Sermon Tone Analysis

*Thanksgiving Service 2002*

 

*Scripture: *Psalm 100  -  All The More Reason To Give Thanks

 

/(Comment on God's goodness in comparison to pagan gods.)/

Man makes pagan gods in his own image and likeness which is fallen in sin; whereas God makes man in his own image which leads to righteousness.

We are what we worship.

Do we worship ourselves or the God who made us?

We have much to be thankful for in knowing the God who redeems us.

We are in the world but not of it.

Reference Daniel 1.

 

*Suggested Text:* Ephesians 5:20, "In All Things Be Thankful"

 

*Sermon Opener:*

 

/Back during the dark days of 1929, a group of ministers in the Northeast,/

/all graduates of the Boston School of Theology, gathered to discuss how they should conduct their Thanksgiving Sunday services.

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/Things were about as bad as they could get, with no sign of relief.

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/The bread lines were depressingly long, the stock market had plummeted, and the term Great Depression seemed an apt description for the mood of the country.

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/The ministers thought they should only lightly touch upon the subject of Thanksgiving in deference to the human misery all about them.

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/After all, there was not much to be thankful for.

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/But it was Dr. William L. Stiger, pastor of a large congregation in the city that rallied the group.

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/This was not the time, he suggested, to give mere passing mention to Thanksgiving, just the opposite.

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/This was the time for the nation to get matters in perspective and thank God for blessings always present, but perhaps suppressed due to intense hardship./

I think these ministers struck upon something.

The most intense moments of thankfulness are not found in times of plenty, but when difficulties abound.

Think of the Pilgrims that first Thanksgiving.

Half their number dead, men without a country, but still there was thanksgiving to God.

 

Their gratitude was not for something but in something.

It was that same sense of gratitude that lead Abraham Lincoln to formally establish the first Thanksgiving Day in the midst of national civil war, when the butcher’s list of casualties seemed to have no end and the very nation struggled for survival.

Perhaps in your own life, right now, you are experiencing intense hardship.

This is a common occurrence during holiday seasons when we tend to have certain expectations about family, togetherness, acceptance ---.

Perhaps you are experiencing your own personal Great Depression.

Why should you be thankful this day – or any day for that matter?

If you can't think of much right now you are not alone.

I read an interesting story in /Teacher to Teacher/ magazine (Vol.

6, No. 4, November 2002) the other day about giving thanks by a person who couldn't think of much.

It was entitled /Thanks For Nothing/.

The idea was that when we have trouble finding things for which to give thanks, we should perhaps think of the things we didn't get, or things that didn't happen, for which we can give thanks.

(Give examples.)

Ephesians 5:20 tells us to be thankful /even/ in all things.

That could include even things that don't seem good at the time.

It is true that some things are bad, but we must believe that for those who love the Lord, all things work out for good (Rom.

8:28).

Perhaps we can bring ourselves to give thanks for the things we can /eventually/ give thanks for.

But back to our question about why we should be thankful.

Why should we give thanks to God for everything?

 

*Ask:*/ "What does giving thanks do or accomplish for us?/

 

May I suggest three things?

(the essence of thanksgiving)

 

 

*1.

We must learn to be thankful or we become bitter.*

*/Better Not Bitter/*

 

If we are not thankful then we can become bitter.

If we are not thankful,

then it becomes too easy to sit around and ponder the question: why me?

Dr.

Jim Moore, pastor of St. Luke’s UMC in Houston wrote a book entitled

"You Can Grow Bitter or You Can Grow Better".

He writes that he got the idea for the title from a young woman who once came to him in a most tragic moment in her life.

She had tears in her eyes and her knuckles were white as she twisted a handkerchief.

She had just received word that her twenty-six year old husband had been killed in a farming accident, leaving her alone with three pre-school age children.

One moment he was alive and vibrant, the next moment gone.

"I don't know how I am going to be able to get along without him," she sobbed.

"But I do know one thing.

I can either get bitter or I can get better."

One way that we can get better rather than bitter is to develop a thankful

heart.

We must learn to be grateful to the Lord with whom we shall spend

eternity.

Our morning prayer should always begin: O Thou who has given me

so much, I pray that you give me yet one more thing--a grateful heart.

*/With Heart and Hand and Voices/*

 

Martin Rinkert was a minister in the little town of Eilenburg in Germany

some 350 years ago.

He was the son of a poor coppersmith, but somehow, he managed to work his way through an education.

Finally, in the year 1617, he was offered the post of Archdeacon in his hometown parish.

A year later, what has come to be known as the Thirty-Years-War broke out.

His town was caught right in the middle.

In 1637, the massive plague that swept across the continent hit Eilenburg... people died at the rate of fifty a day and the man called upon to bury most of them was Pastor Martin Rinkert.

In all, over 8,000 people died, including Martin's own wife.

His labors finally came to an end about 11 years later, just one year after the conclusion of the war.

His ministry spanned 32 years, all but the first and the last overwhelmed by

the great conflict that engulfed his town.

Tough circumstances in which to be thankful.

But he managed.

And he wrote these words (#556, Hymnal):

 

Now thank we all our God

With heart and hands and voices;

Who wondrous things hath done,

In whom his world rejoices.

It takes a magnificent spirit to come through such hardship and express

gratitude.

Here is a great lesson.

Surrounded by tremendous adversity, thanksgiving will deliver you...with heart and hands and voices.

*2.

We must learn to be thankful or we will become discouraged.*

*/We're Getting A Divorce/*

 

One elderly Christian couple in Phoenix obtained thanksgiving by facing their discouragement 'head on'.

They were getting discouraged that their children hardly ever came to see them on the holidays unless they bribed them and paid their way.

So the father called his son in New York and said, "I hate to ruin your day, but I have to tell you that your mother and I are being divorced; 45 years of misery is enough."

(not a lie – their children are divorcing them by not coming very often)

 

"Pop, what are you talking about?" the son screams.

"We can't stand it any longer," the old man says.

"We're sick of it, and I'm sick of talking about it, so you call your sister in Chicago and tell her." Then he hung up.

Frantic, the son called his sister, who explodes on the phone.

"Like heck