Prince
of Peace and Christ Our Savior Lutheran Churches November 27, 2003
Pastor
Steve Geiger Thanksgiving
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2
Corinthians 9:6-15
6
Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever
sows generously will also reap generously. 7 Each man should give what he has
decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God
loves a cheerful giver. 8 And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so
that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in
every good work. 9 As it is written:
“He
has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor;
his
righteousness endures forever.”
10
Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and
increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness.
11 You will be made rich in every way so that you can be generous on every
occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.
12
This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God’s people
but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. 13 Because of the
service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the
obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for
your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. 14 And in their
prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace
God has given you. 15 Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!
Thanks
Means Giving 2 Corinthians 9:6-15
1.
God gives so that you can give
2.
Your gifts bring thanks back to God
Do
dogs celebrate Thanksgiving?
I
know that some people give their dogs Christmas presents, and maybe they give
them little doggie Easter baskets, but have you ever heard of a dog celebrating
Thanksgiving?
What
would a dog do? You give him a special
doggie treat, and how would a dog show his thanks?
By
guarding the house? By cuddling at your
feet? Is that what your dog does after
you give him a doggie treat? Swallows,
then runs to the door to stand guard?
Swallows, then immediately cuddles quietly by your side? Or is he slobbering and panting: I want more!
Or
would your dog show thanks by offering you half? Gets a treat. Offers to
share. Or, if the treat is big enough,
do dogs run to a corner of the room, look in every direction, and inhale while
making sure that no one else will get even a crumb?
Dogs
saying thanks? Dogs sharing their
doggie treat? You’ve got to be kidding.
Can
showing thanks be just as rare among us?
We
aren’t dogs. Yet do we imagine that we
have shown God thanks if we take what he’s given, run to a corner, and enjoy
it? That we have shown God thanks for
his blessings of the year by running to the home of family and, in our little
corner of the world, devouring yet more of God’s blessings?
Is
this thanks? Or is this just devouring
more of God’s blessings?
Thanks
means giving.
The
Christians in Corinth had his opportunity.
It was Thanksgiving for them, in a sense. They had so much. Plenty. Their plenty was to supply a need. Some fellow Christians in Jerusalem had very
little. The encouragement? Each person should give to help. A gift from the heart. Not with arms twisted. Not because they had to. God loved a giver who had a huge smile on
his face.
And
God is powerful. He is able to give to
you so generously, over and above, and with a purpose: so that in all things,
at all times, having all that you need, you will be over and above in every
good work.
God
gives so that we might do good works, so that we might give.
It’s
kind of like a parent sending a child to the grocery store with twenty
dollars. A parent doesn’t send a child
to the grocery store just with twenty dollars.
The child could come home with twenty dollars of Snickers. A parent sends a child to the grocery store
with twenty dollars and . . . a shopping list.
God
does not just give us cars and homes and children and jobs and health and
money. God gives us cars and homes and
children and jobs and health and money and a shopping list, a list of good
actions that he wants us to do with the car, the home, the children, the job,
the health, and the money.
Do
we ever blow the whole twenty bucks on candy bars?
Do
we use all the things God has given us, sure enough, but for purposes that have
very little to do with what was on the shopping list and very much to do with
what makes me physically happy?
What
happens when you get back home? When
God knows he gave you twenty bucks, but he sees nothing in the grocery bag that
he asked for? Do you think he’s going
to be impressed when you say thank you for the candy bars?
What
are we doing? When we say thanks well
enough, but we are completely disregarding God’s purpose in giving us so much
to be thankful for. Our things are for
helping. Our things are for
serving. Our things are for noticing
the needs of another and giving. Our
things are for spreading the gospel, for training our children, for joyfully
paying our taxes, for supporting a missionary, for investing in souls, for
feeding bodies that they too might pray and talk about Jesus at school and be a
friend to a child who needs the forgiveness of sin.
So
many of the things we buy with our money may not in themselves be bad, but if
our heart was not thinking, “How can I do a good work for God with this?” so
easily we can get priorities completely upside down. You alone may know. Well,
you and God, who’s waiting for you to get back from the grocery store, to see
what you did with your twenty dollars.
