When It’s Hard to Give Thanks
Joel 2:21-27
Rev. Michael D. Halley
Suffolk Christian Church
November 23, 2014
Suffolk, Virginia
Last Sunday After Pentecost
The Reign of Christ
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Joel 2:21-27
New International Version
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Do not be afraid, land of Judah ;
be glad and rejoice.
Surely the Lord has done great things!
Do not be afraid, you wild animals,
for the pastures in the wilderness are becoming green.
The trees are bearing their fruit;
the fig tree and the vine yield their riches.
2
Be glad, people of Zion ,
rejoice in the Lord your God,
for he has given you the autumn rains
because he is faithful.
He sends you abundant showers,
both autumn and spring rains, as before.
The threshing floors will be filled with grain;
the vats will overflow with new wine and oil.
“I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten—
the great locust and the young locust,
the other locusts and the locust swarm—
my great army that I sent among you.
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You will have plenty to eat, until you are full,
and you will praise the name of the Lord your God,
who has worked wonders for you;
never again will my people be shamed.
Then you will know that I am in Israel,
that I am the Lord your God,
and that there is no other;
never again will my people be shamed.
The Word of the Lord:
Thanks be to God!
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise;
give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good
and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues
through all generations.
--Psalm 100:4-5 NIV
3
There is a famous painting by Henry Ossawa (AH-sew-wah) Turner
(1859-1937), who happened to be the first African-American artist to gain an
th
international reputation in the 20 century. The painting is entitled “The
Thankful Poor”, and depicts an older father -- maybe a grandfather -- sitting at a
table with his son ready to eat a meal. The meal before them was not like what
you and I will sit down to on this coming Thursday. . . . There was no turkey
or dressing on the table. There was no cranberry sauce or sweet potatoes or
pumpkin pie. Instead, there is just a single, simple, small dish of food that
they will share.
Yet, in spite of their limited resources and meager fare, their heads are
reverently bowed in prayer, giving thanks to God for what little they have.
Although they are poor, they are thankful to God.
This father and his son demonstrate remarkable character, do they not?
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Having so little, yet taking the time to give thanks, I wonder how many of us
could do the same? There are times, many times, when it is hard to give thanks
in the midst of what we see as the unfairness of life. Bad things sometimes
happen to good people, things do not always go our way, trouble seeks us out,
and at times like these, it is not easy to give thanks. In those cases, most people
complain to God rather than give thanks for what they have.
This is the experience of the people of the tribe of Judah, recorded by
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the prophet Joel . They were faced with a major disaster. Their crops were
being destroyed by a plague of swarming locusts. This was especially tragic for
them because they were an agricultural community which depended upon the
produce of their crops to sustain them physically, socially, and economically.
Furthermore, the spiritual life of the people was impacted by the plague.
Because their animals died from lack of food, they had no animals to sacrifice
in the temple. Animal sacrifice was a sacred ritual which had been performed
as an offering to God for many centuries in the life of God’s people. As a
prophet, this distressed Joel very deeply, to see the religious life of the people
suffer.
In fact, the temple worship had become so dependent upon animal
sacrifice that the people found it difficult to praise God in other ways. It was
hard for them to give thanks.
So, instead of giving thanks, the people began to complain to God.
Where they formerly had faith, they became fatalistic about life. Cynicism
reigned among them. They were about to give up on their hopes for the future
because of the dire conditions imposed upon them.
Does this sound familiar to you? Have we not all been there at some
point in our life? Yes, all of us have suffered some sort of a serious setback.
Maybe it was (or is) financial; maybe it is some sort of crisis in our career; it
could have been an illness or even a spiritual crisis.
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So we look to Jesus, our Saviour for help. We look at all Jesus promised
us . Listen to these rich promises:
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He promised that He would never leave nor forsake us.
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He promised that He would produce fruit in us as we stayed in Him.
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He promised He would hear our prayers.
▸
He promised when two or more of us gather together in His name, He
would be with us.
▸
He promised that He would give us power and strength.
▸
He promised that even the gates of hell would not triumph over His
church.
5
But of all the wonderful and positive things Jesus promised us, he did
not promise us that life would be easy or that troubles would not come our
way. It’s sometimes hard to be thankful, given the troubles that we face.
So, what will this Thursday be like in your house? Will it be a day of
giving thanks, or not? Maybe Joel has a word for us that will help. What
would Joel say to us?
Joel says we need repentance and prayer. In the first chapter of Joel,
verse 14, he said, “Declare a holy fast; call a sacred assembly. Summon the
elders and all who live in the land to the house of the Lord your God, and cry
out to the Lord.”
Joel went on to say, in chapter 2, verses 12 and 13, “‘Even now,’ declares
the Lord, ‘return to me with all your heart, with fasting and weeping and
mourning. Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your
God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in
love, and he relents from sending calamity.’”
