The Full Scope of Our Thanksgiving

Habakkuk 3 and Psalm 103 * Thanksgiving 2009 * Pastor Leyrer

Dear Friends in Christ,

Whether personally or in a movie have you ever heard someone who is experiencing economic hard times wistfully make a remark along the lines, “well, I guess it’s not going to be much of a Christmas for the kids this year.” Or the even more dire prediction, “I guess the kids aren’t going to have a Christmas this year”?

What do they mean by that? Certainly they don’t mean that somehow December 24 and 25 will be bypassed on the calendar that particular year or that Christmas doesn’t exist.

What they do mean is that the customary way they believe Christmas is supposed to be celebrated – and the customary emotions that are supposed to accompany it – won’t happen for them due to their personal circumstances. So they blend together their expectations of the holiday with the event itself and conclude that it won’t be much – or any – of a Christmas.

If that kind of definition holds, and if the reports we hear from our news sources about record unemployment or underemployment or the large number of our countrymen that are flirting with the foreclosure of their houses are correct, this won’t be much of a Thanksgiving for a good many Americans this year. Maybe you know some of these people. Maybe you are some of these people. Or maybe you’re worried that you might become one of these people.

Or maybe you’re not. In fact maybe you’re very aware of how blessed you are with a good job and financial stability. Yet maybe even for you this Thanksgiving still lacks a little of its usual luster because of changing circumstances.

Perhaps this Thanksgiving there will be an extra chair or two around the table that were filled last year by loved ones who have since gone to heaven or moved away. Perhaps last year you and your loved ones were all experiencing physical health, but this year you are not. Or perhaps you are dealing with other personal issues that really weren’t on the radar a year ago.

Question: Does that mean that there is less to be thankful for? Or does it mean that we have allowed ourselves to fall into a superficial and surface understanding of what this day should be all about?

To help us answer those questions I’d like to suggest that we invite two additional guests to our Thanksgiving dinner. These two guests – both used by God as His divinely inspired writers of the Bible – will give us the benefit of their wisdom, insight and experience. Their names are Habakkuk and David. From vastly different personal backgrounds, both come to the same conclusion. And both will help us remember

THE FULL SCOPE OF OUR THANKSGIVING TODAY

Let me tell first tell you a little about our first dinner guest, Habakkuk. To be honest, there’s not much to tell. We don’t know much about him other than his rather odd sounding name and the fact that as one of the “minor prophets” God used him as His spokesman to His people probably around the year 600 BC.

This we also know: among the twelve Minor Prophets his message is unique. It is not so much a warning to God’s people (often the case with the other prophets) as it is a dialogue between God and the prophet, composed and recorded for the strength of true believers at a time of mass defection from the Lord. His opening words indicate the majority of the people Habakkuk dealt with were corrupt and selfish and violent.

All things considered, it was a rather depressing time to live. And given the state of affairs there didn’t seem to be a lot to be thankful about. So Habakkuk surveys his personal circumstances and asks God a couple of very pointed questions…

Number one, how long is this going to last? Number two, why are you letting these things happen in the first place? Imbedded within these two questions, however, are several others, all of which clearly call into question the goodness or the fairness or the justice of God.

Much of the rest of the Book of the Habakkuk consists of the Lord’s patient answers to the prophet’s questions. Habakkuk is assured that God is in control, that He knows what He is doing, and that what He is doing is always in the long term interest of His Kingdom and His children. Very patiently the Lord corrects a man who was basing his understanding of God only on his own pre-existing notion of how he thought God should be acting at that time.

And to his credit, Habakkuk got the message. He came to understand that far more important than what God does for His people in terms of what we might call material blessings is what God is for His people in terms of spiritual blessings. He is our rock, our redeemer, our Savior who loves us with an everlasting love. And that is cause for profound thanksgiving, regardless of what our personal circumstances might be.

That’s the conclusion our first dinner guest, Habakkuk, came to. Listen to the beautiful final words of his book (3:17-19):

“Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD, I will be joyful in my Savior. The Sovereign LORD is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to go on to the heights.”

