Thanksgiving Day Sermon 2018 fr. michael cawthon
Be not anxious for your life…
Anxiousness: the intense, excessive, and persistent worry and fear / about everyday life and situations…
This day may we come to be refreshed and let us praise and give Him thanks.
My friends, my family, we gather this day to give thanks to our God.
Let this not be a day of complaining and asking, but simply a day to give of ourselves and say “thank you God” for all of your blessings:
For thou didst create,
Thou didst lead,
Thou didst feed,
Thou didst love and guide us,
Thou didst give us priests and kings,
Thou didst reveal thyself to the Fathers of our faith,
And thou fulfilled thy self-revelation in the sending of our Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ.
Thou didst call us
(although thou are almighty and above heaven and earth, yet you revealed your divinity in caring for the smallest of us;
your greatness is revealed in your love for the smallest and weakest among us)
What a great God we have; and just how blessed are we?
As for these blessings, we are told in Scripture to give thanks;
let us see exactly what Scripture saith:
In the Psalms we are told:
Psa 26:7 To “publish with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all His (thy) wondrous works.
Psa 50:14 We are to Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay our (thy) vows unto the most High:
Psa 69:30 Continuously we are to “(I will) praise the name of God with a song, and (will) magnify him with thanksgiving.
Psa 95:2 So “Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving, and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.”
Psa 100:4 For we are to “Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: being thankful unto him, and blessing his name.”
The Prophets Isaiah and Jeremiah also tell us:
Isa 51:3 For it is within the “comfort of Zion”, Gods Holy Hill, … joy and gladness shall be found therein, thanksgiving, and the voice of melody.
Jer 30:19 For (And) out of them shall proceed thanksgiving and the voice of them that make merry: and God (I) will multiply them, and they shall not be few; God (I) will also glorify them, and they shall not be small.
Paul also tells the Philippians, Colossians, and Titus:
Phl 4:6 So we should Be careful for nothing; but in every thing by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving our (let your) requests are to be be made known unto God.
Col 2:7 So do you see my friends we are to be: Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as we (ye) have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.
Col 4:2 And we are to: Continue in prayer, and watch in the same with thanksgiving;
1Ti 4:4 For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be refused, if it be received with thanksgiving:
Now let us join “the ones around the throne” in heaven:
After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, / which no man could number,
of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, / stood before the throne, and before the Lamb,
clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;
Rev 7:10 And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.
Rev 7:11 And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts,
and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God,
Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might,
be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.
It is through these gifts of many blessings from God / that we can fight the anxiousness of this world,
for God Loves us and provides for us though His Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ,
yes, this Begotten Son is fully God and fully Man – the Alpha and Omega, it is He who has died and risen so that we might live.
It is our obligation to live our lives / in Thanksgiving to Him.
Anglicans pray daily in their Morning and Evening Prayers:
“We bless thee for our creation, preservation,
and all the blessings of this life;
but above all,
for the inestimable love in the redemption of the world
by our Lord Jesus Christ;
for the means of grace, and for the hope of glory”
Giving thanks for the means of grace:
(the means) through which God gives His grace
(dare I say through the Sacraments of His Church – yes, I will say):
it is God’s blessings / that sustains / and empowers our Christian life.
In the receiving of these blessings we are given:
“The hope of glory”
the fulfillment of God’s promise;
it is Christ’s presence in us
that gives us this hope of glory,
and this truth, as revealed in Christ, is full of “glorious riches.”
Our once dead and darkened spirits / are now made alive as Christ fills our hearts.
Paul tells the Colossians (1:27-28) “the riches of the glory of this mystery…,
which is Christ in you,
the hope of glory:
So to each of you this morning,
I leave you with the responsibility and the obligation to follow the words written in St. Peter’s General Epistle (4:10)…
As every man has received the gift,
even so minister the same to one another,
as stewards of the manifold gift of God…
speak (ing) as oracles of God,
if any man minister,
let him do it as of the ability which God giveth,
that God in all things may be glorified through Jesus Christ…”
Count your blessings and give thanks this day –
for God has called you.
