105 Sermon Illustrations on Thankfulness

America’s most congested travel season is now underway as millions of people are headed home to celebrate the Thanksgiving holiday weekend. These days, the holiday signals the beginning of the extended Christmas season, and even though an official Thanksgiving observance has long been a familiar part of our American culture, the substance of the observance is very much in question.

Political correctness has entered the picture, with many public schools observing “Turkey Day” festivities while others erroneously explain that the Pilgrims celebrated the first Thanksgiving in order to thank the Indians for sharing agricultural advice and provisions. While most Americans probably have a sufficient historical background to know that the first Thanksgiving was not celebrated as an opportunity to express gratitude to the Native Americans, the fact remains that for many, there is no clearly identified referent for their gratitude.

In other words, while most citizens have at least a vestigial understanding of the fact that Thanksgiving Day is intended as a focal opportunity to thank God for His many blessings to us, the God worshipped -- and thanked -- by millions of people bears little or no resemblance to the God of the Bible. As a matter of fact, conversation about the holiday is likely to reveal that many people have no transcendent referent in mind at all. Just listen to those who speak about their reasons for being “thankful” without revealing to whom their thanks is directed. In some sense, it may be that a good many individuals think of giving thanks as some form of self-therapy, with gratitude identified more in attitudinal than theological terms.

Of course, we should expect something like this level of confusion in a country that includes millions of persons who claim to believe in God without any specific idea of who that God is.

In some sense, thankfulness runs against the American grain in the first place. We are a people marked by exaggerated notions of self-sufficiency and pride. No author has captured the essence of this particular twist in the American character as well as Tom Wolfe. In “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” Wolfe introduced us to Sherman McCoy, a Wall Street “master of the universe” who thinks himself in absolute control of his destiny, until his entire world starts to fall apart. Similarly, in “A Man in Full,” Wolfe introduced us to Charlie Crocker, a prototypical tycoon of the 1990s, complete with his private jet and customized wife. These characters point to something now pervasive in our national psyche -- an exalted sense of confidence in ourselves and the arrogant confidence that we can take care of our own needs, direct our own future, and make the world meet us on our own terms.

This dangerous sense of self-sufficiency is exactly what Jesus condemned in Luke 12:16-21, when He told of the rich man whose astoundingly abundant crops led him to plan to build bigger and bigger barns in order to hold his bounty. Jesus depicts this arrogant man as saying to himself: “Soul, you have many goods laid up for many years to come; take your ease, eat, drink, and be merry.” That was not the final word, however, for God responded to him, “You fool! This very night your soul is required of you; and now who will own what you have prepared?”

A spirit of thanksgiving is the best antidote to a false sense of self-sufficiency. In giving thanks to our Creator, we admit that we cannot take care of ourselves, protect ourselves, or even direct our own lives in a competent manner. Our every breath is a divine gift, and “thanksgiving” is not so much a day on the calendar as the honest and urgent expression of a heart shaped by the knowledge of who God is and what He has done for us.

In his Thanksgiving declaration of 1863, President Abraham Lincoln said, “It has seemed to me fit and proper that God should be solemnly, reverently and gratefully acknowledged, as with one heart and one voice, by the whole American people.”

We have come a long way since 1863, and we must recognize that Americans will not commonly acknowledge the one true and living God “with one heart and one voice.”

Nevertheless, Christians must see this day as a reminder that we must demonstrate, inculcate and commemorate Thanksgiving in our daily lives. While we are thankful for our families, for material blessings, for national security, and for the abundant gifts God has given us, we must be supremely thankful for the salvation accomplished by our Lord Jesus Christ and for the blessed hope grounded in the one true God.

While that spirit of thanksgiving and gratitude should be a part of our Christian discipleship every day of our lives, there is something good and wholesome about Christian families gathering together to express thankfulness through special observance, celebration, and festivities. Let’s make sure the world knows to whom we are thankful and why. May God grant you and your families a wonderful and blessed Thanksgiving.

________

This column first appeared in November 2004 on R. Albert Mohler Jr.’s website at www.albertmohler.com.

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

________

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.

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."