177 Sermon Illustrations on Thanksgiving

“Be thankful for what you have.”

I imagine my parents said that to me at least 1,000 times when I was a kid, usually in response to a lament that I didn't have something I really wanted.

Like many parents, mine worked hard to make sure my needs -- and wants -- were met to the extent possible and appropriate.

But others had it better than me. Occasionally I'd point this out and provoke my parents' predictable response: “Be thankful for what you have.”

Maybe you're like me. Maybe you still struggle with this matter of thankfulness.

We're all that way. Yes, we know our job provides for the family, but shouldn't it be better? Sure, we're glad we've got a roof over our head, but isn't that house across town a lot nicer?

Certainly we concede our circumstances could be worse, but why doesn't God permit them to be more in line with what we want?

Often when the Bible speaks of prayer, it reminds us to pray with a spirit of thankfulness. The Apostle Paul reminded the Philippians to make their requests known to God, but from a heart of sincere appreciation, not selfish demand: “... But in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God” (Philippians 4:6). In other words, Paul said: “Be thankful for what you have.”

This battle with contentment rages most fiercely when our focus is on the temporal rather than the eternal. Jesus told His disciples, “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (Matthew 6:33).

We spend much of life chasing after “all these things” when we're focused on self and stuff and situations rather than what matters for eternity.

I have to confess, though, that my parents' reminder didn't always sit well.

“How trite,” I often thought. It was then that they sometimes took a few minutes to remind me what I had to be thankful for.

God's Word does the same for us. Colossians 1:12-14 is an amazing recital of a Christian's motive for thanksgiving.

It tells us first of all to give thanks because God “... has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in the kingdom of light” (v. 12). God has qualified us for heaven.

If you watched the Olympics, you noticed that athletes have no hope to win a gold medal unless they first qualify for the final competition.

The Bible says that not a single person is good enough to qualify for eternal life. But in His grace, God has qualified us! He sent His son, Jesus, to die on the cross for our sins.

Anyone who trusts in Jesus alone for forgiveness of sin and eternal life is qualified for heaven.

But there's more!

“For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves ...” (Colossians 1:13). In ancient times, when one kingdom conquered another, it often would take the defeated people and place them in the kingdom of the victors. Slavery and death awaited the conquered people.

God has done the opposite for us. Christians are those who have been plucked out of the kingdom of sin and death and placed in the kingdom of God.

Before we accepted Christ as our Lord and Savior, we were slaves to sin. Praise God we have been set free.

I read recently that in the Civil War days, when Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation, many slaves in the South went right on living as if they had not been set free. Imagine the tragedy of freed slaves living as if still captives.

The Bible says Christians have been emancipated, that we've been set free from the bondage of sin. How tragic that we sometimes live as if we're still captives.

The highest price imaginable was paid for our freedom: Jesus' death on the cross.

Finally, the Apostle Paul reminded the Colossians to give thanks because in Christ, “... we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins” (v. 14).

Speaking of President Lincoln, after the war he was asked how the Union should treat some of the rebellious Southerners.

Lincoln said, “I shall treat them as if they had never been away.”

How incredible that God extends to us something we could not possibly earn: forgiveness of sin.

Through Christ's death on the cross, God redeems us. He regards those who were once separated from Him by sin as if they had never been away.

Do we sometimes wish for more in life? Is our focus on self and stuff and situations?

Let's pick up our Bibles and consider what our heavenly Father tells us.

“Be thankful for what you have!”

________

Steve Massey is pastor of Haden Bible Church in Haden, Idaho.

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Junior Stowers raised his hands and exclaimed, “Thank you, Jesus!” in court when he was acquitted by a jury. But his joy was short-lived when Judge Patrick Border held him in contempt of court for the “outburst” and threw him in jail.

Stowers, 47, sat in the courtroom and a cellblock for about six hours until the judge granted him a hearing on the contempt charge and released him. The judge at a later hearing dropped the contempt charge, a petty misdemeanor that carries up to 30 days in jail. Court minutes said Border had realized Stowers' trial lawyer did not have time to tell Stowers the judge had ordered both sides not to show emotion when the verdict was announced.

His attorney in the contempt case, Deputy Public Defender Susan Arnett, said Stowers wasn't treated fairly. “I don't think there's anything about saying 'Thank you, Jesus' that rises to the level of contemptuous behavior in this case,” she told The Honolulu Advertiser.

I can’t give an exact date for my conversion. I can’t describe the moment when I finally bowed and admitted God was God and Christ was Lord. This used to bother me -- particularly when it was my turn to speak after going around a room of believers with specific dates and encounters to tell. I’ve since learned that conversion is more than one moment of waking -- even for those who indeed have one moment that stands out among all others. But I’ve also come to love the diversity of means and ways God appears before a life -- gently beckoning one to follow, pursuing over a lifetime the one lost or running, dramatically opening the eyes of another in an instant.

The apostle Paul describes the converted one “like a letter from Christ... written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts” (2 Corinthians 3:2). In this description, we discover conversion is inherently personal -- a letter from creator to creature, written not in ink but in God, not on paper or tablet, but on living flesh. Accordingly, there are as many stories of God drawing near a life as there are words one could put in a personal letter. Like Paul, I have come to expect and to admire the compilation. Some will speak of waking to God’s truth gradually; others will describe being moved nearly to blindness as they encounter Christ more fully than they have eyes yet to see.

