New York UBF – NY University Bible Fellowship (NYUBF)

2008 Thanksgiving Message

THANKSGIVING IN ADVERSITY

“Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.” (Ephesians 5:19-20)

Happy Thanksgiving! Does everyone know who Snoopy the Dog is? Once he tried to be thankful on Thanksgiving Day. He got dog food for his Thanksgiving Day Dinner, but he was aware that everyone else in the family was inside having turkey. He meditated to himself and said, “How about that? Everyone is eating turkey today, but just because I’m a dog I get dog food.” He sulked and positioned himself on top of his doghouse. Soon he concluded, “Of course, it could have been worse, I could have been born a turkey.” We should be even better than Snoopy. Cicero, a great politician and orator, once said that a thankful heart is not only the greatest virtue, but the parent of all other virtues.

As we have just read the Scriptures, the spirit of thanksgiving is the mark of a Christian or any godly people on earth. Celebrating Thanksgiving is a unique American tradition. We are familiar with the story of the Pilgrims who crossed the Atlantic Ocean and survived tumultuous and deadly conditions for over two months. Many of them didn’t make it. Yet, totally unprepared for a harsh New England winter, nearly half of them died of starvation and sickness before spring. We cannot imagine how they felt in such tragedy and sufferings. Yet, they didn’t lose the spirit of Thanksgiving. Their first Thanksgiving feast in 1621 was celebrated with the Native Americans.

How did we begin to celebrate National Thanksgiving Day? After several presidents declared a National Day of Thanksgiving, beginning with our first President, George Washington, it was President Abraham Lincoln who set aside the last Thursday of November as the official national Day of Thanksgiving in 1863. At that time, the nation was in the midst of the Civil War. During the Battle of Gettysburg, nearly 60,000 American lives were lost. Lincoln himself had to deal with the severest trial of his life, the death of his son. He explained to a friend, “When I left Springfield to assume the Presidency, I asked people to pray for me. When I buried my son, I was not a Christian. But when I went to Gettysburg and saw the graves of thousands of our soldiers, I then and there consecrated myself to Christ.”

Abraham Lincoln ended his Thanksgiving Proclamation speech in 1863 with the phrase, “It is the duty of nations as well as of men to own their dependence upon the overruling power of God; to confess their sins and transgressions in humble sorrow, yet with assured hope that genuine repentance will lead to mercy and pardon; and to recognize the sublime truth, announced in Holy Scriptures and proven by all history, that those nations are blessed whose God is the Lord.” As we celebrate Thanksgiving each year, we hope that we can also have the original spirit of thanksgiving to God displayed by the Pilgrims and many other founding fathers and godly men and women in history. We can learn many things from them. But one thing we learn from them is the spiritual of thanksgiving in times of adversity. Ephesians 5:19-20 once again. “Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

The verses I just read are a part of the epistle that Paul had written for early Christians in Ephesus when he was in prison. Apostle Paul had been preaching the gospel and establishing numerous churches in Asia Minor and Europe. He worked very hard, harder than any other Christians and apostles in his time. Humanly speaking, he definitely deserved praise and recognition for his remarkable achievement. At the very least, he should’ve spent the last days of his life in a quiet and cozy retirement home. Yet, he spent most of his last years in a cold prison cell. If anyone had a right to be bitter, it was Apostle Paul himself. But instead of grumbling about his bad human situation, he was always filled with the spirit of praise and thanksgiving toward God. Paul was aware that to many early believers in Ephesus, life was stressful enough. Some of them were persecuted because of their faith and there were a lot of problems in the church. Yet Paul said to them, “Speak to one another with psalms, hymns and spiritual songs. Sing and make music in your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Many people think of Thanksgiving as a wonderful time to celebrate getting out of work or school for a long weekend, and eating a great Thanksgiving dinner. Or they think of Thanksgiving as the start of the Christmas holiday season. Yet, thanksgiving for Saint Paul was not an annual activity on Thanksgiving Day. Instead, giving thanks was a central part of his daily life of faith in Jesus in whatever situation he might have been. In fact, the spirit of thanksgiving affected his entire life and ministry. Paul was always thankful to God. But he knew how to be thankful in times of adversity. That’s the original spirit of thanksgiving of our forefathers.

As we read Acts chapter 16, we read about Paul’s imprisonment in Philippi. There, Paul and his assistant Silas were put in prison because they drove out a demon from a young girl. This girl used to make a lot of money for her boss by fortune-telling. What a terrible boss he was! He was using this little girl to make money. But when she saw Paul preaching, the girl followed him and Silas everywhere and said, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” She kept this up for many days. When you think about this, it seems really annoying. While you are preaching, if someone, especially a demon possessed person, constantly interferes with your messages, making a lot of noise, saying “Amen, Hallelujah” in totally inappropriate times, what would you do? Paul became troubled. Perhaps he was aware of who she was. Actually, the devil was looking for a chance to destroy Paul’s ministry. For many days, he might have struggled because of her constant interference. He thought that she would stop after several days. But she didn’t. Finally, Paul said to himself, “I’ve had enough.” He turned around and said to the spirit, “In the name of Jesus Christ I command you to come out of her!” At that moment the spirit left her. She was freed from the demon. That in itself is a beautiful story, but that was only the beginning.

