Psalm 136:1 “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.”

This is an invitation to give our own historical review of the kindness the Lord has shown to us. It gives our thanksgiving something of a testimonial flavor. If you read the rest of Psalm 136 you will see that this is exactly what the author of the psalm does. He thanks God for his work of creating us, and delivering his people from Egypt, and taking care of them in the wilderness.

But our personal thanksgivings don’t have to be about such grand events. I read a missionary story about a woman in Africa who was eager to have her entire congregation join her in thanking God for giving her a simple pair of shoes. She couldn’t get over how good God had been to her. In our land of plenty, you and I probably aren’t filled with such a sense of appreciation and gratitude over a pair of shoes. That is not because our shoes are any less an undeserved gift from him, or because we owe him any less appreciation for them.

What we pray this Thanksgiving Day, then, involves our own remembering of what God has done for us. That begins with what we call him in our prayer. We give thanks to the Lord. There are many names we could call him, but “the LORD” is the name that reminds us his gracious care for us is free and faithful. He doesn’t let our own behavior stop him.

We are inclined to forget that that is just what our own behavior should lead him to do. We are masters at rationalizing our behavior and downplaying our sin. I once spoke to a man on an evangelism visit who insisted that he was okay with God because, even though he had committed sins, God knew his heart. He was right about the last part. God did know his heart. God knows my heart. That is just the frightening thing, if we are honest. God knows.

And yet, he hasn’t let that change anything. He hasn’t let me turn him away. In Jesus, he has loved and forgiven me anyway. He is the LORD, the God who freely chooses to love us and then faithfully loves us in spite of ourselves. Remembering who God is, the Lord who doesn’t treat me as I deserve, is part of what we pray this Thanksgiving Day.

Our prayer goes on to thank God for his goodness. “Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good…” That is blunt and to the point. It may also seem a bit wide open. My Hebrew dictionaries suggests a number of different nuances of the word “good” that we can apply to the Lord. Some of them remind us of reasons for thanking him today.

Good can mean “beneficial.” This is “good” as in, “Eat your vegetables. They’re good for you.” Or “Lady bugs eat aphids. They are good for the garden.” No one or nothing has done more good for us than our Lord. Psalm 103 summarizes them nicely: “Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits — who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” Forgiveness of sins and physical health, more things than we need to enjoy life and strength for that life–these are just a few illustrations of the fact that the Lord is good– a God whose goodness benefits us in every way.

Good can also mean “attractive” or “pleasant.” We enjoy reading a “good” book. When the sun is shining, the air is dry, and the temperatures are warm, we consider it “good” weather. When we like the way something looks or how it makes us feel, it is a “good” one.

Haven’t we all experienced the goodness of God in this way, too? “Taste and see that the Lord is good,” Psalm 34 urges us. If you have ever felt the relief of your guilt lifted, if you have ever known the comfort that God was holding you up in troubled times, if you have ever experienced the joy of God answering your prayers or blessing your efforts with success, if you have ever been filled with the hope for the future and the longing for heaven God’s promises inspire, then you have tasted and you have seen that the Lord is good. This, too, belongs to our reasons for giving thanks this Thanksgiving Day.

Jude 1:22-23 “Be merciful to those who doubt; snatch others from the fire and save them; to others, show mercy, mixed with fear–hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.”

A seminary professor of mine once said to our class, “When your seminary has to establish a chair, a department head, for missions and evangelism, you know that the end is near for your school, and maybe your church.” Why? Isn’t it a good thing to put an emphasis on mission work and outreach?

His point was that every class at the seminary is already about the missionary work of the church – every doctrine class, every New Testament class, every Old Testament class, every practical class. If learning the gospel doesn’t teach us, “Share this good news with others,” what will? Did the shepherds need classes to teach them to tell Bethlehem about the Savior in the manger? If we know God’s love and believe God’s love, do we need to be told, “Maybe you could share this with someone else”?

Jude urges a gospel concern for the souls of others here. “Be merciful to those who doubt.” This isn’t being kind in a physical way–feeding the hungry, taking care of the sick and the poor, though those are good, biblical things to do as well. This is the mercy that helps them get over their doubts and put their trust in Jesus.

People have not changed so much since Jude wrote this letter nearly 2000 years ago. We still run into skeptics who think the Bible is unreasonable. Their numbers are growing. Some of them are hardcore. A man I visited on an evangelism call once told me at the door, “I don’t believe in God. I believe in science.”

Others simply have unspoken questions that bother them and get in the way of faith. It is not our job to answer all their questions. Frankly, some things about God and grace are more than we can understand. But God never asked us to figure him out. He invites us to trust him. And for that, people need to hear about the love that sacrificed everything to save us from our sins.