But like the God we discover, conversion stories can still surprise us. I met someone recently who told me that pivotal to his waking to faith was a desire to give. He said he found himself thankful and wanted somewhere and someone before he could act out his appreciation. There was something in this confession that made me marvel at the God we both profess, as if I was shown another facet to appreciate, another layer I hadn’t fully considered. Not only is there someone to thank, but there is one who moves within our desire to give and our realization that much has been given.

When we learn to see our conversions as reflections of God, letters that come to us personally and communicate something of Christ, we also learn there is something of God to behold in our neighbor. Standing within a community of believers, it is hard not to marvel at the unsearchable riches of Christ, the depths of the person of God written on hearts all around us. What other god comes so personally, meeting the world as individuals, moving followers into a community that reflects more of him? Gratitude is a natural response.

A tradition in the Jewish Passover celebration called Dayyenu marks in the Passover ritual a rising crescendo of thanksgiving. “Dayyenu,” which essentially means, “It would have been enough for us,” is sung as a response after merciful acts of God in history are remembered one by one -- the parting of the Red Sea, the giving of the Sabbath, the completion of the temple. Each act alone would have been enough to sustain our praise and faith, but God moves well beyond our imaginings.

God is indeed gracious in ways we never anticipate, meeting one in his desire to give, another in her suffering, coming to all in the sending of the Son and the manifestations of his life, death, and resurrection. It would have been enough to sustain our praise in the Incarnation of the Christ child or in the ministry and miracles of Jesus -- “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor” (Luke 7:22). But God wanted to bring more. “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). And that Son was sent to the Cross, where he was crucified, died, and buried. This too would have been enough to elicit our gratitude -- an innocent sufferer, God hanging with us on the gallows. But then Christ rose from the grave, defeating death, and inviting us to follow and do the same.

God is always moving beyond our imaginings. “This is what the LORD says, he who made the earth, the LORD who formed it and established it -- the LORD is his name: ‘Call to me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know’” (Jeremiah 33:2-3). As we live further into our conversions, as we tell the stories of God’s acts in our lives and in history, as we remember again the unfathomable mercies of Christ, might our gratitude be heard across the land, a rising crescendo of thanksgiving for the one who is worthy of our praise.

________

Copyright © 2007 Ravi Zacharias International Ministries (RZIM). Reprinted with permission. "A Slice of Infinity" is a radio ministry of Ravi Zacharias International Ministries.

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[Original illustration at this number was a duplicate of HolwickID #20948]

It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto thy name, 0 most High. — Psalm 92:1.

1. “Thanks be to God” for CHRIST and all things freely given us in Christ (2 Corinthians 9:15).

2. “Thanks be to God” for His great salvation setting us free from the penalty and power of sin (Romans 6:17).

3. “Thanks be to God” for His mighty power giving us victory over sin (Romans 7:25).

4. “Thanks be to God” for always leading us in triumph in our ministry to make Him known (2 Corinthians 2:14).

5. “Thanks be to God” for His sure promise of final victory (1 Corinthians 15:57,58).

And when our time on earth is o’er,

When in Thy presence we adore,

O then, for all that’s gone before,

We e’er shall thank Thee. — S. Ridout.

Ten Reasons to Give Thanks to God

1. For setting you free – Isaiah 48:20

2. For providing your needs – Joel 2:26

3. It’s an important part of our prayers – Philippians 4:6

4. It’s God’s will – 1 Thessalonians 5:18

5. For God’s mercy towards us – Psalm 118:1

6. For the marveleous things He has done – Psalm 98:1

7. It’s commanded of us – Psalm 50:14

8. For the conversion of others – Romans 6:17

9. For the love of others – 2 Thessalonians 2:3

10. For all things – Ephesians 5:20

Most Christians are familiar with the episode of the ten lepers who are healed but only one returns to express gratitude. Some years ago, Martin Bell wrote an imaginative reflection on why the other nine didn’t return to give thanks:

“What about the others? It’s simple, really. One of them was frightened — that’s all. He didn’t understand what had happened, and it frightened him. So he looked for some place to hide. Jesus scared him.

“A second was offended because he had not been required to do something difficult before he could be healed. It was all too easy. He had expected months, maybe years, of fasting and prayer and washing and righteous living to be the requirement. But he had done none of this. He had not earned his reward. . .

“The third had realized too late that he had not really wanted to be cleansed. That he did not know what to do or how to live or even who he was without his leprosy. . . Jesus had taken away his identity.

“. . . [T]he fourth leper did not return because in his delirium of joy, he forgot. He forgot. That’s all. He was so happy that he forgot.

“The fifth leper was unable to say thank you any more to anybody. There is something that happens to a [person] who must beg and who is shunned by his fellows, and who is . . . expected to say thank you. He just doesn’t say thank you any more to anybody — not even to Jesus.

“The sixth leper was a woman — a mother who had been separated from her family for eleven years because of the leprosy. She was now free to rejoin her husband and children. She did not return to give thanks because she was hurrying home. . .

“The seventh just didn’t believe that Jesus had anything to do with the cleansing. He knew that healing had taken place, but why and how were the questions. Certainly he did not believe in hocus pocus, magic, miracles — any of that. There was a perfectly intelligible explanation of what had happened, but it didn’t have anything to do with Jesus. . .” (The Way of the Wolf, pp. 47-49).

And Bell has two more. But in these seven we get the gist. We may fear the kind of power that can do so much good. We may think that the only blessings worth having are ones we’ve earned. We may, in some way, enjoy stewing in our problems. We may forget. We may not want to be made to give thanks. And we may just want to get on with our lives.

