November 25-26, 2015 Pastor Timothy J. Spaude Text: James 1:16-17 “OH GIVE THANKS TO THE LORD!

THANKSGIVING

November 25-26, 2015

Pastor Timothy J. Spaude

Text: James 1:16-17

“OH GIVE THANKS TO THE LORD!

1.     For He is good!

2.     For His mercy endures forever!

James 1:16-17 “Don't be deceived, my dear brothers. 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.”

          Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for He is good. For His mercy endures forever. If you are like me and was raised in a family and live in a family that regularly uses those words from the Psalms as a mealtime prayer and if you eat your three squares a day then each year you have about 1095 opportunities, 3 more in leap year, to pray that prayer. That means you also have the same number of opportunities to just say that prayer without meaning it. We can do that can’t we, just go through the motions. We can do that with Thanksgiving too. Happy Thanksgiving. I can say that without meaning it. I can live the day without a thankful heart. So can you. But it’s not what we want. Let’s look at God’s Word then with a prayer to the Holy Spirit that He enable us to have a truly happy Thanksgiving as we join to give thanks to the Lord!

          The Apostle James helps us with that today. His letter is filled with spiritual wisdom. Listen to it again. “Don't be deceived, my dear brothers. 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights.” Every good and perfect gift is from above, from God. That’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? You would think. Why does James start by saying, “Don’t be deceived.” God had him write that because the Lord knows it happens—to Christians. Christmas is just around the corner. A long time kids’ favorite is Dr. Seuss “How the Grinch Stole Christmas.” He tries to steal Christmas joy. There’s a Thanksgiving Grinch as well. Two of them actually, which the Devil uses to try to steal Thanksgiving thankfulness. Those Grinches are arrogance and entitlement. Don’t be deceived by arrogance. God had Moses warn his people way back into 1500 BC. You heard about it in the Old Testament reading from Deuteronomy. “You may say to yourself, ‘My power and the strength of my hands have produced this wealth for me.’” That’s arrogance. Surely we would never do that? How about it, kids? Do you do well in school? Why is that? Is it because you are so smart and do things so much better or is it because the Lord gave you abilities to do well? To be sure, you still needed to use them but hard work alone doesn’t cut it. God must bless. The same is true if you are good at music or sports or anything else. Good thing we adults know better, or do we? Did you have a good year wealthwise? Did you make good decisions on investments or spending? “But remember the LORD your God,” Moses wrote, for it is he who gives you the ability to produce wealth.” He, not me. Arrogance! Any time we do well and have obvious blessings the Devil and ourselves fall for the deception. We feel we are so good at what we do, so smug and self satisfied instead of thankful. That’s one Grinch, arrogance.

          There’s another. Entitlement. Kids, as I mentioned Christmas is coming up. Do you think you are going to get any presents? Why would you think that? Because you’ve gotten them before? Because your parents have to?Thinking that you deserve or are owed certain privileges or blessings is called Entitlement and we Americans have gotten very good at it. Children think they are entitled to their presents and so if they don’t get what they want they may be disappointed. For adults the bonus at work can be an entitlement and if workers don’t get it they may get mad. Waiters and waitresses can look at a tip that way. American Christians can look at God’s blessings that way. We are good. We ought to get blessings. At the back of the service folder I’ve included some of the history of Thanksgiving from a description of what’s often called the first Thanksgiving in America in the Plymouth Colony to various proclamations of Thanksgiving from Congress and US presidents. I’ve underlined some words. How the first thanks givers saw good weather coming as a result of God’s mercy, how Sam Adams acknowledged that sins forfeit God’s favor, how George Washington begged for pardon of transgressions, how Abraham Lincoln admitted that no human counsel or hand had worked their blessings. None of them thought they were good. They acknowledged that God was good. Oh give thanks to the Lord for He is good!

          God is good. Although He needs nothing He created this world and showers it with His love. He set in  motion and keeps going the laws of nature that provides for all living things. He is good and puts things in our life for our enjoyment and ease. God is good. He’s good when He gives us the job promotion, right? Is He still good when our job is taken away? God is good when He grants good health to us and our loved ones. Is He still good when He allows a serious illness? God is good when He blesses us with savings. Is He still good when the unexpected car repair drains our savings? God is good when He freely forgives us our sins. Is He still good when He forgives the one who has hurt us?

