In Want or Plenty, We Thank God. Deuteronomy 8:1-10. What are you thankful for? On a national holiday such as this, God s people take

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1 In Want or Plenty, We Thank God Deuteronomy 8:1-10 by Rev. Michael G. Lilienthal Dear people of God, What are you thankful for? On a national holiday such as this, God s people take the opportunity to give thanks where thanks is due. Many of you will take part in the joy of family and friends and good food. Around the table, you ll give thanks for all these things. But, as you know, we must not forget to give thanks first and foremost for our faithful God. He has provided you with all these great blessings and he has provided for you, even when you have lacked such things. Therefore, in want or plenty, we thank God. I. He Remembers Us so We May Remember Him God trained Israel to this right kind of thanksgiving as they traveled through the wilderness. He was trying to teach them to avoid the danger that Jesus spoke of: Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to enter the kingdom of God (Matt. 19:24). The fact is, every single person should beware this: not just those who are rich, because I imagine very few of you sitting here would claim to be really rich. That just makes it easy to dismiss this warning. And the people of Israel dismissed it as well. God reminded them, The whole commandment that I command you today you shall be careful to do. The whole commandment is everything God had told them through Moses, from the Ten Commandments to the ceremonial laws. It was all

2 Deuteronomy 8: designed, deliberately, so that they would remember their God. The commandment was designed for that memory, and so was their whole experience. God said further, And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. In giving thanks to their God, therefore, it began with remembering their wandering, their suffering, their humbled state. Sometimes this makes sense to us: How often haven t you had a terrible experience, something that you could never see yourself getting past, something that seemed life-altering; and then, maybe years later, you realized that that experience caused something greater than you could have hoped for to come about? That s like what the Israelites experienced, but this is also far deeper. By their wandering and humbling through the wilderness for forty years, they were being taught, trained, and God gives the explicit lesson: that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD. This is the real danger of the rich man who cannot get into heaven: when we have plenty, or even just enough to get by, the temptation is to see that as the necessary thing. We say, I ll be happy if only I have enough to pay the bills and buy groceries. Or, It s enough if I have my health. God trained the Israelites to love and thank him even when they didn t have these things. Do you think he wants us to put such conditions on our thankfulness to him? No, instead, we thank God whether we have plenty or little, or even none, because we do still have indeed that one thing that we really need: We

3 3 In Want or Plenty, We Thank God have God s grace. The psalmist sang to our God: Remember the Word to your servant, because you made me hope. This is my comfort in my misery: that your saying makes me alive. (Ps. 119:49-50, Lilienthal). Even amidst misery, we can take comfort, give thanks, and remember God, because he has remembered us: he has remembered the Word he gave us which caused us to hope: For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself (Acts. 2:39). In fact, God remembered us even at the expense of himself. Even Israel had some of their bodily necessities, even while he says, he humbled you and let you hunger, he also says that he fed you with manna, and, Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. He says these things because he knows how easy it is to forget the blessings we ve received, even the earthly ones which we could see. Meanwhile, look to Jesus: Jesus, knowing that the Father had given all things into his hands, and that he had come from God and was going back to God, rose from supper. He laid aside his outer garments, and taking a towel, tied it around his waist. Then he poured water into a basin and began to wash the disciples feet and to wipe them with the towel that was wrapped around him. (John 13:3-5) Jesus had everything, but instead sought to give the really important thing. His washing of his disciples feet was just one gesture of how he would lay down his life for all his disciples, for their salvation, for our salvation, and the forgiveness of our sins. To understand all this even better, put the lack that we feel in opposition to Jesus. God led Israel forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble them and train

4 Deuteronomy 8: them. Of course, they failed numerous times. They fell into temptation, they rejected God. In opposition: Jesus was led by the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days, being tempted by the devil, and at every turn he rejected temptation, keeping the commandment of God perfectly (Luke 4:1-2). God also let the Israelites hunger and [yet still] fed [them] with manna that he might make [them] know that man does not live by bread alone. Jesus was hungry in the wilderness, ate nothing for forty days, and the devil tempted him to cease his reliance on God and make himself some bread. And Jesus answered him, It is written, Man shall not live by bread alone (Luke 4:2, 4). Still further, Jesus declared of himself, I am the living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh (John 6:51). God reminded the Israelites: Your clothing did not wear out on you and your foot did not swell these forty years. When nails pierced Jesus feet as he died on the cross, the soldiers cast lots to divide his garments (Luke 23:34). So, what happened here? All this lack we may perceive is not actually lack, not when we take it in context. We have been given many blessings, even earthly blessings. But don t even worry about these, because while yes, we have food even when we re hungry; we have clothing even when we re cold; we have bodies even when they ache, beyond all this we have a Savior who took all our lack onto himself, and gave everything of himself for us.

5 5 In Want or Plenty, We Thank God This is the remembrance that really counts: God remembered us, provided for us the one and only thing we need: forgiveness, life, salvation. Therefore, we remember that, in all things, and give thanks. Part of this means that II. We Give Thanks in Anticipation for Blessings The practiced thanksgiving of the Israelites was preparing them for the greater future blessings they would receive in the Promised Land. The Lord described this: For the LORD your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of brooks of water, of fountains and springs, flowing out in the valleys and hills, a land of wheat and barley, of vines and fig trees and pomegranates, a land of olive trees and honey, a land in which you will eat bread without scarcity, in which you will lack nothing, a land whose stones are iron, and out of whose hills you can dig copper. And you shall eat and be full, and you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land he has given you. First, God is describing the Promised Land of Canaan, which would become the territory of Israel. It was a truly rich and bountiful land and still is, to a great extent. The Israelites who lacked clean water in the desert would now have an abundance of brooks, fountains, and springs all around them. The people who were eating only manna, that whatchamacallit bread, would now never lack the great fruit of the land, wheat, barley, grapes, figs, pomegranates, olives, honey. The children of Abraham who had only the possessions on their backs as they left Egypt would now be able to produce richly from iron and copper mines. This is all to say, the lack that they felt earlier would be completely reversed. And this will be even more fully fulfilled in the truth that the Promised Land typifies: that is, the reality of heaven. There, not only are our material needs reversed

6 Deuteronomy 8: from lack into plenty, but our needs emotional, spiritual, or in any nature whatsoever: God disciplined his people while they wandered, but in the Promised Land they would have only goodness. Likewise, we bear a cross and are fraught with tears while we wander this earth, but in our heavenly Promised Land, only goodness. Look at how one of the elders in heaven described that place to St. John, and compare it to how God described the Promised Land to Israel: These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes. (Rev. 7:14-17) Jesus reversed everything for us when he took our hunger, our pain, our lack, our sin onto himself, and he gives us his feast, his joy, his fullness, and his righteousness. Therefore, as St. Paul said, I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. I can do all [these] things through him who strengthens me (Phil. 4:11-13).

7 7 In Want or Plenty, We Thank God Therefore, because of the wonderful gifts our Father has given to us, we know the secret of how, in want or in plenty, to give thanks to God. Amen.