Pastor Cal Lord's Recent Sermons
Finding Thanks In God’s Giving
Psalm 95 November 19, 2006
You know sometimes we get upset because people around us don’t seem to be thankful. Think of
your children. They expect things like, 3 meals a day, to be taken places at a moments notice and
they expect money to just appear when they want it. They seem to only say “thank you” when
prompted by their parents. But before we lay it all on the children, we have to confess that too
many of us are so wound up in what we are doing, that we too, don’t pause long enough to say ”
thanks” for the blessings we have received.
Well this morning we are just days away from another Thanksgiving Day.
Abraham Lincoln in his Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1863 said this: The year that is drawing
towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these
bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that 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.
He goes into a brief mention of the waste and loss of the war that is underway. How industry
continues and the population grows and all of it is because of God.
In Lincoln’s day and right up to this minute, people become so puffed up and prideful of their
own abilities that they need to be reminded to be thankful to God. We forget that everything
comes from God. The Psalmist said, it a long time before Lincoln.
Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day
at Massah in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me, though they had seen what I did.
The psalmist is referring to the time when the people were complaining in Exodus 17 about Moses
leading them into the desert to die of thirst.
Lincoln and the psalmist speak to the basic flaw of humanity that starts with not being satisfied
with what we have. The psalmist gives us an understanding that Thanksgiving is an attitude, an
attitude we are to cultivate in our hearts, if we are not to repeat the mistakes of the past. It is truly
finding thanks in God’s giving. As we come to Thanksgiving, I want to invite you to adopt a
“thankful” attitude.
First off, we need to get into the habit of thanking God regularly. Not just on the one day a year
that the country sets aside for the purpose…. We need to participate in a life of thanks-living.
You’ve heard the story about Harriet. She was an atheist. One morning she & a Christian lady-
friend stepped out into the glories of a beautiful fall day. As Harriet saw the brilliant sun peaking
through the haze, & the frost on the meadow, & the brightly colored leaves making their way
lazily to the ground, she was filled with the beauty & said, "I am so thankful. I’m just so grateful
for it all." And her believing friend asked, "Grateful to whom, my dear?"
We should develop a habit of thanking God… He created us for His glory and so we should give
Him the glory! That means, the good parking spot, the accident avoided, anything that we might
call luck. That means that we actually share when something good happens and Give God the
credit….AND tell people about it.
In our responsive reading this morning we read Hannah’s prayer. I want to give you a little
background about Hannah. She was barren, unable to have a child. She wanted one in the worst
way. So she prayed and even went so far as to make a deal with God. She recognized that he had
the ability to make her womb fertile. So she thanked God and then declared that if he would give
her a son, she would give him right back to God. Sure enough, she had that son and named him
Samuel. Then she was good to her word. She brought him back to the temple and dedicated his
life to God’s service. And she went away thankful and praising God.
That is how we go about thanks living. It is kind of like – and here’s my one reference to our
stewardship campaign this morning - making a pledge that is more than you have ever done
before and leaving the service with a thankful heart. God has blessed you and you are returning
that blessing, satisfied with the knowledge that God has heard your prayers.
Some of us need help with that though. I like the story about…
The man who was lost and walking in the country for over a day…he comes to the home of a
preacher. Tired and weak, he walks up to the house and collapses on the doorstep. The preacher
takes him in and nurses him back to health. Feeling better, the man asks the preacher for
directions to the nearest town. The preacher tells him the directions, and offers to lend him his
horse. The preacher says, "However, there is a special thing about this horse. You have to say ’
Thank God’ to make it go and ’Amen’ to make it stop." Its former master had a truly thankful
heart.
Anxious to get to town, the man says, "Sure, okay" and gets on the horse. He says, "Thank God"
and, the horse starts walking. A bit later he says louder, "Thank God, thank God," and the horse
starts trotting. Feeling really brave, the man say, "Thank God! Thank God! THANK GOD!" and
the horse is soon up to a full run!
