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November 23, 2006
Thanksgiving
Matthew 6:25-34
Pastor Joel Zank

Thanks to God!

(Matthew 6:25-34) "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? {26} Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? {27} Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? {28}"And why do you worry about clothes? See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. {29} Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. {30} If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? {31} So do not worry, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' {32} For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. {33} But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. {34}Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

In Christ Jesus who is the end of all our worries, dear fellow redeemed,

Where does thanksgiving come from? Please understand, I'm not asking about the history behind our American holiday. No, my question is much more basic. I'm wondering if thanksgiving is an attitude, that is, a certain frame of mind that we develop over time, or is thanksgiving more like an emotion-something on the order of joy and sadness-something that's here one moment and gone the next? What do you think? Not really sure? Well, our Lord Jesus gives us some important insight into all of this. Without ever actually mentioning the word "thanksgiving" here in our text, the Savior teaches us that THANKS TO GOD 1) can't come from a "worried" heart, but rather 2) flows constantly from a faith-filled heart.

One of my teachers once told me, "Whenever your text begins with the word, 'therefore,' (as our does), you need to ask 'What's it there for?'" In our case, it's there to connect the words of our text with a thought that Jesus has just concluded, namely, "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. {20} But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. {21} For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also" (Matthew 6:19-21).

If Jesus were to ask you today, "What is it that you treasure most? Where is your heart?" What would you tell him? I know what I would want to tell him. I would want to say, "Jesus, you're my only treasure." Same answer for you? The very first commandment really demands that answer, doesn't it? "You shall have no other gods!" What does this mean? "We should fear, love, and trust in God above all things." That settles it then. Or does it? If Jesus went poking around in your heart right now, would he find anything there competing for your devotion? Can't really think of anything? Well, let me ask you this: "Do you have any worries?" Now you're thinking, "What kind of question is that? Of course I have worries; we all do." Have you ever noticed that worry is one of those sins that we tend to dismiss rather casually because everyone is doing it? Baseball isn't our national pastime; worry has it beat hands down. But where is the comfort in that thought? It simply means that everyone is guilty of the same damning sin.

Wait a minute! I know worry is a bad habit, but a damning sin? Friends, it can be nothing else. With every worry, we're telling God, who demands our perfect trust, "I don't trust you at all." And that's not even the half of it. As Jesus points out in our text, worry is the byproduct of our idolatry. In other words, worry is the price we pay for focusing our attention on and chasing after something that has become more important to us than God himself. Jesus cites the example of food and clothes, using these worrisome questions: "What shall we eat?" or What shall we drink?" or "What shall we wear?" But it could be anything, not just our financial security, but our health, or the welfare of family and friends-you name it. Jesus points out that worrying about such things has us thinking, talking and acting just like unbelieving pagans who spend their days running "...after all these things." Hell-bound pagans! Could the Lord's point be anymore direct?

Worry is a sinful and harmful waste of time. Besides insulting our God, what has worry ever done for us? "Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?" Jesus asks. Worry is a stressor. It doesn't add anything to our lives. We worry ourselves to death. And all the time we're doing so, we're choking off the gratitude and gratefulness our God deserves. Thanks to God can't come from a "worried" heart. Such a heart is so busy fretting over what it doesn't have or what it might lose, that it has no time to stop and acknowledge its many blessings from God. Oh, we can go through the motions. We can make a long list of things for which to be grateful. Perhaps we'll do that very thing today. We tell ourselves and our family how thankful we are, but all the while, our thanks might well be tainted with one nagging thought-what if I lose these things? What will I have then? And so, before we can even finish our thanks giving, we're right back to worrying.

It's shameful, isn't it, all this worrying we do? But how can we stop it? Where does it end? It stops with the word of our God! Today his word forces us to look at our worry for what it is-a sin for which we deserve God's punishment in hell. There can be no excuses; there's no defense to offer, only this confession to make - "Lord, I have sinned against you. I don't deserve to be called your child. Please forgive me for my worries."