With some people, our gospel sharing takes on a special urgency: “snatch others from the fire and save them.” Maybe they are old or sick, and time is running out. Maybe they are living a particularly self-destructive life, and they need us to intervene before they do something foolish and it is too late. Maybe this is a chance meeting, an opportunity we will never have with this person again. Seize the opportunity before it’s too late.

As we show mercy to those who still need to meet Jesus, Jude wants us to realize the hazards of our work: “…to others show mercy, mixed with fear–hating even the clothing stained by corrupted flesh.” The arguments of the skeptics may sound compelling and reasonable to us. The kinds of sins that promise pleasure almost certainly will sound appealing to us. That doesn’t mean we should withhold mercy, avoid the people who are spiritually dying in a sinful lifestyle, and keep our mouths shut. It means that we need to have a healthy fear for the power of temptation to infect our own faith and life. It’s like a contagious disease we can even catch from contact with a sick person’s clothes. Have you ever visited someone in the hospital so contagious you had to put on a paper gown and mask before you entered the room? Do you remember how careful medical staff had to be during the COVID outbreak? Frontline hospital workers often ended up fighting the disease themselves.

With the sin-sick, it is still our task and privilege to come to the rescue. But don’t end up a victim of the sin that makes them sick. We need a proper sense of respect for the temptation sin presents to us as well.            

Help is coming. Jesus’ mercy will soon bring us home. Don’t wait to pass his mercy along.

Jude 1:20-21 “ But you, dear friends, build yourself up in you most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit. Keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you eternal life.”

Keep yourselves in God’s love. I won’t bore you with the fine points of Greek grammar behind Jude’s words, but I will point out that the Greek makes “Keep yourselves in God’s love” the main idea here, the point of both the building and the praying. Here is the central secret to spiritual survival as we wait for Jesus to bring us to eternal life.

It’s not so much about what we do: some kind of discipline that we practice or a set of activities we follow. It is more about “where you are,” and “what you have,” and “what you experience.” It is showing up for the free give away. God’s love is an established fact and can’t be changed. He gave us our existence. He gave us our world. He gives us each breath. When we became sinners he gave us his Son. He gave up his life so that he could give us salvation. He gives us forgiveness. He gives us immortality. He gives us heaven. As we have already said, he gives us faith. And that gives us hope and gives us joy, and gives us peace. If you want to explore it further, the list of gifts God gives us in his love goes on and on. There are new discoveries to be made every day.

On the Friday after thanksgiving, millions of Americans will flock to malls and stores for “gifts” they have to pay for–a cheap flat screen TV, or the latest “I-something” gadget. “Keeping yourselves in God’s love” does not involve camping out in the cold, a competition to be first in line, and forking over your money for the privilege of taking it home. It is as simple as finding yourself in the places where God’s love is being given.

We find it when we gather for worship, where we sing about his gifts, read and preach about them, or find them hidden in a handful of water, and wrapped in a wafer of bread and sip of wine. We find it at Bible study, where we get to go deeper into the word, and comments and insights of our fellow students take us further into the meaning of his love. We find it in the quiet moments when we are reading our Bibles at home, in our private meditation and devotion on God’s word.

In such places God fills, not just our hands, but our heads and our hearts with his love. In these places, not so much we, but he tends to our faith as we wait for Jesus’ mercy, the same mercy that will deliver us from this spoiled and broken world to eternal life with him.

Jude 1:20 “But you, dear friends, build yourself up in you most holy faith…”

Faith involves a constant building process. The structure itself has been set in place. God constructed faith in us when our parents brought us to baptism, or when the gospel message finally broke through our ignorance or skepticism and changed our hearts. If you are a believer, then the building is in place, put together by God himself.

But just like any house or structure, there is always a need for more construction. First, there is the issue of maintenance. Gravity, weather, and constant use wear on a building. If you don’t keep up with the maintenance, it is only a matter of time before the structure fails. This past week my house got a new roof because of hail damage from last spring. It hadn’t started leaking yet, but left alone it would eventually. Our house is only eight years old, but we have already replaced all the flooring and the roof twice. There are cupboard doors with loose hinges, dry wall that needs patching, and enough other honey-do projects to keep me out of trouble on my day off. If you have ever owned a home, you know how this works. I once heard a handy-man with a radio call-in show suggest that you can plan on spending 5% of the value of your home every year if you want to keep it properly maintained.

Your faith needs similar attention. Sometimes Christians get the idea that faith is a one-time event in your life. I’m baptized, so I don’t have to think about it anymore. Or I was confirmed, so I don’t have to think about it anymore. Or I had a powerful emotional experience when I was converted, and I can give you the time and the date, so I don’t have to think about it anymore.

