Open Door Fellowship

Pentecostal Church of God, Bland Mo. 65066

1. The first and original Thanksgiving was of course a celebration of the first harvest that was completed by the Plymouth colonists in 1621, Governor William Bradford proclaimed a day of thanksgiving and prayer, shared by all the colonists and neighboring Native Americans. In 1817 New York adopted Thanksgiving Day as an annual custom, and by the middle of the 19th century many other states had done the same.

2. But true Thanksgiving is gratitude towards God. And true Thanksgiving was given in the Old Testament and through out the Bible.

a. Sacrifice and offerings were to be made not grudgingly but with thanksgiving (Ps. 54:6)

b. The psalmist valued a song of thanksgiving more than sacrifice (Ps. 69:30-31).

c. David employed Levites "to invoke, to thank, and to praise the Lord" (1 Chron. 16:4).

d. Pilgrimage to the Temple and Temple worship were characterized by thanksgiving.

e. Thankfulness was expressed: for personal and national deliverance, Gods faithfulness to the covenant and for forgiveness.

3. Thanksgiving is a natural element of Christian worship and was expressed by early Christians for

a. Christ's healing ministry.

b. Christ's deliverance of the believer from sin.

c. God's indescribable gift of grace in Christ.

d. Faith of fellow Christians.

4. We are to give thanks for everything that God has done for us as Eph 5:20 says

5. God says we are to make a sacrifice a sacrifice of thanksgiving

A. True thanksgiving is not turkeys, sweet potatoes, and dressing, its not only raising of hands, songs, pianos and choirs singing beautiful spiritual music unto God, but it is your life loving, adoring, obeying His words, and serving God 100% actually doing His words.

a. So its not the ones that hear the word but those that hear and do the word that will be blessed.

a. The Jewish nation was caring out all of the rituals and celebrations and feast to show their thankfulness for God and to worship him, but it had turned into just a ritual.

b. They were going through all of the motions but they were still living in sin and God warned them that what they were doing was not real thankfulness, not real worship, but a lie.

c. God was not pleased with their rituals he wanted a pure heart, a pure life before him, a life that was serving Him totally.

1. CONTRITE- To be humble and repentant before God, crushed by the sense of guilt and sinfulness.

a. This is talking about dying to self making a true sacrifice of thanksgiving unto God.

(Rom 12:1 KJV) I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.

a. This is simply sacrifice your own lusts, desires, wants, for the Jesus Christ and for His will which is sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ to others and quit being selfish and only worrying about yourself.

a. God expects you to be Holy, Holy through the blood of Jesus Christ, Holy through the Holy Ghost, the comforter which was sent to give you power to be witnesses and to live for Him.

b. God says that no man shall see God unless you are Holy.

a. This just saying what the scriptures has already pointed out to us, that true thankfulness, true sacrifice is produced by our lives, if our lives are producing sinful fruit it doesn't matter how long you sing, clap your hands, how many scriptures you can quote, if your a preacher or Sunday school teacher, hand raiser, God will not except it and your only fooling yourself.

b. Our sacrifice has to come from a broken and contrite heart full of the love of God, that is busy serving Him and not ourselves.

a. When we get our priorities right and we actually serve God out of true love for Him and not out of our own selfishness, and lives are full of prayer and reading our Bibles and actually obeying His word than and only than is that even reasonable service unto the Lord.