But it’s that seventh one of Bell’s lepers that I’m struck by today. I think that often, when really good things happen to us, we don’t thank God because we don’t really believe that God gave us anything. As with the seventh of Martin Bell’s lepers, we don’t express gratitude because we don’t believe that Jesus has anything to do with what’s fulfilling and thrilling in our lives. In our eyes, life is some combination of self-sufficiency and good fortune. We don’t say thanks because we think that anything that really matters to us has come to us by hard work and luck — not that it’s a gift from Someone else.

It has become the worst drought in the history of the Southeast. The ground is parched; crops are dying. And last week, Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue decided to do something about it. He urged Georgians to pray for desperately needed rain.

Despite much ridicule and some protest, last week, Gov. Perdue led a prayer vigil on the steps of the State Capitol. Praying along with him were pastors from several denominations and hundreds of Georgians.

Gov. Perdue may not have realized it, but he was following in the steps of our Pilgrim fathers and mothers nearly 400 years ago: Joining together with neighbors for prayer was a familiar ritual for the Pilgrims. For example, in April of 1623 — three years after the first Pilgrims landed — the transplanted Englishmen and women planted corn and other crops. A good harvest was essential to their survival. But in the weeks following the planting, it became clear that a dry spell was turning into a drought.

Pilgrim father Edward Winslow recorded their distress in his diary. “It pleased God, for our further chastisement,” he wrote, “to send a great drought; insomuch as in six weeks . . . there scarce fell any rain.” The crops began to shrivel up “as though they had been scorched before the fire . . . God,” Winslow wrote, “which hitherto had been our only shield and supporter, now seemed in His anger to arm Himself against us. And who can withstand the fierceness of His wrath?”

The Pilgrims decided the only solution was to humble themselves before God in fasting and in prayer. They appointed a day of prayer and set aside all other employments.

Winslow describes what happened next. “In the morning,” he wrote, “when we assembled together, the heavens were as clear, and the drought as like to continue as it ever was.” But by late afternoon — after eight or nine hours of prayer — ”the weather was overcast, the clouds gathered on all sides,” Winslow wrote. The next morning brought “soft, sweet and moderate shows of rain, continuing some fourteen days.” The needed rain was “mixed with such seasonable weather,” he wrote, “as it was hard to say whether our withered corn or drooping affections were most quickened or revived, such was the bounty and goodness of our God.”

This dramatic answer to prayer was a witness to the local Indians. As Winslow notes, “The Indians . . . took notice . . . all of them admired the goodness of our God towards us, that wrought so great a change in so short of time, showing the difference between their conjuration and our invocation on the name of God for rain.”

The harvest that fall was abundant — and the Pilgrims survived yet another year.

Today is Thanksgiving — the day on which we recall the three-day celebration in 1621 in which the Pilgrims invited local Indians to join them in thanking God for His blessings on them — not, as some school children are taught today in class, giving thanks to Indians. And Americans ever since have been celebrating this, an occasion recognized and enshrined by Congress. We ought to take time to thank God for His manifold blessings on us today.

By the way, the day after Governor Perdue prayed on the Capitol steps, rains swept the state — nearly an inch in places. But the drought has continued. So, as we give thanks today, let’s remember those in the drought-stricken Southeast and ask the Giver of all good gifts to bless the land with rain.

________

Copyright (c) 2007 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. "BreakPoint with Chuck Colson" is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.

”Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:19-20).

Fred Bauer in “The Daily Journal of Kindness,” wrote, “There once was a very wise doctor who prescribed for his patients the ‘Thank-You Cure.’ He knew that often his patients were plagued with the troubles of the world and would come to him with symptoms of stress, worry, discouragement, and fear.

“He told his patients to express their appreciation to their friends, family, and everyone they come in contact with who does them a good turn or favor.

“Performing the act of ‘thank you’ requires a smile to get it just right. As you might have guessed, many of his patients expressed to him that they really did feel better.”

Not only at this Christmas season, but let us every day of the year put into practice the “Thank-You Cure” at every opportunity we have — to thank our spouse, our children, our parents, our friends, the sales person in the super- market, the mailman for faithfully bringing the mail, our boss, our employer, etc., etc.

And above all else let us continually give thanks to God for his many blessings and especially for his Christmas gift to the world — the gift of his Son and our Savior.

Suggested prayer: “Dear God, please give me a thankful heart always in all ways … to you, to my family and friends, and to every person who offers any kind of service to me. Gratefully in Jesus’ name. Amen.”

The year was 1630. The location was the ship Arbella, which, like the Mayflower ten years earlier, was headed to what’s now Massachusetts. Like the Pilgrims before them, the Arbella’s passengers were devout Christians who came to the New World seeking to practice their faith as they believed God commanded.

Just prior to the Arbella’s voyage, the group’s leader, John Winthrop, delivered one of the great speeches in America’s history: a sermon entitled “A Model of Christian Charity.” The sermon is best-known for Winthrop’s use of the biblical phrase “a city upon a hill.”

For nearly four centuries, that one phrase has shaped our American sense of purpose and our sense of what is often called “American exceptionalism.”

Yet, what many think Winthrop meant by “a city upon a hill” is, well, wrong.

In the sermon, Winthrop warned his fellow Puritans what was at stake in their attempt to create “a new godly community.” “For we must consider,” he said, “that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world.”

As historian Andrew Delbanco put it, Winthrop used the phrase not out of a desire for this new experiment to bring fame and emulation, but out of “a fear of notoriety.”