About then he realizes he’s heading for a huge cliff and yells "Whoa!" But the horse doesn’t even
slow! It’s coming up REAL QUICK and he’s doing everything he can to make the horse stop.
"Whoa, stop, hold on!" Finally he remembers "AMEN!!!"
The horse stops a mere inches from the cliff’s edge, almost throwing him over its head. The man,
panting and heart racing, wipes the sweat from his face and leans back in the saddle. Gasping for
air he says with relief, "Thank God."
That’s cute but being thankful to God is really understanding his promises. The more we thank
him, the more he gives us in an unending cycle. It is also an affirmation that God actually knows
you exist. Yes…God knows you exist and he hears your prayers. When we give thanks, we are
telling the world that God is real and that he cares for us. When we do that, we are reminded of
his love and the sacrifice and the benefits that are now ours through the blood of Christ. We have
so much more to be thankful for than we can even imagine. But when we look up we can see the
face of God and know that he has blessed us.
Ah, but the world often gets in the way. Think about it. Even those of us who ought to be thanks
living, are bombarded with images of things we think we want and need.
In Friday’s newspaper, the largest one of the year, there will be more flyers and advertising
brochures than on any other day of the year. Sales will draw crazy people out in the middle of the
night to buy things they think they have to have. It’s actually started already. People are going on
ebay and looking for the play station 3 system and paying up to $6,000 for it. They have got to
have it. A few years ago it was talking Elmo and a few years before that it was cabbage patch
dolls.
We seem pretty content until we get the latest catalogue in the mail and we are drawn to it. We
see something we need. We are content with our car until we see an ad for the latest model or
one that gets better gas mileage. We think our clothes are fine until we walk down the mall and
look in the store window and see “the” outfit. Our home is just fine until we begin thinking of
what it would be like to have a place on the lake…
We are satisfied with every area of our lives — until we start comparing it with someone else’s
life. That is what advertising does. It makes us unhappy with what we have. And we are
surrounded by it 24 /7. Yeah, even preachers are not immune to it. That is the way it is. We feel
like we have enough of everything — until we see someone who has more.
What I am going to say flies in the face of modern thinking. But hear me out. The secret of a
happy life is not to get what you want, but to be thankful for what you’ve got.
Most of us spend our lives concentrating on what we don’t have instead of thanking God for
what we do have. Then we wake up, our life is over, and we missed the beauty of the present.
Verse 7 says, “for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. It
seems like we are so short sited that we don’t know what we’ve got until it is gone.
The power went off at the house a few months ago. I never realized how good it feels to take a
shower. I was so thankful for the lights being on. Things that I take for granted every day were
taken away for a few hours and when they returned, life looked so different. When was the last
time you got up in the morning and said thank you for your alarm clock? Well maybe not.
That’s the way life is. We take everything for granted. A good friend dies, and suddenly we
discover how much he meant to us.
We are much like the little boy who was given an orange by a man. The boy’s mother asked,
“What do you say to the nice man?” The little boy thought and handed the orange back and said,
“Peel it.”
In regions of Mexico hot springs and cold springs are found side by side, and because of the
convenience of this natural phenomenon the women bring their laundry, boil their clothes in the
hot springs, and then rinse them in the cold springs.
A tourist watching this procedure commented to his Mexican guide: "They must think Mother
nature is generous to freely supply such ample, clean hot and cold water." The guide replied, "No
senor, there is much grumbling because she supplies no soap."
WE need to pause every day and look up to God and give thanks for all his giving.
....the taxes I pay (sort of) because it means I’m employed.
....the clothes that fit a little too snug because it means I have enough to eat.
....a lawn that needs mowing, and windows that need cleaning because it means I have a home.
....the spot I find at the far end of the parking lot because it means I am capable of walking.
....my huge heating bill because it means I am warm.
....all the complaining I hear about our government because it means we have freedom of speech.
....the alarm that goes off in the early morning hours because it means that I’m alive.
....weariness and aching muscles at the end of the day because it means I have been productive.
You see, we all have so much to be thankful for. God gives us so much. So lets enter this
Thanksgiving week by looking up and all around us for ways to thank God for what he has
already given us.
