5 - An Act of Faith

Rich Bailey

Curry's Chapel Church

We Are Gathered Here • Sermon • Submitted 6 months ago • Presented 6 months ago

Isaiah 7:14

Faith

General Thanksgiving

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Summary: Do you think you are to give thanks for your blessings? What about when things don’t go the way you want? What role does thanks have then?

Notes

Transcript

SLIDE: Scripture

Isaiah 7:14 (NLT)

14 All right then, the Lord himself will give you the sign. Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel (which means ‘God is with us’).

SLIDE: Welcome

SLIDE: Title

Story to open

If you had been a Pilgrim, would you have given thanks?

Consider what they had been through, the men and women who broke bread together on that first Thanksgiving in 1621. They had uprooted themselves and sailed for America, an endeavor so hazardous that published guides advised travelers to the New World, "First, make thy will." The crossing was very rough and the Mayflower was blown off course. Instead of reaching Virginia, where Englishmen had settled 13 years earlier, the Pilgrims ended up in the wilds of Massachusetts. By the time they found a place to make their new home - Plymouth, they called it - winter had set in. The storms were frightful. Shelter was rudimentary. There was little food. Within weeks, nearly all the settlers were sick.

"That which was most sad and lamentable," Governor William Bradford later recalled, "was that in two or three months’ time, half of their company died, especially in January and February, being the depth of winter, and wanting houses and other comforts; being infected with the scurvy and other diseases.... There died sometimes two or three of a day."

When spring came, Indians showed them how to plant corn, but their first crops were dismal. Supplies ran out, but their sponsors in London refused to send more. The first time the Pilgrims sent a shipment of goods to England, it was stolen by pirates.

If you had been there in 1621 - if you had seen half your friends die, if you had suffered through famine, malnutrition, and sickness, if you had endured a year of heartbreak and tragedy - would you have felt grateful?

SLIDE: Feelings versus Faith

But feelings and faith are not the same.

As I read through my bible, especially in the Old Testament, I found something unusual. It was a “Thanksgiving Offering.” Prescribed as an optional offering, one would offer an animal along with some of the fruit of the harvest as an act of Thanksgiving to God. It was not a required offering. It was totally at the discretion and free will of the worshipper.

David said in Psalm 107:21-22

Psalm 107:21–22 (NLT)

21 Let them praise the Lord for his great love and for the wonderful things he has done for them. 22 Let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving and sing joyfully about his glorious acts.

This is where it gets interesting…at least to me.

Nowhere in the Old Testament is a word translated grateful or gratitude. But over 114 uses are found for the word Thanksgiving.

So I looked at the Hebrew for the word “thanksgiving” and found something very surprising.

The word actually has a dual meaning: “to give thanks” and “to confess.”

The translation “to confess” is insightful because biblical confession doesn’t mean to tell your pastor your sins.

It means to “speak out of your mouth the same thing that is in your heart.”

To speak words of thanksgiving would be pour out of your mouth that which is in your heart what you believe to be true about God and His character and His love and provision for you.

2 Corinthians 4:13 (NLT)

13 But we continue to preach because we have the same kind of faith the psalmist had when he said, “I believed in God, so I spoke.”

SLIDE: Vocal Utterance

The outward vocal utterance expresses the inward thought.

Psalm 107:21–22 (NLT)

21 Let them praise the Lord for his great love and for the wonderful things he has done for them. 22 Let them offer sacrifices of thanksgiving and sing joyfully about his glorious acts.

These verses from Psalm 107 combined giving thanks, giving sacrifices of thanks and DECLARING His works with rejoicing.

There you have it.

The core concept of Giving Thanks- Something that comes from the heart through the mouth.

Unlike the tithe, which was required “giving”, the thanksgiving offering was an offering that was given from the heart by faith.

The context for giving thanks is the offering of the Son of God on our behalf for our sins!

Why are we told to give thanks? Let me share with you three reasons.

Because Thanksgiving is an act of faith.

SLIDE: God Centered Thanksgiving

Most of us tend to give thanks after we are blessed, not beforehand. Unfortunately, that is a self-centered approach to thanksgiving and not a God centered one.

