Thanksgiving - Just Psalm 9 Thankful 11/20/2011

Sermon 11-20-11 thanksgiving – just thankful

Psalm 9
For the director of music. To the tune of “The Death of the Son.” A psalm of David.
1 I will give thanks to you, LORD, with all my heart;
I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.
2 I will be glad and rejoice in you;
I will sing the praises of your name, O Most High.

9 The LORD is a refuge for the oppressed,
a stronghold in times of trouble.
10 Those who know your name trust in you,
for you, LORD, have never forsaken those who seek you.

William Bradford, governor of Plymouth colony
To All Ye Pilgrims: Inasmuch as the great Father has given us this year an abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, and has made the forests to abound with game and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as He has protected us from the ravages of the savages, has spared us from pestilence and disease, has granted us freedom to worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience; now, I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, with your wives and little ones, do gather at ye meeting house, on ye hill, between the hours of 9 and 12 in the day time, on Thursday, November ye 29th of the year of our Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three, and third year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Pilgrim Rock, there to listen to ye pastor, and render thanksgiving to ye Almighty God for all His blessings.

I am thankful.

I had to rewrite the sermon….
Most encouraging thing I could do was to tell you that I am thankful

I am thankful for those who encourage me
I am thankful for the ability to encourage others
And for the joy that we feel when we encourage others
We need to do more of this

I am thankful for our church
Seeing people released from bondage
Coming to find a relationship with Jesus based on love
Finding forgiveness
Seeking to live outside of themselves

I am thankful for food.
I grew up on three meals a day
I lived for a year when my dad was unemployed
I lived for a year in poverty – 50cents= 1 hardees hamburger
I see so many that have so little
I just about cannot go to the grocery store and shop for thanksgiving

I am thankful for people that put up with me
Do better for your children than we have for you
We have done pretty well
There’s a little bit of Jeff that is pretty crazy too

I am thankful to be alive
I lived so many years on auto pilot
Going thru the motions
Six years ago, I was diagnosed with lung cancer
Thank god they were wrong
But it does something to you
Now I am growing older. My hair is going. My muscle mass is goiong. My knees are going. But there is a savoring. There is a joy.
I am thankful to be alive. I look at birds. I look at trees. I look at the sky. I look at people. I see the beauty of the earth

I am thankful for our father
He has brought me through some rough times
He got a hold of a young man who thought he knew everything.
He saved him from his sins, and then he went to work.
All these years that I have been a friend of God he has been working to make me sweeter.
He has some work left to do
There is not life better than to walk with our father

In these days of bad news and worry I am all the more thank ful for our father
We need to remind each other of the good.
MJ Ryan wrote – “Tapping into the wellspring of gratitude is the greatest antidote to worry I have ever experienced. Why? worry is always about the future, the next minute, hour or day, whereas gratitude is in the here and now. Look over your list of worries. Aren’t they always about what might or might not happen? You are worried about the reaction of your boss to something. You are worried about how to pay for something. You are worried about test results. In every case, you project yourself into the future and imagine something bad happening. Gratitude brings you back to the present moment to see the good. To see that we are not alone. To see that god is with us.”

We need to encourage each other with words of hope
With the embrace of joy
We need to tell each other how much we care
Especially in hard times we need to be of encouragement to each other.

Bad things can happen and you can get mad or you can get glad
Show video here

Bad things can happen and you can get mad or you can get glad
Which will it be
Will you add you voice to the chorus of negativity in this world or will you lift up your heart in praise of our father

Now thank we all our god

German pastor Martin Rinkart served in the walled town of Eilenburg during the horrors of the Thirty Years War of 1618-1648. Eilenburg became an overcrowded refuge for the surrounding area. The fugitives suffered from epidemic and famine. At the beginning of 1637, the year of the Great Pestilence, there were four ministers in Eilenburg. But one abandoned his post for healthier areas and could not be persuaded to return. Pastor Rinkhart officiated at the funerals of the other two. As the only pastor left, he often conducted services for as many as 40 to 50 persons a day—some 4,480 in all. In May of that year, his own wife died. . In the heart of that darkness, with the cries of fear outside his window, he sat down and wrote this table grace for his children:

Now thank we all our God, with heart and hands and voices,
Who wondrous things has done, in whom this world rejoices;
Who from our mothers� arms has blessed us on our way
With countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.