Thanksgiving
Days & The Sacrifice of Praise: God’s Idea
By Capt. Kelly
Durant 11-23-14
Ps 107:22
22 And let them
sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving, and declare his works with rejoicing.
Ps 50:14
14 Offer unto
God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High:
Jonah 2:9
9 But I will
sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will pay that that I have
vowed. Salvation is of the LORD.
2. It’s our Thanksgiving
Day Sunday! It is obvious from the verses of today that giving thanks to God by
sacrificing was God’s idea a few thousand years ago, long before the forming of
this country! The verses of Psalm and Jonah today are almost 3,000 years old so
we conclude that God wants His people to take special days of sacrificing reverencing
Him doing it together with others.
Do you know how the
U.S. Thanksgiving Day began? It began with a group of Christian Immigrants,
immigrants just like you and me! Plymouth, Mass. 394 years ago was inhabited by
Native Indians, and then one day a ship of Englishmen landed to set up a
colony. This happened in 1620 as they were escaping religious persecution in
Europe. Under the tyranny of King Henry VIII just a few decades earlier and
even afterwards an estimated 70,000 lost their heads for not submitting to the
abusive dominating monarchy that imposed their church hierarchy system on them
as well. Are you thankful you have not lost your head due to an abusive
authority? In history and even today millions have lost their heads over
religious and governmental persecution!
The problem is
these desperate immigrants arrived too late in the year to have a harvest of
food that would keep them alive throughout the cold winter. But thank God the
Indians had compassion on them and gave them some food in a festival. One of
the most common foods then was turkey, along with corn, and other vegetables,
it was fall harvest festival. Historically most cultures celebrate the
beginning of spring and this coincides with Easter and Passover; and celebrate in
the fall as the Jews celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles and the Torah, while
Christians celebrate Thanksgiving Day.
Thus the tradition
of eating turkey! Many more of those immigrants would have died if they had not
been helped! Half the colony later did die of hunger anyway! It was Sqanto, a
native slave of the English who taught them how to raise corn and fish ell. He
sacrificed his time and food to help these immigrants who were ignorant of
living from nature since they came from large European cities. God bless the
natives!
3. But many
people have immigrated to many different lands throughout history so what makes
this thanksgiving festival so special?
These Christian
immigrants took the time to rejoice, and have a party and celebrate, and praise
the Lord and thank Him for freedom, life, and new friends, that’s what is
special! It is a sacrifice to create a big celebration, many of you here
sacrificed to make our lunch special, and sacrificing your self is what pleases
the LORD! Psalm 54:6 I will freely sacrifice to You; I will praise Your name, O
Lord, for it is good.
Before it was
common that the government authorities, and all the townspeople, would get
together to celebrate expressing their faith and thanks to God in the public
square. Never succumb to secularists that in this country that insist you must
keep your faith private and secret! To the contrary, celebrate as is
traditional, show God your thankfulness and be public about it anywhere, and
everywhere! Be generous and share with others! How ironic that in this country
today some people even get arrested for sharing food publically with the needy.
Christians traditionally have fed the needy in shelters and on the streets and
we should not allow lawmakers make our traditions un-compassionately illegal.
Over 200 years
ago congress recognized the importance of the Thanksgiving Day observance, and President
George Washington issued a national Thanksgiving Proclamation in 1789. He wrote,
"Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November
next to be devoted by the People of these States to the service of that great
and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that
is, or that will be—That we may then all unite in rendering unto him our
sincere and humble thanks—for his kind care and protection of the People of
this Country”...
He understood the basics of being Christian and he
recognized the need to set aside a day to show God that we as Americans are
thankful for this land under God!
Ps 107:22 And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of
thanksgiving, and declare his works with rejoicing.
4. Thanksgiving Day in reality is all
about thanking God for maintaining your life and for sharing with others your
thankfulness! (repeat)
In the verses of
today we observe that David and Jonah, and we know well that all men of God,
have always made a special event out of praising God for victories, protection,
and supply! The problem in the world today is there is not much of an ‘attitude
of gratitude’ anymore! For the past few decades unthankful Godless people have
been rudely drowning out the thankful polite people! There are many sins in
this nation and many people in the media are like rotten apples that incite bitterness
over the past, and they promote hate between races, and insult the goodness of God’s
people. But on the first Thanksgiving Day the natives and the Pilgrims were both
good people being good to each other!
In our community
you would assume people would come to worship and thank God for their blessings
but instead often they offer only negative comments (the opposite of praise) about
personal frustrations or situations and this makes God very sad and angry!
God allowed a whole generation of
Jews who escaped Egypt with Moses to die in the desert because they were
unthankful to Him! 1 Corinthians 10:10 Neither murmur ye, as some of them also
murmured, and were destroyed of the destroyer.
Thankful people are
happy people who recognize God as their provider and they are blessed by God
and they make others feel good nearby them! Unthankful people disturb the peace
and bring others down and they are on the path to their own destruction!
5. Just think,
this country now has 50 million Hispanics, and about 30 million have arrived
within the past 30 years. I personally have a hard time understanding why most
all of them are not going to the church of their choice giving thanks to God?! I
think I read about 15% do start going to a church of some kind but that is too
few! In their countries about 80% go to church! You and I need to awaken more
thankfulness in these new immigrants! We already have too many arrogant, Godless,
unthankful people in all sectors of society! Let’s encourage new ones to thank
God!
