THANKSGIVING 2006

“In Everything Give Thanks for this is God’s Will” – Part Four in a series on Seeking God’s Will

SEEKING GOD’S WILL

Matthew 6:9-13, “. . . Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

Three Tim bits to get us warmed up to this important subject:

SEEKING GOD’S WILL IN THE OLD COVENANT

Everyone who knows God always wants to know what He is doing and what He wants done.

Everyone from all the different eras of history has people who seek the Living God and they want to know His Will.

PRINCIPLES FOR SEEKING GOD’S WILL IN THE OLD COVENANT

“Lord your leading me with a cloud by day and then in the night the glow of a burning flame . . . and everywhere I go I see you.”

PRACTICAL APPLICATIONS FOR SEEKING GOD’S WILL IN THE NEW TESTAMENT

This has always been one of my favorite passages of Scripture (among about 5000 others). 

Imperatives or commands are so easy to preach.  Listen to them in I Thessalonians 5:12-28.

It was much easier to preach these commands 20 years ago.  It was easier to preach these practical commands when I knew less.

There was a time when I could switch gears from being unthankful to thankful like a finely synchronized transmission. 

Anymore, its kind of like the transmission in an old Mack truck a driver was telling me about.  If you missed a gear when accelerating and gaining speed – you could not get that truck back in gear until you almost came to a complete stop.

It appears to me that this will not become any easier in the next 20 or 30 years.

Why?

This is my message for you today.

Why does this become more difficult? (not less)

Where are you at in your pilgrimage?  (pilgrims that progress, not shrink back)

Is this possible?  (yes!)

How?  Are there any keys that will help us?  (yes there are)

#1 Key:  Don’t Forget God.

"We have been recipients of the choicest bounties  of heaven."

"We have been preserved in peace and prosperity."

"We have grown in numbers, wealth, and power."

“We have forgotten God.”

Who made these pronouncements?  Abraham Lincoln.

In his 1863 Thanksgiving Proclamation, Abraham Lincoln added these warnings:  "We have forgotten God.  We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us.  We have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom of our own.  Intoxicated with unbroken success we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us."

It is important for us 143 years later to sincerely ask ourselves this important question:  “Have I forgotten God?”

The Scripture is full of these types of admonitions:  Don’t forget Me!  You have forgotten Me!  You have forgotten that you were cleansed!  Don’t forget the past lessons!  Don’t be like the pig who returns to wallow in the mud!  Don’t be like the dog who returns to his own vomit! . . . and then eats it.

Don’t forget God!

Why does this become more difficult? (not less)

Where are you at in your pilgrimage?  (pilgrims that progress, not shrink back)

Is this possible?  (yes!)

How?  Are there any keys that will help us?  (yes there are)

#2 Key:  Remember God. 

I have made this way to easy today; easy only in the outline not in practice.

The Scripture is full of invitations from the Living God calling to us to Remember Him.

Remember Me!

Tell me if this isn’t true. 

When we read the Word of God is there not a call from God – Remember Me.

We are made with the ability to think and reason.

We are made in God’s image – which gives every person great value as a person and great power of thought.

Yes sin has marred this beautiful portrait of creation – but that brings us to this point: 

Still doing the Genesis 6:5?

GE 6:5 The LORD saw how great man's wickedness on the earth had become, and that every inclination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil all the time. 6 The LORD was grieved that he had made man on the earth, and his heart was filled with pain. 7 So the LORD said, "I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth--men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air--for I am grieved that I have made them."

Or are you doing the Genesis 6:8?

8 But Noah found favor in the eyes of the LORD.

Still doing the Judges 21:25?

25 In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes.

Or are you doing the Ruth 1:16

RU 1:1 Now it came to pass in the days when the judges ruled, that there was a famine in the land.

16 And Ruth said, Entreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God: 17 Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the LORD do so to me, and more also, if aught but death part thee and me.

Still doing the same fatal sins of Sodom and Gommorah?  Or are you looking faithfully for the return of Jesus Christ?

Do you remember Lot’s wife?

Luke 17:26-28

When we read the Word of God and Walk in the Spirit – there is an ever present call from the Living God:  Remember Me.

The two keys for helping me to do the I Thessalonians 5 commands are in these two keys:

#1 – Don’t forget God!

#2 – Remember God!

We are in one zone or the other.

Are you in zone one or zone two?

Zone One:  a warning – don’t forget God!

Zone Two: an invitation – remember God!

Why does this become more difficult? (not less)

Where are you at in your pilgrimage?  (pilgrims that progress, not shrink back)

Is this possible?  (yes!)

How?  Are there any keys that will help us?  (yes there are)

Thanksgiving Day national holiday in the U.S. commemorating the harvest reaped by the Plymouth colony in 1621.  The first national Thanksgiving Day was proclaimed by President Washington for Nov. 26, 1789.  President Lincoln revived the custom in 1863.  In 1941 (how many of us were alive in 1941?) Congress decreed that Thanksgiving should fall on the fourth Thursday of November (Congress decreeing a day to give thanks to God!).  The customary turkey dinner is a reminder of the four wild turkeys served at the Pilgrim's first Thanksgiving feast.

Last summer I was taking Nowell to play in a volleyball game in Mahnomen.  Half way there something happened in the transmission of the Geo – the next thing you know I had no clutch and not ability to shift.  Nowell was concerned – not for the poor little Geo, but that dad wouldn’t get her to the game on time. 

But Nowell underestimated the creative and innovative thinking abilities of her father . . . So, after trying a couple of things to solve our dilemma, I threw the little car in gear, hit the starter (which would only engage if the clutch were in which made a sound like I’d never heard before) and off we went.  I got us to Mahnomen; park on a hill (a little trick passed on to me from my dad), and drove back to Warroad that night without a clutch.

I came to understand the expression, “if you can’t find it grind it” in a whole new way.

I was glad we made it home safely; I changed the clutch out that next week.  All was well.  Hitting on all three cylinders again.

To try to enjoy and obey the commands of I Thessalonians 5 with out God – is like driving a straight stick without a clutch.

Get the picture.

This is not something we do to impress God.

We cannot do this without our Savior and our God.

Don’t Forget God!

Remember God!

Then . . . Rejoice evermore.

Then . . . Pray without ceasing.

Then . . . In everything give thanks.

This is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.