When the owners of the slave girl realized that their hope of making money was gone, they seized Paul and Silas and dragged them into the marketplace to face the authorities. They began to accuse them as Jewish troublemakers. When the crowd heard, they joined in the attack. The police chief ordered them to be stripped and beaten, and after they had been severely flogged, they were thrown in prison. What did Paul do to deserve such horrible treatment? Nothing. Instead, he saved a young girl who had been abused by evil spirit and evil people. But instead of being praised and recognized as a hero, he was publicly humiliated, beaten and put in prison.

A few months ago, I played basketball with some young guys at Kissena Park. I played okay. It was fun. I made several impressive shots. I really enjoyed the game. But since then, I had to suffer from severe back pain for over a month. You can image how terrible it was when Paul and Silas were stripped and beaten by so many people. No doubt their bodies were full of wounds and bruises. What did Paul and Silas do? Did they regret what they did for the girl? Did they curse the evil owners and those who beat them up? Did they complain to God and blame him for what happened to them? No. About midnight Paul and Silas were still up. Probably, they could not fall asleep because they were in such severe pain. They didn’t even have any Motrin or Advil to relieve the pain. What did they do? Instead of groaning in pain, Paul and Silas prayed and sang hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. In fact, they praised God, using their chains as musical instruments, “Give thanks with a grateful heart, give thanks to the Holy One.” The other prisoners could not understand them because it just didn’t make any sense to them. In fact, these prisoners might have been full of complaints and bitterness even though most of them deserved punishment. At first, listening to their hymns and prayers, the other prisoners might have thought that Paul and Silas had been driven insane after being beaten so badly. But they definitely saw something very different in them, which was the joy, peace and the spirit of thankfulness even in their adverse situation. In fact, the spirit of thanksgiving was a powerful testimony of God and Jesus Christ to these prisoners. In this way, Paul and Silas glorified God. Some of us might think that we can glorify God only when good things happen to us. But we learn that we can glorify God even when unfortunate things happen to us. It depends on our attitude.

We often complain and grumble in times of adversity. Many of us are stressed and upset because of what’s going on in Wall Street today. Across the nation and the whole world panic is spreading due to economic downturns. Definitely, it is the time of adversity for everyone. This Thanksgiving may be one of the hardest Thanksgivings to really give thanks to God. But in our adversity, we can learn the true spirit of thanksgiving. These days, if you have a job, you should be thankful. Even if you don’t, you still should be thankful for your health. What if you are so sick that you cannot lift your fingers to pick up your food? What if God takes away air from us for 10 minutes, what’s going to happen to us? We would all die. In fact, we have so many things to be thankful for. But the problem is that we are so spoiled and neglectful about thanksgiving. Ingratitude is the root of all ungodliness. It’s not natural for us to have the spirit of thanksgiving in times of adversity. We instantly complain. Therefore, we need to discipline ourselves to give thanks to God. I pray that this time of adversity can be an opportunity for all of us to sincerely come to God in repentance, humility and thanksgiving, that it may be a time of great revival.

According to 1 Thessalonias 5:16-18, giving thanks in all circumstances is God’s will for us in Christ Jesus. Paul said in 2 Corinthians 7:4, “I am exceedingly joyful in all our tribulation.” How could he do that? It’s because he knew that God was working in all things for his good, even when he was going through trials. (Romans 8:28) We often wonder why God makes us go through adversities and difficulties in life. If he loves us, why doesn’t he make our life easier? Sometimes, we just don’t get the point of suffering.

A man once watched a butterfly struggling to get out of its cocoon. He felt so sorry for it. So in an effort to help it, he took a razor blade, and carefully slit the edge of the cocoon. You know what? The butterfly escaped from its problem, but then died immediately. The man didn’t understand that it is God’s way to have the butterfly struggle. Trials have their purpose. They make us struggle – they bring us to our knees. They are the cocoon in which we often find ourselves. It is there that the life’s blood of faith in God helps us spread our wings. Romans 5:3-5 reads, “And we rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.”

Our faith is often tested. But thanksgiving is the barometer of the depth of our faith in Jesus Christ. Faith and thanksgiving go hand in hand. If we have faith in God, we will be thankful because we know God’s loving hand is upon us, even though we are in the valley of the shadow of death, in a lion’s den or in the furnace of fire. We can be confident when we know that God is still with us and in us when we suffer, molding us into something very beautiful and precious, like jewels of heaven. We are not to worry about anything, but in all things, we should trust in the Lord who didn’t spare his Son for us. We should celebrate God’s salvation through Jesus Christ everyday. Thanksgiving brings us joy, peace and all godliness. May the Lord bless all of you through the spirit of thanksgiving to go through this difficult time with wisdom and joy.