Winthrop’s concerns about not failing God have been lost over time. His message, which was intended for a group of devout Christians, has been “‘plucked out of Winthrop’s context’ by politicians and pundits ... and re-imagined as something quite different — as a founding document for the nation itself.”

For example, President Reagan used the expression at least thirty times while in office, often adding the word “shining.” Then-Senator Barrack Obama used the expression to describe the world watching what he called “this improbable idea called America” to see if it would succeed. There are many other examples.

What these all have in common is the substitution of the nation for the Church. Winthrop’s sermon was directed at a group of Christians who saw themselves as part of God’s Elect, and their mission as an act of stewardship.

This stewardship included, as Winthrop put it, that “every man might have need of others, and from hence they might be all knit more nearly together in the bonds of brotherly affection.”

The exceptionalism Winthrop had in mind was “to follow the counsel of Micah, ‘to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God.’” This meant not “[embracing] this present world and [prosecuting] our carnal intentions, [or] seeking great things for ourselves and our posterity.” Instead, Winthrop urged, “we must be knit together in this work as one man ... we must delight in each other, make others’ conditions our own, rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together.”

Do this and others would see it. Fail to do it, and others would see it, too. Even more, if they failed, God would allow their name, as Moses told the Israelites, to become “a horror, a proverb, and a byword among all the peoples.”

Obviously, this is not the way “city upon a hill” or “American exceptionalism” is often understood today. Plucked out of their theological and historical context, Winthrop’s words are used for either premature self-celebrations of national greatness or misunderstood means to unfairly criticize the history of our nation. In context, it is an admonition to embrace responsibilities.

Here’s Winthrop’s remarkable sermon — share it or even read it aloud with your family.

As we gather to give thanks today to God for all His blessings, let all of us who are God’s people re-commit ourselves to let our light shine before others, so that they may see our good works and give glory to our Father who is in heaven.

From all of us at the Colson Center, Happy Thanksgiving.

John Winthrop Dreams of a City on a Hill, 1630

(The American Yawp Reader)

John Winthrop delivered the following sermon before he and his fellow settlers reached New England. The sermon is famous largely for its use of the phrase “a city on a hill,” used to describe the expectation that the Massachusetts Bay colony would shine like an example to the world. But Winthrop’s sermon also reveals how he expected Massachusetts to differ from the rest of the world.

A Modell Hereof

God Almighty in his most holy and wise providence hath so disposed of the condition of mankind, as in all times some must be rich some poor, some high and eminent in power and dignity; others mean and in subjection.

The Reason hereof:

1st Reason.

First to hold conformity with the rest of His world, being delighted to show forth the glory of his wisdom in the variety and difference of the creatures, and the glory of His power in ordering all these differences for the preservation and good of the whole, and the glory of His greatness, that as it is the glory of princes to have many officers, so this great king will have many stewards, counting himself more honored in dispensing his gifts to man by man, than if he did it by his own immediate hands.

2nd Reason.

Secondly, that He might have the more occasion to manifest the work of his Spirit: first upon the wicked in moderating and restraining them, so that the rich and mighty should not eat up the poor, nor the poor and despised rise up against and shake off their yoke. Secondly, in the regenerate, in exercising His graces in them, as in the great ones, their love, mercy, gentleness, temperance etc., and in the poor and inferior sort, their faith, patience, obedience etc.

3rd Reason.

Thirdly, that every man might have need of others, and from hence they might be all knit more nearly together in the bonds of brotherly affection. From hence it appears plainly that no man is made more honorable than another or more wealthy etc., out of any particular and singular respect to himself, but for the glory of his Creator and the common good of the creature, Man. Therefore God still reserves the property of these gifts to Himself as Ezek. 16:17, He there calls wealth, His gold and His silver, and Prov. 3:9, He claims their service as His due, “Honor the Lord with thy riches,” etc. — All men being thus (by divine providence) ranked into two sorts, rich and poor; under the first are comprehended all such as are able to live comfortably by their own means duly improved; and all others are poor according to the former distribution ... .

Question: What rule must we observe and walk by in cause of community of peril?

Answer:

The same as before, but with more enlargement towards others and less respect towards ourselves and our own right. Hence it was that in the primitive Church they sold all, had all things in common, neither did any man say that which he possessed was his own. Likewise in their return out of the captivity, because the work was great for the restoring of the church and the danger of enemies was common to all, Nehemiah directs the Jews to liberality and readiness in remitting their debts to their brethren, and disposing liberally to such as wanted, and stand not upon their own dues which they might have demanded of them. Thus did some of our forefathers in times of persecution in England, and so did many of the faithful of other churches, whereof we keep an honorable remembrance of them; and it is to be observed that both in Scriptures and latter stories of the churches that such as have been most bountiful to the poor saints, especially in those extraordinary times and occasions, God hath left them highly commended to posterity...

Thus stands the cause between God and us. We are entered into covenant with Him for this work. We have taken out a commission. The Lord hath given us leave to draw our own articles. We have professed to enterprise these and those accounts, upon these and those ends. We have hereupon besought Him of favor and blessing. Now if the Lord shall please to hear us, and bring us in peace to the place we desire, then hath He ratified this covenant and sealed our commission, and will expect a strict performance of the articles contained in it; but if we shall neglect the observation of these articles which are the ends we have propounded, and, dissembling with our God, shall fall to embrace this present world and prosecute our carnal intentions, seeking great things for ourselves and our posterity, the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us, and be revenged of such a people, and make us know the price of the breach of such a covenant.

Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck, and to provide for our posterity, is to follow the counsel of Micah, to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God. For this end, we must be knit together, in this work, as one man. We must entertain each other in brotherly affection. We must be willing to abridge ourselves of our superfluities, for the supply of others’ necessities. We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience and liberality. We must delight in each other; make others’ conditions our own; rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, as members of the same body. So shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. The Lord will be our God, and delight to dwell among us, as His own people, and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways, so that we shall see much more of His wisdom, power, goodness and truth, than formerly we have been acquainted with. We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies; when He shall make us a praise and glory that men shall say of succeeding plantations, “may the Lord make it like that of New England.” For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill. The eyes of all people are upon us. So that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and a by-word through the world. We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God, and all professors for God’s sake. We shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land whither we are going.

And to shut this discourse with that exhortation of Moses, that faithful servant of the Lord, in his last farewell to Israel, Deut. 30. “Beloved, there is now set before us life and death, good and evil,” in that we are commanded this day to love the Lord our God, and to love one another, to walk in his ways and to keep his Commandments and his ordinance and his laws, and the articles of our Covenant with Him, that we may live and be multiplied, and that the Lord our God may bless us in the land whither we go to possess it. But if our hearts shall turn away, so that we will not obey, but shall be seduced, and worship other Gods, our pleasure and profits, and serve them; it is propounded unto us this day, we shall surely perish out of the good land whither we pass over this vast sea to possess it.

Therefore let us choose life,

that we and our seed may live,

by obeying His voice and cleaving to Him,

for He is our life and our prosperity.

________

John Winthrop, “A Model of Christian Charity,” in A Library of American Literature: Early Colonial Literature, 1607-1675, Edmund Clarence Stedman and Ellen Mackay Hutchinson, eds. (New York: 1892), 304-307.

When Americans count their blessings at Thanksgiving, God will get most of the credit, a new study shows. And money might be the last thing on their minds.

Nearly two-thirds of Americans (63 percent) say they give thanks to God on that day, according to LifeWay Research. Fifty-seven percent give thanks to their family. About a third (31 percent) thank friends. Eight percent thank themselves, while 4 percent thank fate.

Most Americans are thankful for family (88 percent), health (77 percent), personal freedom (72 percent) and friends (71 percent). Fewer give thanks for wealth (32 percent) or achievements (51 percent), the study shows.

“The blessings that matter most are the ones money can’t buy,” said Scott McConnell, executive director of LifeWay Research.

In a representative online survey of 1,000 Americans, researchers gave respondents 10 options to be thankful for -- from family and health to achievements and wealth.

Their responses were shaped in part by demographics.

Those 65 and older are more thankful for family (92 percent) and health (86 percent) than fun experiences (48 percent). Those under 25 are thankful for fun experiences (70 percent) and their achievements (61 percent) but still cherish family (77 percent).

Americans with bachelor’s degrees (45 percent), graduate degrees (46 percent) or evangelical beliefs (41 percent) are more thankful for wealth. Those who didn’t go to college (23 percent) or who don’t have evangelical beliefs (31 percent) are less thankful for wealth.

Women are most likely to give thanks for family (91 percent), health (83 percent) and friends (75 percent). Men are slightly less likely to give thanks for family (84 percent), health (71 percent) and friends (67 percent).

Overall, giving thanks seems alive and well in America, despite the stresses of the recent election season. Only 2 percent say they are thankful for none of the 10 options provided.

“Many Americans have felt discouraged about events of the past year,” McConnell said. “But they still find a lot to be thankful for.”

When asked to rate what they are most thankful for, family wins in a landslide. Six in 10 Americans (61 percent) say they are most thankful for family. Thirteen percent say health, while 9 percent say personal freedom.

Few choose safety and security (3 percent), memories (3 percent), friends (2 percent), opportunities (2 percent), achievements (2 percent), fun experiences (1 percent) or wealth (1 percent) as what they are most thankful for.

Past Thanksgivings

Americans have celebrated days of thanksgiving in the fall since 1621, when the Pilgrims at Plymouth Plantation held a feast at the end of their first harvest. In 1789, President George Washington set aside Nov. 26 of that year as a thanksgiving day in honor of “that great and glorious Being who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, that is, or that will be.”

States celebrated Thanksgiving Day on different dates until 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln set aside the fourth Thursday of November as an official federal holiday. Lincoln credited God for the nation’s blessings: “They are the gracious gifts of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.”

Still, Thanksgiving isn’t for everyone. Seven percent of Americans say they don’t give thanks on Thanksgiving Day. Another 4 percent say they don’t thank God, family or any of the other survey options.

Americans living in the South (72 percent), African-Americans (83 percent), those attending religious services at least once a month (84 percent) and Christians (80 percent) are among those most likely to thank God. Protestants (90 percent) are more likely to thank God than Catholics (67 percent). Those with evangelical beliefs are most likely to thank God (94 percent). One in 4 nones -- those with no religious affiliation -- also say they thank God.

Catholics (65 percent) are more likely to thank their family than Protestants (49 percent).

Those with evangelical beliefs are half as likely to thank family (32 percent) as those without evangelical beliefs (62 percent).

Those in the Northeast are more likely to thank themselves (14 percent) than Midwesterners (7 percent) and Southerners (6 percent). Men (9 percent) are more likely to not give thanks than women (5 percent). Those younger than 25 (14 percent) are also more likely to skip giving thanks than those 65 and older (5 percent).

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Bob Smietana is senior writer for Facts & Trends magazine.

A lack of proper thankfulness to God is a clear sign of a basic godlessness.

