This morning if you would turn with me in your Bibles to the book of Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5 and I will only be preaching on verse 20 but I will read verses 15 to 20 for you. Thanksgiving Day being celebrated in our nation this Thursday. I thought it would be good if I could preach to you a sermon on Thanksgiving and try to show you the importance, how important it is for us to be able to always give thanks to God for everything that we experience as Christians and go through, even if it seems so difficult to do so. Let's bow together for prayer. Our Father, we do give You thanks. We come to You at this hour with our hearts laid bare before You, asking that You would help us, Your people, to be able to do what this text is telling us to do, to give thanks always for all things in Christ. to be able to magnify and glorify your name, whether by life or death. We pray, Lord, that we would see your goodness to us, your people here today, and everything that you appoint for us, even the most difficult things in our lives. have your imprint and your impress upon our heart in being ordained for our good and for your glory and for our growth as Christian people. So help us to receive the truth today with a good heart we ask in Jesus' name. Amen. Ephesians chapter 5 verse 15, See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. As we approach another national Thanksgiving Day, it gladdens my heart. This particular holiday gives us real opportunity to speak to others around us of what we are thankful for and whom we are thankful to. for all that he has given to us. It's good when we can link our thankfulness to our God from whom all blessings flow. The only thing which Thanksgiving represents when it is truly celebrated is that we are a thankful people. for all that God has given to us, all that he has done for us as a nation and as a people. Thanksgiving has been celebrated as a day of thankful remembrance for the United States of America as early as 1620 in the Plymouth Colony. It's with a thankful heart that we as Christians remember the Puritan pilgrims who first came over from Delft Haven in Holland in the year 1620. They had fled persecution from their native England not too long before, and now they were launching out to search for a place where they could worship God with freedom of conscience. I think that it's particularly fitting that we pause this morning and remember that what we have come to know as Thanksgiving began with Christian people experiencing trials and testings to their faith, and yet they were a thankful people. The Puritans were men of prayer, Joseph Banbard says. In all their undertakings of importance, they were accustomed to seek direction from their Heavenly Father and implore his blessing. Accordingly, on Saturday, November 11, 1620, religious services were held aboard the Mayflower. They fell on their knees, and they rendered thanks to God for his kind protection of them during their dangerous voyage across the ocean, and they implored God's favor to rest upon them amid the toils, trials, and temptations upon which they were now to enter. This is the kind of people that you and I who are Christians hope to be like in all of our trials and difficulties on our journey through this life to heaven. We are like Pilgrim in Pilgrim's Progress. We have set out on a journey from this life to the next and we would be a thankful people not only on this upcoming day of Thanksgiving, but as our text says, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. So what I would like to do this morning is to first of all share with you the beauty of Christian thanksgiving. And then second, I would like to tell you of the duration of Christian thanksgiving. And then finally, I would like to set before you the all-inclusive nature of Christian thanksgiving. And I pray that we will give our hearts and our minds at this hour to receive this teaching so that we might learn more of how it is glorifying to God and strengthening to our own souls to give thanks always for all things to God. First of all, the beauty of Christian thanksgiving. What is thanksgiving anyway? The dictionary says, it is the act of giving thanks, a grateful acknowledgement of benefits or favors, especially the act of giving thanks to God. This is a good definition. It's an act that begins in the heart and it comes out on the lips. You may be a thankful person here this morning. You may be thankful to be alive, thankful that you have a house to live in and a family to live there with you. You may be thankful for your daily bread and thankful for your good health and thankful for the many possessions that you have. But do you give thanks to God for all that you are and all that you have? Everything that is good that is in you is from God's goodness. God's goodness has placed every good thing there in you. For His hand having worked it into your heart by the Holy Spirit, all that you have is from God's hand, his bountiful hand, like we have just sung. And truly you have much to be thankful for. Many unbelieving people do not give thanks to God at all. But all of us should understand this morning that God is a God of great goodness. And it is a good and beautiful thing to give thanks to him. And God has expected this of his highest creature upon the earth man, to give him thanks since the foundation of the world. I want you to turn with me over to Romans chapter one, and verse 20. Here Paul is showing the guiltiness of men after the fall, a guiltiness which continues in fallen man to this very day. It says, for since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were they thankful, but they became futile in their thoughts. and their foolish heart was darkened." You see, men used to know much about God, it says here. They used to know much about God in the beginning of the world, because the creation itself declared it most clearly. And it is spoken, the creation is spoken with a loud voice of God's goodness. Everything