Beyond Thanksgiving

A Sermon by Dr. Neil Chadwick


When people go to church at Thanksgiving time, what sermon do they expect to hear?

Why, of course they expect to be reminded that because we have made it through another year, and because we enjoy such abundance of rich blessings, we should all be thankful to God.

A logical, simple text might be like the one we read Wednesday evening found in Colossians 3. In three verses, giving thanks is mentioned three times:

    verse 15, “be thankful,” related to “peace” in the “body”;
    verse 16, singing “with gratitude in your hearts to God”; and
    verse 17, do all “in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God”.

Or the sermon might be based on the story of the ten lepers Jesus healed (Luke 17:11-19). Did you ever wonder what the conversation might have been like as these ten men suddenly realized they were healed? Perhaps it went something like this:

    Leper # 1. "This is fantastic, I'm just so excited."

    Leper # 2. "I've got to hurry home to tell my family."

    Leper # 3. "Well, it's about time God answered my prayer!"

    Leper # 4. "This is great, for the first time ever I will be able to hug my son." Leper # 5. "This must be a coincidence; He never even touched me. How can I know for sure it was God who did this?"

    Leper # 6. "I'm going to call the publisher, this story will sell!"

    Leper # 7. "Man, I've got a lot of making up to do, an education to get, a business to start."

    Leper # 8. "Maybe this is just a brief 'remission'; I'm going to 'wait and see' if this healing really sticks."

    Leper # 9. "But Jesus said go to the priest, if he confirms it, then we'll come back to give thanks."

    In contrast to all these, Leper # 10 said, "You can do what ever you want, I'm going right back to give thanks to the One who healed me."

Another sermon idea would be to apply the WWJD formula. Some people make fun of this, like the question asked by one man, “What hair piece would Jesus wear?” More legitimately we could ask the question, “For what did Jesus give thanks?”

    1) Jesus gave thanks for the five loaves and two fishes before feeding the multitude. (John 6:11) Can we give thanks when we have so little when the need is so great? Of course Jesus knew His Father would provide for the needs of the people. This kind of grand faith must not be squandered on selfish prayers.

    2) Jesus gave thanks to His Father because the teachings He gave were hidden “. . . from the wise and learned, and revealed to little children.” (Matthew 11:25) Kingdom matters are opposite to what we expect. This is great news for those who understand the poverty of their own condition.

    3) He also gave thanks when He broke the bread as He predicted His death (Matthew 26:26), and for the cup as He spoke of His shed blood. (Luke 22:17) We think of death being the worst-case scenario, how can one give thanks for death?

    4) And Jesus gave thanks as He prayed outside Lazarus’s tomb – He simply thanked His Father for hearing His prayer. (John 11:41) It is enough to simply know that He has heard.

However, by virtue of the fact that you are in church on this Thanksgiving weekend suggests that another sermon about thanksgiving is not a sermon you need to hear. You are already thankful, and you're here to express it publicly. What we want to do is accept the challenge to go "Beyond Thankfulness." Or to say it another way, thankfulness may not be enough.

One example of this is the man Jesus told about in Luke 18:11. He said, “The Pharisee stood up and prayed about himself: `God, I thank you that I am not like other men -- robbers, evildoers, adulterers -- or even like this tax collector.”

Ah yes, the Pharisee was thankful enough, but his thankfulness was a cloak for his arrogance.

Surely it would be much better to adopt the attitude of D.L. Moody, who when seeing a drunken man on the street said, “There but for the grace of God go I.”

So the first lesson is this: to go "Beyond Thankfulness" is to practice humility.

Another way to go "Beyond Thankfulness" is to be sure that it turns into joyfulness. Your face is the most telling evidence of a thankful heart.

    It is amazing to me how one minute someone can say “Grace,” giving thanks to God for the food, and the next minute grumble because they don’t like the vegetables! If we are truly blessed, then we should share the blessing by exhibiting happiness. Blessed and depressed just don’t go together.

    A couple of weeks ago, while walking through some Amish country stores, I noticed this sign, “Some days I wake up grumpy – on other days I let him sleep in.” I’ve noticed that some people wake up that way and stay grumpy all day long.

And finally, the greatest way to go "Beyond Thankfulness" is to practice compassion through thoughtfulness and helpfulness.

    When the Apostle Paul listed the truly great characteristics of Christ-likeness, i.e., faith, hope and love, he didn’t even include thankfulness. If he had, it would not have changed the final word, “the greatest of these is love.”

    The truth of the matter is this; thankfulness can be an evidence of selfishness, which really is the opposite of love.

    How well I remember being thankful the day my family was spared during an automobile accident while driving through Fairmont Park in Philadelphia. My wife and infant son were with me in the front, and my wife’s sister, her husband and one-year-old daughter were in the back. I tried to get out of the way of the oncoming car, which had apparently lost control as it rounded the curve. My ‘61 Oldsmobile was hit in the rear quarter panel, but the car following was hit head on. A few months later I was called in for a deposition, and as I and the lawyers rode the elevator after the meeting, someone commented on how clear my memory was. My response was that I was so very thankful, realizing that the accident could have been so much worse for my family and me. Right then it hit me. I had been thankful for my own well-being, but had hardly given a thought about the driver of the car behind us, a lady who had suffered for weeks in the hospital with a broken back. I was thankful in a selfish kind of way.

    While we sit at our tables laden with more food than is good for us, we are mindful of the two billion people who go to bed hungry every night.

    While we gather every Lord’s Day to thank God for His salvation, we are moved to sacrifice for the cause of World Missions because there are still millions who have not heard the simple Gospel message.

Yes, in the tradition of the Pilgrims, we have expressed our thankfulness for God’s abundant provision, but we will go beyond thankfulness.

We will clothe ourselves with humility, give full expression to joyfulness, and reach out to others with practical thoughtfulness and helpfulness.

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