Psalm 95 November 19, 2006
You know sometimes we get upset because people around us don’t seem to be thankful. Think of
your children. They expect things like, 3 meals a day, to be taken places at a moments notice and
they expect money to just appear when they want it. They seem to only say “thank you” when
prompted by their parents. But before we lay it all on the children, we have to confess that too
many of us are so wound up in what we are doing, that we too, don’t pause long enough to say ”
thanks” for the blessings we have received.
Well this morning we are just days away from another Thanksgiving Day.
Abraham Lincoln in his Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1863 said this: The year that is drawing
towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies. To these
bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that 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.
He goes into a brief mention of the waste and loss of the war that is underway. How industry
continues and the population grows and all of it is because of God.
In Lincoln’s day and right up to this minute, people become so puffed up and prideful of their
own abilities that they need to be reminded to be thankful to God. We forget that everything
comes from God. The Psalmist said, it a long time before Lincoln.
Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day
at Massah in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me, though they had seen what I did.
The psalmist is referring to the time when the people were complaining in Exodus 17 about Moses
leading them into the desert to die of thirst.
Lincoln and the psalmist speak to the basic flaw of humanity that starts with not being satisfied
with what we have. The psalmist gives us an understanding that Thanksgiving is an attitude, an
attitude we are to cultivate in our hearts, if we are not to repeat the mistakes of the past. It is truly
finding thanks in God’s giving. As we come to Thanksgiving, I want to invite you to adopt a
“thankful” attitude.
First off, we need to get into the habit of thanking God regularly. Not just on the one day a year
that the country sets aside for the purpose…. We need to participate in a life of thanks-living.
You’ve heard the story about Harriet. She was an atheist. One morning she & a Christian lady-
friend stepped out into the glories of a beautiful fall day. As Harriet saw the brilliant sun peaking
through the haze, & the frost on the meadow, & the brightly colored leaves making their way
lazily to the ground, she was filled with the beauty & said, "I am so thankful. I’m just so grateful
for it all." And her believing friend asked, "Grateful to whom, my dear?"
We should develop a habit of thanking God… He created us for His glory and so we should give
Him the glory! That means, the good parking spot, the accident avoided, anything that we might
call luck. That means that we actually share when something good happens and Give God the
credit….AND tell people about it.
In our responsive reading this morning we read Hannah’s prayer. I want to give you a little
background about Hannah. She was barren, unable to have a child. She wanted one in the worst
way. So she prayed and even went so far as to make a deal with God. She recognized that he had
the ability to make her womb fertile. So she thanked God and then declared that if he would give
her a son, she would give him right back to God. Sure enough, she had that son and named him
Samuel. Then she was good to her word. She brought him back to the temple and dedicated his
life to God’s service. And she went away thankful and praising God.
That is how we go about thanks living. It is kind of like – and here’s my one reference to our
stewardship campaign this morning - making a pledge that is more than you have ever done
before and leaving the service with a thankful heart. God has blessed you and you are returning
that blessing, satisfied with the knowledge that God has heard your prayers.
Some of us need help with that though. I like the story about…
The man who was lost and walking in the country for over a day…he comes to the home of a
preacher. Tired and weak, he walks up to the house and collapses on the doorstep. The preacher
takes him in and nurses him back to health. Feeling better, the man asks the preacher for
directions to the nearest town. The preacher tells him the directions, and offers to lend him his
horse. The preacher says, "However, there is a special thing about this horse. You have to say ’
Thank God’ to make it go and ’Amen’ to make it stop." Its former master had a truly thankful
heart.
Anxious to get to town, the man says, "Sure, okay" and gets on the horse. He says, "Thank God"
and, the horse starts walking. A bit later he says louder, "Thank God, thank God," and the horse
starts trotting. Feeling really brave, the man say, "Thank God! Thank God! THANK GOD!" and
the horse is soon up to a full run!
About then he realizes he’s heading for a huge cliff and yells "Whoa!" But the horse doesn’t even
slow! It’s coming up REAL QUICK and he’s doing everything he can to make the horse stop.
