Thanksgiving 1978

Probably in the last three years One of the chief passage passages of scriptures that's been on our hearts Here has been when Jesus quotes Hosea 6 6 and says to the Pharisees and the scribes go learn what this means I desire mercy and not sacrifice today, however to look at one sacrifice, which is legitimate and really absolutely necessary in our lives and That's a sacrifice of Thanksgiving To start out with the thought of what a sacrifice of Thanksgiving really is I'd like to read a passage from the end of the book of Mark Mark 16 verses 14 15 and 16 Afterward he appeared to the 11 themselves as they sat at table and Afraid of them for their unbelief and hardness of heart Because they had not believed those who saw him after he had risen And he said to them go into all the world and preach the gospel to the whole creation He who believes and is baptized shall be saved and He who believes not shall be damned Hard words and We have a tendency to Get a picture in our minds, which is really not accurate We think so often of the saved As the people who pray the sinner's prayer get baptized join a church now, they're safe And over here are the damned and these are the people who don't receive the gospel from our missionaries those unruly and ungrateful foreigners or they may be people who refuse to accept a trap from our hands downtown or somebody who makes fun of us when we try to witness on our jobs or in our neighborhood and Some of us are very easily inclined to Damn to hell the millions of people who have never heard the gospel at all Interesting how quick we Christians so often are to damn people Who are beyond our reach or beyond our comprehension don't be so quick To damn that person downtown who refuses to accept your little trap and don't be so quick to damn the Chinese Who has never heard the gospel? Keep in mind that Jesus shed his blood for every single one of these Just as surely as he shed his blood for us and that Jesus is Lord over the problem of How when and where these people are going to receive and hear the gospel? Not trying to get anybody off the hook about the missionary command But the only reason we go forth with the gospel is because Jesus says go Not because we're going to deliver people from hell, but there is one kind of person Much closer to home Frighteningly close to home whose damnation is certain Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants When he began reckoning one was brought to him who owed him a thousand ten thousand talents And as he could not pay his Lord ordered him to be sold With his wife and children and all that he had and payment to be made So the servant fell on his knees imploring him Lord have patience with me and I will pay you everything And out of pity for him the Lord of that servant released him and forgave him the debt but that same servant as he went out came upon one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii and Seizing him by the throat said pay me what you owe So his fellow servant fell down and he sought him have patience with me and I would pay you But he refused and went and put him in prison till he should pay the debt When his fellow servants saw what had taken place They were greatly distressed and they went and reported to their Lord all that had taken place Then his Lord summoned him and said to him you wicked servant I forgave you all that debt because you besought me and should you not have had mercy on your fellow servant as I had mercy on You and in anger his Lord delivered him to the jailers till he should pay all his debt So also my Heavenly Father will do to every one of you if you do not forgive your brother From your heart now keep in mind. This man was not Some Chinese peasant who never heard the gospel. This was a man Who had had his debt removed he had been forgiven.

He had heard the gospel. He had received the power of Jesus blood How come he had such a short memory There was a rich man who was clothed in purple and fine linen who feasted sumptuously every day And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus full of swords who desired to be fed with what fell from the rich man's table Moreover the dogs came and licked his sores The poor man died and was carried by the angels into Abraham's bosom The rich man also died and was buried and in Hades the region of the dead being in torment he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham afar off and Lazarus in his bosom and he called out father Abraham have mercy on me and Send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue for I am in anguish in his flame but Abraham said Son, remember that you in your lifetime received your good things and Lazarus in like manner evil things But now he is comforted here and you are in anguish Beside all this Between us and you a great chasm has been fixed in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able And none may cross from there to us And he said then I beg you father to send him to my father's house For I have five brothers so that he may warn them lest they also come to this place of torment But Abraham said they have Moses and the prophets let them hear them He said no father Abraham, but if someone goes to them from the dead, they will repent He said to them if they do not hear Moses and the prophets neither will they be convinced if someone should rise from the dead both in the case of the rich man and The unforgiving servant The blatant lack in each of their lives when you think about it is Thanksgiving thankfulness for instance If the rich man had had any gratitude to God for the fact that he was Rolled in purple and fine linen and fared sumptuously every day It would have been the desire of his heart to share this these good things that he had With Lazarus at his gate and if the servant had had any Gratitude in his heart for the fact that he'd been forgiven a million dollars It would have been the desire of his heart to wipe off the debt for somebody who owed him one buck any man or woman Whose heart is so alive with gratitude to God that praise and thanksgiving comes up from the lips from the heart and Who demonstrates that this is real in their life by showing kindness forbearance and mercy to those around them? We'll find it just The thing it will want to do To share what they have with those who don't have and to bring forgiveness and kindness and mercy to anybody You know who's asking for that and it's you know in need of it from their lives the difference between faith and unbelief between salvation and damnation in the professing Christian is Not whether or not we mouth the correct doctrines and know it all upside down and backwards or Walk around wearing hair shirts or sleep on nails or eat them in the name of Jesus But whether or not we offer our lives back to him in response to that Calvary love and sacrifices of Thanksgiving Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men And let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving and declare his works with rejoicing Through him then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God. That is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name Do not neglect to do good and to share what you have for such sacrifices are pleasing to God in the time of Abraham We see that every time Abraham has a fresh experience with the Living God He builds an altar the obvious obvious reason for his building.