Our second dinner guest, David, will tell us essentially the same thing. But his situation and background was completely different. David lived and served as the King of Israel during what was the golden age of Israel. It was also a time of spiritual strength when God’s people knew and appreciated and worshiped God respectfully and acceptably.

As an individual David had no personal wants. He had wealth and prestige and power. But he understood that all these outward blessings, wonderful as they may have been, were not the source of his greatest blessing. What was the greatest blessing a person could ever have?

David tells us in Psalm 103. We often hear it said at Thanksgiving time that we should count our blessings. That’s exactly what David does in this Psalm. I’ll read the first five verses. Listen closely to what is number one on his list of his “benefits”…

Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

² Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits-

³ who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases,

⁴ who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion,

⁵ who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's.

Benefit #1: He forgives all my sins. It is highly significant that this is positioned at the top of the list. In order of importance, David ranks this as first. And its place is well deserved, because the forgiveness of sins is God’s greatest benefit to us, and our greatest benefit as Children of God.

Why can we make such a statement? Because of this simple and straightforward Bible truth: without the forgiveness of sins we’d all be doomed to an eternity in hell. Without it, we’d still be in our sins and the moment we closed our eyes in death we would not, as the fairy tales end, “live happily ever after.” Sin puts us at odds with a holy God who created us and demands a sinless life from His creatures.

But the good news is that with God there is FORGIVENESS. A little later on in this Psalm David expands on these words: “He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is His love for those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us.”

Without a doubt, the forgiveness of sins is our greatest blessing – and our greatest reason for thanksgiving. The forgiveness of sins means we are saved for all eternity.

And on this Thanksgiving Day let us remember again that this forgiveness was not without cost. When it comes to forgiving our sin, God did not simply look the other way, or wink His eye at it, or shrug it off because He didn’t feel like dealing with it.

No. He did deal with it. And there was a high price involved. The cost, as we know and for which we cannot help but be eternally grateful, was the substitutionary life and death of His one and only Son, Jesus Christ. His perfect life is credited to our account. His sacrificial death erases our sin. His resurrection sealed the deal. We believe – and stand forgiven in His sight; heirs of eternal life.

That’s why this blessing is at the top of the list. Every other blessing God bestows upon us is secondary to this one. Even if we were completely destitute (which none of us are); even if we were completely without those things the world considers blessings (which, again, none of us are); we’d still be immeasurably “blessed.” Because we know Jesus Christ and the forgiveness He provides.

This is the conclusion drawn by our second dinner guest, King David; a man who had everything, but who considered his greatest possession – and his greatest reason for personal thanksgiving – the forgiveness of his sins.

I’d like to conclude by introducing you to a third guest we can bring to our Thanksgiving dinner table today. This person embodies the wisdom and understanding of both Habakkuk and David and makes eminently clear that which is the basis for the Christian’s thankful heart today and always.

I don’t know her name, I only know her story. And I know I’ve told it before, but even if you remember it, it’s worth hearing again. In the past I’ve probably told it anonymously, but I heard it from my father, who is also a pastor.

Shortly after he arrived at the last congregation he served he began to visit those who were homebound and shut-in. One of his homebound members lived in a care facility and was confined to a wheel chair. In fact, she was a quadriplegic. She couldn’t move her arms or legs and was dependent on the staff to meet all of her physical needs.

But there was nothing at all wrong with her mind. So the two of them began to converse and get to know each other. Toward the end of the conversation my father acknowledged how difficult her life must be given her physical limitations, but then made the comment that there were a lot of people in the world who had full use of their arms and legs but didn’t have what she had in Jesus. To which she agreed. Then she added: “And I wouldn’t trade places with them for the world.”

In her own way this is what she was saying:

Praise the LORD, O my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

² Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits-

³ who forgives all your sins…

Materially and physically speaking, what we have or don’t have isn’t important. All that matters is Jesus Christ. And by His grace He is ours. Praise God from who all blessings flow. Amen.