Sermon Tone Analysis

A Christmas Carol

The Story

It’s about this time of year I start thinking of watching or reading Charles Dickens classic short story, A Christmas Carol.

So, I need to preface.

I am not doing what it seems like our culture is doing and jumping strait from Halloween to Christmas.

It is hard to commercialize a holiday that is about being thankful.

Marketing and consumerism depends on creating a feeling in us of dissatisfaction so that we long for the advertised product.

Thanksgiving is a time for us to be thankful for what we already have, especially if we happen to have Turkey and Candied Yams!

But that brings me back to a Christmas Carol.

It’s a book has had a profound impact on how we celebrate Christmas, before the book became a sensation Christmas had been minimized by the protestant leaders of the time for the materialism that had become associated with the holiday, Dickens book single handedly brought celebration back to the holiday with his themes of redemption and good chair.

But what strikes me in this story is the character of Bob Cratchit.

Bob throughout the book has an attitude of Thanksgiving: When he sits down to Christmas dinner he is presented with a cheap and no doubt small bird, just enough for each member of the family to get a taste before they filled up on applesauce.

Yet, we find Bob’s spirit to be joyful and grateful.

At the end of the meal they gather around and Cratchit exclaims

‘A Merry Christmas to us all, my dears.

God bless us!’ Which all the family re-echoed.

‘God bless us every one!’ said Tiny Tim, the last of all.

And then Scrooge overheard Bob’s toast

“Mr.

Scrooge!” said Bob; “I’ll give you Mr. Scrooge, the Founder of the Feast!”

“The Founder of the Feast indeed!” cried Mrs. Cratchit, reddening.

“I wish I had him here.

I’d give him a piece of my mind to feast upon, and I hope he’d have a good appetite for it.”

Even in the meagerness of their Christmas dinner and in the face of his wife’s pragmatism, still Bob was thankful.

A man filled with gratitude.

A gratitude that impacted his children.

Cratchit said of his crippled son:

He told me, coming home, that he hoped the people saw him in the church, because he was a cripple, and it might be pleasant to them to remember upon Christmas Day, who made lame beggars walk, and blind men see.

The Truth

In this Christmas story we find the fundamental character of Thankfulness demonstrated repeatedly.

But this isn’t just some over blown trope to move the story forward, the character of Thanksgiving is a fundamental characteristic of Christians.

Let me show you.

Turn your Bibles over to Colossians 3 as we read from 12 to 17.

Our message this morning is entitled Be Thankful

Let’s Pray

Christian Character

Biblical Guidance

If someone were to ask you to summarize Christian Character, you could do a whole lot worse than turning your Bible over to Colossians 3.

And bear with me through this list:

Negatives

Verses 5 through 10 are a list of things that the believer does away with, look what we have starting in verse 5:

fornication (meaning sexual immorality)

uncleaness (meaning impurity)

evil concupiscence (or evil desire)

And covetousness

And at the end of the verse it calls all of these things idolatry.

The things we worship rather than God.

Then in verse 8 the list continues.

The Christian should put away in their life:

Anger

Wrath

Malice

blaspheme (or slander, not specifically against God as we tend to thing of the word)

filthy communication out of your mouth (or obscene talk)

and in verse 9 lying.

And this affords us some self examination, because when these characteristics are present in our lives we can be assured that we are not spiritually healthy.

Positives

But how does verse 12 begin?

Put on then.

It is an interesting contrast in words.

In verse 5 we read that we are to Put to Death carrying with it the idea of stopping some actions completely and then we are to exchange these negative characteristics for positive where our Bible says to put them on.

And what are they?

Well follow with me in v12

bowels of mercies ( meaning compassionate hearts)

kindness

humbleness of mind

meekness

longsuffering (meaning emotionally self-controlled)

Forbearance, or patience with one another

And Forgiving one another

And having the forgiveness of Christ

Verse 14 continues

above all is Charity (and this word means sacrificial level of love not charity as we think of it today).

Verse 15 says

to let the peace of God rule in your hearts

and then it says and be ye thankful (we will come back to this)

Verse 16 says to

Let the word of Christ dwell in you

that we are to use music to teach and to warn with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs and that our music should be an outpouring of grace from our hearts to the Lord.

And then v17 is where we will conclude.

The Character of Thankfulness

This is quite the list and if time allowed we could probably spend a Sunday morning covering each of these points individually, but we see two of these points repeated.

In verse 15 we read

Colossians 3:15 (KJV 1900)

15 And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to the which also ye are called in one body; and be ye -- thankful.

and at the end of verse 17

Colossians 3:17 (KJV 1900)

17 And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.

A repeated topic

The topic of thanksgiving comes up in 133 verses throughout our Bible.

I told that to Kate and here advice was to open with that point, close in prayer and tell everyone if they want details to come see me after.

No such luck.

The first time we read about thanksgiving is in Leviticus 7 where the offerings are being discussed.

In Leviticus 7:12 of the offering it says

The details aren’t really necessary for what we are talking about today but what is, is that an offering given, not just for atonement but out of a heart of thankfulness to God.

See, like I said thankfulness is foundational and goes all the back through the Old Testament to Leviticus and the offerings to God.

A Thankful Spirit

1 Thess 5:18 says

A lot of people spend a lot of time trying to determine what God’s will is for their life and this is a pretty good place to start.

I mean it says it pretty clearly right here, This is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you…what?....To be thankful, to give thanks in everything!