It doesn’t work that way. Paul warned Timothy that false teachings can shipwreck your faith, and that greed can lead you away from the faith. Jesus uses the picture of seed growing in shallow, rocky ground to warn that unless we get the roots of our faith down deep, we can fall away when faith is tested in some way. Faith needs maintenance as we wait for Jesus to return. Hearing about God’s grace, digging deeper into his unconditional love, learning how better to identify the sin that still lurks within us and regularly turning to his promise of forgiveness all serve to strengthen and repair our faith.

Sometimes, faith needs expansion, an addition, a new wing. The original owners of my house added a tornado shelter after it was built. I live in Oklahoma, so it’s not hard to understand why. Our back patio used to be a little concrete pad not big enough to seat my whole family. We built a deck over it to make our outdoor living space bigger. When I was about ten my dad made the house in which I grew up half again as big because the little two-bedroom house was cramped for our family of six.

Sometimes we can anticipate the challenges to our faith and the shortcomings in our faith and build an addition that makes us ready before it happens. Sometimes we have to hurry to play catch up because a situation is upon us before we are ready. Either way, our faith can be expanded in many directions, and then it can do a better job of serving us and keeping us safe as we wait for Jesus’ mercy to bring us eternal life.

Revelation 1:12-18 “I turned around to see the voice that was speaking to me. And when I turned I saw seven golden lampstands and among the lampstands was someone ‘like a son of man,” dressed in a robe reaching down to his feet and with a golden sash around his chest. His head and hair were white like wool, as white as snow, and his eyes were like blazing fire. His feet were like bronze glowing in a furnace, and his voice was like the sound of rushing waters. In his right hand he held seven stars, and out of his mouth came a sharp double-edged sword. His face was like the sun shining in all its brilliance. When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead. Then he placed his right hand on me and said: ‘Do not be afraid. I am the First and the Last. I am the Living One; I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever! And I hold the keys of death and Hades.”

Have you ever walked around the mall in Washington D.C.– the Washington Memorial, the Lincoln Memorial, the Jefferson Memorial, the various war memorials? All these dead heroes performed great services for our country, and it is a privilege to remember them. But they aren’t much use now for repairing the divisions that afflict our country, or fixing our economy, or dealing with war and violence in the Middle East. They won’t be making any more speeches in Congress or formulating any policies or shouldering a rifle and hunting down the Taliban. They are dead, and we are left to deal with these issues ourselves.

In John’s Revelation, Jesus is the One who was dead, but he has left us with more than a memorial, more than a legacy. His very death lit the lamp of the gospel shining from our pulpits and classrooms. “I was dead” means “God has made every sacrifice necessary for your salvation.” “I was dead” means, “There is nothing left for you to pay in order to be reconciled to God.” “I was dead” means, “Every last one of your sins has been forgiven, and you are free.”

Even more, “I was dead” means, “I’m not dead anymore.” He is the Living One, the one who is alive for ever and ever. And the living Jesus who is present with his churches, including the one you attend, and with his pastors, including the one who preaches to you, is not the humble and despised man the Apostle John saw go to the cross. He is the glorified Jesus who rules the world from his throne in heaven. He has taken back his divine power and uses it to support and assist his little churches wherever they may be. See the light and glory that ooze from every pore of his body–everything about him from head to toe is white and shining.

Do you see what his presence means for you? In the Disney movie Aladdin, when Aladdin first meets the Genie, the Genie explains the difference his presence makes in the song “You Aint Never Had A Friend Like Me”: “You got some power in your corner now, some ammunition in your camp. You’ve got some punch, pizzaz, yahoo, and how, all you gotta do is rub that lamp.”

What you have, Christian, is not a minor spirit from some mythological world. You have the Lord of glory, the King of heaven and earth, living and moving among you invisibly, using his power and glory on your behalf. You don’t have to rub his lamp. He is the light in yours as he stands among us. We do not serve and witness alone, because Jesus himself stands among his churches.

Amos 8:4 “Hear this, you who trample the needy and do away with the poor of the land, saying, ‘When will the New Moon be over that we may sell grain, and the Sabbath be ended that we may market wheat?’”

Out of love for his people, God made sure they had a day to rejuvenate their bodies and continue to grow spiritually.  That was the Sabbath. The New Moon festivals were another day the Israelites took off voluntarily.  Once a month it gave them rest and time in God’s word.

