Sermon on Colossians 3:15-17, for Thanksgiving Eve 2020, "Worship as Thanksgiving"

 

God’s chosen ones clothed in Christ! Grace and peace to you! Amen. I chose Colossians 3, especially verses 15-17 for our Thanksgiving message, for its connection to thankfulness in our singing and worship. Let’s reflect this evening on “Worship as Thanksgiving”. Hear those verses again: “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. ¹⁶ Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. ¹⁷ And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.”

Worship is more than just music, but music serves a key role. Music often carries or expresses our emotions. Music also sinks deeply in our heart and memory, more than spoken words usually do. Music can be grand and triumphant for an occasion to celebrate or honor; music can be calm and peaceful for bringing tranquility and rest; music can be harsh and dissonant for anger and frustration; it can be melancholy for our sadness. Music can overpower and drown out words and voices, or it can elevate and enliven them.

Paul names one of the most honorable uses of music as teaching and admonishing each other with all wisdom, with psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, sung with thanksgiving in our hearts! Music teaches! To teach, it must not overpower or obscure the words, but lift them up and make them memorable. Music helps us remember truth about God. Through melodies that stick with us, with patterns and rhymes and images that sink the Good Word of God more deeply into our hearts and minds. I just read somewhere recently how a person joked to their pastor that you never see someone humming the sermon after service, but rather the songs. Obviously, music has an infectious quality (for good or bad) to stick in our mind more than bare words.

St. John Chrysostom, whose name meant “Golden mouth” because of his famous preaching, preached on this passage from Colossians in the 300s AD. 1,700 years ago he lamented the fact that the kids knew all the devil’s music but were embarrassed to memorize or learn the Psalms. He urged: “Teach [them] to sing those psalms which are so full of the love of wisdom!” Martin Luther, 500 years ago, praised music as the second outstanding gift of God, next only to theology, and that youth should be taught music because it makes fine, skillful people. He added that music “drives away the devil, makes people cheerful, and makes them forget anger, unchasteness, pride, and other vices.” He wanted the youth to learn good music and turn away from “love ballads and sex songs” to learn something beneficial. As Solomon said, there is nothing new under the sun! There’s always been catchy bad music to distract the youth, but how much better with wisdom to sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs with thankfulness to God!

When we are cheerful and thankful for our lives and our good things, it’s natural for us to hum or sing along with upbeat, joyful music. A natural impulse from God to sing our thanksgiving! And psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs elevate that impulse to a higher and nobler praise to God as the source of all good things. They give us honorable words to worship Him. Some of you may even have or develop the gift to compose melodies or write songs that give God worthy thanks and praise! Another thought for deeper contemplation on your own, is how to keep that impulse and desire to give thanksgiving to God, in every circumstance, good or bad, just as Scripture teaches us to do.

In our common prayer before Holy Communion, I repeat an ancient phrase: “It is truly, good, right and salutary, that we should at all times give thanks to You O Lord…”. That old word “salutary” means HEALTHY, HEALTHFUL!! It’s healthy to give thanks to God! And that’s literally true! Thankfulness to God, as Giver of all things, is healthy above all. But even secular scientists recognize that gratitude is healthy for you, with proven scientific benefits to your health and well-being, such as lower stress levels and lower depression, increased immune system health, better relationships and less envy, frustration and regret, better self-esteem and mental strength. Once again, science and common sense often reaffirms what God’s Word teaches us all along! Giving thanks to God at all times is salutary, healthy for us. Thankfulness to God is a win-win for our physical and spiritual health.

“Singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.” Singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God. I hinted above that worship as thanksgiving is not just for the good times. In whatever we do, in everything, we are to give thanks to God. Even in the COVID colored days. Even on our crummy days at work or at home. The days that get off to a bad start with complaining or fighting, or pain or frustration. Freeze or pause those moments with the recognition that we should give thanks to God in all things; humble yourself in repentance and prayer, asking God for a reset. Pause to give thanks to God. Maybe as simple as thanking Him that you have life and breath and go from there. Or on days that have worn us down and are ending with discouragement, hit the pause button and give thanks to God. Maybe your job was frustrating that day—but at least you have a paying job. What if you don’t have a job? Pour out the cry of your heart for whatever it is that you need. Thank God that He hears your prayers. And trust that God will answer us not with what we want, but what we need. Even if the answered prayer looks different than what we hoped for.

I just listened to the book called “Tramp for the Lord” by Corrie ten Boom, survivor of the Nazi concentration camps, in which she tells the story titled “One Finger For His Glory .” It’s about how she met a very poor man and wife, in post-war, communist Lithuania. The wife was almost completely crippled with multiple sclerosis, but with a single working finger, had spent years laboriously working at the typewriter. She was translating Christian writings, devotions, and the Bible into Russian, Latvian, and Lithuanian, to bring the Good News of Jesus to her people. When Corrie saw her crippled on the sofa, she cried inwardly, “Oh Lord, why don’t you heal her?” …. Her husband sensing [her] anguish of soul, gave the answer. “God has a purpose in her sickness. Every other Christian in the city is being watched by the secret police. But because she has been sick so long, no one ever looks in on her. They leave us alone and she is the only person in all the city who can type quietly, undetected by the police”. The answer to prayer immediately looked different than what Corrie had first imagined, but through the profound thankfulness of that dear woman who used one finger to the glory of God, Corrie saw how God answers prayers in different ways. She marveled to think of all the people in waiting in heaven to thank that lady for inviting them there by her love for the Gospel.

One closing thought on Colossians 3:15-17 and worship as thanksgiving. Thankfulness in your hearts to God. We often experience a disconnect between our inner thoughts and our actions. God wants the two in harmony. Sometimes the mere acts of doing good and speaking good help to produce in us the feeling of gratitude in our hearts. Sometimes we struggle that our heart just “isn’t in it.” Often if the feeling is already in our hearts, its natural to come out in worship and praise. But we should examine ourselves when it might not be so. If our heart isn’t in our worship, that’s not cause for despair, but for a humble prayer of repentance to God, to heal the difference in us, and bring our hearts and lives and voices into a harmony of thanksgiving, so that our songs and our worship will resonate with genuine thankfulness to God.

Ultimately if there is any disconnect between our hearts, lives and voices, go back to what vs. 15-16 encourage us: “Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts” and “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly”. Worship as thanksgiving flows from having Christ’s peace and His Word dwelling richly in us. Thanksgiving begins with having the gift inside us. The gift of Christ died and raised to life for us. His forgiveness and new life. Often, we need to open our eyes to the gifts we already have, and turn recognition into thankfulness. But when the gift of Christ’s peace and Christ’s word gets to work in our hearts, it will heal the difference between our hearts and our words. Christ lifts and frees our spirit, by the forgiveness of our sins, and by the gifts of His Spirit. He teaches us when His word is richly sung into our hearts. He instructs us in His truth, in words that we will hum long after sermons are forgotten. And His peace and His Word will make a beautiful harmony of heart and life, of inward feeling and outward action, so that our life is a living song of thanksgiving to Him!

Hear those words once more: “And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. ¹⁶ Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. ¹⁷ And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” In Jesus’ Name we pray, Amen.