The altar is to offer up a sacrifice But the sacrifice that Abraham offers is not in order to win God's favor or to appease his wrath The purpose of that sacrifice Is to give thanks these altars that we see Abraham building in Genesis 12 and following Are the awkward manifestation of a grateful heart and it was this grateful heart in Abraham which permits Faith to continue and grow and allows the Spirit of God to truly move in him Abraham was a man of faith truly the father of faith Because he was a man of thanksgiving the two always go together In the centuries that followed Abraham's children continued the practice of offering among other things sacrifices of thanksgiving and While in Amos we're told that sometimes these sacrifices of thanksgiving were mere formalities as happens also today Where it was like saying thank you, but you don't really mean it where the sacrifice of thanksgiving was genuine and coming from the heart It was doubtless the most pleasing Sacrifice the unfolding God of Israel ever received when Jesus comes on the scene all these animal sacrifices Which were signs and which meant something were then swallowed up in Jesus own surrendered life and his holy death and These animal sacrifices cease And we read in Hebrews a quote from the psalm Consequently when Christ came into the world He said sacrifices and offer offerings doubtless has not desired But a body that has prepared for me and burnt offerings and sin offerings thou has taken no pleasure then I said Jesus lo I have come to do thy will O God as it is written of me in the role of the book in other words now I'm the sacrifice and I offer myself back to you in gratefulness and thanksgiving and my very body unto death And in the life of the believer Who really means business The true mark of salvation the singular mark of salvation It's a Christlike sacrifice of thanksgiving Which takes the form of a life offered up and this is manifested in two ways first praises Thanksgiving worship from the lips coming out of the heart and second a Life of mercy and forbearance and kindness to those around us where these two things are found in the life There a flame of salvation burns that cannot be put out by any circumstances, but where these two things Utterance of praise and thanksgiving from the heart mercy and kindness to those around us are missing from the life We can go through all kinds of rigmaroles and show our total commitment in a thousand wonderful ways. We are nevertheless walking the road of the dam God help us first of all To learn how to give thanks to him from our hearts up to our lips What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits to me I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people I will offer up to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving and will call upon the name of the Lord And notice it's not just thanksgiving For all the breaks that God is giving me But it's rather thanksgiving for God himself for who he is Even if no breaks are coming my way at the moment The fact that God has come down to where I am and made me his is grounds enough for eternal thanksgiving Nor is it God I thank thee that I am NOT as other men are I'm totally commitment committed and the rest aren't I Understand the doctrines. I got the baptism of the Holy Ghost.

I've wronged the right church I know what the New Testament Church is all about. You know, I'm not narrow-minded like everybody else But it's rather you know Acknowledging that in fact, I am like other men are in every way. I'm a sinner.

I am narrow-minded. I'm hard-headed I'm all kinds of things that I see, you know with disgust and everybody else and my thanksgiving is that God in spite of all that Has come down and made me his and is changing me Thanksgiving that God has drawn near that God has been so infinitely patient with me Thanksgiving that God is correcting me rebuking me chastising me when necessary, which is almost every day right or every minute every hour Thanksgiving that God has also put thorns in my flesh and that God is making his strength perfect in my weakness So it's Thanksgiving to God in the morning Thanksgiving at noontime Thanksgiving when the Sun goes down Thanksgiving at the table a hundred times a day a thousand times a day Isn't too much Until it gets to the place where giving thanks to God is our nature Just as it was the nature of our blessed Lord to give thanks to his father with every breath he took and Secondly, may God Help us in response to his infinite goodness to us To offer back in thanksgiving to him lives that are forbearing and merciful and genuine time To those around us. I Have been forgiven a great debt So now I can get off my wife's back I can stop picking at my husband I Can stop being so critical of everything I see I? Can begin to forgive the trespasses of those who have trespassed against me and I can begin joyfully to share what I have with Lazarus Who sits at my gate? Basically when it comes right down to the as they say bottom line It's a life of genuine mercy and genuine kindness and forbearance toward the people with whom we have to do That's what a sacrifice of Thanksgiving really is You know and if we're honest with ourselves most of us will have to admit that we are in the habit of being so suspicious and Critical and negative Feeling sorry for ourselves that we're always getting a dirty deal And so really down underneath our little Christian skin, which is very thin mean and ugly That it becomes necessary really for a radical and drastic and total change in our attitude in order to truly present to God a sacrifice of Thanksgiving and God will help us for this reason he gives us his spirit and Helps us to begin to do just that and as we learn to give thanks to God It becomes a thousand times easier to pray and to worship.

It's like coming out of a dark cave into blue sky and sunshine Oh that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men Let them sacrifice the sacrifices of Thanksgiving and declare his works with rejoicing With every day that passes each one of us is becoming perfected in the image of What we shall be forever either Children of heaven Whose joy is to give thanks and praise and glory to the Lord of the universe the father of Jesus Christ or children of hell In whom excuse me is a whining complaining negative sour mean critical spirit That as time goes on loses all ability Or all desire to ever give fast by practice through what we're doing and thinking and saying every day we are becoming one of the other of these and the spirits of the enemy or the spirit of God Is helping us to become? whichever ever of these two We choose to be oh That men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men and let them sacrifice the sacrifices of Thanksgiving and declared his works with rejoicing Let's pray. Oh thou who see is the hearts of men. Oh Lord thou who see is what's really inside each of us We pray that today By your mercy heavenly father Everything within us that hinders the flow of Thanksgiving genuine worship true gratitude and Consistent mercy May be dealt with in a supernatural way and that these things that have been blocking the flow of life may be removed That we may begin to come out of darkness into light and out of bondage Into the liberty that comes only from you and is found only in your son Jesus in whose name we ask it