A. I hope that everyone had a happy Thanksgiving Day! We surely did.
1. We all have so much to be thankful for, don’t we?
2. One teacher asked her students to write a composition entitled “What I’m thankful for on Thanksgiving.”
3. One boy wrote, “On Thanksgiving, I’m thankful that I’m not a turkey!”
4. I think we all are thankful that we are not turkeys, for a number of reasons! Right?
B. Unless of course, you are the turkey that is pardoned by the President of the U.S.
1. Isn’t that a strange tradition – the annual presidential turkey pardon?
2. This year’s National Thanksgiving Turkeys, weighing in at 45 and 47 pounds, respectively, were plucked from a flock raised by Butterball turkey farmer Wellie Jackson.
a. The turkeys rode the gravy train to the White House from Clinton, North Carolina, last weekend.
b. Bread and Butter overnighted at the luxe Willard Intercontinental Hotel upon their arrival in the nation’s capital and held a news conference ahead of their trip to the White House.
3. Then on Tuesday of last week, President Donald Trump engaged in the quasi-political tradition of turkey pardoning.
a. Following the tradition of earlier presidents, President Trump spared the lives of both of the turkeys, named Bread and Butter, but he announced an official presidential pardon only for Butter, who was officially designated this year’s National Thanksgiving Turkey.
b. While the President only officially pardoned one bird, both Bread and Butter will avoid the fate of more than 46 million of their turkey brethren who were consumed across the country on Thanksgiving, according to the National Turkey Federation.
c. Following the ceremony, Bread and Butter will retire to Gobbler’s Rest at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia.
4. Rumors of turkey pardons go back in presidential history as far as the Lincoln administration.
a. Folklore has it that Lincoln’s young son asked his father to spare a pet turkey that was supposed to be part of their Thanksgiving dinner.
5. The first documented turkey pardon was given by President John F. Kennedy in 1963, though it didn’t catch on right away.
a. Turkey pardoning became the norm in the White House in 1989 when President George H.W. Bush revived the tradition, now a staple of the White House holiday season.
b. How’s that for an important history lesson?
7. So, as I said, on Thanksgiving we all can be thankful we are not turkeys for many reasons!
C. Seriously though, I think Thanksgiving is one of the most spiritually healthy holidays of the year.
1. It is not only appropriate for us thank the Lord for all that He has given us, but it is also very good for us to pause and count our blessings.
2. Psalm 92:1 reads, “It is a good thing to give thanks to the Lord…”
3. An attitude of gratitude is spiritually healthy thing for a number of reasons.
4. First of all, gratitude keeps our spirits right with God.
5. Secondly, a spirit of gratitude makes it easier for us to get along with others.
a. Ungrateful people are often ill-mannered people.
6. And, a spirit of gratitude also makes it easier for us to get along with ourselves.
D. A spirit of gratitude is necessary for every day, but I believe it is especially helpful as we move through Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s.
1. Look with me at a few verses in 1 Timothy 6: “But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world, and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that.” (1 Timothy 6:6-8)
2. What does it take to make you content? Just food and clothing or much more?
3. Contentment is almost a lost word or concept in our society, isn’t it?
4. You might say that contentment is un-American.
5. Contentment goes against the grain of one of the most powerful “religions” in recorded history – the religion of “consumerism.”
E. What do I mean by consumerism?
1. Did you know that there was a time in our history when the major economic goal of Americans was sufficiency?
2. An economic historian named Max Weber points out that before the rise of our present consumer economy; employers had a difficult time financially motivating workers to increase their productivity beyond a certain level.
3. For example, if a farmer offered to pay a hired hand an increase in wage per acre of hay mowed, the worker would mow less, not more acres.
4. The hired hand would work until he made the same amount he ordinarily did, and then quit.
5. In other words, the opportunity of earning more was less attractive than that of working less.
F. But all that changed around the end of the 1800’s.
1. The Industrial Revolution created such efficiencies of scale, and had such an excess of production capacity, that it soon reached a state of crisis: the great factories needed to keep the production lines humming and the generators turning, but there was a huge gap between production and consumption.
2. People reached a point where they had what they thought they needed, and they simply stopped buying.
3. The factory owners were desperate to find some way to change American’s economic habits, to induce them to buy more, and so the modern science of ADVERTISING was born.
4. Certainly, there had been advertising before, but it mainly consisted of notices about goods for sale, directed to those who were already interested in them.
5. Modern advertisers, on the other hand, soon learned how to create needs.
G. In 1901, the Thompson Red Book of Advertising stated, “Advertising aims to teach people that they have wants, which they did not recognize before, and where such wants can be best supplied.”