Are
you proud of your purchases? Who of us
could stand before God and say, “I’ve used all the gifts you’ve given me as
tools to do good works?”
Being
thankful means nothing when we’ve misused what we’re thankful for.
May
God have mercy on us.
This
is the miracle. He has. “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus
Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that you
through his poverty might become rich.”
For
us to come home with our grocery bag misfilled was to meet at the door a Dad
who was ticked. Really ticked. But that same Dad had a heart that pounded
with pity and compassion. He saw how we
had so abused his kindness and sent His own Son to suffer the consequences in
our place. He saw how we had so wasted
his treasures and sent His own Son as a poor man in our place. He saw how we had nothing of the $20 bill
left to try to go back and do it right.
So he sent his own Son, gave him a $20 bill, and asked him to run from
any selfish use of treasure and use everything that he had to do the will of
his Father in our place.
Jesus
was poor, but he used every moment, every breath, every coin, every check for
one thing: to do good works; to obey the commandments; to love his neighbor as
himself; to love the Lord his God with all his heart and soul and mind. Then he took a beating. He showed up with our grocery bag of candy
bars at the door of his Father and felt the burning anger of a just and fair
God. In the moments when he could have
so wished to drop the bag and run, to stop the suffering, he held on even more
tightly and took the consequences because he knew that he was suffering for
you.
Ever
drop of blood, every gasp of pain, every bit of hell endured was endured with
an intense commitment on the part of Jesus to hang in there until it was all
finished. It is all finished.
So
that you are now free. So that you can
now be rich. He who believes and is
baptized will be saved. Faith in the
fact that you are forgiven. Children by
faith, you are filthy rich. With an
inheritance. Treasures that will never
be taken from you. Eternal joys, life
never ending.
This
is good news.
This
is the good news that the Corinthians so treasured. They were rich. What
reason to give thanks. Thanks means
giving.
Every
gift God has given is for you to give away.
To use to do a good work. To
know that as you scatter your possessions, your time, your ability, as you give
to those who are in need spiritually, physically, your righteousness lasts
forever. Giving affects eternities.
As
you give, God will cover your expenses.
He will increase your seed. He’s
given you all that you have. He is the
one who will give all that you ever have.
To
see how rich you are . . . your sins have been forgiven, heaven is your home,
God is giving you all that you have . . . knowing you’re rich in these most
marvelous ways is to have focus. You
want to use your earthly possessions for only one purpose, to get things on
God’s shopping list of good works.
When
you do, this leads others to give thanks.
Your gifts bring thanks back to God.
For
the Corinthians, not only did their gift of money for the Christians in
Jerusalem help those Christians in a physical way. There was something over and above that. Those Christians would be led to give thanks
to God. As they saw the generosity of
the Corinthians, whose words and actions were tied to the good news of the
Messiah, who considered the need of the Jerusalem Christians to be their own .
. . when the Jerusalem Christians saw what the Corinthians were doing for them
out of love for Jesus, they praised God.
When
you give gifts, you not only take care of needs. You not only make it possible for a pastor to spend time
comforting and encouraging. You not
only make it possible for a missionary to baptize and to preach. You not only make it possible for your
neighbor to have heat or for a relative to have a bit more joy. Gifts given in the name of Jesus result in
words of thanks flying from lips on earth to God in heaven. When you increase your Synod mission
offerings, words of thanks fly in different languages from lips on earth to God
in heaven. When you give a gift to our
Lutheran high school, words of thanks fly from lips of students and parents to
the ears of God in heaven. When you
give a gift for the spreading of the gospel in our own community, words of
thanks fly from lips in this place and outside these walls to the throne of God
in heaven.
Your
gifts help. But over and above that,
they bring thanks back to God.
For
the Corinthians, the gifts also increased bonds of Christian friendship. The Jerusalem Christians now would pray that
they’d be able to meet these most wonderful people. They wanted to say hello to these people who had been shown such
kindness by God. They wanted to meet
these people who had been given riches in Christ and plenty on earth, and by
God’s grace showed their thanks by giving.
Surely
to be so rich that you have so much to share is an indescribable gift.
Thanks
be to God! It is Thanksgiving.
Show your thanks by giving. Amen.