          James helps us to have a deeper Thanksgiving than the unbelievers. Even pagans and those who are deliberately rejecting Jesus as Savior feel good and grateful in a way for those things that most people will view as blessings: good health, more money, things. James helps us be thankful for those things that don’t look positive like unexpected repairs and health problems. He does so with a simple reminder. “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” God does not change like shifting shadows. Have you ever really looked at shadows on a warm sunny day as the sun is shining on a tree on a breezy day? Watch them shift and move. They’re never the same. People are like that too. They change. They (read we) can be happy and joyful and then be grumpy and cranky and complaining. They (we) can be kind and nice and mean and cruel. They (we can be giving and selfless and then be selfish and self centered. People change.

          God is always the same. If we go back to the common thanksgiving prayer one of the things we are thanking God for is that His mercy endures forever. Now if you compare the King James translation of the Bible with the New International Version of the Bible you will see that while the King James translates “For his mercy endureth forever” the NIV translates “for his love endures forever.” That’s because the actual Hebrew word to describe this attribute of God is too big for one word. Others have tried lovingkindness, faithful love and abundant kindness. It’s the characteristic of God that describes how God is faithful and generous in doing good things for His people. It’s this abundant mercy of God that moved Him to plan and carry out justice for sin on His Son instead of on us sinners. You know the details of that plan: How Jesus became one of us. How He gained the status of righteous in the eyes of God for us by His perfect obedience and how He experienced an awful pain we can’t imagine and will never know, that agony of separation from God in our place.

          That’s how we know God is good even when we experience hardships in this life. We can thank God for them like the Apostle Paul whose thorn in the flesh was actually a grace from God to help Paul from becoming conceited and the other Apostle who rejoiced that they could endure hardship for the name of Jesus and like so many brothers and sisters some of whom you know saw failing health as a blessing to pull family together, bodies wearing out as the preparation for heaven, low income or loss of income as an opportunity to grow in trust, loss of a loved one as a chance to proclaim the Gospel. The list can go on. Because God doesn’t change, because Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever we know what God allows is not Him punishing us but actions of a Father who really does know best, a Father whose mercy endures forever.

          If you are like me and my family and regularly use the common thanksgiving you do have about 1095 times to just say that prayer or to really pray that prayer. You get one Thanksgiving Day a year. Let’s reject the grinches of arrogance and entitlement. Join me and let’s pray that prayer! O give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His mercy endures forever. Amen.

November 14-16, 2015 Pastor Timothy J. Spaude Text: Daniel 12:1-3 “GOD’S TIMING IS ALWAYS JUST RIGHT!”

SAINTS TRIUMPHANT

November 14-16, 2015

Pastor Timothy J. Spaude

Text: Daniel 12:1-3

“GOD’S TIMING IS ALWAYS JUST RIGHT!”

1.     Distress Time.

2.     Deliverance Time.

3.     Judgment Time.

4.     Party Time!

Daniel 12:1-3 (NIV 1984) "At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people--everyone whose name is found written in the book--will be delivered. 2 Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt. 3 Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.”

Timing is so important. You watch your favorite football team and see how a quarterback’s timing makes the difference between a touchdown, incompletion or interception. Successful business decisions are often a matter of timing. Oh to have perfect timing all the time. We do. Not of ourselves but because of the awesome God we are privileged to serve. His timing is always just right. We see that in the words of God we look at today. They come from the prophetic portion of the book of Daniel. Many Bible readers are familiar with the historical portion that tells us of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego surviving the fiery furnace as they stayed faithful to God. Daniel safe in the lions’ den as he stayed faithful to God. The second half of the book deals with prophecy. Like Revelation it uses visions to comfort God’s people, to help them stay faithful to God in trying times. Daniel was shown the “Cliff’s Notes” version of what would happen in the world to the end of time. In this last chapter God revealed what would happen right before the end of the world.

God would allow a Distress Time. “There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then.” God doesn’t tell us everything we want to know about the ending of this world like when or how. He does tell us what we need to know so if we are around at that time we will not freak out or be scared but will look forward. He tells us here to expect a time of distress. Pretty much every generation looks back at how life was like as they grew up, compares it to what is happening now and says, “What is this world coming to? How much worse can it get?” As terrorism escalates around the globe we are asking that question. Well right before the end it will get a whole lot worse. So much worse that believers alive at that time will know what God is talking about. But remember if you are alive at that time that God’s timing is always just right. He knows about this distress. In fact He has planned it. It’s all under His control.