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Thanksgiving is a deeply theological act, rightly understood. As a matter of fact, thankfulness is a theology in microcosm — a key to understanding what we really believe about God, ourselves, and the world we experience.

A haunting question is this: How do atheists observe Thanksgiving? I can easily understand what an atheist or agnostic would think of fellow human beings and feel led to express thankfulness and gratitude to all those who, both directly and indirectly, have contributed to their lives. But what about the blessings that cannot be ascribed to human agency? Those are both more numerous and more significant, ranging from the universe we experience to the gift of life itself.

Can one really be thankful without being thankful to someone? It makes no sense to express thankfulness to a purely naturalistic system. The late Stephen Jay Gould, an atheist and one of the foremost paleontologists and evolutionists of his day, described human life as “but a tiny, late-arising twig on life’s enormously arborescent bush.” Gould was a clear-headed evolutionist who took the theory of evolution to its ultimate conclusion — human life is merely an accident, though a very happy accident for us. Within that worldview, how does thankfulness work?

The Apostle Paul points to a central insight about thankfulness when he instructs the Christians in Rome about the reality and consequences of unbelief. After making clear that God has revealed himself to all humanity through the created order, Paul asserts that we are all without excuse when it comes to our responsibility to know and worship the Creator.

He wrote:

For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse. For even though they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks, but they became futile in their speculations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools ... [Romans 1:20-22].

This remarkable passage has at its center an indictment of thanklessness. They did not honor Him as God or give thanks. Paul wants us to understand that the refusal to honor God and give thanks is a raw form of the primal sin. Theologians have long debated the foundational sin — and answers have ranged from lust to pride. Nevertheless, it would seem that being unthankful, refusing to recognize God as the source of all good things, is very close to the essence of the primal sin. What explains the rebellion of Adam and Eve in the Garden? A lack of proper thankfulness was at the core of their sin. God gave them unspeakable riches and abundance, but forbade them the fruit of one tree. A proper thankfulness would have led our first parents to avoid that fruit at all costs, and to obey the Lord’s command. Taken further, this first sin was also a lack of thankfulness in that the decision to eat the forbidden fruit indicated a lack of thankfulness that took the form of an assertion that we creatures — not the Creator — know what is best for us and intend the best for us.

They did not honor Him as God or give thanks. Clearly, honoring God as God leads us naturally into thankfulness. To honor Him as God is to honor His limitless love, His benevolence and care, His provision and uncountable gifts. To fail in thankfulness is to fail to honor God — and this is the biblical description of fallen and sinful humanity. We are a thankless lot.

Sinners saved by the grace and mercy of God know a thankfulness that exceeds any merely human thankfulness. How do we express thankfulness for the provision the Father has made for us in Christ, the riches that are made ours in Him, and the unspeakable gift of the surpassing grace of God? As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift” [2 Corinthians 9:15].

So, observe a wonderful Thanksgiving — but realize that a proper Christian Thanksgiving is a deeply theological act that requires an active mind as well as a thankful heart. We need to think deeply, widely, carefully, and faithfully about the countless reasons for our thankfulness to God.

It is humbling to see that Paul so explicitly links a lack of thankfulness to sin, foolishness, and idolatry. A lack of proper thankfulness to God is a clear sign of a basic godlessness. Millions of Americans will celebrate Thanksgiving with little consciousness of this truth. Their impulse to express gratitude is a sign of their spiritual need that can be met only in Christ.

So have a very Happy Thanksgiving — and remember that giving thanks is one of the most explicitly theological acts any human can contemplate. O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good; for His lovingkindness is everlasting [1 Chronicles 16:34]. In all things, give thanks to God.

For Americans, Thanksgiving is about faith and family, and not much else, a new study shows.

More than half (56 percent) tell LifeWay Research the most important part of the annual holiday is “being thankful to God for my blessings.” Nearly 4 in 10 (39 percent) say “time with family and friends” tops their Thanksgiving priorities.

Times of prayer and thanking God for the harvest stretch back to the Protestant Reformation in Europe and continued as Pilgrims and Puritans settled in America. While Abraham Lincoln tried to establish a settled day for the holiday, Thanksgiving was not set as the fourth Thursday of November until 1941.

Since then, the holiday has developed several other traditions like the extravagant meal, football games and the start of Christmas shopping. But eating, football and shopping each garnered only 1 percent of Americans who say it is the most important aspect of Thanksgiving.

“In a nation that prides itself on personal independence, Thanksgiving priorities are a noticeable contradiction,” Scott McConnell, vice president LifeWay Research, said. “Rather than focusing on a feast or football, most Americans relish the holiday to acknowledge the hand of God in their success and many others cherish the time with loved ones.”

Unsurprisingly, Christians are more likely to value thanking God above the other parts of Thanksgiving than anyone else. More than 2 in 3 Christians (68 percent) point to thankfulness to God.

They aren’t the only ones thanking God, however. Close to half of adherents of other religions (46 percent) and more than a quarter of the nonreligious (28 percent) say the same.

Among Christians, Protestants are more likely than Catholics to choose thanking God over time with family and friends as the most important part of Thanksgiving -- 71 percent to 56 percent. At 75 percent, self-identified evangelical Protestants are the religious group most likely to place the emphasis on being thankful for blessings.

The more frequently someone attends church the more likely they are to say thanking God is the most important part of Thanksgiving. That’s selected by more than 3 in 4 of those who attend about once a week (77 percent) compared to 57 percent of those who attend once or twice a month.

