“Give God Gratitude for All People—Even Politicians!”
In the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit.
[Amen.]
Dear fellow grateful children of the heavenly Father, grace,
mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ. [Amen.]
“Oh, may this bounteous God
Through all our life be near us,
With ever joyful hearts
And blessed peace to cheer us
And keep us in His grace
And Guide us when perplexed
And free us from all ills
In this world and the next.”
(Lutheran Service Book, © 2006 Concordia Publishing House, St. Louis, MO.
895:2)
Epistle
Reading........................................................................
1 Timothy 2:1-4 (esp. 1-2a)
“1First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and
thanksgivings be made for all people, 2afor kings and all who are in high
positions … .”
Prologue: It’s a classical joke that can be applied to many different
vocations that asks the question: “What do you have when 500 politicians are
at the bottom of the ocean?” The answer (following the obligatory drum
roll) is …: “A good start!” Of course, that can be applied to any
occupation that’s experiencing a low level of respect. Such seems to be the
case with politicians in our present time even as it was at the time Saint
Paul wrote this letter to the young pastor, Timothy.
The people who lived at the time of St. Paul had a low regard for
government bureaucrats that were heathen, ruthless, and oppressive. Even
so, he knew that God Himself instituted government with the divine plan for
it to administer justice, prevent chaos, and thereby maintain peace and
order. So, although it often abused its authority, much like to a large
extent is happening in many nations today (yes, even our own United States
of America!), nevertheless, he instructed Timothy to …
“Give God Gratitude for All People—Even Politicians!”
Gratitude is the simple and yet much-neglected activity of giving
thanks for something or someone. It was the noteworthy activity by only one
of the ten cleansed lepers in today’s Gospel Reading … and he was a
Samaritan. It’s what God sought from the Israelites, whom He blessed with
life’s necessities throughout their journey to the Promised Land of Canaan
and abundance upon entering it as described in today’s Old Testament
Reading. It’s what we ourselves so often fail to do when praying to God.
It’s what Martin Luther taught and encouraged when he began both his Morning
and Evening Prayers with the words, “I thank you, my heavenly Father.”
(Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation. Copyright © 1986, 1991
Concordia Publishing House. Pages 32f.) It’s what our 1991 Synod Catechism
emphasized when it instructed us that in our prayers “We should also praise
and thank God for who He is and what He has done” (Ibid. Page 176.)
reflecting what the earlier 1943 edition stated, “Prayer is an act of
worship wherein we bring our petitions before God with our hearts and lips
and offer up praise and thanksgiving to Him.” (A Short Explanation of Dr.
Martin Luther’s Small Catechism. Copyright © 1943 Concordia Publishing
House, St. Louis, MO. Page 146.) It’s what Jesus Himself did especially
before He miraculously fed thousands of hungry people with meager amounts of
food on at least two occasions and when He instituted the Blessed Sacrament
of Holy Communion, which is sometimes referred to as the “Eucharist”
reflecting the Greek word for “give thanks.” It’s the theme of many Psalms
in Holy Scripture, especially Psalm 92, which begins by saying: “It is good
to give thanks to the Lord, to sing praises to your name, O Most High …” (Ps
92:1 ESV) as well as the many Old Testament occasions that state what the
first and last verses of Psalm 118 declare and a common contemporary
mealtime prayer says: “Oh give thanks to the Lord, for he is good; for his
steadfast love endures forever!” (Ps 118:1, 29 ESV) It’s what Saint Paul
did at the beginning of almost all his letters that are contained in the New
Testament as he thanked God for the people to whom he was writing. It’s
what we will beg for in today’s Collect when we pray: “Grant us Your Holy
Spirit that we may acknowledge Your goodness, give thanks for Your benefits,
and serve You in willing obedience all our days.” It’s what we find
generously scattered throughout our worship liturgies … especially the
statement of thanksgiving following Holy Communion in Divine Service
Settings One and Two, when we sing: “Thank the Lord and sing His praise;
tell ev’ryone what He has done. Let ev’ryone who seeks the Lord rejoice and
proudly bear His name. He recalls His promises and leads His people forth
in joy with shouts of thanksgiving. Alleluia, alleluia.” (Lutheran Service
Book. Pages 164 & 181.)
