November 20, 2005 am God’s Thanksgiving Matthew 25:31-46
By Ronald E.
George Jr. at the Fayetteville Baptist Church
Let’s give thanks during this Thanksgiving.
What is thanks is: it is gratitude, appreciation, recognition, credit, merit, thankfulness.
“Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as He has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience; now, I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November ye 29th of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three, and the third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor, and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings.”
By William Bradford, governor of the Plymouth Colony, 1623
Psalm 100:1 (NIV) Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. 2 Worship the LORD with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. 3 Know that the LORD is God. It is he, who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. 4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. 5 For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.
For
what should we be thankful?
Give thanks for the things He has done.
Give thanks for who He is.
Give thanks for taking us and forgiving us.
Give thank to the Lord for giving to us his one and only
son.
Give Thanks to the Lord for giving us the example.
Does God Give Thanks? On many occasions we have recorded in the scriptures the times when Jesus gave thanks. He took the loaves and fishes and gave thanks before He gave it to the disciples. He gave thanks when he taught the disciples to take the Passover as a memorial of his sacrifice for our sins. This was his last supper before his crucifixion. In Matthew 25, we see Jesus giving recognition and reward for his sheep. This is a form of thanksgiving.
Matt 25:31 (NIV) "When the
Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his
throne in heavenly glory. 32 All the nations will be gathered before him, and he
will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from
the goats. 33 He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left. 34
"Then the King will say to those on his right, `Come, you who are blessed
by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the
creation of the world. 35 For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I
was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited
me in, 36 I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after
me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.' 37 "Then the righteous will
answer him, `Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give
you something to drink? 38 When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or
needing clothes and clothe you? 39 When did we see you sick or in prison and go
to visit you?' 40 "The King will reply, `I tell you the truth, whatever you
did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.' 41
"Then he will say to those on his left, `Depart from me, you who are
cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. 42 For I
was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing
to drink, 43 I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and
you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.'
44 "They also will answer, `Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or
a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' 45
"He will reply, `I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of
the least of these, you did not do for me.' 46 "Then they will go away to
eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."
Does
God give thanks to us?
1.
He gives a response. Response to those who did not hear the call to
reach out in His name. Showed a
lack of faith. Showed a lack of
love. Showed a lack of God.
They have received their reward. Since
they did not choose God now they were given the result of their choice. They were given what they chose in life.
They were given an eternity without God.
They were given hell.
2. He gives recognition. He gives recognition for the things that you have done in the name of the Lord. He sees what you have done for others in his name. He appreciates those who have faith enough to cause them to give themselves to him by giving to others.
3. He gives rewards. Rewards for the sacrifices you have given to help others in the name of the Lord. For those who give to the Lord, their thanksliving will be rewarded.
4. Let the Lord say thank you for giving to me.
What will the Lord say to you? What will you say to the Lord?
Cicero, the great Roman orator and philosopher, said, "A thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue but the parent of all other virtues." Perhaps that explains the large part gratitude plays in Paul's letters. He begins with thanksgiving when he writes to the Romans, the Corinthians, the Ephesians, the Philippians, the Colossians, and the Thessalonians! -- Robert C. Shannon, 1000 Windows, (Cincinnati, Ohio: Standard Publishing Company, 1997).
We are having the usual thing for our Thanksgiving dinner: relatives.
n As quoted in Bob Phillips, Phillips' Book of Great Thoughts & Funny Sayings, (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1993), p. 309.
A man whom many believe was the greatest American president is a good example. When he was 7 years of age, his family was forced out of their home, and he went to work. When he was 9, his mother died. He lost his job as a store clerk when he was 20. He wanted to go to law school, but he didn't have the education. At age 23 he went into debt to be a partner in a small store. Three years later the business partner died, and the resulting debt took years to repay.
When he was 28, after courting a girl for four years, he asked her to marry him, and she turned him down. On his third try he was elected to Congress, at age 37, but then failed to be re-elected. His son died at 4 years of age. When this man was 45, he ran for the Senate and lost. At age 47 he ran for the vice-presidency and lost. But at age 51 he was elected president of the United States.
The man was Abraham Lincoln, a man who learned to face discouragement and move beyond it. Did you know that it was Abraham Lincoln who, in the midst of the Civil War, in 1863, established the annual celebration of Thanksgiving? Lincoln had learned how important it is to stop and thank God in the midst of great difficulties.
-- John Yates, "An Attitude of Gratitude," Preaching Today, Tape No. 110.
If life is to have meaning, and if God's will is to be done, all of us have to accept who we are and what we are, give it back to God, and thank Him for the way He made us. What I am is God's gift to me; what I do with it is my gift to Him. -- Warren W. Wiersbe in his autobiography, Be Myself. Christianity Today, Vol. 38, no. 8.
Some people are appreciative by nature, but some are not; and it is these latter people who especially need God's power to express thanksgiving. We should remember that every good gift comes from God and that He is (as the theologians put it ) "the Source, Support, and End of all things." The very breath in our mouths is the free gift of God. Thankfulness is the opposite of selfishness. The selfish person says, "I deserve what comes to me! Other people ought to make me happy." But the mature Christian realizes that life is a gift from God, and that the blessings of life come only from His bountiful hand. -- Warren W. Wiersbe in A Time To Be Renewed. Christianity Today, Vol. 32, no. 17.