ready for an Olay commercial.

You can hear them as they are like young men now - patting each other on the back, smiling and oohing and awing over the miracle that had just taken place

“Wow! Pinch me is this real? Am I dreaming?

Another says, “You all can hobble to the priest if you want, but I’m gonna run, I haven’t ran in years” And off he goes.

Another says, I can’t wait to hold my grand baby, I’ve never even got to see him - Oh I’m gonna hurry too.

On and on they go -

as each one is talking one of them breaks out in a shout - “PRAISE GOD - PRAISE THE LORD! GOD YOU SO SO GOOD! GLORY TO GOD! GLORY GLORY GLORY (Luke 17:15)

Now I don’t know if he really said all that but the Bible says that he glorified God with a loud voice!

He got so excited he said Boys, you all run ahead I’ve got to go back and thank Jesus for what He did.

And he turned on his heels and ran after the Lord.

As he comes upon Jesus he falls on his face at his feet giving Him (Jesus) thanks (Luke 17:15-16)

I really believe the whole point of this story isn’t the miraculous healing of the ten lepers, as powerful and wonderful as that may be.

I think the whole point is to show us the importance of gratitude and thanksgiving.

That even in the midst of our worship, work & duty we are stopping and falling at Jesus’ feet in praise and thanksgiving.

Martin Luther is cited to have said that the nature of real worship is “the tenth leper turning back”

The Psalmist put it this way:

Psalm 100:4 KJV 1900

Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, And into his courts with praise: Be thankful unto him, and bless his name.

Be thankful unto Him - be thankful to God.

Bernhard Lang - Sacred Games writes:

Christian thanksgiving, like its Old Testament equivalents, is rooted in the experience of some powerful event. Closely tied to such events, which at least for the believers are obvious and tangible, it is pragmatic and looks forward to further experience. Pragmatic praise assumes that God’s help is not confined to ages past; it reaches down to our own generation and will continue...

There principles about thankfulness I want to share with you:

1. Thankfulness May be Painful

We are too prone to engrave our trials in marble and write our blessings in sand - C.H. Spurgeon

Max Lucado says, “Gratitude doesn’t come naturally. Self-pity does. Bellyaches do. Grumbles and mumbles — no one has to remind us to offer them.”

He goes on in his book You’ll Get Through This and illustrates how just a spoonful of gratitude is all we need.

If anyone had a right to be ungrateful it would have been Joseph.

“Abandoned. Enslaved. Betrayed. Estranged.”

Yet try as you might you can’t find even a twinge of bitterness in him.

An interesting and often overlooked incident in his life is found in Genesis 41:50-52.

He winds up second in command to Pharoah and marries Asenath (Ah -snath).

Asenath (Ah-snath) becomes pregnant and they began to discuss what the name of the baby might be.

Names are extremely important - they stick with us for life.

Look in on them as they are reclining on the couch one evening and Joseph reaches over and pats Asenath’s round pregnant tummy. “I’ve got the perfect name for our baby”

What is it honey? she asks

“Manasseh” or at least that’s what it sounds like to us - but it means and would have been the equivalent to us naming our son:

“God made me forget” and Joseph was trying to show that through all he had been through - God had made him forget all his past hurts, and sorrows.”

Think of that - every time they called Manasseh in for dinner or to do his school work or chores they were reminded of God’s faithfulness -

Joseph wanted God to know he was grateful - grateful for all He had done for him.

Later another boy was born to Joseph and Asenath which he named Ephriam - God has caused me to be fruitful”

Yes thanksgiving can be painful - because you have to relinquish your rights to self-pity, your claim on your hurts and sorrows -

Does that mean Joseph never grieved over all he lost - no but he chose thanksgiving over bitterness.

…One of the church's most popular hymns, "Now Thank We All Our God" was written during the Thirty Years War in Germany, in the early 1600s. Its author was Martin Rinkart, a Lutheran pastor in the town of Eilenburg (Island-berg) in Saxony. Now, Eilenburg was a walled city, so it became a haven for refugees seeking safety from the fighting. But soon, the city became too crowded and food was in short supply. Then, a famine hit and a terrible plague and Eilenburg became a giant morgue.

In one year alone, Pastor Rinkart conducted funerals for 4,500 people, including his own wife.

The war dragged on; the suffering continued. Yet through it all, he never lost courage or faith and even during the darkest days of Eilenburg's agony, he was able to write this hymn:

Now thank we all our God,

with hearts and hands and voices,

Who wondrous things hath done,

In whom the world rejoices

Perhaps there is something in your life that is painful or hard, I would encourage you to give thanks anyway. To “be thankful unto Him”

Thanksgiving might be painful- but it also how we look at life.

