[Propertalk] Fw: Thanksgiving Sermon Resources - Page 1 of 2

[Joe Parrish]

Sermons for Thanksgiving: 

 Ephesians 5:20  -  In All Things Be Thankful

 John 6:25-35 - Counting Our Spiritual Blessings 

Ephesians 5: Back during the dark days of 1929, a group of ministers in the Northeast, all graduates of the Boston School of Theology, gathered to discuss how they should conduct their Thanksgiving Sunday services. Things were about as bad as they could get, with no sign of relief. The bread lines were depressingly long, the stock market had plummeted, and the term Great Depression seemed an apt description for the mood of the country. The ministers thought they should only lightly touch upon the subject Thanksgiving in deference to the human misery all about them. After all, there was to be thankful for. But it was Dr. William L. Stiger, pastor of a large congregation in the city that rallied the group. This was not the time, he suggested, to give mere passing mention to Thanksgiving, just the opposite. This was the time for the nation to get matters in perspective and thank God for blessings always present, but perhaps suppressed due to intense hardship.

I suggest to you the ministers struck upon something. The most intense moments of thankfulness are not found in times of plenty, but when difficulties abound. Think of the Pilgrims that first Thanksgiving. Half their number dead, men without a country, but still there was thanksgiving to God. Their gratitude was not for something but in something. It was that same sense of gratitude that lead Abraham Lincoln to formally establish the first Thanksgiving Day in the midst of national civil war, when the butcher’s list of casualties seemed to have no end and the very nation struggled for survival.

Perhaps in your own life, right now, intense hardship. You are experiencing your own personal Great Depression. Why should you be thankful this day? May I suggest three things?

1. We must learn to be thankful or we become bitter.
2. We must learn to be thankful or we will become discouraged.
3. We must learn to be thankful or we will grow arrogant and self-satisfied.

The rest of this sermon following the outline above can be obtained by joining www.eSermons.com.

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John 6:25-35, the sermon titled “Counting our Spiritual Blessings” by King Duncan  

One of my favorite Peanuts comic strips is the one that came out some years ago just a few days before Thanksgiving. Lucy’s feeling sorry for herself and she laments, “My life is a drag. I’m completely fed up. I’ve never felt so low in my life.” 

Her little brother Linus tries to console her and he says, “Lucy, when you’re in a mood like this, you should try to think of things you have to be thankful for; in other words, count your blessings.” 

To that, Lucy says, “Ha! That’s a good one! I could count my blessings on one finger! I’ve never had anything and I never will have anything. I don’t get half the breaks that other people do. Nothing ever goes right for me! And you talk about counting blessings! You talk about being thankful! What do I have to be thankful for?” 
Linus says, “Well, for one thing, you have a little brother who loves you.” 

With that, Lucy runs and hugs her little brother Linus as she cries tears of joy. And while she’s hugging him tightly, Linus says, “Every now and then, I say the right thing.” 

Welcome to this celebration of Thanksgiving. This is a day we count our blessings. For many of us, our focus will be on our material blessings. Our warm house. The comfortable car. The stylish clothes. A table bountifully spread. And yet, in the long run of things, these are the least important of all our blessings. 

Our lesson for the day from John’s Gospel takes place just after Jesus has taken five small barley loaves and two small fish and had fed about five thousand men and an unknown number of women and children. Amazing is too small an adjective for such an extraordinary feat. Now the crowd is seeking him out in earnest. 

Jesus isn’t impressed with their sudden interest.  “I tell you the truth,” he says, you are looking for me . . . because you ate the loaves and had your fill.” Then he gives a word of warning, “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval.” 
What Jesus is saying is beware of focusing on the physical, the material blessings in your life. These blessings are generally trivial and transitory. It is a cliché, of course, to say that money can’t buy happiness. But the proof is bountiful. There are many, many people who are blessed materially who are miserable.
The rest of Leonard Sweet's sermon can be obtained by joining www.Sermons.com 

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With Heart and Hand and Voices

Martin Rinkert was a minister in the little town of Eilenburg in Germany some 350 years ago. He was the son of a poor coppersmith, but somehow, he managed to work his way through an education. Finally, in the year 1617, he was offered the post of Archdeacon in his hometown parish. A year later, what has come to be known as the Thirty-Years-War broke out. His town was caught right in the middle. In 1637, the massive plague that swept across the continent hit Eilenburg... people died at the rate of fifty a day and the man called upon to bury most of them was Martin Rinkert. In all, over 8,000 people died, including Martin's own wife. His labors finally came to an end about 11 years later, just one year after the conclusion of the war. His ministry spanned 32 years, all but the first and the last overwhelmed by the great conflict that engulfed his town. Tough circumstances in which to be thankful . But he managed. And he wrote these words:

Now thank we all our God
With heart and hands and voices;
Who wondrous things hath done,
In whom his world rejoices.

It takes a magnificent spirit to come through such hardship and express gratitude. Here is a great lesson. Surrounded by tremendous adversity, thanksgiving will deliver you...with heart and hand and voices.

Brett Blair, www.eSermons.com

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