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Sermons on Thanksgiving Day


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Preaching on Thanksgiving Day? Browse these sermons to find fresh ideas.

Practicing Grateful Rest
Practicing Grateful Rest

Introduction

As we come to the Sunday before Thanksgiving, we often think about what we are thankful for. We think about how the year has gone ...


Let us be grateful for God’s blessings and rest in God’s presence.


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Count Your Blessings
Count Your Blessings

Introduction

The Chamber of Commerce invited a pastor to offer the blessing at a banquet honoring elected officials. The master of ceremonies forgot to ...


A person blesses God by remembering all that God has done and thanking him for it.


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A Feast Without End
A Feast Without End

Introduction

This morning as we prepare to celebrate Thanksgiving this Thursday, I wanted to talk about the importance of contentment. And who better to ...


The essence, importance, and experience of contentment are rooted in relying on God.


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Reasons to Be Thankful
Reasons to Be Thankful

Introduction

As a little boy I recall thumbing through an old church hymnal. I came across a piece that has become one of my favorite Thanksgiving songs. ...


The more we think about God and his provisions, the more reasons we have to be thankful.


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A Heart of Gratitude
A Heart of Gratitude

Introduction

Stone Mountain is a very large, naked hill of solid granite that is located about 15 miles northeast of Atlanta. If you've been there, you ...


Christians can bless the Lord by concentrating on all of the benefits we receive from him, and by giving him praise.


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Becoming a 'Thanksgiver' at Thanksgiving
Becoming a 'Thanksgiver' at Thanksgiving

Introduction

"Don't forget to say 'thank you.'" If you are like me, then you probably heard this phrase often when you were a child. If you are a parent, ...


How can we turn our 'grateful' into 'thankful'?


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A Thankful Life
A Thankful Life

Introduction

We're going to be thinking about Thanksgiving Day today. You may be thinking to yourselves, Why? Because Thanksgiving Day is important. ...


Be the one who notices and thanks God for his blessings.


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An Unthankful Life
An Unthankful Life

Introduction

I want to begin by actually playing a little game. It's called the Opposite Game, and the way it works is I'm going to say a word and then ...


Stop grumbling and complaining and rejoice and thank God for his goodness.


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A Picture of Praise
A Picture of Praise

Introduction

Thanksgiving Day was near. The first grade teacher gave her class a fun assignment—to draw a picture of something for which they ...


God is worthy of our worship.


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A Psalm for Giving Thanks
A Psalm for Giving Thanks

Introduction

Psalm 100 reads:

A psalm for giving thanks. Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into his presence ...

You have a duty to give thanks to God for who he is and what he has done for you.


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The Great Gratitude Experiment
The Great Gratitude Experiment

Introduction

There's a theme in the Bible that appears in several different places. Paul says to the church in Thessalonica, "Rejoice always, pray continually, ...


In and through Christ, our hearts can sing with radical gratitude and blessing.


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Punctuating Our Lives with Thanksgiving
Punctuating Our Lives with Thanksgiving

Introduction

We recently looked together through the lens of the story of Job at the great question marks that fill our lives: Why do bad things ...


There's only one way to conquer discontentment—remember the biblical practice of thanksgiving.


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The Joy You've Always Wanted
The Joy You've Always Wanted

The topic today is joy. And the chief question is: how do we get it? How do we have more joy more often? How can we be happy?

We are looking at Paul's ...


In order to experience true and lasting joy, we must cultivate thanksgiving.


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The ABCs of Praise
The ABCs of Praise

Introduction

This is a Psalm that begins with a commitment that on the surface seems rather simple: "I will exalt you, my God the King; I will praise ...


Learning God-honoring worship from Psalm 145


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Let's Get This Straight

Introduction

The first thing I noticed about our story today was the stories on either side of it. When we last saw Jacob, he finally had been reconciled ...


Experiencing God in the midst of great suffering


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The Blessed Limp

Introduction

A blessing is a mysterious thing. In her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, Gilead, Marilynne Robinson's narrator is an elderly pastor named John ...


Learning to accept the blessings of God


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Your Arm's Too Short to Box with God

Introduction

Jacob was facing the biggest crisis of his life. Esau, the twin brother he had conned out of both birthright and blessing, was coming his ...


A look at life's hardest—but most important—battle


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Happy Trails

Introduction

The prospect of wrestling with God is not all that pleasant. Consider the man who knows God is calling him out on his abrupt and unfeeling ...


The surprising power of God's grace


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Good Riddance

Introduction

"Isn't there somewhere else you're supposed to be?" Has God ever said that to you? God seems to be saying that a lot around here lately. He ...


