“The Root and Fruit of Thanksgiving,” Col. 1.9–14, Thanksgiving ‘19

1.                Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  A very Happy Thanksgiving to all of you!!!  The message from God’s Word today is taken from Colossians 1:9-14, it’s entitled, “The Root and Fruit of Thanksgiving,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.

2.                I like Thanksgiving Day: the inspirational background of pilgrim history, the hymns we love to sing, the lavish spread of food shared with family or good friends, to say nothing about the opportunity to give thanks to God for his many blessings.  But there’s a danger that we may praise God with our words and appetites, but then snub him with our thoughts and actions a day later and the day after that and the rest of the year. 

3.                It’s like the story of Johnson and Jackson, who met at the airport. Johnson snubbed Jackson: “Say, Johnson, don’t you recognize me?”  “Of course,” was the cold reply.  “Well, aren’t you even going to say ‘hello’?”  “Hello,” was the unenthusiastic response.  “Aren’t you being a bit ungrateful, Johnson?” Jackson replied. “When you were ill two years ago, who paid your doctor bills?”  “You did.”  “And this summer, who saved you from drowning when you got a cramp?”  “You did,” said Johnson once more.  “And you can pass me by without even a greeting?”  “Well, sure,” said Johnson. “What have you done for me in the past three months?”

4.                I doubt if anyone here today is so blatantly ungrateful. After a moment of crisis or on a day such as today, our thanks may be quite plentiful, but we easily lapse back into a forgetful life, unaware of how ungrateful we’ve become toward both God and others.  Our God speaks to us this day about perpetual thanksgiving, the thanksgiving life or, to put it another way, “the root and fruit of Thanksgiving.”

5.                The seeds we sow in spring won’t produce healthy plants if the root is shallow or diseased. Similarly, our thanksgiving will be weak and short-lived if the root is missing, if our thanksgiving is only an annual emotional spasm.  No, the root must go deep. According to St. Paul in our text, the real root of gratitude toward God is a matter of being “filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding” (v 9). That’s Paul’s prayer for us.

6.                What does that mean? Well, spiritual knowledge and understanding and wisdom are all linked together. As we grow in our knowledge of God by reading and hearing his Word and by observing his hand in history, in nature, and in our personal lives, we understand him better. As we understand him better, we become wiser in our attitudes toward life and toward him. As we become wiser, we become more thankful to him. We are aware—and appreciative—of his love for the world and us. Now that’s the thanksgiving root that nourishes the thanksgiving plant, which in turn produces the thanksgiving fruit!

7.                Spiritual wisdom sees God’s providence in history. Two ships left distant shores on a pilgrimage. They left one hundred years apart. The first left the Caribbean island of Hispaniola in 1519, carrying soldiers. They were looking for wealth, fame, and fortune. They arrived on the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico. Their leader, Hernando Cortez, claimed all the land he saw, and he captured all the people in the name of the Queen of Spain and the Holy See of Rome. Cortez marched on to Mexico City, leaving behind him a bloody trail of conquest. With just over five hundred men, he conquered millions of Native Americans and enslaved them for centuries to follow.

8.                The other ship left England in 1620 and landed at Plymouth. This vessel held Puritans who were fleeing from religious oppression, searching for a land where they could worship in freedom. They weren’t soldiers, but families. They didn’t carry swords, but Bibles. Their motive wasn’t to gain land and wealth, but to establish a home where they could serve God as their hearts dictated.  What if God had permitted a hurricane—so common in the Gulf of Mexico—to blow Cortez and his men to the shores of what we now call our land, the United States of America? What kind of freedom and thanksgiving would we be enjoying today—if any?

9.                Spiritual knowledge knows how dependent we are. In world history, our country enjoys national, physical, medical, and psychological security. Sometimes we conclude that we are a pretty self-sufficient people and hardly need God. But when you get right down to it, we’re not nearly as independent as the Pilgrims. They cut their own wood, made their own candles, cured their own meat, raised their own food, and wove their own clothes. We do little or none of that now. Just think of what a national strike by farmers, police, fire, or transportation workers would do, or an oil embargo or a shutdown of the military. Why, we’re utterly dependent on other people and so, eventually, utterly dependent on God.

10.             We’re dependent on God not only for physical needs but also for spiritual needs. By nature we are selfish, sinful human beings with no way to escape punishment. We have no peace of conscience or assurance of a happy eternity. It’s only because God provides forgiveness through the death of his own Son, Jesus Christ, as our substitute, that we have spiritual peace and security. His Spirit calls us to believe that, and it keeps us in that faith. We’re constantly and utterly dependent on his grace and mercy. This knowledge and understanding is the deep root of thanksgiving.

11.             Another section of that root of thanksgiving is the wisdom that understands how inclined we are to forget the fact that we actually don’t own anything. We are simply God’s stewards, his caretakers. Everything we have is simply a trust given to us by God. But the deepest root of thanksgiving, which we are calling spiritual wisdom, is in these words of Paul: “[Give] thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Col 1:12–14).

12.             The nutrients flowing from the deep root of our thanksgiving—our spiritual understanding, knowledge, and wisdom—nourish the growing fruit of thanksgiving.  First, we share in the inheritance of the saints in light. True, while we feebly struggle here, they shine and bask in the glory of the Father. Yet we are one in Christ. We, too, “proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (1 Pet 2:9). 

13.             Second, “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Col 1:13). Christ is our King—not the devil or our sinful, unruly selves. 

14.             And third, “We have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (v 14). We are right with God. We are at peace with him. We are empowered to live with thanksgiving, leading a life “worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work. . . . May you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy” (vv 10–11). Yes, the thankful life is the forgiven life, the God-pleasing life, the fruitful life, the serving life, the joyful life.  The Root of Spiritual Understanding That God Gives Us Nourishes the Spiritual Fruit of Thanksgiving, Which We Offer to God in Praise.  Amen.  Now the peace of God that passes all understanding guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus until life everlasting.  Amen.