Are there people within your life for whom we give thanks -
- new friends
- someone with whom we live or work
- an individual who bailed us out of a tough spot
Question --> Do we consider them as being there for us because we're such swell people to be around?..... or because God has prompted them, consciously or unconsciously, to our side?
Who gets the credit, the praise, and the thanks? Are there any experiences this year for which we are grateful -
- somewhere we have gone
- something we have accomplished
- a coincidence or circumstance
- something we learned
Question --> do we think these things happened because of our marvellous managerial skill, our financial prowess, great intellect, or even a bit of raw 649-like luck?... or do we give credit to the Divine King of Kings for guiding each step of our life?
Can we acknowledge, can we see, can we publicly give credit and thanks for the working of the Lord up front and behind the scenes, in so many different ways, in our life.
Thanksgiving Day 1997-style is the chance to publicly proclaim, along with King David, what God has done.
Public proclamation and thanks to God - Thanksgiving.
Part of that happens here in worship.I trust that some of that will happen when you gather together with friends or family - or when you take a few moments on your own later today.
But there's another level to thanksgiving. It's a level found in verses 11-14 of Psalm 34. Poetically, structurally, it's the centre of the poem, the bull's eye, the very heart of the thing.
Read those words and you get the nucleus of David's message.
And that nucleus, quite simply put, says "Thanksgiving comes through thanks-living."
To really show your thankfulness to God, to really let your heavenly Father know how much you appreciate His salvation, His care, and His guidance through life ---- to do that you have to show it by living in a way that takes Him seriously, that honours Him, that obeys Him, that takes proper notice of His presence and work in your life.
Think of it this way:
Imagine that your mom lets you use the car. She takes the risk of letting you behind the wheel, and driving off into new-found, dangerous independence to who knows where. Imagine.
And while you remember, once in a while, between mouthfuls of hurried breakfast to say "thanks" you NEVER take time to wash the car, or clean out your Mars bar wrappers and Pepsi cans from the back, and don't quite get around to topping up the gas tank now and then.
-- How do you think she will feel?
Now imagine that you had a God who took the time to care for you day and night;
Never forgetting about you;
Guiding you, and walking with you every step of the way,
Through thick and thin
Sending His precious Son to be your Saviour
And imagine, just imagine,
That while you took the time (how nice of you)to come out and attend a Thanksgiving Day service on an annual basis.... imagine if for the other 364 days of the year you rarely took time to pray to Him; if your lifestyle had only the faintest resemblance to the kind of lifestyle and pattern of living that is called for in God's Holy Book; if you never told anyone else about your relationship to Him, and what He was doing in your life for you; like as if you were almost kind of ashamed of Him... imagine that.....
How do you think God would feel?
Get it?
Thanksgiving demands thanksliving.
In the good times.
And in the times described by vv.19-22, the times that some of you have experienced in vivid ways this past year;
the difficult, troubling moments and chapters of life.
v.19: "A righteous man may have many troubles...."
Oh, how true that is! How true.
This is the reality check of the psalm. Admitting that life isn't always neat and tidy. Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes it's confusing, maddeningly so. Sometimes it seems terribly unfair, troubling.
No way around that stuff. It happens.
But even in the midst of those thorny, thistle-filled, sweat-of-the-brow chapters of life, those who place their trust in life and death, who seek their only comfort in their faithful Saviour and Lord, Jesus Christ, to them comes the assurance that these distresses and setbacks, disabilities, pains and agonies, do NOT have the final word. They do not have ultimate control over our lives. God has that.
And He will never let that go.
It is the promise confirmed in John 10.28-29:"I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater THAN ALL.....
(hear that --- than all)
...no one can snatch them out of my Father's hand."
Which is how David's poem, Psalm 34, closes:"The Lord redeems His servants; no one will be condemned who takes refuge in Him."
For some of us that promise has become reality this year as loved ones were ushered into eternal glory.
For others it is experienced by being given endurance resilient strength in the face of what otherwise would have been overwhelming odds.
And for a few, the very special mercy of being set free from their distress in a miraculous way.
And for all of us it is the last word, setting the stage for the rest of this Thanksgiving Day service, and preparing the way for us to enter into another year of Thanks-Living.
In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.