Finding our way to God's place of blessing


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The Really Good Shepherd

Introduction

According to the United States Social Security Administration, Jacob was the number one male baby name for the year 2007. In the Bible the ...


Recognizing God as the architect of blessing


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The Messy Family of God

Introduction

"Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." So reads the first line of Leo Tolstoy's famous novel, Anna ...


Learning to choose the right way over the hard way


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A Fine Mess

Introduction

What a great promise from God: "I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go." We talked about this great promise in the last sermon—a ...


Exploring the implications of God's presence


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The Voice from the Top of the Stairs

Introduction

There's a story oft-told on the Internet—true or not, I don't know—about Susan, a 34-year-old woman who lost her sight due to ...


Trusting in the God who is near


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Odd Man Out

Introduction

Some wedding requests pose a dilemma for pastors. Most of us will not officiate at a wedding between a believer and an unbeliever, believing ...


Recognizing the immense value of God's blessing


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The Strange Blessing of God

Introduction

Do you live a blessed life? I did a Google search on the phrase, "I live a blessed life." I stumbled upon one guy who wrote, "I live a blessed ...


Making sure you don't manhandle the blessing of God


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The Stew Is Divine

Introduction

Jacob, at 130 years of age, stood before Pharaoh, the great ruler of Egypt. Jacob was the grandson of Abraham and the son of Isaac. He was ...


Having the faith and foresight to treasure the life God blesses


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Praying the Savior's Way

From the editor:

The Lord's Prayer is one of the more popular passages in all of the New Testament—believers and non-believers alike have even taken ...


Jesus is training our hearts to turn us to the bread that really satisfies.


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Lessons from Lepers

Introduction

We often look at thanksgiving backwards. We think of thanksgiving as thanking God for something that has happened to us already. The real ...


Thankfulness creates an opportunity for further blessing.


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Giving Thanks for God's Enduring Love
Giving Thanks for God's Enduring Love

Introduction

I want you to imagine a special, highly festive event. Psalm 118 was written for such an occasion. It began with a blare of trumpets, the ...


God's 'chesed' love is active, ongoing, and the basis of our thanksgiving.


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An Attitude of Gratitude

Introduction

Not long ago, as I was talking with one of my teenage sons, he recounted an experience he had on a commuter train outside of New York City. ...


Being thankful enables us to overcome our problems instead of being overcome by them.


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Elements of Worship

Introduction:

One of the most interesting points of a pastor’s week is greeting people after Sunday morning worship. People say the most interesting things ...


The greatest acts of worship are acts of simple obedience to God each day of the week.


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Eternal Worship

Introduction:

I want to begin this message on worship in eternity by sharing with you a line from a hymn by William Cowper. One of the great hymns of our ...


In worship, we see things as they really are, not as they appear to be.


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Thanksgiving: The Truth About Thanksgiving

Introduction:

The first Thanksgiving dinner I ever ate outside of the United States was in Belgium. The people of Belgium are as thankful as any other ...


All good gifts come from God.


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Cultivating a Thankful Heart

Introduction:

My wife and I watched a sitcom the other evening, where the plot revolved around the old standby device called “the flashback.” The show’s ...


Our blessings are so manifold that we cannot possibly count them all.


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Only the Grateful Believe

Thankfulness is difficult for most of us. An elementary school teacher was trying to teach thankfulness to her students, so she asked them to write down ...


Thankfulness is the evidence of deep faith.


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A Contrast of Thanksgiving

Introduction

It seems to me that appreciation is often related to contrasts. We are told the beauty of art is not just in color, but it's in contrast. ...



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The Praise of an Old Man

Shortly after David came to power, he brought the ark to Zion. The ark was a box about the size of a piano bench, and in it were some famous artifacts. ...


In the midst of all sorts of troubles, David still found comfort and rest in God.


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How to Behave in a Worship Service

When I was a boy, I grew up in a war zone. I lived halfway between Chicago and St. Louis, in the heart of baseball country. I remember many playground ...


In this Psalm, we learn not only how to worship God enthusiastically, but why we should do so


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Thanksgiving and Faith

In a yard near us, a sign recently appeared with these words on it: MOM ON STRIKE. Michelle had "moved" into her children's tree house and vowed she wasn't ...


Everything right about us, the Lord did.


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Overcoming Disappointment

There once lived a little girl who really liked Beanie Babies. In fact, one day when she and her parents were at the store, she saw the newest Beanie ...


The better we know God, the more thankful we will be.


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The Contrast of Thanksgiving

Introduction

It seems to me that appreciation is often related to contrasts. We are told the beauty of art is not just in color, but it's in contrast. ...


Contrast is important in developing an attitude of gratitude in our lives.


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