2. Thankfulness is sometimes a perspective issue

I’m not talking about a shallow Pollyanna approach to life - but I am saying that we can choose to live in the Mully Grubs or we can climb up on top of Mount Grateful and be the one that comes back

We can “in everything give thanks”

But it is often our perspective that has to change - not the situation.

One unknown poet put it this way…

“As you travel down life’s pathway,

May this be your goal:

Keep your eye upon the doughnut,

And not upon the hole!”

We aren’t always going to get what we want, or be the most comfortable, or even enjoy what we are going through -

But we can allow our perspective to be about finding something to “Be thankful to HIM” about!!!

Thanksgiving may be painful, and may require you to change your perspective but also...

3. Thankfulness is a process

You know - all ten of these lepers were healed, but one wanted more he wanted the healer.

I think that is what “thanksgiving” is all about -

I acknowledge and appreciate what you are giving me - but its you I really love.

When we treat God like Santa Clause we just be good and he’ll give us what we want

But God wants to be treated like your redeemer, savior and friend.

He wants to have a relationship with you a deeply committed and intimate relationship with you

And one of those ways is through the disciplined process of thanksgiving.

“Be thankful to Him”

Don Carson says, “Christians bent on maturity must work hard on gratitude.”

An old tract “Mrs. Pickett’s Missionary Box” recalls the story of a poor woman who had never learned the discipline of giving thanks. In fact she was a complainer she had complained all her life long. She had reached the place where she didn’t think she had any benefits give thanks for.

One day she was given a missionary box with the words written on it: “What shall I render unto the Lord for all His benefits toward me?”

It was the custom in those days that a person would take home the missionary box fill it with spare change and then turn it in to the local church for a sponsored missionary.

Her niece told her to put in a penny for every benefit she was thankful for.

She stared at the box for a long time and then said, “The heathen won’t get much from me” She made up her mind right then and there to keep count and show how little how few blessings she really had.

“Them few pennies won’t break me” she said.

The box sat there all week and she would pass by it and say, “it must be kind of lonesome with nothing in it”

The next missionary meeting day her niece came over to tell her about the service. It wall about about how they were caring for widows and trying to help them. Some of them were starving and couldn’t hardly survive.”

Before she knew what she was doing she said, “Well if I was a widow, at least I could earn my own living. and no one would have to interfere.”

Mary her neice laughed and said, “Now you have to put a penny in you just said you were thankful for something.”

She reluctantly put in a penny and all that week whenever she would pass the box she would give it a little shake and think about those poor widows. It made her think of a new renter that came along and she felt thankful and droppd in another.

Her neice came by next missionary service telling about the poor people over seas. She realized she had it better than them and had to drop in another.

Before long her little missionary box was full and she realized she had far more blessings than she realized.

Now I’m not just wanting a shallow platitudde of “Count your blessings” but Gratitude.

Henry Blackaby writes, “Thankfulness is foundational to the Christian life. Thankfulness is a conscious response that comes from looking beyond our blessings to their souce.”

This will often take a great deal of discipline and practice.

Maybe get your own missionary box, or mke a journal, at least take some mental notes about what you are thankful for.

Conclusion:

As the returning Leper is praising and worshiping Jesus interupts him and asks a very important question. I think this question is the whole purpose of the story -

“Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?” He then answeres his own questions, “There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.”

I have to wonder where they were as well.

Someone has posed these nine leper’s excuses as to why the nine did not return.

One waited to see if the cure was real.

One waited to see if it would last.

One said he would see Jesus later.

One decided that he had never had leprosy.

One said he would have gotten well anyway.

One gave the glory to the priests.

One said, "O well, Jesus didn't really do anything."

One said, "Just any rabbi could have done it."

One said, "I was already much improved."

I don’t really know how fair it is to presume their motives or actions - but one thing I do know - they were headed to the priest doing what Jesus had said - why would Jesus question where they were?

I think for two reasons

To show the importance of thanking God for his blessings

To show the importance of knowing the healer over being healed.

Some are satisfied with an occasional touch of God or an occasional brush of angel’s wings, but in reality there is nothing like falling at his feet in thanksgiving and worship.

In all our living lets not forget to be thanks giving.

Be that one leper that comes back.

Be thankful to Him

Even if its painful

Even if you have to change your perspective

Even though its a long and sometimes hard process.