Of all the things we could want and have, none is more important than God's forgiveness. Without it, we will never be satisfied, no matter what else we have or own. But with God's forgiveness, we need never be discontent, no matter what our circumstances may be. This is why Jesus says, "Seek first [the Father's] kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well" (Matthew 6:33). Friends, our greatest need is deliverance from sin and its everlasting punishment. Jesus once asked, "What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?" (Matthew 16:26). All the riches, all the fame, and all the power in the whole world cannot free you or me from the punishment of even one of our sins, let alone all the sins of a lifetime. We don't have anything to offer our God in exchange for our soul's salvation. You and I have nothing. But Jesus, God's Son, had more than enough to free the whole world-all people of all time from sin's curse and power. What did he own that was so valuable, so powerful? His is the righteousness of God. While here on earth he lived and spoke and thought nothing but righteousness - the very thing, the only thing we must have to live with our God in his kingdom of peace.

Jesus had it all, but in his great love, he did not keep it all for himself. Instead he took that righteousness of his, all his holiness, and he gave it to us in exchange for our sin. Then he took all this sin of ours, including our worry and doubt and unbelief and he suffered for it in hell so that it could never be charged to us again. This is the righteousness that Jesus would have us seek. But where do we find it? How shall we get it? It's right here, in this word of promise: "Take heart, your sins are forgiven!" That's it! To seek it is simply to believe it, to believe that your Jesus has taken your sin away, even your sin of worry by giving you credit for his constant and perfect trust in God, and because he has, God is at peace with you.

Now maybe you're thinking - that's great Pastor-it really is-God's at peace with me. But how does peace pay the bills? How does it put food on the table? How does it cure cancer, or heart disease, or solve the host of other problems I'm having right now? Don't you see? Peace does something far better than solve our earthy problems. It assures us that none of those problems is a punishment from God. He's not against us. He's for us; he's with us, yes, to solve our problems when that is what is best for us; and when it's not, he's with us to use our problems to accomplish an even greater good. That's God's promise. St. Paul says in Romans, "If God is for us, who can be against us? {32} He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all--how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?" (Romans 8:31-32). God's promise to care for all our needs is directly connected to the problem he's already solved for us, our biggest problem, the one called sin. With that taken care of, everything else will fall into place, it has to. Jesus says so right here: "Is not life more important than food, and the body more important than clothes? {26} Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?" (Matthew 6:25-26). Our Father takes care of every creature he has made, right down to the smallest birds that in Jesus' day were sold two for a penny. He will certainly take care of us. Of course he will, consider the value he has placed on you, buying you back from your sin with the life-blood of his own Son as the payment price. Having invested so much in you, you're far too precious to him to be left to fend for yourself. So God is watching over you. As Jesus says, your heavenly Father knows what you need. You will have from his hand all that you require for body and soul as long as you live here on earth. Together with his most important gifts, the righteousness of Jesus and the keys to God's kingdom, all these things, like food, and drink and clothes will be given to you as well.

It is with such promises that our loving Lord builds up our little faith so that we can stop worrying about tomorrow, for when you think about it, tomorrow never really comes. The twenty four hours in which we live is always called today. Why in the world, then, would we borrow problems from a future that we can only guess about? Are we in such short supply of trouble that we have to go looking for it elsewhere? Of course not; Jesus says that in this sinful world each day has enough trouble of its own, a truth that would be quite frightening, were it not for God's promise to be with us and to make all things serve are good.

We began with a question: Where does thanksgiving come from? It comes from a soul that feeds on God's promises. It comes from a mind that ponders the salvation Christ Jesus has earned for us. Thanksgiving flows constantly from a faith-filled heart that knows it has been rescued from the fires of hell. Is thanksgiving an attitude? Oh yes, one worked by God's Spirit. Is it an emotion? Sure it is, one fueled by God's grace. In fact, you got to see such emotion in action if you watched this past Sunday's episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. It featured a WELS family from Dundee, Wisconsin. The Koepkes, who received a new home on the program, were still mourning the loss of husband and dad, Matthew Koepke, who died of cancer this past August. Their grief was quite evident, but their thanksgiving even more so, thanksgiving that came from something Matthew taught them. During his last days of life, Matthew kept repeating for them this one important truth: "There's lots to think about, but nothing to worry about." Don't you suppose he was simply summarizing the truths Jesus has taught us today. We have so much to think about when it comes to God's love for us, that there's simply no time and no reason to worry, not when we spend our days, as we all do, in the care and keeping of Christ Jesus our Savior. Amen.