Sermon in Phoenix 27.11.2014

Grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and from His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Let us quieten this evening in prayer and thanksgiving.

Dear Heavenly Father, Holy and Righteous God, we pause this evening on this Thanksgiving Day with hearts of thankfulness that, dear Father, you have again so perfectly and so abundantly blessed us with every need and those things that are necessary for this temporal journey and also, even more importantly, the spiritual journey, this journey of living faith that leads one day to the glory of heaven.

We have especially remembered, dear Father, on this day of thanksgiving the blessings of the previous year and how you have again reminded us of where and how those blessings and gifts come. We know, dear Father, that they come from your hand and you know, even according to your holy and precious word, how you've promised them to your children. And you also know, dear Father, how readily and how quickly we forget to thank and praise you for even those kinds of blessings.

We are so forgetful and our memories are so short that we can very easily grumble and complain rather than thank and praise you for your goodness. So this evening, dear Father, we offer that weak prayer of thanks, even this evening, that you would hear as we gather our thoughts around your holy and precious word that you would be thanked again for giving us those things that you know we need.

But, dear Father, this evening we also thank you for giving us your kingdom, that kingdom where we can dwell as your children, where we can have those kinds of loving, believing escorts that encourage us to take another step as we journey homeward. Amen.

But most of all this evening, dear Father, we thank you for giving us of your Son. That even on this day we are mindful of that greatest gift and greatest blessing that comes when we can believe that our sin debt has been completely paid and we are your children.

Dear Father, even in this time when our weak tongues of clay are so faulty and weak, we don't know how we should thank you. But yet we know and trust that by faith one day in the glory of heaven our tongue of clay will be loosed and there we will be able to sing praises that are according to the goodness of your grace.

This evening we pause before your word, dear Father, and pray for your service blessing that you would send us a message of grace, again your word, and that that word would feed us with those crumbs of grace that are even more important than those crumbs that are from this temporal table. We humbly and simply ask, dear Father, now for your service blessing.

And we yet say, as your Son has taught, that our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, forever and ever. Amen.

Before reading a text this evening, I thought to bring greetings to you from your sister in faith, Judith Reynolds. I was there a week ago, well, not even a week ago, just last Saturday, and I visited with her. I hadn't seen her for a few months from our summer travels and then different circumstances.

So when I got to see her, she was very relieved that I hadn't forgotten her. And she asked in our visit that she would send those greetings of love and God's peace to each of you. She's been moved now from a medium security to a minimum security area. And now they're living in a large type of bunking area or a yard that has 1,200 or so prisoners. And there's not much privacy there.

She said she's been struggling a lot just with that environment. And she says it's even more difficult now than it has been in the past in that now as a child of God, she finds herself to be so separated from all of those other prisoners. So she feels so alone there.

And so she asked that you would remember her, that she would be able to remain believing and also with courage to look forward to the next year that she might be able to get out and then also to meet what she needs. And she does meet what she calls her new family. Family she doesn't know, but yet she believes she knows.

I'm going to post also her address. And if you could find even time this week or the next few weeks during the holidays to write a postcard or some note of remembrance for her, she would be overjoyed to be able to get those kinds of greetings from you brothers and sisters.

Again, I marvel as to how God does His work. On this day of Thanksgiving, the national holiday, the kids like it because there is no school. There wasn't any school yesterday, at least in our school district and not the rest of the world. So, we have a special holiday every week so that children think that's a special thing as well, that there's no school.

You also get to spend time with your family and friends and loved ones. In addition to that, we've been able to have those kinds of festivities and meals that we've been able to share together as family and friends. It's a special time, this time of Thanksgiving.

For me, as I've gotten older, I thoroughly enjoy these holidays when I can get together and visit with family and loved ones. We have so many reasons as we pause today to consider many reasons of thanks that God is blessed. And it's a good thing that even our founders of our nation saw a reason that they would set aside a day during the year where we could especially give thanks to that giver of all good and perfect gifts.

