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| Pray, Praise, and Give Thanks (1Tim. 2:1-4) |
| Written by Pastor Fausel | |
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Grace, mercy and peace be to you … I pray that today and tomorrow and for the rest of this weekend … you all will have a blessed Thanksgiving … and especially this evening, as we are gathered in God’s house to give thanks to Him for all He has done for us. Thanksgiving for us today has many traditions. Most them involve coming together … which, for many, means travel. And no longer just to the next town or county … but long-distance travel, across the country. In spite of cell-phones and our cyber technology, people still have a very strong desire to be with one another … to gather with family and friends… And … that’s why we have taken this time this evening. For that specific purpose. In God’s house … as His family … especially as the family of God that calls this place home. Did you notice, this evening, that the Bible actually has the word thanksgiving in it. Or more correctly “thanksgivings” … in the plural sense … so that we don’t think of it as being just one singular event? We heard that word thanksgivings in our reading from St. Paul to Timothy … as St. Paul wrote: 1First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people… This encouragement of Scripture is reminiscent of the one we hear in our Small Catechism … in Luther’s explanation to the Second Commandment… There, after talking about all the wrong ways to use God’s name … Luther instructs us to use God’s name to: Pray, Praise and Give Thanks. On some other occasions we’ll talk more about praying and Praising God in who He is and in His name. But this evening … we’re going to just focus on Giving Thanks. Someone once tried to describe what our national day of Thanksgiving would be like without God. Of course this day was instituted and blessed by our presidents and our congress initially with the understanding that God was the “reason for the season” … you might say. But, as we are a nation which is melting pot of all peoples and tribes and languages … we could well do a “what if” the God of the Bible, Father, Son and Holy Spirit were not part of our celebration. Well … some things would not change. There would still be family gatherings, wonderful food and even exciting football… There would still be people moaning and falling asleep because they ate too much turkey. And there might be a smattering of a general giving of thanks … for a lot of things, Like for a good job… a great report card … a big family … good health …and this year, for the Dow Jones finally going back over 10,000 … Things to thank self and others for … but in the final analysis … just thanks for good luck over bad. No permanency … no assurance that what people are thankful for today won’t turn to dust tomorrow. But then … enter Jesus Christ. With Him comes the permanency. With Him, Luck is no longer part of the deal. With Him comes the positive assurance that what we are thankful for today … we will still have and be thankful for again next year, and the year after, and year after… until the promised prize of eternal life in heaven is ours. Pray … praise … and give thanks. Not for Good luck … not for fortunate circumstances … not for beneficial windfalls … but for the assurance that Jesus Christ is mine … and I am his. Today, tomorrow and forever!! Now we could stop right there. We could say: “You and me God. Because of Jesus we’re cool! … We’re at peace. We’re Best Friends forever!” And you know what you could do, then? … You could take all that and just crawl into your shell. Bur then you’d be missing the real thrust of Thanksgiving. Because as we said earlier, Thanksgiving has a communal element that would be there even if Jesus wasn’t. But since He is … no crawling back into our shells. Because as we read again from St. Paul … we are encouraged to pray and offer thanksgivings … as Paul says … 2for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. 3This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, I love the Bible… it is so full of paradox and irony. Here St. Paul is actually encouraging Christians of his day to pray and give thanks for the Roman Emperor Nero … who probably had a next-to-zero public opinion rating, even by his own people, much less the people of God. And yet … as King … Nero’s authority came from the same God we praise … and in whose hands Nero was. God indeed hears our prayers on behalf of those He uses to extend the work of His church, through secular peace … even as we, and they, may be unaware of how is God using their earthly power to do so. Because … it is through those with earthly power that we have the freedom to Pray, Praise and Give thanks. Our nation was founded by those seeking that freedom that other kings had denied … the freedom to worship God as we choose. Did God hear the prayers of those ancestors? We, sitting here today, are the living answer to their prayers. Who knows what the living answers to our prayers may see in the years ahead… And so, as St. Paul encourages us that we pray, praise and give thanks to God… he finally says about the God to who we pray… 4who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth. As we look around ourselves here this evening. We see many faces that are familiar because they are! … And because they are, we feel a sense of being at home. And yet, we notice that some souls who were here last year at this time no longer with us. Some of those souls belong to names that were read at All Saints day, as they have reached the goal and won the prize of eternal life in heaven. Some of those not here tonight have been called by God to serve Him in other circles. And some others are joining with family and friends in other cities this year and giving thanks around other altars. But note well … there are many new faces. Some are relatives or friends of members, some are new members of Our Savior who have come in the past year … and some may well be souls that God is asking us to take care of … souls God is calling to be saved and come to the knowledge of the truth. And that is why we cannot, and we must not, see Thanksgiving as just a you-and-me-Lord kind of “pray, praise and give thanks…” What we give thanks for … God desires others to have! … And so for us to retreat into the safety of our turtle shell with our private little peace is not what God intended for us as members of His church. If God can give us that peace … He can also defend us from whatever may come our way as we reach out to share it with others. So, if you want a real practical challenge … here it is: Pray for someone you know who needs to come to the knowledge of the truth. And do more than just pray for them … expand your circle of thanksgiving and include them in it … let them see, through you, that giving thanks is more than just about material blessings … It is, finally, about a peace that passes all understanding. Peace with God we give thanks for in Jesus Christ … today … and every day. In Him. Amen. |