This post was originally written as a message for the Cherryville Campus of Bethany Wesleyan Church on November 5, 2023. These are the updated sermon notes, which have been edited for this post. You can find a video of that message HERE. That sermon was titled, ‘Remember to thank God.’

One thing to understand in this post: it came about from two different purposes colliding. First, I was asked to speak on this passage of scripture, Luke 17:11-19, for a Thanksgiving themed message (it is probably best to read that scripture before the post). Second, I have been studying spiritual disciplines and had started to explore the idea of thanksgiving as a spiritual discipline. With that in mind, I hope this is meaningful to you.

Today is November 5th, the first weekend of November, the first Sunday of November.  What does that mean?  That means it is officially full-swing Christmas Season. 

I know, I know.  Around half of us here are saying, NO WAY – this is fall season, turkey season!  And around the other half of us here are further saying, NO WAY – it has been Christmas season for at least three weeks!! The rest of us are just sitting back, eating our popcorn, enjoying this can of worms that was just opened.

I don’t know that I have a strong opinion on this.  It almost changes year to year depending on what I am feeling.  This year, I am slightly feeling that Christmasy feeling. I don’t know why, I just am. It is November 5th and I am feeling Christmas.  

Whatever your feelings are, may we admit that Thanksgiving and Christmas are forever intertwined, connected, even reliant upon one another.  Thanksgiving is the start of Christmas, it is mini-Christmas, it is the Christmas warm-up.  

What I have come to realize is that Thanksgiving is actually very essential to Christmas.  While Thanksgiving is a Christian topic, the word thanks is in the Bible around 72 times and gratitude around 157 and Jesus gave thanks at least 7 times, we mostly approach thanks as an easy, hum-drum, this isn’t deep kind of topic.  

Please hear – this is an essential topic to each of us as Christians.  Essential to our faith walk with God.  

Further, if you find yourself like me, where Christmas isn’t always what it used to be, you don’t always feel it – a deeper understanding of Thanksgiving is going to go a long ways in helping restore that Christmas feeling to your life!  

What are we looking for in these moments together?  Please understand this:

• Thanksgiving, thankfulness will set the best stage for Christmas in our lives.
• Thanksgiving will offer us a lens to view life in a more meaningful way.  
• Most importantly – Thanksgiving will open our hearts to God’s work and change in it.  

In scripture, we look at a moment where real life change came to an individual because of their desire to offer thanks.  May we learn from this moment!

May God reveal to us the importance of the practice of thanksgiving and may we have ears to hear His Will in these moments together.

PRAY:  God – be with us now as we seek Your Word and Your Will.  We open our hearts to You now.  We love You and we seek You.  Guide us – AMEN.

In Luke 17v11-19, we find a moment where thanksgiving, gratitude, changes the life of an individual in the biggest way.  

10 men with leprosy connect with Jesus.  We don’t know much about these 10 men, we don’t need to know much because we know the big deal to their situation – they have leprosy.  

This has put them outside society.  Jesus is traveling at this border area, an outcast kind of area.  These men can’t even approach Jesus fully, they have leprosy.  We don’t know what nationality they are.  We know one is a Samaritan and by the way Jesus speaks, it sounds like some of them were Jewish.  Being on the border area this makes sense.  Outcasts from both societies don’t know where to go, they end up here.  And being outcast and diseased has brought individuals who normally wouldn’t be together, together.  

They are desperate and they are seeking desperate change.

The storyline of the miracle is almost simple, isn’t it?  It is done super quick.  Jesus gives them instructions and as they go they are healed.  

There is a level of faith involved here.  They have to show themselves to the priests to be declared clean, this is part of entering back into society.  A priest would need to clear them.  But they aren’t cleaned, healed, until they start moving.  Then it happens!

My brain plays this out in a way that probably didn’t happen…  Or maybe it did!  

I envision them starting to see healing as they move and then they start walking in slow-mo, just seeing the change.  Seeing scabs fall off – gross.  Seeing skin become pure and clean – less gross.  

They have this walk that turns into a dance.  And then maybe a sprint.  Incredible!  A walk becomes a dance, becomes a sprint, becomes a miracle!  

But there is the bigger deal – their lives are desperately, drastically changed – but maybe not enough.  Not as much as they could have been changed.  

Why not enough?  Because only one returns to thank Jesus.  Here is the thing – Jesus’ miracle changed their bodies.  But this man’s thankfulness opened the door for Jesus to bring real change to his heart.  

There is a strong connection between what a spirit of thankfulness can do to allow our hearts to change, to grow, to be molded by God. 

Thanksgiving is about change!  

• One man returned to Jesus.
• One man opened his heart to thankfulness.
• One man, one man out of 10, would truly be changed!

THANKSGIVING IS ABOUT CHANGE!

What is Thanksgiving about?  Say it with me! CHANGE!!

My interactions with Thanksgiving have changed over the years.  Even turkey was impacted for me once.  True story.  I have experienced 6 years of no turkey.

We talk about pastors facing stress and pressures in today’s world, there is one area that we don’t consider when it comes to the trials that pastor’s face.  Or maybe specifically pastor’s families…. Pastors and their families have to often eat other people’s food.  

Now before you brush this off, I ask:  Do you want to do it?  And do it with a smile on your face?  Do you?

Please hear this, I approach this lightly and I am being silly.  A few clarifications: I love all your food (some of you have given me dessert type items recently and they have all been delicious, maybe not healthy but delicious), this is clearly about other people.  Also – this isn’t the normal tradition as much any more and that is fine.  Finally, realize that I am a picky eater.  This is mostly about me.  I don’t like change when it comes to food.  Ever.  If I like something a certain way, I like it that way!  