Most immigrants,
like the first European ones, recognize that they are strangers in a strange
land and they could literally die if they were not having God on their side providing,
protecting, and guiding! I know when I moved around in South America I
literally cried out to God every time to provide and protect my family because arriving
somewhere not knowing how the system functions, not having friends, not
speaking the language, and arriving with almost no resources is a situation
that will make one desperate and thankful for every place to stay and every plate
of food!
You who are here
today to thank God are special to God! I
am thankful to God for you, and always we must be thankful for our Christian
brothers and sisters, because you are the special ones of God! Being here to
thank God today is comparable to being with the one leper that was healed that
came back to give thanks. Ten were healed but only one returned and expressed thanks!
Eternally we praise God and Jesus in recognition of thanks. Sadly, in infamy,
there are the unthankful nine others. Never be one of them!
6. In order to
show you are thankful, you must sacrifice something for God’s work from time to
time. You must make a commitment and then keep it.
If you are
thankful in life in general, you are always praising and happy, you are willing
to do anything, and willing to give up anything to show God your love and
appreciation, and thankfulness to Him! As
David the Psalmist words it, Ps 50:14
14 Offer unto
God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High:
We should all be
dedicated to God’s work and to God’s people to have a proof of our
thankfulness! Some people serve in shelters and some give food to their hurting
neighbors during these holidays, but really you can show thanks anytime!
Serve others
with a need! Invite them to eat and tell them about your love for Jesus!
It is the
tradition of many countries, even here, that when someone has been nice to you
and done something special, you invite them to eat with you. Everyone likes to
eat, right? What a great way to get to know someone and learn to love and like
them!
7. Jesus
commanded his disciples to travel and basically immigrate or integrate as they
preached. No one can understand the full extent of being thankful for a bed and
food unless they have had to be at the mercy of others for it! I have been in
this situation many dozens of times in my life! Matt 10:9 Provide neither gold
nor silver nor copper in your money belts, 10 nor bag for your journey, nor two
tunics, nor sandals, nor staffs; for a worker is worthy of his food. 11 “Now
whatever city or town you enter, inquire who in it is worthy, and stay there
till you go out. 12 And when you go into a household, greet it. In other words, bless those that bless you!
Back to our U.S.
lesson in history, imagine these defenseless Pilgrims in a new land with no
homes except the ones they could build before winter, and no with no food
stored for the winter either! Just think if right now I were to tell you, you
are condemned to die in two months! In two months your life will be over, you
will die a slow death of starvation!
But then if
suddenly there appeared a group of strange people of another race unexpectedly
putting food on your table, just think how happy you would be! The reality is
some of them survived in that Plymouth colony throughout the winter yet quite a
few of them did die!
We praise and
thank God this time of year (but we should every day!) and celebrations are
good for all of us! And let’s also recall we must thank the native people for supporting
the immigrants because your great-great grandparents were able to arrive here
and work and have a life! All of us should thank all immigrants here including Latinos,
Blacks, Irish, and Asians all of which helped build America’s major cities,
railroads and farmlands. The ones before us suffered painfully through extreme hard
work and hard times, and their great grandparents suffered as well! People use
to die at age 40 something, remember? We
have a super nation full of prosperity with wealthy cities, super highways and mega
factories all due to the labor of the many races that make up the population of
The United States!
8. Thankfulness to
God involves being thankful to those different from you, by accepting and
loving them, and respecting them. God’s glory invokes praise for His creation
of the entire diverse human race, and the maximum thankfulness we can show Him
is to love Him and love one another as Jesus commanded!
Because the
lives of those few hundred immigrants that were saved almost 400 years ago, we
now have a great nation today with many millions of immigrants who are
Christian! This is still the most generous nation on earth because many
thankful people still have faith in God and want to give back to their
communities.
Did you know
Jesus said He would celebrate a meal with us sort of like Thanksgiving? Let’s
look up, Rev 3:20-21
20'Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if
anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine
with him, and he with Me.
Even Jesus
offers to eat, fellowship, and celebrate with us! But the food Jesus is
offering is not physical food, it is spiritual which is more important!
It is sad to see
people with hungry bodies but we must also see that many people are dying of
starvation spiritually! Many of your friends and family are weak and dying
inside due to not understanding the roots of why we give thanks to God! Tell
them the story of Jesus and take opportunity to emphasize the story of the
Pilgrims. It is your and my job to tell everyone about God’s food, this bread
of life, that He offers so ‘whosoever will’ can live forever! It is our job as
Christians to teach others to always be thankful to God for even a cup of water!
We must be a light to others in this work of feeding the sick and the suffering!
Physical food is just a temporary aspect of life but spiritual feeding is what
will keep us motivated to be alive!
Now, let us
conclude that as we are thankful today, that we will recognize that it is by
God and Jesus, and the Holy Spirit through which comes our Salvation. Any of us
can die at any moment so being alive today let us, as in the book of Jonah, do
our part to be fair with God and honor Him for his goodness and be sacrificial;
Jonah2:9 But I will sacrifice unto thee with the voice of thanksgiving; I will
pay that that I have vowed. Salvation is of the LORD.
Ask
yourself right now, have I shown thankfulness and sacrifice to God lately as I
really should by being loving and doing something kind for someone else in need
as happened on the first Thanksgiving Day?
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