THANKSGIVING
November
22/23, 2023
Pastor
Timothy J. Spaude
Text:
Job 1:21
Thank the Lord!
1.
For giving.
2.
For taking
away.
Job 1:21“The Lord gave and
the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised.”
An
attitude of gratitude. A spirit of thanksgiving. Everybody on the planet knows
that this should exist in the heart of mankind. It’s part of the natural
knowledge of God that He places in people’s hearts from birth. When others give
to you or serve you the right response is thanksgiving. You haven’t noticed
anyone trying to get rid of, hide or ban secular thanksgiving items like they
are with Christmas have you? Everyone knows thanksgiving should be there. But
you also cannot force it. Sure you can make your kids say “Thank you.” “Thank
you for the socks and undies Grandma.” You can write a thank you but to
actually be thankful is a different matter entirely. Either you are thankful or
you are not. You are. That is why you are here. You recognize that your
blessings come from God and His grace and you desire to thank him so you are
taking the time and making the time to do so. My goal for all of us here is
that our gratitude to God will grow from the easy and shallow to a deeper
appreciation and thanks to God for all He has done for us.
For
that we turn to a brother in faith named Job. His words that I read to you are
probably the most well known words from Job even though his resurrection
confession, “I know that my Redeemer lives,” probably should be. These words
are well known because of when they are
often read, at funerals and at gravesides. “The Lord gave and
the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised.”
May they guide our thanksgiving as we focus on thanking the Lord for giving.
Job
certainly knew how to do that. The Lord gave Job a wife, 7 sons and three
daughters. That’s a lot of blessings. And if that were not enough from the
Bible’s description, they all got along. That’s rare. The Lord also gave Job
7,000 sheep, think wool and mutton and garment production, 3,000 camels, think owning
an international shipping and trucking company, 500 yoke of oxen so that means
1,000 oxen, the equivalent of large tractors and excavators in our time and 500
donkeys, female donkeys, prized for their nice ride, milk and ability to
reproduce, Cadillacs if you will. Add to them all the servants needed to take
care of all these animals and you realize that God gave Job a lot. People have
a hard time trying to gauge modern day equivalents in US dollars. I saw
everything from $250 million to $2 trillion. Take your pick. The Lord gave to
Job. He recognized and was thankful.
You
and I can do similar thanking of God, can’t we? Like the hymn we just sang
reminded us we have 10,000 reasons and more to thank the Lord. He has given to us,
richly and daily. Just like with Job God has placed people into our lives.
Friends, Family. Church family. Just like with Job God has provided a means of
income, Social Security, investments and pensions, the different jobs we have.
God has chosen to place us in a wealthy country at a wealthy time with more
food and clothing than we need each day and not just a shack in the woods but
comfortable shelter. It is still true that the poorest Americans are among the world’s
wealthy. And with the wealth God has given us the ability to experience the joy
of generosity in helping people in our community, family members who are in
need, our church and its ministry. These all are obvious blessings that lead us
believers to say, “Thank the Lord!” Thank the Lord for giving.
In
the account of Job Satan realized that thankfulness for obvious blessings can
be a sign of shallow faith. Here is what he said to God about Job, “Satan
answered the Lord, “Is it without cause that Job fears God? 10 You
have put a protective hedge around him and his household and everything that
belongs to him, haven’t you? You have blessed the work of his hands. His
livestock has spread throughout the land. 11 But
just stretch out your hand and strike everything that is his, and he will
certainly curse you to your face!” (Job 1:9-11 EHV) Those of you familiar
with Job’s history know what happened next. On one single day raiders stole
Job’s oxen, donkeys and camels and killed his servants, a firestorm destroyed
his sheep and something like a tornado killed all his children as they were
having a family get together. That’s when Job uttered his famous words that are
most often used now at funerals and committals. “The Lord gave and
the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised.”
Thank the Lord for taking away. His people, his things, his means of
income. Still Job thanked the Lord.
You
can too. Let’s start with our things. It’s easy to thank the Lord when He gives
us nice things, a house, a car, new clothes. Can we thank Him when He takes
them away? Sure! Sometimes we love our things more than we should so when our
loving God takes them away He is helping us value what He values. How about a
job or means of income. You pray for one and get it. Thank the Lord. And then
it gets taken away. Thank the Lord again. God knows your future. You don’t. He
knows where you should be and where you should not be. It could be that the job
you were in was going to be dangerous for your faith or your well being. Thank
the Lord for taking away. I am reminded of a prisoner I visited many years ago
as a pastor in Texas. His nickname was Thumper. Like the rabbit. He got it when
he was in the juvenile detention system in Texas. Why? He was good at running
away from the juvenile detention centers, so good that when he became of age
they locked him up in a maximum security prison. I visited him because at that
prison he reconnected with the faith of his youth as a member of one of our
sister churches in El Paso. I still remember him telling me how thankful he was
that the Lord had taken away his freedom through the Texas court system because
by doing so God gave him back his faith which gave him freedom in Christ. In a
similar way we can say thank the Lord when He takes away our physical health
because it helps us detach from this sinful world and long for heaven as we
should. We can say thank the Lord when He takes away our ability to be self
righteous by letting us continue to struggle with those pet sins and
temptations because they keep us dependent on Jesus. We can thank the Lord when
He takes away our self reliance by giving us problems we can’t fix because they
help us have a more fervent prayer life. And what about people? Can we really
thank the Lord when through death He takes away parents, friends, children,
spouses? Yes, through our tears, we can, as we recognize the reason we miss
these people is that they were blessings to make our earthly lives more
tolerable for at time.
And
some of God’s take aways are easy. Thank the Lord for taking away our sins.
Through Jesus we have full forgiveness of all our sins and so we thank the Lord
for taking away our shame and guilt. None of us has to live haunted by our
past. Even if people remember, God does not and we will get to stand before Him
on the last day with heads held high because of Jesus. Thank the Lord that by
taking away He has given us the gift of eternal life in heaven.
Now
if you would choose to thank the Lord this week by reading all about this man
Job I’ve been talking about in the Bible book that bears his name you will
likely come to the same conclusion I do every time I read it and come to the
point where Job exclaims, “The Lord gave and
the Lord has taken away. May the name of the Lord be praised.”
Who does that? In the moment how could he say that? Maybe if you have been at
funeral or committal recently and the pastor read those words they kind of
stuck in your ears at the time. It’s hard to be thankful when our hearts are
hurting. But Job did. So can you. Not just one day a year but everyday. You and
I know Job’s God, who works all things for the good enabling us to say in all
circumstances, “Thank the Lord for giving and for taking away!” Amen.