Amos was talking to people whose priorities were out of line.  They weren’t so concerned about whether they were growing spiritually.  They didn’t care whether their faith got any stronger.  They didn’t care whom they ran over in their headlong rush to make a buck. They went through the motions of keeping the Sabbath, but their heart wasn’t in it.  All they cared about was making money.  These days off started to look like a nuisance.  “When will they be over?” they asked.  They sound like Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol complaining about how much money he was losing by giving Bob Cratchit Christmas Day off with pay and closing the shop.

We are not so different from the people in Amos’s day.  We live in Christian freedom about the specific time we choose to rest our bodies and souls. But money is a concern each of us has. No matter how much of it we have, it is hard to convince ourselves it’s enough.  It’s easy to let money concerns crowd God’s word out of our lives, too.

The issue isn’t just “going to church.” It is being concerned about our spiritual growth.  Do we cheat ourselves out of daily time in God’s word because we are too busy making money?  Do we pass up opportunities to study God’s word in Bible classes because we are too busy making money?  Do we refuse to offer the Lord time to serve him because we are too busy making money?  Not everyone has to be at every worship service or Bible class offered.  But God wants a stronger and deeper faith to be more important than a stronger and deeper pocketbook.

This overdeveloped urge to make money has plagued believers through the ages.  In the sermon on the mount Jesus warned against worrying about “What shall we eat? or What shall we drink? or What shall we wear?”  Martin Luther once overheard a member of his church say after the service, “What do we care about heaven?  What we need is flour!”  To such concerns Jesus replies, “A man’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”

Rather than focusing life on making money, look at the spiritual wealth and riches we already have. Having the kingdom of heaven is like finding a treasure, or a priceless pearl, Jesus says.  Can you put a value on a soul?  The Bible says the cost of a soul exceeds all human payment.  Yet Jesus purchased each of our souls by his blood. Then he gave them back to us forever.  Paul regards this a treasure, “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake became poor, that you, through his poverty might become rich.”  Our riches are all the wealth of eternal life and heaven.

And God is giving it all away in the next Bible class, the next Sunday service, the next quiet time you have with a Bible or devotional book. Make plans now to attend.

1 Kings 17:15-16 “She went away and did as Elijah had told her. So there was food every day for Elijah and for the woman and her family. For the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry in keeping with the word of the Lord spoken by Elijah.”

By one measure, the widow’s gift was small. I can buy flour at Walmart for less than fifty cents per pound. That puts a very generous handful around ten cents. It doesn’t take much oil to bake a loaf of bread, just a few tablespoons. Again we are talking about 10 or 15 cents worth of your better olive oil. So, the woman gave up a quarter. Even if we assume that food prices were hugely inflated due to the drought, the value of her gift seems unremarkable.

By another measure, the widow’s gift was huge. She gave up all she had to live on for Elijah. Her trust in God’s promises led her to give, not her excess, but her all. And every day, God kept his promise by making sure there was enough food for Elijah, and this woman, and her son.

Sometimes when people talk about giving to church, you will hear them mention “ten percent.” That is not a bad guideline to follow. But you certainly notice that God was not asking the widow to give to church, just to Elijah. The Lord is looking for more than a cut of what we have. He wants it all.

When my wife wants a little taste of something on one of our children’s plates, she declares “Momma tax” and then takes a bite. God doesn’t declare “Pappa tax” on us. He doesn’t tax us. He owns us. He doesn’t want a bite. He wants it all—all our stuff, all your time, our whole self and whole life. They all come from him in the first place. How can we go wrong when we give to the one who gives us everything in the first place?

That doesn’t mean we don’t still have decisions to make about how much to give to church, or charities, or for groceries, rent, or mortgage. But when we remember where it all comes from in the first place, “daring to give” won’t feel very daring. And we won’t be concerned about how much excess we have to give. We can’t outgive the one who gives us everything.

1 Kings 17:13-14 “Elijah said to her, ‘Don’t be afraid. Go home and do as you have said. But first make a small cake of bread for me from what you have and bring it to me, and then make something for yourself and your son. For this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says: ‘The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry until the day the Lord gives rain on the land.’”

Faith doesn’t come out of nowhere. God’s people live by faith in God’s promises. I suppose that there could be circumstances when “Don’t be afraid” was meant as a criticism. “Don’t be such a coward.” But in the Bible, in the mouths of God’s prophets, angels, and faithful leaders, these are words of promise. When Elijah says, “Don’t be afraid,” he is saying, “You don’t have to be afraid. The things that make you afraid aren’t going to hurt you. You have a God who loves you. Yes, your sins have been offensive to him. But this is the God who forgives. He freely forgives. Yes, hard and painful things are happening to you. But God isn’t punishing you. He is growing you. He is molding and shaping you. He is building your character and forming your faith. He’s got this. You can live your life. Only trust his love.”