My dad was a pastor, this was during the day and age when it was regular to have your pastor over for dinner.  As a child, I was taken to a lot of “dinner experiences”.  I remember one situation with my mother giving an 8-10 year old me a pep talk as I faced lumpy mashed potatoes.  People, they were so lumpy – this was the greatest trial I had ever faced in my life to that point.  

My dad made amazing mashed potatoes.  His work with butter, milk, and a hand mixer – it was a gift from God.  Here I was, being served a ham dinner, lumpy mashed potatoes, and somehow there was no ham gravy.  No ham gravy!  Catastrophe.  

So one Thanksgiving, our family was given a turkey dinner.  Here is the worst part:  The person told us they were experimenting.  I don’t know what to say other than that I’m not even sure if I tasted it.  Please hear, I am a picky eater, I get that, but we will just say that this was prepared in a unique way.  The look and the smell.  You can ask my wife – 6 years.  6 years, I didn’t have turkey.  I am just now coming back.  

I don’t like change.  I don’t often want to change.  But Thanksgiving is change.  If we want it or not, it changes.  We want Thanksgiving to be the same, same tradition, history, same feeling, but it changes.  Thanksgiving changed when I went to college, when I got married, when I had kids, when I moved, when my mother passed away days before.  

What if we just embrace that thanksgiving means change?  Thanksgiving has brought a lot of changes to my life, good and odd.  But it is true, when I have opened my heart to real thanksgiving, it has changed.

Expect real Thanksgiving to change you.

In scripture, God used a Samaritan individual as the one who would change here on purpose.  It was done to draw out the significance to the Jewish people of this truth.  This was not their person, and yet, they were changed, forever changed, because they opened their heart to thanks.  

He offered thanks and it opened not just his body to be well, but his heart to wellness as well. That is what Jesus meant here when He said ‘your faith has made you well.’  

Thanksgiving, thankfulness, gratefulness, giving thanks – all of these are there to offer us a heart check.

If our heart is really thankful or not, it shows a clear truth about our relationship status.  I’ll admit, I can’t force thankfulness.  If I don’t really feel it, then I don’t really mean it.  But the other 9 men healed with leprosy, I wonder.  I do think they were thankful to Jesus.  How could they not feel it?  But they didn’t take time, take focus, to allow thankfulness to dwell in their lives.  They had to get to the priests, they probably had family to see, they no doubt had life to return to.  

How much more is THAT our story?  Not that we’re not thankful to God, not that we’re not thankful to others – life just moves on.  And we don’t make it a focus.  

But if we don’t make it a focus, thanksgiving doesn’t happen, and we miss an opportunity for heart change.  

Please listen to this:

*Having a heart of thankfulness, intentional thankfulness, will restore order to our relationships.  

*Praise, thanksgiving, gratitude returns our relationship with God and with others to their rightful place.  

*The real purpose of thankfulness is not what it means to others (although it is meaningful), it is what it means to our hearts.

Let’s talk about others for a second:  When we have a rough moment in our marriage, in our family, in our friendships, at our work, wherever, you name it – how would that moment change if we were more aware of all the reasons we are thankful for that person? It would change dramatically.  

It is a simple practice, but when I realize all that I am thankful for with my wife, Julie, my heart re-aligns and I realize that whatever I thought I was right about doesn’t even matter and that I am an idiot.  

Do you ever get irritated with family members or friends?  Oh sure, me neither.  But maybe sometimes, I do get irritated.  Maybe.  When I remember what these people mean to me, to my kids, what they do, how they love – wow.  The irritation doesn’t matter so much does it?  My heart re-aligns.

What about with God?  Do you ever feel irritated with Him?   It happens, doesn’t it.  

Thankfulness sets perspective for our hearts.  It opens the door to see the world properly.  It allows our hearts to be changed.  We need to have hearts that are open to God’s work.  Thankfulness, thanksgiving, gratitude do that.  They keep everything in the right perspective.  They bring order to our hearts.  

So what do we do with this?  Especially as we come into the season of Thanks?

I do consider this an everyday topic for an everyday lifestyle.  My thought for myself and for all of us is this:  If this topic is so “standard” and everyday – are we doing this regularly, everyday?  Is Thanksgiving a part of our every day, every week walk with God?

I have been studying Spiritual Disciplines recently.  Spiritual Disciplines are the things we regularly participate in that draw us closer to God.  Prayer, reading the Bible, devotions, fasting, attending worship services, etc.  

Thanksgiving/thankfulness isn’t often on Spiritual Discipline lists.  It is often one of the first things we encourage people to do when they pray, but I actually feel like Thankfulness should be a discipline in itself. It is something we need to intentionally, with discipline, add to our regular lives.  

I’ll tell you this – when I am intentionally thankful, I think and I live differently.  I love and care for other people in a much more meaningful way.  

So this November and December – I am going to be intentional to offer thanks.  I actually have it on my day-planner – intentional Thanksgiving to God and to others.  I want a heart open to God’s work and change.  

Every night, I practice this.  I drink a lot of water, and so around 3AM every night, that water impacts me.  After taking care of the water, I find myself awake.  Awake and worrying about the world. I am a parent, I don’t need situations in the world to bring me worry, I have plenty.  But oh, how it has impacted my life, to use that time differently.  Instead of spending those moments on all the things in the world I can’t control, I focus on thanking the One who has everything in control. 

I encourage you to do the same.  

• See what it does to your outlook on life.  
• See what it does to your heart and your openness to God’s work in it. 
• See how it changes your holidays – Thanksgiving and Christmas.  My guess, you’ll be in a renewed Christmas spirit if thanks is involved.  
• Maybe most importantly – see what it does to your relationships, with others and most importantly with God.  

Go and offer thanks!