And when the people did as Joel said, when they renewed their faith in
God, they began to see their circumstances from a different perspective. They
saw that God was using the crisis in their land to prepare them for an even
greater challenge than the plague of locusts. For Joel knew that a day was
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coming, a day he called the “Day of the Lord”, which would be the time that
God’s sovereignty over all creation would be known to all. Other biblical
writers would call that the Day of Judgement.
So the fire was not meant to burn, but to purify. The burdens on the
people were not meant to break them, but to make them stronger. And we
must remember that we often bring such hard times on ourselves, due to our
misdeeds and bad choices. But God can use it for good.
6
There is a legendary story of a wise rabbi in Budapest, Hungary. A man
goes to the rabbi and complains, “Life is unbearable. There are nine of us
living in one room. What can I do?”
The rabbi answers, “Take your goat into the room with you.” The man
in incredulous, but the rabbi insists. “Do as I say and come back in a week.”
A week later the man comes back looking more distraught than before.
“We cannot stand it,” he tells the rabbi. “The goat is filthy.”
The rabbi then tells him, “Go home and let the goat out. And come
back in a week.”
A radiant man returns to the rabbi a week later, exclaiming, “Life is
beautiful. We enjoy every minute of it now that there’s no goat -- only the nine
of us.”
Sometimes it is how we look at life, isn’t it? Whether we look at the
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doughnut or at the hole.
So, let’s truly give thanks. Not just this week, at Thanksgiving Day, but
every single day. Remember our little prayer acrostic, “ACTS”? “A” is for
adoration of God, “C” is for confession of our sins, “S” is for supplication
(praying for others), and “T” is for thanksgiving to God for all his blessings.
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The story is told of a pastor who was known for his uplifting pulpit
prayers. He always seemed to find something to thank God for, even in
troubled times. On one dark stormy day, when this pastor had experienced a
personal tragedy in his own life, his church members said to each other,
“Surely the pastor will have nothing to thank God for on a morning like this.”
And I would like to close this morning, using the prayer this man of God
offered that day:
“Lord, we know that this is a dreary morning. But, Lord, let us learn
from our troubles and be reminded that it has not always been like this. You
have given us days of sunshine. And we have enough faith to thank you ahead
of time that it will not always be like this in the future. By your grace we
believe that there is a bright side somewhere and the sun will shine again. We
believe that new life is possible and you have the future in your hand. We
believe your grace has brought us safe thus far, and we believe your grace will
lead us home.” I pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.
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Version®, NIV®, copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984,
2011 by Biblica, Inc.®, unless otherwise indicated.
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1. Judah was the fourth son of Jacob (see Genesis 29:35) and the patriarch of the tribe of Judah.
The tribe of Judah occupied the strategically important territory just to the west of the Dead Sea.
The city of Jerusalem was on the border between Judah and Benjamin. King David was from the
tribe of Judah. When the kingdom was divided following the death of Solomon, the southern
kingdom took the name “Judah”. See “Judah”, in Holman Bible Dictionary, Trent C. Butler,
Editor, www.studylight.org/dictionaries/hbd/view.cgi?n=3522, c. 1991.
2. The name “Zion” originally referred to the hill upon which the city of Jerusalem is situated.
After David captured “Zion”, he resided there and changed its name to the “city of David”. “Zion”
was used by biblical writers in a variety of ways. Many of the psalmists used the term to refer to the
Temple built by Solomon and some used “Zion” to include the whole nation. The most common
usage of “Zion” was to refer to the city of God in the new age. See “Zion”, Holman Bible
Dictionary, cited above.
3. Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859 – 1937) was the first African-American painter to gain
international acclaim. See “Henry Ossawa Turner”, www.wikipedia.org.
4. Joel was a “prophet whose preaching ministry produced the Book of Joel. Personal information
concerning the prophet is minimal, only that he was the son of Pethuel, about whom we know
nothing. That the prophet lived in Jerusalem is probable because of his avid interest in the city, his
repeated references to Zion, his call to the people to assemble for worship, and his interest in the
Temple rituals and sacrifices.” See “Joel”, by A. O. Collins, in Holman Bible Dictionary, cited
above.
5. I am indebted to the Rev. Andy Stoddard for this thought, in his blog, “RevAndy.org”,
http://revandy.org/2011/04/28/what-jesus-didnt-promise-us/.
6. Told by George Mikes, in How to be Decadent, published in London by Andre Deutsch, 1977.
Re-told at “Thanksgiving”, www.sermonillustrations.com.
7. Earlier in the worship service, I had an object lesson with the children. I had a doughnut and
quoted the little saying, “As you go through life make this your goal – look at the doughnut and
not the hole.” The point was that often we pay more attention to what we do not have, rather
than what we do have.
8. From the book, When Trouble Comes, by the Rev. Dr. Zan W. Holmes, Jr., CSS Publishing
Company, Lima, Ohio, 1996. Dr Holmes is the retired pastor of St. Luke Community United
Methodist Church in Dallas and a former Texas state representative. Many of his sermons are
published at www.sermons.com.