Along with religion, gender, geographic region and age play a role in deciding the most important aspect of Thanksgiving.

Women are twice as likely to say being thankful to God (64 percent) than spending time with family and friends (32 percent). Men, meanwhile, are evenly split. Forty-eight percent say thankfulness, while 45 percent say family and friends.

Southerners are the most likely to value thanking God (65 percent) and least likely to say spending time with family and friends (32 percent). Those in the Northeast (45 percent) and the West (44 percent) are most likely to choose spending time with family and friends as the most important.

This question also exposed a clear divide between millennials and other generations. The majority of young adults chose spending time with friends and family over thanking God. Older millennials (25-34) select fellowship instead of faith 53 percent to 44 percent. Younger millennials (18-24) are even more likely to say the time with others versus being thankful -- 57 percent to 39 percent.

“A generation starving for relationships sees Thanksgiving as a relational respite,” McConnell said. “To many millennials, reserving a whole day to thank God on Thanksgiving is as backward as mailing a thank you card instead of instant messaging ‘thx’ and a praying hands emoji. But following the busiest travel day of the year with an upward focused pause may be a tradition some warm up to with age.”

The tendency of millennials to choose time with friends and family is not simply because the youngest adult generation is the least religious. Even among Christians, 44 percent of millennials chose spending time with friends and family as the most important part of Thanksgiving. Only a quarter (25 percent) of non-millennial Christians do the same.

A person whose cancer has been arrested may say, "I am so thankful to God." That is praise. But a person who is dying of cancer and in pain may calmly say, "Everything is all right. The Lord doesn't make mistakes. I have peace in my heart." That is "the peace that passes all understanding."

Studying all extant eyewitness accounts of the first Thanksgiving is not difficult. It requires reading just 152 words, written in late 1621 by Plymouth colony statesman Edward Winslow:

Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, that so we might after have a special manner rejoice together after we had gathered the fruit of our labors; they four in one day killed as much fowl, as with a little help beside, served the company almost a week, at which time amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest King Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor, and upon the captain, and others. And although it be not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we are so far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty.

The celebration bore marked differences from some traditional portrayals. The 90 Wamponoags present were nearly double the 50 Englishmen still alive after their first grueling winter in Plymouth, down from 102 who arrived on the Mayflower. It probably took place outdoors, in September or October rather than November. They ate more venison and seafood than turkey, berries rather than pumpkin pies.

In some quarters, it has become popular to suggest even deeper differences between traditional American Thanksgiving celebrations and what occurred at Plymouth in 1621. Contrary to the traditional portrayal of families gathered around their tables with heads bowed in prayer, some historians question whether Christian spirituality should be associated with the first Thanksgiving.

James Deetz and Patricia Scott Deetz claimed, for example, that “Thanksgiving as we think of it today is largely a myth.” The original celebration was a “secular event,” which “transformed over time,” because America “needed a myth of epic proportion on which to found its history.”

Indeed, of the surviving Englishmen at the first Thanksgiving, only about half were Separatists, those who came to the New World in search of freedom to live out their Christian faith. The rest were “strangers,” who made the journey out of nonreligious motives.

New England historian Joseph Conforti described the first Thanksgiving feast as “disorderly,” not the mythologized “placid feast dominated by pious settlers.” American religious historian Sydney Ahlstrom described the Pilgrim Fathers as “not theologically minded, nor ... self-conscious in their churchmanship.”

Yet Americans long have assumed a spiritual heritage in their Thanksgiving celebrations, from President George Washington’s proclamation “rendering unto [God] our sincere and humble thanks” to Donald Trump’s last year, harkening back to the Pilgrims and saying, “we remember with reverence and gratitude the bountiful blessings afforded to us by our Creator.”

Conflicting interpretations of the 1621 Thanksgiving celebration may make us wonder whether it is reasonable to draw spiritual lessons from the first Thanksgiving. Was it merely a secular harvest festival, or did the Pilgrim Fathers celebrate in deep gratitude for God’s providential care? Even the most cursory reading of Pilgrim literature strongly favors the latter option.

Despite the relative scarcity of primary sources and the wave of historical revisionism, a wealth of spiritual instruction may be gleaned from the first Thanksgiving and the Pilgrims’ approach to providence, gratitude, and the priesthood of all believers.

Thankfulness Flows From a High View of Providence

The Pilgrim Fathers’ assessment of themselves as “partakers” of “plenty” on the first Thanksgiving comes into sharper focus when we consider the mediocrity of their first harvest. Though they brought in 20 acres of corn thanks to the help of their native friend Squanto (who showed them how to grow the strange North American crop), all the Pilgrims’ English crops failed. Yet amid that failure, the Separatists still deemed their first harvest “plentiful” by “the goodness of God” and worthy of a thanksgiving celebration.

The Pilgrim Fathers could be thankful for mixed success because they viewed every good thing in life — no matter how small — as the provision of a sovereign God. A True Confession, the 1596 creed adopted by the Separatists who set sail on the Mayflower, declared, “God hath decreed in himself from everlasting touching all things, and the very least circumstances of every thing, effectually to work and dispose them according to the counsell of his own will, to the prayse and glorie of his great name.”

This was the same doctrine of meticulous providence articulated by the Reformers and upheld in the Reformed tradition up to the present. As John Calvin put it, “God’s providence governs all” such that “nothing takes place without his deliberation.” A quarter century after the Pilgrims landed at Plymouth, the Westminster divines expressed the same doctrine: God “doth uphold, direct, dispose, and govern all creatures, actions, and things, from the greatest even to the least.”