He comforts us with the knowledge that for believers there will also be Deliverance Time. "At that time Michael, the great prince who protects your people, will arise. There will be a time of distress such as has not happened from the beginning of nations until then. But at that time your people--everyone whose name is found written in the book--will be delivered.” The Bible tells us there are countless ranks of angels. We aren’t told many of their names. Michael is one of the exceptions. He’s called an archangel or a chief angel. Picture him perhaps as the general who leads the army of angels God uses to protect His people. They are doing that right now. In the last days they will go into action for God’s people, those described as having their names written in the book of life. Believers in Jesus. People like you and me. All believers will be delivered from the distress. The good news here again is that this is all part of God’s timing. He tells us ahead of time so we can fight off fear and worry at that time and can know Deliverance Time is coming.

As is Judgment Time. “Multitudes who sleep in the dust of the earth will awake: some to everlasting life, others to shame and everlasting contempt.” God tells us ahead of time that at the end of the world the bodies of all people will be raised back to physical life and reunited with their souls. There are only two eternal existences: everlasting life or everlasting shame and contempt. Normally we call that heaven and hell. Hell is something we should fear because we belong there, every one of us. When God declared the wages, just desserts of sin, to be death He was talking about Hell with its everlasting shame and contempt. I deserve that and so do you. We all have defied God by sinning and way too often those sins are not done out of ignorance but willingly. Daily we live with ourselves as our gods instead of God Himself. We should fear Hell. But we don’t. We have Jesus. The Scriptures have made us wise unto salvation and with Jesus as Savior Judgment Time is something we look forward to because our faith in Jesus will be vindicated, proven to be true. Those who rejected Jesus, who in effect said to God, “Thanks but no thanks, I’ll do salvation my way,” sadly will realize way too late what eternity without Jesus is like.

But there’s a different eternity for us. God’s timing is just right when He declares it to be Party Time! “Those who are wise will shine like the brightness of the heavens, and those who lead many to righteousness, like the stars for ever and ever.” It’s picture language of course, shining like stars, shining like the brightness of heaven. Imagine the happiest you ever been and multiply it times a billion, the best you’ve ever felt and multiply times a billion, the closest to Jesus you have ever felt and multiply it times a billion. If you compare light on earth to that of the stars in the heaven that’s what you’d do. You’d magnify it. Heaven is an incomprehensible magnification of the joy and happiness we are able to have here. Party time. Joy, celebrating. Heaven with Jesus. That’s what’s in store for the wise and those who lead many to righteousness. Wise in God’s eyes means trusting His way of saving us. Not the human reason way of be good, try harder, do better. God’s way is so loving the world that He gave Jesus into death so that those who believe in Him will be saved. Those who believe then use their influence, their teaching, their modeling, their time, their wealth to lead others to believe the same, to lead them to righteousness. And they will shine like stars at Party Time.

In the Church year today is Saints Triumphant Sunday. The readings, the hymns get us thinking about those of our brothers and sisters who’ve made it, whose battle is over, who left the Church Militant, believers still on earth, and joined the Church Triumphant, those already in heaven. What Daniel saw for all at the very end times they experienced individually. Think about it. Distress Time. When bodies are broken and wear out there is a time of distress before the earthly end. Deliverance Time. When God’s time was just right Jesus came for our Triumphant Saints just as He promised He would in John 14. He delivered them from their distress. Judgment Time. There is no purgatory or limbo or waiting place. Immediately God knows the heart and judges the believers in Jesus as ones whose names are written in the book of life. And then Party Time. Joy and happiness beyond our ability to handle so God has to use picture language. Shining like stars. If you look at that party in heaven you are going to see some new people there, the saints of St. Jacobi who triumphed in the past year. We honor them now and give thanks to God as we read their names: Robert Beltrone, Delmer Barts, Kaleb Fredrich, Esther Block, Kerry Hackbarth, Carolyn Schaser, Marcella Slang, William Berger, Roland Kiefer, Dalores Pritzkow, LeRoy Hertig, Delores Werner. I’m sure you know some more as well who weren’t our members. I’m sure for all of you who were there for distress time it was hard. I’m sure you miss your loved ones as I miss mine. But there’s something you need to remember. God’s timing is always just right. Their battle was over, their work was done. God wanted them to have Party Time. So they do. Stay faithful to Jesus and you will too! Amen.