Colossians 4:2 (NLT)

2 Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart.

Philippians 4:4–7 (NLT) WHERE PAUL SAYS:

4 Always be full of joy in the Lord. I say it again—rejoice! 5 Let everyone see that you are considerate in all you do. Remember, the Lord is coming soon. 6 Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need, and thank him for all he has done. 7 Then you will experience God’s peace, which exceeds anything we can understand. His peace will guard your hearts and minds as you live in Christ Jesus.

We are urged to pray with thanksgiving.

SLIDE: Gratitude as Witness

What does that look like?

David Kuo says, “To express thanks is to actualize the gratitude we feel in our hearts. By uttering our thanks, we give mere gratitude the creative power of the spoken word. Our gratitude then becomes a witness to ourselves and to others.”

Our thanksgiving is not merely making a down payment on our prayer by faith.

SLIDE: Thanksgiving is an Act of Faith

Giving thanks is an act of faith in God regardless of the outcome of our desires.

Let me take a detour here and tell you about the difference between faith and belief: Many people in and out of churches today have belief. 97% of Americans confess a belief in God. But something is missing.

SLIDE: Faith is Relational

Faith is relational trust in God that translates into action.

Belief is mere mental acknowledgement of facts or truths but does not necessarily translate into action.

An example is when the famed high wire performer Blondin had a cable erected across Niagra Falls. He walked over it several times and then pushed a wheel barrow across the high wire. As he reached the other side he asked the crowd, “Who believes I can push a man across this wire on the wheel barrow.” The crowd roared with approval. Then he asked, “who is willing to get in the wheel barrow?” And the crowd went silent. No one offered. No one REALLY had faith. They believed the intellectual premise that he COULD do it, but they didn’t have the faith to trust him with their own lives.

How does YOUR FAITH interact with your thanks? Is it based upon trusting God with your life and does it translate into action?

Because Thanksgiving is an act of worship

Psalm 95:2 (KJV 1900)

2 Let us come before His presence (face) with thanksgiving, And make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.

How do we come before His presence?

Over and over throughout the scriptures, we are exhorted to come into the literal presence of God with thanksgiving.

SLIDE: Preliminary Act

Thanksgiving is the preliminary act of worship for the worshipper:

Psalm 100:4 (NLT)

4 Enter his gates with thanksgiving; go into his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and praise his name.

It is why, in our church, we have a time of witness / testimony early in our service where people are

given the opportunity to publicly acknowledge the goodness of God. It leads to God-centered worship.

SLIDE: Acknowledging the Nature of God

Because Thanksgiving acknowledges the nature of God

Psalm 118:1 (NLT)

1 Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good! His faithful love endures forever.

What is thanksgiving?

Giving thanks is an act of humble recognition and dependence that God is the supplier of your needs.

It recognizes what God has done and who He is.

1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NLT)

18 Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.

It doesn’t say FOR EVERYTHING.

Nor does it say “in good times give thanks…”

Instead, it says “In EVERYTHING” Now that takes faith!

That was the attitude of the Pilgrims. They weren’t thanking God for what He had done or not done, they were thanking Him in every circumstance, because they believed that God remains the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.

You see, thanksgiving is an acknowledgement that all things come from God and that God is the author of our lives, regardless of the level of comfort we have.

Thanksgiving acknowledges that we understand that God is in control, God is sovereign and that God DOES have our best in mind.

Finally…

What is the danger of counting your blessings as the basis of thanksgiving?

When we count our blessings as the basis of giving thanks, we will tend to not be thankful or worshipful when things don’t go the way we think they ought to.

How do we react when a loved one dies, when we are sick, lose our job, or when our car stops working? Do we still live with a heart of thanksgiving or do we get angry at God for making our lives difficult?

When our thanksgiving is conditional, we put ourselves in the place of God, deciding what is good and what is not.

And, when we count our blessings as the basis of thanksgiving, it can quickly deteriorate into the habit of counting upon our blessings.

SLIDE: Central Symbol of Faith

Folks, the central symbol of our faith is not the horn of plenty but the cross of suffering.