I thought this evening that I would read what I considered in Scriptures the many different feasts that have been kept from the beginning of the Bible. There are many. And when you read of those feasts, there are reasons for them.

And so I thought I would read from the Old Testament, the eighth chapter of the book of Genesis. And I'll read from the 15th verse then to the 22nd verse, the end of the chapter. The words are in Jesus' name as follows.

And God spake unto Noah, saying, Go forth of the ark, thou and thy wife and thy sons and thy sons' wives with thee. Bring forth with thee every living thing that is with thee, of all flesh, both of fowl and of cattle, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, that they may breed abundantly in the earth and be fruitful and multiply upon the earth.

And Noah went forth, and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him. Every beast, every creeping thing, and every fowl, and whatsoever creepeth upon the earth, after their kinds went forth out of the ark.

And Noah builded an altar unto the Lord, and took of every clean beast, and of every clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the Lord smelled the sweet savor.

And the Lord said in his heart, I will not again curse the ground any more for man's sake. For the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth. Neither will I again smite any more every living thing as I have done.

While the earth remaineth seedtime and harvest and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, it shall not cease. Amen.

It's good that we at times in our lives look back. But it's important that we look back for the right reasons. God wouldn't want us to look back and examine our own endeavor of faith and our own sinfulness. But rather, God in that perspective would want us to look forward.

And He wants us to look forward, as a child of God, with hope in our heart that before us lies a blessing, an eternal blessing. And the way to that eternal blessing has been paved by our Lord and Savior already many years before we lived.

But God would like us to look back and consider how God has blessed us. I'm sure on this day, as you've pondered those things in your own place of watching, you would be able to count your blessings. And you have counted your blessings.

And when you count them, you consider, of course, those things that are very obvious and evident to us. God has given us, even as we pray in that Lord's Prayer, our daily bread. And He hasn't shorted us, none of us, but rather has blessed us.

And Jesus even spoke and reminded His disciples on the Sermon on the Mount that God is that kind of a God that will care for you even more perfectly than the birds and the fowl, the birds in the air, and even more perfectly than the flowers of the field, and so on.

And so we know that this is the case, that God has given us those temporal needs in abundance. And we can count those ways even with our homes and our families and our loved ones, how God has blessed us.

But isn't it good that we consider how He is? And we count and even take a few moments of our busy lives to stop and to ponder how God has blessed in perfection. The Bible is filled with those kinds of experiences.

And this experience that Noah and his family had would have been one of those kinds of times where I would think that Noah and his family, of all people who had lived for sure in his day, but even since, Noah would have been able to experience a very close and personal call of God.

Noah preached for 120 years. God had given him a task. God had told Noah to build an ark. And so Noah was faithful. He was obedient. And we can only imagine what it must have been for Noah.

We've spoken about this many times. As he was building that ark in that desert, how foolish he must have looked. People would have gone by and ridiculed and mocked him. That it hasn't rained here for years. To that kind of extent, that there would be floods. So why now? Do you expect that we should believe you? What kind of sermon? Surely they thought him to be some kind of a madman.

And who knows in our day if that was to take place. If in our area, this desert, if some man began to build an ark. Surely all of us, he would be in the newspapers. He would be printed all over the news. He would be those kinds of video clips that people would be able to laugh at and say, look at this madman building an ark in an arid place.

But you know how it was as Noah preached. And he was obedient. No one repented. But he was faithful. And he served. And the sermon that Noah kept was a simple sermon of faith. That is the same kind of sermon that the child of God today needs. A simple sermon of faith and trust in God's care.

So it came that as Noah had been instructed, these animals were called to the ark. And after all of those animals were there, and Noah had entered into the ark with his family, and it was only a small family that was saved. There were only eight souls saved in that first world.

Noah had three sons. They were married. So it was Noah and his wife and his three sons and their wives that were saved. And when they entered into the ark, and that last animal was called into the ark, then God closed the door of that ark with his finger.

And then the rains came. And if we can even imagine what it must have been, both for Noah in that kind of a sense that there were loved ones for sure, there were those kinds of friends, those kinds of people, acquaintances that he knew.

