Genesis 32:10 * Thanksgiving 2005 *
Pastor Leyrer
Dear Friends in Christ,
The relationship had ended badly. Now, after years of trying not to think about it, the chickens were coming home to roost.
Twenty years had passed and the two brothers were meeting for the first time since their less-than-friendly parting of the ways. Perhaps you remember their story. The brothers were Jacob and Esau, the sons of Isaac and Rebekah.
Esau, as you may recall, was the oldest. He was the one who was supposed to have received the special blessing from his father two decades earlier. But it never got to him. Aided by his mother, and in a bold act of deception that took advantage of his father’s blindness, Jacob stole the birthright from his brother. Then he high-tailed it out of town.
Not surprisingly, Esau was extremely angry. And whether Jacob had counted on it or not, from that moment on he provided his brother with a single purpose in life: revenge.
Genesis chapter 33 tells the tale of their reunion. The truth of the matter was that time had healed the wounds, and their meeting went surprisingly well. But Jacob didn’t know that yet. So he prepared for the worst.
In the midst of all this uncertainty about his future, Jacob did what every believer does when life seems complicated and unsure. He prayed. In his prayer, Jacob assessed his life. And as he looked back on the past, he gained confidence for the future.
Jacob had been through his ups and downs, but God had never
left him or forsaken him. Now, as he
looked over his possessions and his family, the only conclusion Jacob could
come to was this: he was blessed. Richly blessed. In fact, unworthily
blessed. So with a heart brimming with
thanksgiving for God’s grace and goodness to him, Jacob utters the words of our
text: “I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your
servant.”
Every single one of us could say the same thing. Nevertheless, as He did Jacob, God also richly blesses us. So in the words of the hymn we just sang, on this Thanksgiving Day
NOW THANK WE ALL OUR GOD
1. For His grace
2. For His goodness
Someone once said that the hardest thing for atheists must be when they recognize their blessings, but don’t have anyone to thank for it. An interesting observation, but certainly not our problem. We know exactly whom to thank today. God. And we know why to thank Him. For His grace.
The grace of God defies description. Not that we don’t try. The common definition of grace is God’s undeserved love. But that’s kind of like saying the sun is warm or the sky is big. Words are inadequate and every illustration limps. But even though we cannot define it (nor fully understand it), we experience God’s grace each and every day.
Specifically, God has showered His grace upon us in two different ways. He gives us physical blessings and, more importantly, He gives us spiritual blessings.
Let’s talk about the physical blessings God gives each of us
first. In order to do this, I’d like you
to listen to the opening words of a story Jesus told in Luke chapter 16: “There
was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury
every day. At his gate was laid a beggar
named Lazarus, covered with sores and longing to eat what fell from the rich
man’s table. Even the dogs came and
licked his sores.”
Perhaps you remember how it goes on from there. The rich man, who was an unbeliever, died and went to hell. When poor Lazarus, the believer, died, he went to heaven where he was taken to the side of the great hero of faith, Abraham. For the sake of illustration Jesus talks about a dialogue ensuing between the rich man and Abraham. The point is made is that if people don’t listen to the clear Word of God about spiritual matters, their minds won’t change even if someone came back from the dead.
But the point I’d like to make is this: In those opening words, who did you identify with? I would guess most of us would identify with Lazarus – and not just spiritually. Most of us, I would guess (and I count myself here), think of ourselves as being materially blessed, but not like the rich man who dressed in fine clothes and lived in luxury every day. We identify the rich man with Donald Trump or Bill Gates or whoever it is that is considered to be on the short list of the world’s wealthiest people.
However, we’d be wrong.
Compared to the great percentage of the world’s population, we are Bill Gates or Donald Trump. We
are the ones who live in luxury. We are the ones who dress in fine
clothes. Fact of the matter is (and here
I can speak from experience) most of us have enough fine clothes in our closet
and dresser drawers to outfit a small village in rural
I mention this not to make us feel bad or guilty, nor as an avenue to talk about the responsibilities that go along with wealth, but to simply remind us of how blessed we are physically. In every material way, God has showered His grace upon us. Our only response: Now thank we all our God.
And yet, rich as we are, this is nothing in comparison to the spiritual blessings God gives each of us.
King David was a rich man. He lacked nothing and by anybody’s definition in either the ancient or modern world, he was a man of great wealth. But that was not what he considered to be his treasure. At Thanksgiving time we are often reminded to count our blessings. Well, in Psalm 103, that’s exactly what King David does. And listen to what he has at the very top of his list…
Praise the Lord, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits –
Who forgives all your sins…
What David makes clear is this wonderful Thanksgiving truth: The greatest act of God’s grace and the singular blessing above every other blessing He provides for us is not physical or material. It is a spiritual blessing. It is the forgiveness of our sins.
In other words, our sins – which once barred the door to heaven from us and put us at odds with a holy and sin-hating God – have been removed. “As far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us,” writes David a little farther on in his Psalm. But forgiveness didn’t happen by a simple heavenly decree. It happened through a plan that is at the same time so divine yet so understandable that it could only have originated with God. That plan, in a single word, is the Gospel.
And the Gospel, in its simplest form is this: “For
God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes
in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”
For that Gospel message (tied to the doing, the dying and the rising
of Jesus Christ for us and in and on our behalf), now thank we all our God.
Because when we have the Gospel, we have everything. It provides us with peace, joy, contentment, purpose for living and the sure hope of everlasting life in heaven. Which means whatever our circumstances may be, we can be thankful.
Whatever our circumstances may be…
Maybe this will be a different kind of Thanksgiving for you. Maybe this is the year when you’re dealing with something you weren’t dealing with at this time last year. Maybe some of you will be going to a family gathering where there will be some empty places around the table; vacancies created through loved ones moving on to heaven or different parts of the country or different parts of the world. Maybe because of your personal circumstances, this will be a somewhat subdued, or even sad, Thanksgiving.
If we focus only on the material and the physical; if we think only about the things we don’t have or have lost, then, yes, we may find ourselves emotionally up and down. But when we concentrate on what we have in the Gospel, all feelings of sadness give way to a profound sense of gratefulness. Because when we have Jesus (and all the promises He gives us regarding our present and eternal life), we have everything.
A striking illustration of thanksgiving-that-transcends-circumstances is this true story I’m sure I’ve told before…
A veteran pastor took a call to a new parish. One of the first things he did was to begin visiting the sick and homebound. One woman he visited had been in a nursing home for several years. Through a stroke or an accident she had lost any use of her arms and legs. Her days were spent either in bed or in her wheelchair.
The new pastor began the conversation. He acknowledged her circumstances and that it must be difficult. He confessed to not understanding why the Lord chooses to visit some of His children with more difficulties than others. And then he said to her, “But you know, there are many people in this world who have full use of their arms and legs but don’t have what you have. Because you have Jesus.”
To which she replied: “I know. And I wouldn’t trade places with them for the world.”
The real life lesson from this longsuffering saint is this: What God has given us in Jesus Christ trumps all earthly situations and circumstances.
Let us conclude with where we began. As he prepares to meet his brother, Jacob surveys his life. He sees how God has richly blessed him both physically and spiritually. He is overcome by his own unworthiness, the depth of God’s grace, and he is moved to a profound sense of thankfulness for God’s goodness.
We are no different than Jacob. God has richly blessed us physically and spiritually.
For all His grace and goodness, now thank we all our God. Amen.