that God made in the beginning, he termed good, and very good in the case of men. We sing, for the beauty of the earth, For the glory of the skies, for the love which from our birth over and around us lies, Christ of all, to thee we raise this our hymn of grateful praise. We so little think about these things apart from grace working in our hearts. But if we understand that sin has entered the world through the one man Adam's sin and death through sin, then we can understand why men don't see God and His goodness much in the creation. We understand why they have become futile in their speculations and think that all of mankind have evolved from apes. Their foolish hearts are darkened because they have sin in their nature, and their minds have been blinded to the truth of God's Word. They do not glorify God by believing that He created this amazing world, and they do not think about how He speaks to them in and through His blessed Word. And it tells us here that this is a great grief to God. They were not thankful. And they are not thankful today. unless God changes their hearts. This is one of the main things that characterizes unbelievers. They are unthankful for the goodness of God, which He has so richly and freely bestowed upon them. They will not tell Him that they are thankful for all that He has done for them. Psalm 107 verses 8 and 9 say this, Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the children of men. See, that's the longing, if you will, of God's heart. For He satisfies the longing soul and fills the hungry soul with goodness. And notice here that it is the soul of the one who is hungry that is satisfied, not just the body. You may have much reason, humanly speaking, to give thanks for all that the Lord has given to you to satisfy your body with here in this life. Do you give him thanks for it? But, Even more, oh so much more, are the satisfactions of the soul to be given thanks for. Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not all His benefits, who forgives all your iniquities. who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. If this is what God the Father has given to you through the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Lord Jesus has died so that these things might be brought to your soul as realities, then will you not give him thanks today for all that he has given to you all through your life? I want you to turn with me over to Psalm 92. Psalm 92 verse 1. It says here, It is good to give thanks to the Lord and to sing praises to your name, O Most High, to declare your loving kindness in the morning and your faithfulness every night. You see, these are acts of thanksgiving to God, and they declare, we are to declare, as his people, his loving kindness in the morning, and his faithfulness at night, each and every day of our lives. It's good to have personal and private devotions of thanksgiving in the morning, and more of the same in the night. If this seems legalistic to you, You have not really understood what true devotion to God is. And you have not yet come to the place where you have a very thankful heart. This is an attitude which you should repent of. For if you do not have a thankful heart, you probably, most probably, will have a complaining heart. Think of it this way, the whole earth is full of the goodness of the Lord and you cannot stop to thank Him once in the morning for His loving kindness and once every evening for His faithfulness. I think God must wonder at us sometimes that we have so little love for Him, so little love for what He does in our minds or in our heart that we cannot with joyful lips declare twice a day His loving kindness and His faithfulness. Surely if you are a Christian, God has given you grace not only to praise him and thank him twice in the day, but even more times during the day. This is something which I believe that we should resolve to do, that we will learn to do if we are not doing it now. I want you to turn with me over to Daniel chapter six and verse one. In verse 1, it pleased Darius to set over the kingdom 120 satraps, those were officials, to be over the whole kingdom and over these three governors, of whom Daniel was one, that the satraps might give account to them, so that the king would suffer no loss. It says here, then Daniel distinguished himself above the governors and the satraps, because an excellent spirit was in him. And the king gave thought to setting him over the whole kingdom. So the governors and satraps sought to find some charge against Daniel concerning the kingdom, but they could find no charge or fault, because he was faithful. Nor was there any error or fault found in him. Then these men said, We shall not find any charge against us, Daniel, unless we find it against him concerning the law of his God. So these governors and satraps thronged before the king and said thus to him, King Darius, live forever. All the governors of the kingdom, the administrators and satraps, the counselors and advisors have consulted together to establish a royal statute. and to make a firm decree that whoever petitions any god or man for thirty days except you, O king, shall be cast into the den of lions. And now, O king, establish the decree and sign the writing so that it cannot be changed according to the law of the Medes and Persians, which does not alter. Therefore, King Darius, I will add this word stupidly signed the document, the written decree. I want you to see what it was that Daniel did here. It says in chapter 6 verse 10, when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home and in his upper room with his windows open toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times that day and prayed and gave thanks before his God as his custom was since early days. I want you to notice that. It was his custom since early days that he did this. His windows opened toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees three times, prayed and gave thanks before his God as his custom was. This is an