Scripture: 2 Corinthians 9:6-15
During the past year,
thankfulness has been the last thing on people’s minds. The virus,
primarily, has captured our lives – isolation and quarantine, lost of friends
and family members, uncertainty of jobs, and whatever had been our “normalcy”
has vanished from our lives. And of course, politics has been more
contentious than anything we have ever known before. Everything has
become new, and not necessarily better.
Or at least that is the way it seems! Whenever
catastrophes and abrupt change come into our life, it tends to block out
everything else in our lives – especially the good things. And for
that very reason, this year’s Thanksgiving is far more important than in
previous times.
Tonight, we consider a letter of encouragement that Paul
sent to Corinth. His letters to this church were, for the most part,
corrective in nature, but they were also meant to encourage the Corinthian church
to remember all that the Lord was doing through them.
Corinth was a major seaport city located in, what is today,
southern Greece. It was an international trading center, which made it
very cosmopolitan in nature. Paganism reigned supreme, and worldly ideals
had begun to work their way into the church. Paul’s previous letters to this
church had been intended to set the church back on Christ’s path, and to lead
the faithful away from the world’s perversions and back to the truth of God.
Tonight’s passage from 2 Corinthians is more of
encouragement in their faith expression than a warning! And even
more than that, I believe that Paul wanted this church to be an example of the
Christian lifestyle, right in the middle of all the worldly goings on. He
wanted them to be aware of all that the Lord was doing for them and through
them, and to be thankful for it all.
Read 2 Corinthians 9:6-9
The Corinthian church had made a commitment to send a
generous gift to the church in Jerusalem, where hard times had taken a toll on
the lives of the faithful. But Paul didn’t want this gift to be one
of obligation, but rather to be one of thanksgiving. All too often
people in the church consider their human and life’s needs as demanding
priority, especially in their decision to give, and without a heart of
thanksgiving, offerings can easily be less than what we know we should be
giving to the Lord’s work.
Verse 6 is his challenge to all of us, that if we wish to be
blessed in God’s way, we must choose to live in God’s
way. Do we remember that our forgiveness depends upon how and to what
degree we forgive others? (Matthew6:14-15)
Do we remember that we are to love others as we were first loved. (John 13:34-35)
This is exactly how the Lord has called us to live, and his way of generosity
must also be ours.
And the next verse is just as poignant – that when we make a
commitment, whether it is to God or to each other, we not only need to keep it,
but we are to offer it joyfully! Some folks believe that the Lord is
one of those who are “do what I say, not what I do”, but the truth is that
Jesus lived as our example of how to love in an honest and Godly way, to be
giving in the extreme, and to be joyful in doing it. Everything in
our life should be undertaken with the same attitude that God had in his giving
to us.
It seems that the Lord is telling us that even though Good
Works are important, the reason and way that we “work” them is even more
important.
He supplies the seed for our life, and increases the harvest
of our soul. In Matthew 25:14-30, Jesus tells the Parable of the Talents. In it, a wealthy
man will be going on a long journey, and while he is gone, he entrusts his
great wealth to three of his servants. Two of them put the money to work
in their master’s way, and were able to increase the master’s wealth
measurably. The third hid his trust, and gained nothing.
The first two, who followed their master’s example, would be
honored in ways that would far exceed anything that they may have earned, while
the third would be shut out of the master’s grace. When our life,
whether simple or grand, brings honor and prestige to our Divine Master through
the way that we use the gifts he has entrusted to us, his gratitude and
blessing will astound us. Now that does not mean
that our personal wealth and possessions will increase – just that God will
reveal more and more of his power and love through our faithful life.
The Lord’s riches aren’t like the world’s. In Matthew6:19-24,
Jesus reinforces this truth. He reminds us that earth’s wealth is, at
best, fleeting – it can so easily be tarnished and destroyed, but the treasure
of heaven is eternal and can never be taken away. “For where your treasure
is, there your heart will be also.” And one of those great treasures
is our thankfulness for all that God is doing for us. This past year has
been either a great challenge, or perhaps one of great opportunity for us,
depending on how we approach it. 2020’s virus that has wreaked so much
agony and loss throughout our world, was never the Lord’s plan
or his doing, but within all difficulties, his glory is still shining upon us,
offering his unfailing treasure right in the middle of the world’s dark
disaster.
Our God is an “enriching” God, who gives so that we can also
give as generously and as lovingly as he does.
Have you ever thought of our service and mission as an
expression of thanksgiving to the Lord? This isn’t implying
that the more we do, the more God is pleased with us. The Lord has
never been a God of quantity – he is the God of giving and loving that goes
beyond the world’s standards, and beyond the world’s sense of
priority. And his giving, as well as ours, is out of abundance, not
out of obligation or limitation. If we respond within the Lord’s
call, he will also provide all that is to be given – after all, he is Jehovah
Jireh – the Lord who provides.
God’s grace abounds, and when we are on the receiving end of
his great benevolence, we have a decision to make. Do we rejoice
that our good fortune has just relieved some of our personal burdens, or do we
rejoice that the Lord sees us as a servant worthy of his call?
So this brings us to our holiday tomorrow, and the true
significance of the day. When the pilgrims arrived in this land of
new opportunities, it didn’t start out all that glorious! They had
been forced out of England because of their religious convictions, and decided
to settle in the Netherlands for a few years, until they felt the need to give
the New World a try.
100 people set sail, and during the perilous voyage, and the
following winter, half of their number perished due to the
hardships. Following their first tragic winter, they were befriended
by a local Native American tribe who taught them about living in this new
land. By the end of that first summer, they had a successful harvest
of crops, new skills in hunting and fishing, and hunger had become something of
their past, at least for the immediate future. And with grateful
hearts, they feasted with their new American friends.
Life hadn’t been especially easy for them, but they
recognized God’s provision in all that they had been blessed
with. Their Thanksgiving feast was not only a great party, it was also
a heart-filled time of praise and rejoicing for their God’s great gift of love
and protection. And this should be our lesson in this year of
pandemic.
How truly grateful and thankful are we? Do we
rejoice in all that we have, or do we lament the fact that others have more
than we do, and that we are still needy? Do we subscribe to the
worldly adage that we have to put away as much as possible for that proverbial
“rainy day”, or do we see our good fortune as the means to give God’s blessings
to someone else? Do we give from the limited content in our pocket,
or do we give from the overflowing of our heart?
Thanksgiving should be far more than just a special day –
it’s an opportunity to give praise to the Lord, and love to our
neighbors. Isn’t that a lot better than stuffing ourselves with
food, and then taking a nap?