Indeed, we have much for which to give thanks as Dr. Luther
reminds us in his meanings to the First Article of the Apostles’ Creed and
the Fourth Petition of the Lord’s Prayer. In his explanation to the First
Article of the Apostles’ Creed, Dr. Luther informed us that “God has made me
and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and
all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still takes care of them.
“He also gives me clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and
home, wife and children, land, animals, and all I have. He richly and daily
provides me with all that I need to support this body and life.
“He defends me against all danger and guards and protects me from
all evil.
“All this He does only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy,
without any merit or worthiness in me. For all this it is my duty to thank
and praise, serve and obey Him.” (Luther’s Small Catechism with Explanation.
Pages 15f. & 108f. Also Lutheran Service Book. Pages 322 & 324.)
In similar fashion, Dr. Luther wrote regarding the Fourth Petition
of the Lord’s Prayer: “God certainly gives daily bread to everyone without
our prayers, even to all evil people, but we pray in this petition that God
would lead us to realize this and to receive our daily bread with
thanksgiving.”
He then continued to explain that “Daily bread includes everything
that has to do with the support and needs of the body, such as food, drink,
clothing, shoes, house, home, land, animals, money, goods, a devout husband
or wife, devout children, devout workers, devout and faithful rulers, good
government, good weather, peace, health, self-control, good reputation, good
friends, faithful neighbors, and the like.” (Ibid. Pages 20f. & 189f. Also
Ibid. Pages 322 & 324.)
You see, frequently “We ask, ‘What should I pray for?’ Paul tells
us whom we should pray for. How important it is to pray for people and not
only for things!” (Armin W. Schuetze in People’s Bible Commentary: 1
Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus. Copyright © 1993 Concordia Publishing House, St.
Louis, MO. Page 34.)
Of course, perhaps the major reason for all those God-given
blessings is that they enable us to …
I. Live a Life That Honors God. (2b)
2b… that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every
way.
God gives us simple directions in the Ten Commandments for doing
that very thing. Taken as a whole, they tell us what God desires us to do
and avoid doing in order to live lives that please Him and others around us.
Sadly, we all too often ignore His instructions for peaceful dignified
living. We do so when we sinfully rebel against Him by thinking, saying,
and doing thoughts, words, and actions that are opposed to His divine will
or neglecting to think, say, and do thoughts, words, and actions that carry
out His divine will. Such sinful thoughts, words, and actions bring about
discord, damage, and destruction in our daily lives. In fact, they deserve
God’s just anger and eternal punishment in the fiery pits of eternal
damnation, separated from Him who created us and preserves us with unlimited
blessings.
God gave us the greatest reason of all for thanking Him when He
intervened in our otherwise dismal situation. For into our sin-stained
setting He sent His sinless Son, Jesus Christ, our humble Savior to achieve
for us what we could not achieve for ourselves. We thank God that Jesus
lived the holy life God demands of us but we cannot do. We thank God that
Jesus suffered the divinely-imposed punishment unto death on Calvary’s cross
that we deserve for the sins that we commit thereby gaining for us the
forgiveness of our sins, salvation, and eternal life that we desire but
cannot accomplish. We thank God that Jesus rose from the dead thereby
absolutely affirming as good, right, and salutary what He accomplished on
the cross.
Having liberated us from the bondage of the devil, the world, and
our own sinful flesh, we’re now free to live lives that are peaceful, quiet,
godly, and dignified in every way. We do so by seeking to follow His Holy
Law not to gain goodness from God but to thank and praise Him for the
immeasurable goodness He already has given and continues to give us. In
addition, we realize that by doing so we also …
II. Live a Life That Leads Others to Jesus. (3-4)
3This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, 4who
desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.
This annual celebration of the National Day of Thanksgiving (or
more simply Thanksgiving Day) also serves as the beginning of secular
society’s Christmas season, although many retail stores compete with each
other to be the first to commercialize Christmas even before Thanksgiving.
