The Source: Tuesday, November 7, 2006

TheSource4YM.com

	Jonathan's Resource Ezine

Weekly Resources, Ideas and Articles from The Source for Youth Ministry
Tuesday, November 7, 2006

In This Issue

Featured Resource: A Thanksgiving Talk/Sermon You Can Use-Focus on Our God Instead of Our Stuff
More Thanksgiving Ideas: Looking for more games, discussions, or event ideas for this time of year? Our web site has a bunch-check em' out!
Movie Reviews: Jonathan's 2 Cents on What's Hot and What's Not on DVD! Check out reviews for Cars, Thou Shalt Laugh, Nacho Libre, MI3, The Break Up...

If you aren't a subscriber of this EZINE and would like to subscribe - it's free - just pop on www.TheSource4YM.com and sign up in the upper right hand corner.

Featured Resource: A Thanksgiving Talk/Sermon You Can Use-Focus on Our God Instead of Our Stuff

by Jonathan and Tom McKee

If you're like me you've heard a million Thanksgiving sermons. And if you're like me... you're looking for yet another one to use this year.

You're in luck!

My dad and I sat down last week, put our minds together and wrote a sermon for Thanksgiving this year. We use a great passage out of II Chronicles and talk about switching the focus from OUR STUFF to the GOD WHO GAVE US THAT STUFF.

Below you'll see an outline of the sermon including the BIG IDEA and the SOUND BYTE. (CLICK HERE for my article about using these tools to effectively communicate to kids today.) Then we provide the complete manuscript of the sermon.

Feel free to use all or part of the sermon. We're just happy to provide you with a resource pointing to God this Thanksgiving season.

Title: The Celebration of American STUFF

Text: II Chronicles 31

Big Idea: Thanksgiving is an American tradition that is especially meaningful for the Christian because it gives us an opportunity to change our focus from our prosperity to God.

Sound Byte: Thanksgiving is a time to switch the focus from OUR STUFF to THE GOD WHO GAVE US THAT STUFF

Outline:

Introduction: How do we handle our American success & prosperity?

Introduction:

I love the story of the farmer who worked hard and had a beautiful farm. A friend said to him, "Wow, God has really blessed you." The farmer responded, "You should have seen this field when God was doing it by himself-it was a mess."

What was this farmer saying? I draw several conclusions from this story. Before I share them, consider-what do you think the farmer was saying? (Feel free to turn this intro into a small or large group discussion)

He might be saying:

God needs me, for without me this land would be weeds and rocks
God and I are a team-we work together and He does His part (the rain and great soil) and I do my part (work the land)
Between me and God, I am the hardest worker-I sweat
Cursed be Adam who, because of his sin, I have to work so hard
I am thankful to God for the opportunity to do my creative part in this section of land that God has seen fit to give to me

Perhaps at times this farmer felt all of the above. We don't know for sure. The real question is how do we feel about what we've achieved? How do we feel about the blessings of our hard work, especially when it comes to Thanksgiving season.

As I was thinking about the farmer, I thought about the first American Thanksgiving and how the people had this big pot-luck thanksgiving meal and praised God for a great year. They praised God for a new land, they praised God for new neighbors, and they praised God that He had blessed the crops of their field. Bottom line-they were thanking God for all their STUFF! They were thanking God for their prosperity. They felt rich and blessed. That is the beginning of what we Americans now call Thanksgiving.

A little girl was praying the other night and she said, "God, thank you for my family, thank you for my house, thank you for my dog, my room, my toys and my new jacket. Amen."

That about covers it, right? Thanks for all my STUFF!

A high school kid just got a new IPOD for his birthday. That night he said a quick bed time prayer. "God, thanks for the IPOD. Wow. You really came through. Amen."

Is that what prayer is all about?

Is that what Thanksgiving is all about?

After all... it's not bad to stop and thank God... is it?

If you think about these kids and if you think about the first American Thanksgiving... you notice the same thing. As I thought about this, I was reminded of this type of celebration in the Scriptures going all the way back to II Chronicles 31. Ezra is writing this account for a very specific reason. People in Ezra's time were struggling, like many of us, with their prosperity and blessings; they were so blessed by God they did not know how to thank God for such blessings. They realized that they sounded like that little girl and that high school kid praying, "Thanks for all my STUFF!"

They didn't know how to thank God for their prosperity without focusing on the prosperity and not on God. Too often we focus on the blessing and forget the actual source of our prosperity.

Ever feel that way? Ever feel that you don't know how to really thank God?

Well, in this passage, EZRA writes a success story. And the success story he writes is in the book of II Chronicles, chapter 31. He tells them, "Hey, we had a king by the name of Hezekiah who was concerned about the lack of meaningful worship and the lack of knowing how to thank God for the many blessings they were all experiencing. So this King Hezekiah sets out a way to thank God and outlines a profile of what that worship should focus on."

Hezekiah helped them (SOUND BYTE) switch the focus from OUR STUFF to THE GOD WHO GAVE US THAT STUFF.

Thanksgiving is a time to switch the focus from OUR STUFF to THE GOD WHO GAVE US THAT STUFF.

Hezekiah has a little thanksgiving service. And the profile of Hezekiah's thanksgiving service is ...

First, look upward to thank God as the provider of your prosperity.
Second, look back at the blessing you've received and give back to God out of your prosperity.
Third, look forward to a greater prosperity.

I like to think of it as the three directions of thanksgiving-upward, back and forward.

I. Thanksgiving is an opportunity to turn our hearts upward to the source of our prosperity (v. 1, 2) LOOK UP

Now when the festival ended, the Israelites who attended went to all the towns of Judah, Benjamin, Ephraim, and Manasseh, and they smashed the sacred pillars, cut down the Asherah poles, and removed the pagan shrines and altars. After this, the Israelites returned to their own towns and homes.

[2] Hezekiah then organized the priests and Levites into divisions to offer the burnt offerings and peace offerings, and to worship and give thanks and praise to the Lord at the gates of the Temple. (2 Chron. 31:1-2, NLT)

The first step of thanksgiving is to turn our hearts from worshiping STUFF-things that bring us temporary happiness-to God.

Thanksgiving is a time to turn our hearts upward and switch the focus from OUR STUFF to THE GOD WHO GAVE US THAT STUFF.

In the first Thanksgiving celebration in American history, we see a guy who helped the first American settlers turn their hearts upward. William Bradford, Governor of Plymouth colony in 1623 sent out his famous declaration in which he said, and I am going to paraphrase Bradford, "Since God has really outdone Himself with us this year and we have tons of Indian corn, wheat, beans, squashes, and garden vegetables, game, fish and clams, and has given us a year of peace..." (and he goes on and on and on and on about the blessings of God during the past year) "that we the Pilgrims should gather between the hours of 9-12 on the first Thanksgiving and listen to our pastor and then give thanks to Almighty God for all His Blessings."

Notice that Bradford asked that they listen to the teaching of the Bible (the pastor) and then they give thanks to Almighty God.

How do we usually thank God in America? Often we go around the Thanksgiving table and share our thanks. It might sound like this ...