That kind of trust is the only way the widow in the story could take the next promise seriously. “The jar of flour will not be used up and the jug of oil will not run dry.” Do you realize how ridiculous that sounds? “Really? More is just going to appear in my pantry each day? It’s just going to grow back, like my hair does after a haircut? And I suppose that new clothes will magically appear in my closet, and a money tree will start growing in my backyard.” But learning to trust God for his grace and love makes us sure of all his other promises as well. “She went away and did as Elijah told her.” The widow dared to give, because she was sure of God’s promises.

Let’s be clear. We have not been given the same promise Elijah gave to the widow. My family still has to go grocery shopping every week. Peter was invited to step out of the boat and walk on water, but don’t try this at home. We have no such promise. Moses could talk to a rock and water came gushing out, but if you try it, people will just think that you are crazy. Some of his promises God has given to specific people for a specific situation. This is one of them.

But the promises we have been given are just as good, and just as sure. “Look at the birds of the air;” Jesus says, “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? Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life? And why do you worry about clothes. See how the lilies of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. 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? So do not worry saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

You are much more valuable. Your heavenly Father knows that you need them. All these things will be given to you as well. These promises are God’s own, and that makes them sure. Trusting them sets us free in so many ways, and it makes it possible for us to give even when we think we have so little.

1 Kings 17:8-12 “Then the word of the Lord came to him (Elijah): ‘Go at once to Zarephath of Sidon and stay there. I have commanded a widow in that place to supply you with food.’ So he went to Zarephath. When he came to the town gate, a widow was there gathering sticks. He called to her and asked, ‘Would you bring me a little water in a jar so I may have a drink?’ As she was going to get it, he called, ‘And bring me, please, a piece of bread.’ ‘As surely as the Lord your God lives,’ she replied, ‘I don’t have any bread–only a handful of flour in a jar and a little oil in a jug. I am gathering a few sticks to take home and make a meal for myself and my son, that we may eat it–and die.””

My children watched the Disney movie Aladdin until the videotape wore out. It was a great movie for memorable lines, in part due to the comedy of Robin Williams. A line that weaves through the movie like a thematic golden thread has the hero, Aladdin, saying to his love interest, Princess Jasmine, “Do you trust me?” “Do you trust me?” he asks when they first meet in the marketplace, she in disguise and he running away from the law. “Do you trust me?” he asks at her balcony when he visits the palace disguised as a prince and offers her a ride on his magic carpet. “Trust me!” he demands near the end as his plan unfolds to defeat the evil Jafar.

“Do you trust me?” I have often pictured God asking that question and offering his hand to his people at times when his plan didn’t seem quite so clear or reasonable. “Do you trust me?” he could have asked Moses and the children of Israel as they were pinned against the Red Sea by Pharaoh’s chariots before a dry path opened right through the waters. “Do you trust me?” he could have asked the future King David before he went out to fight the Giant Goliath with a slingshot and five rocks. “Do you trust me?” Jesus could have asked Peter before he invited him to get out of the boat and walk to Jesus on the water.

The widow of Zarephath is another case in point. In a sense, God was asking this widow, “Do you trust me?” before she takes the last bit of food she has and feeds it to the prophet Elijah.

For this woman, it wasn’t just a matter of living in scary times. Disaster had arrived. She was a widow. Nearly three millennia ago that meant you had no good way to make a living. On top of that, she and her son had run out of all but their last bit of food. They were ready to eat their last meal, then resign themselves to a slow death by starvation.

Will we ever live in a world so secure there won’t be some threat to having enough? I have a friend who used to send me the kind of stories you don’t hear about in the mainstream news. These reports suggested that, in almost every facet of life, we are living on the brink of total collapse.

There is a temptation here, isn’t there. There is a temptation to wrap our arms around all that we have, and tighten our fists, and keep every last dime for ourselves, because who knows what the future holds? Instead of letting God’s gifts flow through us to the people and the causes where there is a need, fear makes us stingy. We become wary to give instead of daring to give, because we are afraid of our circumstances.

God doesn’t give us this example to teach us to be reckless or foolish with our resources. He doesn’t put us through similar times, when we don’t know where we will find work or how we will pay the bills, to get us so discouraged we stop trying.

He does want us to see that, whether we have much or little, we don’t get by our own hard work or cleverness. He invites us to trust him in spite of our circumstance. Saving his people is what he does. He has delivered them from danger over and over in the past. He has delivered us from our sins and rescued us from death. He will continue to provide as we trust him through the dangers of our present moment.