Title: Thanksgiving Day/Exodus 23:16
▨ Exodus 23:16 ▧
Today is Thanksgiving Day. The Harvest Festival is very important as one of the three major Jewish festivals. It is a season to give thanks to God for protecting us for half a year. Gratitude is the core of our faith life. It's like a gauge that measures a person's beliefs.
To be grateful is to have faith. Without gratitude, there is no faith. Great gratitude means great faith. When gratitude is weak, faith is weak. Today, let's receive grace by thinking about the meaning of the Feast of Harvest through the text.
1. We were told to keep the Feast of Harvest Festival.
Verse 16 says, “Keep the Feast of Harvest Festival.”
The Festival of Harvest is also called the Festival of Seven Weeks and the Festival of First Fruits. The name of the autumn festival is the oldest. It is the season of offering grains after the wheat harvest in June. Together with the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles, it is the three major feasts that must be observed.
The Harvest Festival is a worship service of thanksgiving and a faith of thanksgiving. The command to “keep it” is to have the faith of gratitude. In other words, it means that the saints will have the worship of thanksgiving and the faith of thanksgiving.
We are dead in our sins. They are already dead bodies. Now eternal hell punishment awaits. God sent Jesus Christ to this earth to shed His blood to wash away our sins and save us. Life on this earth is also the grace of God.
Hymn 405 'I was amazed by the grace of the Lord who saved a sinner like me, I found my lost life and found light'
2 Corinthians 9:15 says, “I give thanks to God for his unspeakable gift.” In Israel's agriculture, it is God who gives rain and God who gives sunlight. If it doesn't rain, everything is dried up and there is no harvest.
All of our lives are by the grace of God. There is nothing that God has not given. Everything is something to be grateful for.
What hinders gratitude is covetousness, which modern people possessed a lot. And yet, everyone has lost their appreciation for the relative poverty. When we were young, eating was the top problem. A wealthy family was a person who ate white rice without worry. But these days, I rarely worry about eating. A house that eats white rice is rather a poor house. Even so, the hearts lose their gratitude, such as resentment, complaints, and suicide, and live.
1 Thessalonians 5:18 says, “In everything give thanks, for this is God’s will for you in Christ.” "Everything" is everything. Happy, sad, promoted or retired, successful or unsuccessful or grateful. Because gratitude is God's will. Gratitude is the best medicine. It makes you physically, mentally, and spiritually healthy. Today is the first Sunday of July 2000. Thank you for everything that God has protected during the month of June, and I pray that God will give you glory.
2. I gave the firstfruits to God first.
Verse 16 says, “For you have reaped the firstfruits of what you sowed in the field.”
Israel has two farms. Summer farming starts in July on the Korean calendar and harvests in the fall. In autumn, seeds are sown in the fall and harvested in the spring. The Harvest Festival gave thanks to God for the first fruits of the crop harvested in the spring.
Offering the first fruits has two meanings. ① Gratitude is always expressed as a gift (material), and ② The firstfruits are the most precious thing. In other words, thanksgiving shows that we give to God as the most precious material.
Gratitude is done in three ways. It is done with the heart (the heart is warmed), the words (thank you), and the material things (the firstfruits, agriculture, livestock).
Matthew 6:21 says, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matter and faith are directly proportional. Those who have faith and those who love God will give their materials with all their heart.
Revelation 4:10 says, "And the twenty-four elders fell down before him who sat on the throne and worshiped him who lives forever and ever; and they cast their crowns before the throne, saying," “Twenty-four elders” are representatives of the saints who have been saved from heaven. "Self-crown" is a glorious gold crown reward. I even gave this to God.
Thanksgiving in the Old Testament is not about giving and giving, “Praise be to the Lord, O thy saints, and give thanks to his holy name” (Psalm 30:4). Success in business, not success in children. Thank God for one name.
Thanksgiving in the New Testament is “always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ” (Ephesians 5:20).
Hymn 353, "The grace that my Lord Jesus has given me is infinite, but I give all these things before my Lord. Accept my devotion, Lord Jesus."
The thanksgiving of salvation ascribes everything to the grace of God. We give more and more diligently to God. We give you the most precious thing. We pray that we give thanks to God by giving our hearts, words and deeds, material things, and life.
3. It was collected from the field in Yeonjong and stored.
Verse 16 says, “For what you have worked hard to accomplish, you gather from the field and store it.”
Yeonjong is harvested at the end of the harvest and stored. Thank you for being able to live on what God has given you in the future. This means that God will prepare all of our future lives. God created the universe. God is in charge of us. You protect the past, you protect the present, and you protect the future.
Puritans left England in search of faith. On September 6, 1620, the Puritans from England set out on two ships, the Mayflower and the Speedwalt.
The people who went on the Mayflower arrived at Primos next to Boston, the US port, after 106 days on December 22 of that year, and praised and praised the unknown world regardless of the storm. I believed in God. I believed that He would protect the future. This faith has overcome storms such as cold, hunger, and rage.
However, those who went on the Speedwalt were unable to overcome the cold, hunger, and disease and returned. I lost my thanksgiving. It started in horror, and everyone was afraid and eventually went back without winning.
Hymn 434 'How can I doubt the mercy that is in my Lord, Jesus leads me as far as I go? Those who live by faith will receive from heaven. Whatever happens, you will be successful. Whatever you encounter, you will be prosperous.”
Psychologists say that people today worry about the future rather than the present because of their worries and anxieties. Our Heavenly Father is in charge of our future.
conclusion
Philippians 4:6 says, “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” Let's not worry. Today the people of Israel thanked God through the spring harvest harvest. Let us also give thanks through our lives. Pray, thank you, and bless you to live in God's grace.