That when the door of the ark was closed, there was no more chance for them to now enter the ark because God had closed the ark. And that day of visitation was over.

And as the rains came and the ark began to float then away, it says in the Bible that the rains came to the extent that they covered the highest mountain by many feet. It would have been impossible, and it was impossible for any to be able to survive from that kind of a deluge.

But who was saved? Noah. What kind of heart would Noah have had? Well, rather we should ask, what kind of thoughts or feelings would Noah have had? The Bible says that Noah had a heart of faith. And so we know that.

But he would have had that kind of a thankful heart in that God had spared him and his family from perdition. And as they floated away on that ark, interesting how God had made that ark and ordered that ark to be made in that the window, one window in that ark, was facing heavenward.

He wouldn't have allowed Noah perhaps to have heard the knocking, I don't know. Someday in heaven maybe we'll be able to visit with him. The knocking of those and that scratching of those who were trying to get into the ark.

But Noah's gaze was only fixed heavenward. There's a reason, brothers and sisters, even for that. I think in that Noah always had his gaze cast toward the heavens and eternity.

Have you ever thought also why God has made us the way he's made us? Some animals have eyes even out the side of their head and their peripheral vision that can go well behind a flat plane.

But God hasn't made man that way. He's aligned our eyes in such a way that we look forward for that reason also, that we look forward to that which God has promised us. Our goal is in heaven.

And may God give us that kind of a heart that we would search for. As David asked that God would search him, he would know his heart. And he even prayed that see if there be any evil or wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting.

So this is the goal that's before us. The writer of the book of Hebrews says, here we have no continuing city, but we seek one that is to come. And so this is what the child of God yearns for and travels towards.

So as Noah was there on the ark and those rains had come, and we won't go into much detail about all of those details that took place and transpired as he released those ravens first and then the doves.

But in the end, the rains started to settle. They went away and the ark lit on dry ground. And then the door of the ark was again opened. And that is what our text speaks of.

Noah and his family would have had many of those kinds of days during that time of rain. The Bible says it rained for 40 days and 40 nights. And I don't know that you know this, it was an exact literal 40 days and 40 nights. But the number 40 is a number of completion in scriptures.

And so at the appointed time the rains came and also the rain stopped. And when the rain stopped, Noah would have had those kinds of discussions with his children. And he would have had that kind of opportunity to visit with them about how God had been gracious and loving to them.

How would you, brothers and sisters, ponder or think to that one if you were one of those eight? I don't know that we can even comprehend what that means to be that small group who was saved from that first world.

But you know in God's word it also says that the end days will be like it was during the time of Noah. Not just that there's going to be eight souls, but in this that the corruption of the world was evil. There was evil and sin in the time of Noah. And that's what he preached against.

And so he would have visited over those kinds of things with his children. And I've also thought of that kind of visit that Abraham would have had with his son Isaac. You remember that experience in scriptures also where Isaac and Abraham were to be.

Isaac was brought by Abraham to the top of the mount to be sacrificed. And as they journeyed up that mountain, what would have the conversation been between the father and son? Do you think the father would have spoken highly of God or do you think that the father Abraham would have spoken evilly or badly of God?

Abraham only spoke good of God. And remember how when Isaac asked that father where is that sacrifice, Abraham told his son that God will provide. He knew that God would provide.

In all things have you experienced similarly in your lives, brothers and sisters, that God has provided for you in your life on this day of Thanksgiving? How can we not, how can we say anything different except that God has been so good to us?

Have we deserved that which we have? Have we been able to boast and say that this is the reason that God has given me this? Is it because I have been such a worthwhile or worthy or a good believer? Have you children always done that which mom and dad have asked of you? Have you always been obedient, boys and girls?

I wasn't. When I was a little boy, sometimes I was naughty. I was that kind of a sinful boy that I wonder would mom and dad even forgive me. But they did. And God has been so gracious to me all of these years that I've lived that I've lacked nothing.

