“Enter His Gates with Thanksgiving”
By Dr. Mickey Anders
First Christian Church
Pikeville, Kentucky
November 21, 1999
Text: Psalms 100:1-5
Someone once told me that in parts of Mexico hot springs and cold springs are found side by side. And because of the convenience of this natural phenomenon the people often bring their laundry and boil their clothes in the hot springs and then rinse them in the cold ones. One day, a tourist, who was watching this procedure commented to his Mexican guide: "I imagine that they think old Mother Nature is pretty generous to supply so much clean hot and cold water here side by side for their free use." The guide replied, "No senor, there is much grumbling because she supplies no soap." (1)
It is hard for us humans to be satisfied, isn’t it! An anonymous author wrote this wonderful piece describing the irony of our time:
“The paradox of our time in history is that we have taller buildings,
but shorter tempers; wider freeways, but narrower viewpoints; we spend
more, but have less; we buy more, but enjoy it less. We have bigger
houses, but smaller families; more conveniences, but less time; we have
more degrees, but less common sense; more knowledge, but less judgment;
more experts, but more problems; more medicines, but less wellness.
We have multiplied our possessions, but reduced our values; We talk too
much, love too seldom, and hate too often; we have learned to make a living,
but not a life. We've added years to life, not life to years.
“We've been all the way to the moon and back, but have trouble crossing
the street to meet our new neighbor. We've cleaned up the air, but polluted
our soul. We've split the atom, but not our prejudice. We have higher incomes,
but lower morals. We've become high on quantity, but short on quality.
These are the times of tall men and short characters; steep profits and
shallow relationships. these are the times of world peace, but domestic
warfare; more leisure, but less fun; more kinds of food, but less nutrition.
These are the days of two incomes, but more divorce; of fancier houses,
but broken homes. It is a time when there is much in the show window and
nothing in the storeroom.” (2)
Well, this is the time of year when even the most callous of people
are pressured to take stock of their lives and be thankful.
Today I want us to take a few moments to list the things for which we are
thankful to God.
Henry Ward Beecher, a famous preacher of another day, once had this
to say about being thankful: "If one should give me a dish of sand and
tell me there were particles of iron in it, I might look for them with
my eyes and search for them with my clumsy fingers and be unable to detect
them. But let me take a magnet and sweep through it and now it would
draw to itself the almost invisible particles by the mere power of attraction.
The unthankful heart, like my finger in the sand, discovers no mercies;
but let the thankful heart sweep through the day and as the magnet finds
the iron, so it will find, in every hour, some heavenly blessings, only
the iron in God's sand is gold!" (3)
Today I want you to imagine using the magnet of thanksgiving to sweep through your life, and let it pick up all of God’s gold in the sand of your existence. When we make such a sweep, we will find many expected things for which to be thankful. Health and security, family and friends, work and play, a community and culture -- all these are the obvious things we can be grateful for.
We are all different and have distinctive things and people for whom we are thankful. These are God’s gold which we will all find in our lives if we only have the wisdom to look in the right places.
I read a story this week about a man named Harry who had a wife and two kids. He worked in a local factory, bowled on Tuesday nights, and went to Mass with the family on Sundays. But Harry yearned for more.
Then Uncle Elmo came to live with them. Elmo was an old salt who had spent most of his life on the water, first in the Merchant Marines during the War and then off and on on trawlers and whatever seafaring vessel he could sign on to. Elmo never married. The kids loved to listen to his stories about the sea, especially about hidden treasures.
Harry was not above also delighting in the tales Elmo told. Elmo always ended his stories with an assurance that he had a map leading to the largest treasure ever.
Soon Elmo died. The family gave him a proper funeral and mourned becomingly.
Soon, however, Harry’s curiosity got the better of him. He dug through
Elmo’ s belongings, his papers and especially an old suitcase with a lock
on it. In the suitcase Harry found the map. Eagerly he unfolded it and
studied it closely. After some time he realized that Elmo had drawn a map
that led directly to Harry’s home and to the family there. Elmo had
found his treasure there and as his last bequest to Harry, Elmo was reminding
Harry that that is where he would find his greatest treasure also. (4)
But one class of things for which we should be thankful is not so obvious. I believe we need to find that for which we can be thankful even in the hard times of our lives.
The Dutch Christian and war heroine, Corrie ten Boom, tells about an incident that taught her the principle of giving thanks in all things. It was during World War II. Corrie and her sister, Betsy, had been harboring Jewish people in their home, so they were arrested and imprisoned at Ravensbruck Camp. Their barracks was extremely crowded and infested with fleas. One morning they read in their tattered Bible from First Thessalonians the reminder to rejoice in all things. Betsy said, "Corrie, we've got to give thanks for this barracks and even for these fleas." Corrie replied, "No way am I going to thank God for fleas." But Betsy was persuasive, and they did thank God even for the fleas. During the months that followed, they found that their barracks was left relatively free, and they could do Bible study, talk openly, and even pray in the barracks. It was their only place of refuge. Several months later they learned that the reason the guards never entered their barracks was because of those blasted fleas! (5)
Can you find something, even in the hardest times of your life, for
which you can be thankful? I believe this is one way to redeem those
dark days and bring the light of God’s grace to them. If you do this
with sincerity, you might be surprised at the results. Remember that life
must be lived forwards, but can only be understood backwards. Take time
in your prayers to do a magnetic sweep through the hard times of your life,
so that you may be surprised by more of God’s gold.
