Sermons

Today's passage sheds light on the true meaning of thanksgiving through the feasts of Israel established in Old Testament times. In particular, it highlights the order by which the Day of Atonement had to be kept before the harvest thanksgiving feast, the Feast of Booths, showing God's order of requiring repentance before thanksgiving. This is not simply the arrangement of a calendar; it reveals the spiritual principle that unless a clean heart has been prepared, we cannot fully receive God's grace.

Through the lives of King David and Peter, the sermon explains how thanksgiving built on repentance leads to deeper grace and a new mission. Even after victory, David consecrated himself and stood before God, and Peter, rather than dwelling on the miraculous catch of fish, confessed before the holiness of Jesus that he was a sinner. These examples show that thanksgiving is not simply an expression of joy, but true worship that flows from a pure heart whose problem of sin has been dealt with.

So Thanksgiving helps us see that its meaning goes beyond joy over material abundance, and grows deeper when we first make sure of spiritual cleanness. Repentance is the act of leaving the place of sin, and thanksgiving is the process of restoring grace on that very ground. The sermon asks what true worship is, beyond formal words of thanks: looking back at one's inner life and standing before God with a clean heart.

This passage deals with the meaning of two of Israel's feasts, the Feast of Firstfruits and the Feast of Weeks (Pentecost). Behind the command to count the days, eagerly waiting forty-nine days from Firstfruits, when the barley is harvested, to the Feast of Weeks, when the wheat is harvested, lies the fact that the success or failure of the crops depended on the northwest and southeast winds, which God governs. The people of Israel had to depend on God alone for the weather and for the whole process of the harvest, and to offer thanks and prayers with earnest hearts.

But the people forgot God's grace, trying to set up a human king more powerful than God. The event in which God sent thunder and rain at Pentecost, when the wheat should have been harvested, to punish their pride is a warning that makes them realize they cannot live without God. We must guard against the foolishness of forgetting God and following the world's standards precisely when we enjoy abundant harvests and peace, and remember that everything is under God's sovereignty.

Do we acknowledge that everything we now enjoy is not chance but God's grace? Rather than living a life of bringing offerings freely with thankful hearts, are we not taking it all for granted and trying to leave God?