example for all Christians to take notice of. It was this giving of thanks in the middle of the day that got him in trouble. He went home for a short time to give thanks and to lay the case of these men's dishonoring plans and conduct before God. While men would scheme evil against him, he would worship. And he would even give thanks, and he saw it, evidently, as something essential to his worship of God. And his worship was not going to stop for any man or any man's decree. He did believe that God would work all these things together for his good. And let me ask, how is it with you? Do you consider giving of thanks to God in a prayer, a part of your worship to him. Are you so in the habit of giving thanks to God that if a law was passed in this country saying that you could not give thanks, that you would disobey it immediately, as Daniel did? I hope that as a Christian that you would. Giving thanks to God Is that important? Second, I want to tell you of the duration of Christian Thanksgiving. Our text says, giving thanks always. Now this goes a step beyond a certain number of times. In the day of giving thanks, it means that thanksgiving to God should fill our heart at all times. We are here being exhorted to be a thankful people always. How can it be, you say? It sounds quite impossible. Well, it is quite impossible apart from grace. even as all of the commands of holiness are impossible, apart from the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, rejoice in the Lord always. And again I say rejoice, it says in Philippians 4.4. It's the same kind of a command as this one. It requires that the focus of your faith will be upon what God the Father has given to you in the person and work of Jesus Christ and his having given to you the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit." Without thinking and meditating on these facts, keeping the commandment is really quite impossible. But if you will think with me for a moment about verses 18 and 19 of chapter 5 of Ephesians, verses that I read for you, the verses right before verse 20 of our text, you can see how a believer who is always to give thanks can begin to do so. It says there, and do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation, In other words, all of your thoughts are scattered out. You can't organize them rightly before God to pray or even to think many times. But be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always. That's the context. A Christian being drunk with wine, in other words, is something that is a great grief to the Holy Spirit. You must remember that the Holy Spirit is a person of the Godhead. He is that holy person who was given to you when you first believed in Jesus. He was given to you forever. He was given to you to be with you always. He is not simply an influence in your life. He is not like liquid poured into your soul. He is a person who is with you and who is intimately involved in your life. He is Christ in you. To be drunk with wine as a Christian means that you have forgotten this blessed truth. that the Holy Spirit has come to live in you and to abide in you. When you come to think upon this a little bit, dear believer, you will find that you will be caught up in this relationship of meditating upon Christ and biblical truth, and by means of His gracious influences, you will begin taking a step at a time to obey God in this matter of giving thanks. You will begin to live that truth out. Devotion to our God and to our Christ in your thoughts is where you begin. This cannot come through excess of wine. When you pursue an earthly high, like wine or drugs, you are saying that you need to add to your sensory perception something more than what God has given to you naturally in your body. And what is even worse, you think that you have to add to what God has given to you spiritually in Christ and His Word. No, if you are thinking correctly, You need nothing else and no one else except Christ and his word. Now, if you are thinking correctly, you will be pursuing, you will be learning to pursue holiness more in your everyday life in some very practical ways. Verse 19 is saying that you may need to think more of how you can encourage other believers around you by speaking to them of the things that you are learning in your private devotions to God. Have you ever thought, dear Christian, that what you are learning in private can be of benefit by way of exhortation and encouragement to believers around you when you come to church or even when you're at work? People around you, they need to hear God's Word and what you have been thinking in your devotions at the appropriate time. That doesn't mean that you, in your work, you stop your working and you just talk all the time about what the Lord's been teaching you. But what you are, is you're always willing to think about the person around you and to think, now what does this person need? And Lord, what would you have me to say to this person at this time? How can I be an encouragement to them or a strength to them? Or how can I, if they, let's say that they need a rebuke, how can I bring that in the right spirit? How can I minister to other people, is what I'm saying, unless I myself have a thankful spirit for all that God is teaching me. And that I don't use that knowledge that I have in pride, but I use it in love and in a spirit of humility. These verses here are saying that you need to think, I need to think of more how we can encourage other believers around us. By speaking to them of the things which you are learning in your own private devotions in the word, it's saying that you may need to even learn to sing to the Lord. And with others around you, the great songs of the faith. Let me ask if you ever sing to the Lord. Now, don't get me wrong, you might not have the kind of voice where you feel like you can even sing in the shower. But what I'm trying to say is that these verses in Ephesians are telling us here that we should be making melody at the very least in