And what have you, brothers and sisters, lacked in this life? Maybe this day you've thought of something. But I've thought of that this day that what have I lacked? I've even been given those trials that are necessary for the endeavor.

Surely Noah's faith was tried. Abraham's faith was tried. Has your faith been tried? I hope so. If your faith has been tried, then it means that you're one of God's own. God tries those that he loves and gives those trials for a reason that we would be mindful of where our blessings come from.

Too easily, I think, it would be that we would, I shouldn't say we would, we do, we take for granted those blessings and gifts that God has given to us.

I was thinking of that time when David and the temple was being dedicated there with his son Solomon. And in David's speech there he spoke of all of those blessings that God had given into their life.

And in that speech David says in this way, and I'll paraphrase it, that we give to the work. And he was instructing those in that day to even give into the work of the temple.

You know in the, as we heard even the other evening at our home and family evening when we talked about the work of the kingdom and how we have been entrusted with that work to do, and not only to serve with our time but also financially.

David spoke similarly in his day and he said give of that which God has given. And he goes on to say that it is God who is blessed with all things.

And isn't it so that it's easy for us to even boast that oh look what I've given either time or even money into the work. But David said in his speech there that God has given all things and he has.

God has given us our daily bread. He's given us of those needs for this temporal endeavor. He's provided so perfectly in all things in our lives. Even not one hair falls from our head without him knowing it. Right? This is what God's word promises.

So if God has given all of these things to us, David simply asked those in that temple worship that they would give of that which God has given them. And when I read that I thought oh how simple this matter is.

That God has blessed us in such abundance that wouldn't we then give of that which God has given us? How do we serve? How do we serve one another? How do we serve in the kingdom? How do we serve those that are less, who are more needy than us?

When I was visiting with Judith last week, she was lamenting of her place there and she says, but no, I can't speak at all of my situation. She says, I'm here for a reason. I deserve to be here.

She says, but despite all of that, despite my life here, God has blessed me with much. And I was looking around at what is God blessed you with? Constantina wire, a dorm full of prisoners, meals that are squalor. Prison is not a good seat. It's not an enviable spot.

But yet in all of that she said it could be a lot worse and many people in this world have a lot worse than I have.

How God had revealed to her a year ago, not even a year ago, some months ago when she spoke of her meeting with Nina and how she was able to hear the gospel for the first time. That is a gift and that is a treasure.

And that she says is the greatest treasure. All of those other things God blesses us with are even secondary to that.

May it be, brothers and sisters, that even on this day we would take a few moments even in our own hearts to thank God for that which he's provided for us.

You know he's given us blessings in this life but we're like that our brother Joseph who was blessed twice. We are blessed here in this life with our friends, believing escorts, brothers and sisters in faith, those things that are required for this temporal journey: food, all of that's there, God has given.

And on top of this, one day heaven. How can it be any better, brothers and sisters? How can it be when we look forward with through those eyes of faith? How can it be that there's anything that we have want of?

When we think of the shepherd's psalm, when David writes, The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. It means this, that we won't be in want of anything.

And what have you been in need of? And if you've been in need, God has also asked that you pray to him that he would bless you with that which you have need of. And he also promises to hear your prayers.

So even, he even says, even without your prayers, you'll be blessed. But if you remember to pray, God promises to hear those prayers and the prayer of a child.

When the child asked the father for something that he has need of, the father when the father's asked with that sincerity of a child, the child doesn't turn his back on that child, but even more does the Father in heaven not turn his back on his children.

So all of these when we consider them are a part of Thanksgiving.

So when Noah also was released, when he went forth in that ark, the animals went with him. God gave that command now those animals to go forth to multiply and replenish the earth.

And what did Noah do? He built an altar unto the Lord and took of every clean beast and of every clean fowl and offered burnt offerings on the altar. He offered God that kind of a meal of remembrance.

That as the Bible says, the Lord smelled a sweet savor. God also today he smelled also that sweet savor of your heart when you offered that prayer of thankfulness for even the blessings of this prior year.