When the Pilgrims decided to leave the Netherlands for America — seeking better economic prospects, continued religious freedom, and a removal from the influence of poor Dutch morals on their children — they knew their journey would be difficult. Yet they believed many potential difficulties “by providente care and the use of good means might in a great measure be prevented.”

In hindsight, “endured” might have been a more appropriate word than “prevented.” The Mayflower encountered serious storms in the mid-Atlantic for days on end, growing so leaky that there was discussion of turning back. However, the captain declared his vessel seaworthy, and the Pilgrim Fathers “committed themselves to ye will of God.”

During their first winter in Plymouth, disease struck the Pilgrims hard. Over a span of three months, half the English settlers died. Of all the married couples among them, both husband and wife survived in just three instances. Still, the Separatists saw God’s providential care. “The Lord so upheld these persons,” Pilgrim statesman William Bradford wrote. After native people fell victim to illness too, the surviving tribes caused the Pilgrims no harm, which they also attributed to providence: “It has pleased God so to possess the Indians with a fear of us, and love unto us.”

Such a high view of providence led naturally to thanksgiving. The smallest positive occurrence in life could not be overlooked because it was a gift of God no less than the major victories. That’s why the Pilgrim Fathers could pause for a thanksgiving holiday following their mediocre harvest and abominable first winter in Plymouth.

Celebrations Stem From a Life of Thankfulness

One of the Pilgrim Fathers’ most striking moments of thankfulness occurred the first Sunday after they reached North America. A scouting party of 16 men returned to the Mayflower with a good report about the land. The collective sense of relief spurred an impromptu worship service. As Bradford put it, “They fell upon their knees and blessed ye God of heaven.”

This scene was not an isolated incident. Bradford’s history of Plymouth references the giving of thanks no less than 30 times. The first Thanksgiving, rather than being an anomaly amid the drudgery of forging a new colony, fell within a rhythm of gratitude in the Pilgrims’ life.

Indeed, the first Thanksgiving may have been the 1621 observance of an annual English harvest festival known as Harvest Home. Some have noted this fact in attempt to deny the first Thanksgiving’s spiritual character. In actuality, it underscores the cyclical nature of thanksgiving in Plymouth colony.

Before the Pilgrims faced each day, they first turned to God in gratitude and intercession. The pattern persisted as half their company died that first winter and as crops failed the next year. Weekly, they took seriously observance of the Sabbath, making preparations each Saturday so Sunday could be spent in uninterrupted worship and rest.

By the time their first harvest was gathered, the Pilgrim Fathers’ response was predictable. Despite a winter of widespread death and a fall of crop failure, they gave thanks, confident of God’s providential care. Leaders of the colony doubled the weekly corn ration, and a holiday was declared so all could “after a more special manner, rejoyce together.”

Collective Thanksgiving Enhanced by Individual Theology

For the Pilgrim Fathers, every believer was responsible before God to apprehend biblical teaching and live it out. Neither theology nor ecclesiastical authority was limited to clergymen. Historically, this doctrine is known as the priesthood of all believers.

For the first nine years of Plymouth’s existence, the colony did not include a single ordained minister. The church, they said, is Christ’s “spirituall kingdome” on earth, which has been separated “from emongst unbelievers” as “a royall Priesthood.” Every believer in the congregation possesses equal worth and responsibility before God.

The concept of the priesthood of all believers predated the Pilgrim Fathers. Yet Separatists — especially the Pilgrim Fathers — lived out the doctrine with unique consistency. A comparison of Plymouth colony with its Puritan neighbors to the north in Massachusetts Bay Colony proves helpful in this regard.

While both groups believed the church should comprise only “visible saints” and that each believer bore individual responsibility before God, a Puritan could not “pursue the implications of his principles the way the Separatists did.” That was because Puritans never separated from the Church of England and its practice of regarding every Englishman as a church member. Only Separatists demanded a confession of faith as a prerequisite for church membership.

In light of that distinction between Pilgrims and Puritans, it is interesting that Plymouth became famous for its community-wide Thanksgiving celebration while Massachusetts Bay attained notoriety largely for the theological contributions of its individual ministers and the universities it founded to train them.

Their daily, weekly, and occasional expressions of thankful worship were communal, not decreed by clergy. Perhaps rigorous adherence to the priesthood of all believers is why the Pilgrims could, at the first Thanksgiving, “rejoice together” that “by the goodness of God, we are so far from want.”

‘Their Trust in Heaven, Their High Religious Faith’

Historians who characterize the first Thanksgiving as more legend than fact, more revelry than spirituality, have cited New England statesman Daniel Webster’s 1820 speech at Plymouth Rock as a key step in formulating the Pilgrim “myth.” While Webster took poetic license with some details (like the importance of Plymouth Rock itself), his characterization of the Pilgrim Fathers as thankful people of faith is borne out by the historical record.

Commemorating the 200th anniversary of Plymouth colony’s founding, he recalled “their conscious joy for dangers escaped; their deep solicitude about danger to come; their trust in Heaven; their high religious faith, full of confidence and anticipation; all of these seem to belong to this place, and to be present upon this occasion, to fill us with reverence and admiration.”

With the passing of 200 more years, we still have reason to celebrate the Pilgrim Fathers’ faith and look to them for enduring lessons on providence and gratitude.

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David Roach is a writer, preacher, and professor in Nashville. He holds a PhD in church history from The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

Adapted from Strangers and Pilgrims on the Earth: Remembering the Mayflower Pilgrims, 1620–2020 (H&E Publishing).