1. Henry Crowell of Quaker Oats noted that his aim in advertising “was to do educational and constructive work so as to awaken an interest in and create a demand for cereals where none existed.”
2. And in the 1920’s the federal government even pitched in: the Department of Commerce was expanded to assist businesses in their goal of increasing consumption.
3. Therefore, for over a century there has been an organized effort to turn Americans into a nation of consumers, and it has succeeded beyond their wildest expectations.
4. For example: In 1976 the average American supermarket carried 9000 products.
a. Today it stocks 30,000.
5. The typical produce section in the mid 70’s had 65 items; today it carries 285.
6. President of the marketing firm Yankelovich, Jay Walker-Smith said. “Everywhere we turn we're saturated with advertising messages trying to get our attention. We’ve gone from being exposed to about 500 ads a day back in the 1970’s to as many as 5,000 a day today.”
7. Researchers have calculated that 100 years ago the average American had 72 “wants” and 16 of them were considered “necessities”.
8. Today, they say that average Americans have around 500 “wants” and 100 of them are “needs.” (Joe Barnett, “The Fine Art of Gratitude”, Gospel Advocate, 11/21/85, page 675)
H. So, what is the point of all this?
1. For centuries religions like Judaism and Christianity have taught the value of contentment and discouraged the excesses of greed, lust and covetousness.
2. But here we find ourselves in a very different environment.
3. Our modern economy is quite literally built on the principle of insatiability – an organized, institutionalized, professionally maintained spirit of discontentment.
4. A retailing analyst named Victor Lebow, candidly admitted in 1955, “Our enormously productive economy…demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, or ego satisfaction, in consumption…We need things consumed, burned up, worn out, replaced, and discarded at an ever increasing rate.”
5. And so, we have been taught by advertisers and by society in general that we will find genuine satisfaction in the purchase, possession, and consumption of material goods.
I. But has all of this led to greater satisfaction and general happiness? NO!
1. Those who were born into this affluence (those born after 1945) have markedly higher rates of depression, unhappiness, substance abuse and suicide.
2. How can this paradox be explained?
3. Listen to this quote from an address to the American Psychological Association made by Martin E. P. Seligman, “In the past 30 years (1996) we have learned, in part because of the advertising industry, that limitless prosperity and personal possessions can be expected and attained. But when soaring expectations are not met, limitless pleasure is not forthcoming, or personal goals are not reached, it is easy for people to feel disillusionment and to be inclined to escape from reality through drugs or alcohol or both.”
J. Let’s go back to 1 Timothy 6 and look at the next few verses that follow the ones we looked at earlier: “People who want to get rich fall into temptation and a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires that plunge men into ruin and destruction. For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” (1 Timothy 6:9-10)
1. Now, please don’t misunderstand what I’m saying this morning: I’m not against the convenience of the marketplace, especially the online marketplace.
2. I enjoy the ability to have fresh fruit in the winter, and I’m glad to have choices when I shop.
3. But what we need to remember is that one the greatest freedoms of all is the ability to choose not to purchase something we don’t really need.
4. There is great freedom in being able to say “Enough”!
5. Just because we have the money to buy something, doesn’t mean we have to spend it on ourselves.
6. Without the ability to say, “Enough” we will never be content, and therefore we will never be truly thankful for what we already have.
7. Those who pursue happiness through money and possessions will be led astray and will go down the road of destruction.
K. Contentment in an age of consumerism is truly a counter-cultural, revolutionary idea.
1. The true practice of Thanksgiving, in our age, needs to be more than a holiday.
2. True thanksgiving must be an attitude and a lifestyle.
3. So, how can we learn to be more thankful and contented so that we can insulate ourselves from the consumeristic spirit of our age?
4. Let me offer us four suggestions.
L. First of all, I want to encourage us to strive to Be Thankful.
1. I have shared this statement with you many times: “The hardest arithmetic to master is that which enables us to count our blessings.”
2. But it is an arithmetic that we must master.
3. One thing that really helps is for us just to step back and appreciate what we have and remember where it came from, or better yet from Whom it came.
4. Everything we have ultimately comes from God.
a. Deuteronomy 10:14, “The heavens, indeed the highest heavens, belong to the Lord your God, as does the earth and everything in it.”
b. Psalm 24:1, “The earth and everything in it, the world and its inhabitants, belong to the Lord.”
c. Those two verses clearly teach the truth that everything belongs to God.
5. Even our ability to work and make money comes from God.
a. The Lord reminds the people of Israel of this in Deuteronomy 8: “You may say to yourself, ‘My power and my own ability have gained this wealth for me,’ but remember that the Lord your God gives you the power to gain wealth.” (8:17-18)
b. Where did you get a brain to think with or hands to work with? Any ability we have ultimately comes from God.
