Thanksgiving, Thanks-living ~ Deuteronomy 8:7-18 ~ Thanksgiving Eve Community Worship Service

I have a confession to make: this is only the second time in my life that I’ve celebrated Thanksgiving by coming to worship.  It’s not that there haven’t been opportunities for me to worship. I just never went.

This year I’m in church with all of you—and it’s good to be here.  It’s good to be here because we don’t have TVs blaring with all of the commercials telling us to go shopping.  It’s good to be here because we are not rushing around, trying to get our holiday plans in order.  Here and now, we turn our hearts and minds to worshipping God and giving God thanks.

It almost goes without saying that our national day of Thanksgiving has changed significantly, and not for the better.  It’s still a day to give thanks—but it’s also a day to overeat, watch television, and welcome in the Christmas season.  And this year, Thanksgiving Day has become another day to “shop ‘till we drop.” 

But we still have some freedom of choice as to what we will do this day.  We can make it a day of giving thanks to God—or we can make it something else.  And ultimately, Thanksgiving is not a once-a-year happening in the life of the Christian.  Every day is a day to give thanks.  Thanksgiving is not a holiday; it’s an attitude…  It’s a way of life…

It was the way of life that God was calling the people of Israel to live, in our first lesson from Deuteronomy.

For forty years, God’s people had been wandering in the wilderness, following the exodus from Egypt.  And now they were about to take possession of the Promised Land.  Great wealth and prosperity were in store for them there.  So God has a simple message for them: “remember me.  Remember that I delivered you from slavery in Egypt.  Remember that I took care of you in the wilderness.  Remember that all of the good things you enjoy have come from me.”

I wish I could say that Israel obeyed God’s commands.  But they did not.  As their wealth and prosperity increased, their obedience to God decreased.  They gave themselves all the credit for their success.  They didn’t give thanks to God—because they believed they had nothing to thank God for…  They didn’t need God to take care of them.  In time, they completely forgot about God and ran after other gods—and the consequences were disastrous.

There is danger that comes from not living thankfully.  If we’re not giving thanks, we’re not acknowledging God as the source of all the good things we enjoy.  We’re simply giving ourselves the credit for our own good fortune.  And if we still happen to acknowledge God at all, we see God as obligated to give us everything we want because we’re such great persons.  Without thanksgiving, God is a stranger to us.  God may as well not even exist—because we’re living only for ourselves and our own satisfaction.  If we’re not thankful, we’re in danger of becoming so self-absorbed that other people are of no importance to us, apart from what we can get from them for our own benefit.  

Just imagine what our world would be like if everyone cared only for themselves... 

But there is a great power for good that comes from living thankfully… 

Thanksgiving is not the way to earn our way into God’s goodness.  Thanksgiving is the way in which we enter into the experience God’s goodness.  God’s provisions are not rewards; they are free gifts.  God cares and provides for us every day because that is who our God is.  Our God cares for us apart from our merit and deserving.  By giving our thanks to God, we learn to see our lives and our possessions as sure signs of God’s great love for us.  We learn to know God for all of the beautiful ways that God takes care of us. 

We know God as the provider of our daily bread.

We know God as the listener to our prayers.

We know God as the redeemer who forgives us of our sins and gives us strength to walk in newness of life.

We know God as the Savior who delivers us from our most painful trials gives us hope even in the face of death.

For a Christian, there’s never a question of if God has blessed you…  It’s always a question of how…  Most of the time, we can never know what God is doing until we stop and take the time to remember what God has already done.  God is telling a story of love and faithfulness in your life.  And what better way to celebrate God’s goodness than to share that story with others?

As we experience God’s compassion and mercy, we are transformed.  When we live thankfully, we learn not to see our treasures as the trophies of our own greatness…  We learn that the life worth living is not the one in which we accumulate the most treasures, but rather a life of sharing and doing good things for others.  God’s love compels us to be loving people.  God’s love draws us into God’s work of caring for the lost and the needy.

Giving thanks to God gives us hope.  We are better able to put our faith in God when we look back and remember all of the ways that God has carried us through life’s ups and downs to get us to where we are now.  Even when our future is clouded with uncertainty, God’s faithfulness in the past is the promise of God’s faithfulness in the future. 

We have so much to be thankful for today.  God has given us today our daily bread.  God has forgiven us of our sins.  God has given us the promise of new life in Christ’s resurrection.  And God has blessed us to live in a country where we are free to worship Jesus Christ without fear of persecution. 

But giving thanks is a choice.  It’s one that we must commit ourselves to making every day.  It’s a choice we must make when we rise in the morning and go to sleep at night.  It’s a choice we must make as we sit down to eat.  It’s a choice we must make any time we enjoy God’s many gifts to us.  We cannot forget the giver of our gifts; the source of our strength, the creator of our life.  We can come into possession of every treasure this world has to offer—but if we forget God, we have truly lost everything.  But if we remember God, there will always be hope and there will always be joy, even in the worst of times.  With Christ in our lives, we have all we need.  Thanks be to God for this indescribable gift.