Perhaps more than any other thing, we should be thankful for Christ.
He gave the greatest sacrifice for us, but we often forget to thank Him.
The Gospel of Luke tells about ten lepers who were healed by Jesus.
Nine of them went on their merry way. But one came back to Jesus
to express his gratitude for the wonderful gift of healing.
Paul Harvey tells a story about an old man who lived on the eastern
seacoast of Florida. Every Friday night, until his death in 1973, the old
man would return to a pier out over the water, walking slowly and slightly
stooped with a large bucket of shrimp. The sea gulls would flock to this
old man, and he would feed them from his bucket.
Many years before, in October, 1942, when Captain Eddie Rickenbacker was young, he was on a mission in a B-17 to deliver an important message to General Douglas MacArthur in New Guinea. But there was an unexpected detour which would hurl Captain Eddie into the most harrowing adventure of his life.
Somewhere over the South Pacific the Flying Fortress became lost beyond the reach of radio. Fuel ran dangerously low, so the men ditched their plane in the ocean... For nearly a month Captian Eddie and his companions would fight the water, and the weather, and the scorching sun. They spent many sleepless nights recoiling as giant sharks rammed their rafts. The largest raft was nine by five. The biggest shark...ten feet long. But of all their enemies at sea, one proved most formidable: starvation. Eight days out, their rations were long gone or destroyed by the salt water. It would take a miracle to sustain them. And a miracle occurred.
In Captain Eddie's own words, "Cherry," that was the B- 17 pilot, Captain William Cherry, "read the service that afternoon, and we finished with a prayer for deliverance and a hymn of praise. There was some talk, but it tapered off in the oppressive heat. With my hat pulled down over my eyes to keep out some of the glare, I dozed off."
“Suddenly,” Captain Rickenbacker says, "something landed on my head. I knew that it was a sea gull. I don't know how I knew, I just knew. Everyone else knew too. No one said a word, but peering out from under my hat brim without moving my head, I could see the expression on their faces. They were staring at that gull. The gull meant food...if I could catch it."
And the rest, as they say, is history. Captain Eddie caught the gull. Its flesh was eaten. Its intestines were used for bait to catch fish. The survivors were sustained and their hopes renewed because a lone sea gull, uncharacteristically hundreds of miles from land, offered itself as a sacrifice. You know that Captain Eddie made it. And now you also know...that he never forgot. Because every Friday evening, about sunset...on a lonely stretch along the eastern Florida seacoast...you could see an old man walking...white-haired, bushy-eyebrowed, slightly bent. His bucket filled with shrimp was to feed the gulls...to remember that one which, on a day long past, gave itself without a struggle...like manna in the wilderness. (6)
And that’s the way we should remember the sacrifice that Christ made for us. Jesus voluntarily gave his life for our sins. And that is the focal point of Christianity.
Let me conclude by sharing one of my favorite poems with you. John Oxenham wrote this poem to emphasize the priority of the person Jesus over our beliefs about him. It goes like this:
"Not What, but Whom I do believe
That in my darkest hour of need,
Hath comfort, that no mortal creed
To mortal man may give,
Not What I do believe
But Whom! Not What, but Whom!"
In your prayers this weekend, do a sweep with the magnet of your heart and give thanks to God for the gold in your life. Do another sweep over the hard times in your life and give thanks to God for the surprising things you find there. Do a third sweep and give thanks to God for the things of Christ in your life: for Jesus and the Bible and this church family and most of all, for the healing and blessings we have received from God.
(1) James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited (Wheaton: Tyndale House
Publishers, Inc, 1988) pp. 261-262. (Shared by Gary Botha on PRCL)
(2) Posted on DOCDISC by "Dennis R. Rowe" <drrowe@JOURNEY.COM>,
November 1, 1999)
(3) Henry Ward Beecher , quoted by James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited
(Wheaton: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc, 1988) p. 264. (Shared by Gary
Botha on PRCL)
(4) Good News, "Model homily," 26 (7): 249 (Liturgical Publications
Inc., 2875 South James Drive, New Berlin WI 53151).
(5) In her book, The Hiding Place, quoted by John Yates, "An Attitude
of Gratitude," Preaching Today, Tape No. 110. Shared by Gary Botha on PRCL.
(6) "The Old Man and the Gulls" from Paul Harvey's The Rest of the
Story by Paul Aurandt, 1977).