6. And so, it is always spiritually healthy for us to focus on what God has given us and to give thanks to God for it.
7. Diana and I work together on many of the jobs around the house and one of them is laundry.
a. I carry the laundry downstairs.
b. She organizes it and begins the washing process (See I would get things wrong – what should be washed together? Cold or hot water? Bleach or no bleach?)
c. When the wash cycle is over, I transfer the clothes from the washer to the dryer and carry up the dried cloths for Diana and I to fold.
d. And here’s the thing that has become my habit.
e. Every time I transfer those clothes, I thank the Lord that we have a washer and dryer, and that they are reliable.
f. They are not new or fancy (we still have the old top load washer type, and nothing on them is smart or digital) but they work, and they make our lives easier, and I am grateful for that.
8. I do a similar thing when I start our cars.
a. I’m thankful that we have cars that get us where we need to go.
b. They aren’t new or fancy, (we have never bought a brand new car), but they are reliable.
9. Thankfulness is the attitude that leads to contentment.
10. This, of course, is one of the practices we often do at meal times, when we pause to thank God for what he has given us.
a. It needs to be more than just a ritual, rather it needs to be something that reminds us that we have a great God who has blessed us richly.
11. So, our first step is to strive to be sincerely thankful at all times.
M. Second, I want to encourage us to Be Wise and Thrifty.
1. I want to encourage us to be wise and careful in our spending.
2. How foolish and wasteful to spend more money than necessary to get the things we need.
3. Why pay more than necessary on food, gas, or clothing purchases?
4. The money saved by wise and thrifty purchasing can be used for other important things like giving and saving.
5. As you know, living within our means is almost a foreign concept today.
6. Credit is easy to get, and many people live on credit, but what we borrow is so hard to payback.
7. But if we cut back on our wants, and purchase what we need more wisely, then we will be amazed at how much money we actually have left over, which leads to my third suggestion.
N. Third, I want to encourage us to Be Generous.
1. Giving is one of the best ways to be thankful and contented, and to keep consumerism and materialism under control.
2. Let’s go back to 1 Timothy 6 and see the commands Paul gave about the handling of money.
a. Let’s start at verse 17, “Command those who are rich in this present world not to be arrogant nor to put their hope in wealth, which is so uncertain, but to put their hope in God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. Command them to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and willing to share. In this way they will lay up treasure for themselves as a firm foundation for the coming age, so that they may take hold of the life that is truly life.” (1 Tim. 6:17-19)
3. Being generous helps us to put our trust in God and it demonstrates that money does not control us, and that it is just a tool to be used to glorify God.
4. There is a great joy that comes from giving - it thrills our hearts to know our giving is making a difference for God’s kingdom or to see it make a difference in someone else’s life.
5. When we give, we can’t help but being blessed both now and in the coming age.
O. Finally, I want to encourage us to Be Focused.
1. What are we more focused on – earthly things or heavenly things? Materialistic things or spiritual things?
2. Jesus said, “Watch out and be on guard against all greed, because one’s life is not in the abundance of his possessions.” (Luke 12:15)
3. Way back in the 1960’s the Beatles had it right. They told us, “Money can’t buy me love.”
a. Money can’t buy God’s love or anyone else’s love or even self-love.
b. Money can’t buy peace, and joy and hope.
c. Money can’t buy contentment and thankfulness.
d. There are so many things that money can’t buy.
4. So let’s focus on the most important things that money can’t buy, like our relationship with God and our relationships with others.
5. Let’s focus on the quality of life, not simply the quantity of possessions.
6. Someone has said, “The best things in life are free,” and I believe that is so true!
7. Rudy Carlson, our dear brother who has passed on to his reward, taught me a Swedish statement that was a favorite of his father’s “So lite vi har, men so bra vi more.” What does it mean? “How little we have, but how good we feel.”
8. Paul suggested, “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” (Col. 3:2-3)
9. So, let’s stay focused on God’s kingdom and on spiritual and heavenly things.
10. Let’s not bog ourselves down too much with earthly things.
P. Unfortunately, true thanksgiving often gets crowded out by discontent.
1. Let’s not be like the little boy who received a piece of pie from his grandmother.
a. As his grandma handed him the pie, his mother prompted him, asking: “Now Johnny, what do you say to Grandma?”
b. Rather than saying, “Thank you, Grandma,” Johnny said, “I want another piece of pie.”
2. Sadly, sometimes we are too much like Johnny.
a. No matter how much God blesses us with, rather than being content and thankful, we just want more.
3. So, let’s work on being more thankful, more thrifty, more generous, and more focused, and if we do so, we will find ourselves being more contented, more joyful, and more one with God.