God has allowed us these opportunities and even given these special holidays where we can remember him. It's a good thing that we do. It's a good thing that we take those moments in our lives.

Because as it was for Noah when he offered this meal of remembrance, it was a sweet smelling savor that God smelled.

Where else do we find in scriptures those same kind of meals? Passover meal when the children of Israel after those years and being in bondage in Egypt when they celebrated that feast of the Passover.

And that night the angel of death passed over those believers' homes because they had their doorposts and their headposts of their houses marked with the blood of the lamb. The angel of death didn't touch them, had no effect on them.

They had that kind of a meal, a yearly meal, remembering of that occasion until the time of Christ, a long, long time. Every year they remembered that and it was a pleasing smell that went to the heavenly Father.

So also it is for us in our day that we have these kinds of opportunities and meals of remembrance. Today we remembered again all of those gifts and blessings and there are those that we can see and touch and feel.

But this summer at camp someone made the comment or at one meeting we had when we were talking about gifts and blessings this individual said, and I don't remember even who it is or who it was, you may be here, I don't know.

But they said they thank God for protecting them from even those things they don't know. We've been protected in many things that we aren't even aware of.

We know that there are those people who have faced very difficult times in life and we haven't. We've been protected from those. So God has protected us from many things that we don't even have knowledge of.

How great and powerful is God. We are little. God is great. God can give and does give good gifts and blessings and perfect gifts to his children.

So on this day may God give to each of us that kind of heart to even thank him this evening.

But most of all, brothers and sisters, think of that most perfect gift that God's given, the gift of his Son, a free grace gift. Nothing we've done to merit that.

But the only thing that we can give God that is a sweet smelling savor to him today is our sinful heart. And this is what God wants of us.

When the disciples asked of Jesus what must they do to work the works that God wants them to do, Jesus told them to believe. That's all. And that's all that's required of us even on this day of grace is to believe in God's goodness and his care for us and believe on the merit work that Christ has for us.

So even on this day of grace, brothers and sisters, you can with confident minds and hearts believe and trust in God's goodness for you. He loves you. He gave you life. He called you to be his own. He's given you his kingdom.

But he also has waiting for you even a more perfect gift, the glory one day in heaven where all of this old and this corrupt and this sinfulness will be gone and we will be then welcomed into the glory of heaven.

Noah with his sons and their wives, do you think they rejoiced that somehow God spared them from the corruption, the destruction of that first world? Don't you also think, brothers and sisters, you with me will rejoice in heaven when we realize that God has called us there to be with him?

I look forward to that day when this corruption that we know will be gone, all of the trials and the temptations of this journey will be history. And then as we sing in that song, our faulty tongues of clay, halting tongues of clay will be loosed and then we will praise and thank him as we should.

But this evening it's enough that we can thank God for the blessings of this day and also the blessings that he's given to us as we journey homeward.

Think good of God. He is such a wonderful Father there in the glory of heaven. He promised Noah while the earth remaineth seedtime and harvest and cold and heat and summer and winter and day and night shall not cease.

We've seen that. We've experienced that in our lives year by year. Spring, summer, fall, winter again. The seasons come and God has restored his promise from year to year.

But even more God restores his promise for his own. Remain believing just as you are doubting perhaps feeling your own sinfulness for sure believe all sins are forgiven in Jesus' name and precious atoning blood.

We have many reasons for thanks on this day of Thanksgiving.

This evening I also ask that can I from my own sinfulness and my own doubts hear that same gospel I want to believe exactly as you brothers and sisters believe. In Jesus' name. Amen.

Let us close this day with prayer and thanksgiving. Holy and righteous God, our Heavenly Father, we thank you again dear Father on this day of grace that you've provided again so perfectly for us.

And we pray now for the protection of this night as we go to our night's rest. Keep us as your children and if it's so that we awaken to a new day, grant us again your grace to believe and to trust upon your goodness and your grace.

And we yet say the Lord bless us and keep us. The Lord make his face to shine upon us and be gracious unto us. The Lord lift up his countenance upon us and give us peace.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.