We in the church, however, realize that the Christmas season actually begins
with the formal celebration of our Savior’s birth at or after 6:00 p.m. on
Christmas Eve and continues throughout the Christmas-extended weeks of
Epiphany. What will begin next (not this) weekend is the Advent season of
penitential preparation that leads to the grand and joyful celebration of
Christ’s birth. That is, Advent prepares us for and leads us to Christmas.
In like manner, God uses the life of sanctified thanksgiving that
we live by the Holy Spirit’s power to lead others to Jesus. It’s vitally
important that we recognize God’s desire that “all people … be saved and …
come to the knowledge of the truth.” After all, that truth is embodied in
Jesus Himself, who is “the way, and the truth, and the life” (John 14:6 ESV)
and through whom alone we gain access to eternal life with His Father, who
is also our Father, in heaven.
You see, His name, Jesus, is the only “name under heaven given
among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12 ESV) He is the one about
whom Isaiah prophesied: “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our
sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. But
he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we
are healed.” (Isa 53:4-5 ESV) He alone is the one about whom the apostle
John boldly declared: “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of
the world!” (John 1:29 ESV)
In fact, He is the one who comes to us in the reading and hearing
of God’s Holy Word. He is the one with whose death and resurrection we are
connected in the Blessed Sacrament of Holy Baptism. He is the one whose
real body and blood we receive in, with, and under the consecrated elements
of bread and wine in the Blessed Sacrament of Holy Communion for the certain
assurance of forgiveness of sins, salvation, and eternal life when we
properly partake of such with humble repentance and sincere faith in Him.
He is the one whose atoning life, death, and resurrection gained for us the
absolution that I declare in response to the general confession of sins in
preparation for the Lord’s Supper.
So it is that God can and does use the thanksgiving that we think,
say, and do in an attitude of gratitude to lead others into a saving
relationship with Jesus.
In conclusion, today’s sermon text and Thanksgiving Day occasion
are ultimately all about being diligent in prayer. In fact, congregational
worship activity which is itself nothing more or less than prayer activity
is actually the focus. In light of that we recognize four significant
truths. 1. “Supplications” “pertains to approaching God with our needs.
God indeed knows what those needs are, but by going to God in prayer we
acknowledge him as the one who alone will satisfy them.” (Armin W. Schuetze.
Page 34.) 2. “Prayers” is the activity of “coming to God with due
reverence, recognizing him as the Lord, the great God of heaven and earth,
before whom we must bow in the dust.” (R. C. H. Lenski in The Interpretation
of St. Paul’s Epistles to the Colossians, to the Thessalonians, to Timothy,
to Titus and to Philemon. Copyright © 1961 Augsburg Publishing House,
Minneapolis, MN. Page 538.) 3. “Intercessions” are “prayers made in behalf
of some one else.” (Paul E. Kretzmann in Popular Commentary of the Bible:
The New Testament Volume II. Copyright © Unknown Concordia Publishing
House, St. Louis, MO. Page 375.) And, 4. The crown of our prayer activity
is “thanksgiving” which “adds grateful acknowledgments for past mercies to
humble, worshipful, trustful requests. These are never to be absent when we
are praying, for however sad our condition may be, we always enjoy great and
undeserved blessings.” (R. C. H. Lenski. Pages 538f.)
With all that in mind, may we ever faithfully, regularly, and
sincerely …
“Give God Gratitude for All People—Even Politicians!”
As we do so, may we also keep in mind what we spoke in today’s Psalm, “Give
thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever.
Give thanks to the God of gods, for his steadfast love endures forever.
Give thanks to the Lord of lords, for his steadfast love endures forever.”
(Ps 136:1-3 ESV)
Now and always may we express our thankfulness by seeking to …
I. Live a Life That Honors God. (2b)
even as we strive to also …
II. Live a Life That Leads Others to Jesus. (3-4)
God grant it all for the sake of Jesus Christ, His humble Son, our
holy Savior. [Amen.]
In the name of the Father and of the X Son and of the Holy Spirit.
[Amen.]
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