our hearts and even come out on our lips at times, that we ought to be preoccupied with the songs of Zion more than the songs of the world. The question is, are we? And the question is, do we give thanks for the songs of Zion? The songs and the hymns and the psalms and the hymns and songs of worship that we have been given. Do we try to memorize them? Do we sing them to the Lord and to others? It's not easy to fight off the tendency to only say and to speak and to sing the things that are worldly. To pursue spiritual things is something which the Spirit teaches. And you will either learn the way of the Lord, or you will backslide. And you have to ask yourself the question, which will it be for me? Which will it be for you, O Christian? Giving thanks always is a very real component in the equation of holiness. Are you learning it? Psalm 34 1 is a good passage, a parallel passage to our text. It says there, I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make its boast in the Lord. The humble shall hear of it and be glad. Oh, magnify the Lord with me and let us exalt his name together. I sought the Lord and he answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Psalm 69, verse 30, I will magnify the Lord with thanksgiving. Psalm 95, two, I will come before his presence with singing. Psalm 100, verse four, I will enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts. with praise. Psalm 116 verse 17, I will offer to God sacrifices of thanksgiving. When you resolve to live out these truths by the power of the Holy Spirit, you will be rooted and built up in Christ and you will be established in your faith even as you have been taught and you will be abounding in it with thanksgiving. It says in Colossians chapter 2 verse 7, you will greatly desire to give thanks for what Christ has done for you as long as you live and forever and ever. And you'll look forward to that time when you will sing in heaven with the angels who stand around the throne, and with all the elders and leaders and pastors of the church, and you'll be looking forward even to that time when you will die, when you will be able to say, Amen. Blessing and glory and wisdom, thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever. and ever. Why not learn to be thankful now if the duration of your thanksgiving to God and to Christ is to last forever? By the grace of God, you can. And then third, I would like to set before you the all-inclusive nature of Christian thanksgiving, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. The duration of thanksgiving is not only always, but my friends, its nature is to give thanks always for all things as well. Well, this does seem to be the most impossible part of Thanksgiving, doesn't it? Who can do such a thing? A Christian learns to do this in the name of their Lord Jesus, it says here. The Christian who is walking in the Spirit is trying to walk in obedience. And they are trying to be holy even as God is holy. And therefore they will learn to do this very thing. Do all things without murmuring and complaining, Paul says in Philippians chapter 2 verse 14. How, you say to me? Through a prayerful, biblical consideration of what God might want to teach you so that you would be like Jesus Christ. Think of the verse in Philippians 4, 10 and following. But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at last your care for me has flourished again, though you surely did care, but you lacked opportunity, not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned in whatever state I am to be content. I know how to be abased. and I know how to abound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Now, notice that Paul says that this is something that he learned. He learned to be content in whatever state he was. didn't come to him automatically. He had to learn and he had to grow in being content. And I would insist that a great part of this contentment consisted of his learning to give thanks. A person who is thankful at all times for everything cannot be much discontented. That's true. They realize what God has done for them through Jesus Christ is enough, whether their earthly estate grows or whether it shrinks. Whether they abound, as it says here, whether they are abased. They rejoice greatly when they are helped and cared for by God through other people's giving to help them in need. If that is the means through which God would provide for them, they rejoice in it. But even if that care of men is not always there at the time when it's most needed, still they know that God will undertake on their behalf to provide for them. A thankful person will still pray and cast all their cares upon God and His promise. They will trust upon the bare arm of God alone. for everything that they need. Verse 19 says, and my God shall supply all your need according to his riches in glory by Christ Jesus. In verse 14, Paul says, nevertheless, you have done well that you shared with me in my distress. So God does use means Paul knew how greatly he'd been helped by the Philippians. Verse 15 says, Now you Philippians know also that in the beginning of the gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, no church shared with me concerning giving and receiving but you only. For even in Thessalonica you sent aid once again, once and again for my necessities. Not that I seek the gift, but I seek the fruit that abounds to your account." So Paul was teaching the believers at Thessalonica the greatness of giving to the needs of the saints. He sought the fruit that would abound to their account. If they gave to support him in the ministry, furthering the Lord's cause, his work, and his kingdom, it is more blessed to give than to receive. And this comes from a thankful heart. In both cases, it takes a thankful heart to give, knowing that you do not have to hoard everything that you have to yourself. It takes a thankful heart to receive from others. Receiving, realizing that God would not have you to be so strong and so independent of others that you cannot receive their help. At times you will really need them. God would have you to need them. to accomplish all that he would have you to do, whether it's in the ministry or in your ordinary everyday life. We never want to be a burden to others or to the church. Let every person bear their own load. But a thankful heart is a generous heart. And it is a giving heart. It is not stingy. and unwilling. It wants others to have enough and even to abound when it does not. And how can that be? It can be when Christ is enough. And you come to see Christ as your all in all. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Christ is greater riches to me than all the world. We have a great need in the sight of God today to be thankful for all that the Lord has done for us as a church and as a nation. He has blessed us with much. We should acknowledge it. He has been merciful and we should acknowledge it in everything. Give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. It is God's will that you be thankful. And so will you be often discontent, often downcast, often unhappy, even though God has given you so much in Christ? Will you not thank Him for personal peace and prosperity and realize that not one of us deserves it? May it not be the case that any of us fall short of what God would have us to be and do to be thankful and to give thanks to Him. I want you to listen to me as I close this message to the words of Abraham Lincoln writing the proclamation of thanksgiving on October the 3rd, 1863 in the middle of the Civil War. The year that is drawing towards its close, he says, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed, we are prone to forget the source from which they come. Others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war, of unequaled magnitude and severity which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and provoke their aggression. Peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theater of military conflict. While that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union, they'd just won the Battle of Gettysburg in July of 1863. Needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow or the shuttle or the ship, The axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines, as well of iron and coal as of the precious metals, have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste that has been made in the camp, the siege, and the battlefield. And the country, rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor, is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. He says, no human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things. They are the gracious gifts. of the Most High God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins, has nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be acknowledged as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our Beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it, as may be consistent with the divine purpose, to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union. So said Abraham Lincoln during the darkest days of the Civil War. This is when Thanksgiving Day for our nation was formally instituted. And the Bible everywhere says that it is a good thing to give thanks to the Lord. And so as we go to the homes of our relatives and friends, On this Thanksgiving Day 2017, let us remember that there are many reasons to give thanks and praise to our God, and remember that the greatest of these is that God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him will not perish, but will have everlasting life. Rejoice! and give thanks if you have believed in Jesus Christ for your salvation, that you have been set free from the law of sin and death through His perfect obedience and His sinless sacrifice. Rejoice and give thanks that He is always with you in the person of His Holy Spirit. He will never leave you nor forsake you. He always lives to make intercession for you. Nothing can separate you from His love. You can be thankful now and for all the days of your life that someday he will return for his own and you will be among them. Let's pray together. Father, we do give you thanks for all that you have given, even more for all that you are. to us for in you there is every good thing and you are full of goodness and mercy and you have been compassionate to us and you have delivered our lives from all distress we who are believers and we pray that we would live our lives with a thankful heart being always mindful that you are supplying us with grace every moment of every day when we have first trusted in you until the moment that we shall see you face to face. So help us to be believing and not unbelieving that we can give thanks to you. for all things. We in everything can give thanks for all things. We pray and ask these mercies in Jesus' name, amen. Well, let's close our time by singing together hymn number 72. Oh, bless the Lord, my soul, this good hymn. Stand together with me, if you will. Sing three with the flute and three a cappella. Oh bless the Lord my soul. Let in me join, and aid my tongue to bless his name, whose favors are divine. O bless the Lord, my soul, nor let his mercies lie. Forgotten in unthankfulness and without praises die. Tis He forgives the sins. Tis He relieves Tis He that heals thy sicknesses, and makes thee young again. He crowns thy life with love, some from the grave. He that redeems my soul from hell has sovereign power to save. He fills the poor He gives the sufferers rest. The Lord hath judgments for the proud, and justice for the oppressed. His wondrous works and he made by Moses known, but sent the world his truth and grace by his beloved Son. And now may our Lord Jesus Christ himself and our God and Father, who has loved us and given us everlasting consolation and good hope by grace, comfort your hearts and establish you in every good work and word. And all of God's people said, Amen. You are dismissed. May the Lord go with you.