"Whoa, stop, hold on!" Finally he remembers "AMEN!!!"
The horse stops a mere inches from the cliff’s edge, almost throwing him over its head. The man,
panting and heart racing, wipes the sweat from his face and leans back in the saddle. Gasping for
air he says with relief, "Thank God."
That’s cute but being thankful to God is really understanding his promises. The more we thank
him, the more he gives us in an unending cycle. It is also an affirmation that God actually knows
you exist. Yes…God knows you exist and he hears your prayers. When we give thanks, we are
telling the world that God is real and that he cares for us. When we do that, we are reminded of
his love and the sacrifice and the benefits that are now ours through the blood of Christ. We have
so much more to be thankful for than we can even imagine. But when we look up we can see the
face of God and know that he has blessed us.
Ah, but the world often gets in the way. Think about it. Even those of us who ought to be thanks
living, are bombarded with images of things we think we want and need.
In Friday’s newspaper, the largest one of the year, there will be more flyers and advertising
brochures than on any other day of the year. Sales will draw crazy people out in the middle of the
night to buy things they think they have to have. It’s actually started already. People are going on
ebay and looking for the play station 3 system and paying up to $6,000 for it. They have got to
have it. A few years ago it was talking Elmo and a few years before that it was cabbage patch
dolls.
We seem pretty content until we get the latest catalogue in the mail and we are drawn to it. We
see something we need. We are content with our car until we see an ad for the latest model or
one that gets better gas mileage. We think our clothes are fine until we walk down the mall and
look in the store window and see “the” outfit. Our home is just fine until we begin thinking of
what it would be like to have a place on the lake…
We are satisfied with every area of our lives — until we start comparing it with someone else’s
life. That is what advertising does. It makes us unhappy with what we have. And we are
surrounded by it 24 /7. Yeah, even preachers are not immune to it. That is the way it is. We feel
like we have enough of everything — until we see someone who has more.
What I am going to say flies in the face of modern thinking. But hear me out. The secret of a
happy life is not to get what you want, but to be thankful for what you’ve got.
Most of us spend our lives concentrating on what we don’t have instead of thanking God for
what we do have. Then we wake up, our life is over, and we missed the beauty of the present.
Verse 7 says, “for he is our God and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care. It
seems like we are so short sited that we don’t know what we’ve got until it is gone.
The power went off at the house a few months ago. I never realized how good it feels to take a
shower. I was so thankful for the lights being on. Things that I take for granted every day were
taken away for a few hours and when they returned, life looked so different. When was the last
time you got up in the morning and said thank you for your alarm clock? Well maybe not.
That’s the way life is. We take everything for granted. A good friend dies, and suddenly we
discover how much he meant to us.
We are much like the little boy who was given an orange by a man. The boy’s mother asked,
“What do you say to the nice man?” The little boy thought and handed the orange back and said,
“Peel it.”
In regions of Mexico hot springs and cold springs are found side by side, and because of the
convenience of this natural phenomenon the women bring their laundry, boil their clothes in the
hot springs, and then rinse them in the cold springs.
A tourist watching this procedure commented to his Mexican guide: "They must think Mother
nature is generous to freely supply such ample, clean hot and cold water." The guide replied, "No
senor, there is much grumbling because she supplies no soap."
WE need to pause every day and look up to God and give thanks for all his giving.
....the taxes I pay (sort of) because it means I’m employed.
....the clothes that fit a little too snug because it means I have enough to eat.
....a lawn that needs mowing, and windows that need cleaning because it means I have a home.
....the spot I find at the far end of the parking lot because it means I am capable of walking.
....my huge heating bill because it means I am warm.
....all the complaining I hear about our government because it means we have freedom of speech.
....the alarm that goes off in the early morning hours because it means that I’m alive.
....weariness and aching muscles at the end of the day because it means I have been productive.
You see, we all have so much to be thankful for. God gives us so much. So lets enter this
Thanksgiving week by looking up and all around us for ways to thank God for what he has
already given us.
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