Day of Thanksgiving November 27, 2019
Day of Thanksgiving
Luke 17:11-19 & Psalm 67
November 27, 2019
“His Face Shine Upon Us”
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
[Facing altar with back to congregation] The text for the sermon tonight is the Ten Lepers, our Gospel reading, and also Psalm 67 which the choir sang, especially these words, “May God be gracious to us and bless us, and make His face shine upon us.”
[Turning around] A bit awkward, right? God doesn’t want to talk to you that way. That is to say, God doesn’t want to talk to your back. It doesn’t work very well. He wants to be face-to-face. He wants His face to shine upon your face and He wants for you to look to Him for every good. That, in a very simple way, is what faith is—it’s always facing Jesus Christ our Savior and receiving His grace and mercy while giving Him our thanks and praise.
We’re here tonight to be thankful, of course. It’s Thanksgiving. But thankfulness isn’t really something you mix up a batch of one time a year like you do a pumpkin pie. Thankfulness is a virtue of faith that’s lived all the time. It comes from faith. When you’re facing God and you don’t have your back turned to Him, you’ll be thankful for all that He’s doing for you.
Think of a husband and wife. If I continually keep my back turned to my wife, I’m not going to be thankful for her at all. I’m not going to see anything she’s doing for me. I’m not going to see how beautiful she is. I’m not going to see her love and grace toward me—and hence, I’m not going to be thankful for her. Sadly, husbands and wives fall into that habit very often. They don’t live face-to-face. They start living with their backs turned toward each other and can’t see any of the good in their spouse.
Same is true with God. In Jeremiah 32 God complains, “They have turned to me their back and not their face. And though I have taught them persistently, they have not listened to receive instruction.” If we live with our backs turned to Him, then we don’t receive all the light and grace from His face—we don’t see or receive any of the good that He wants to give to us—and hence, we’re not thankful for Him. We don’t believe in Him. All you Christians here tonight, God is asking you tonight—through my voice, of course—to face Him. To live your life facing Him all the time. Because He wants to shine His face upon you.
Look at the ten lepers. Obviously all ten of them received the physical blessing. They were all healed of their leprosy. Just like everybody in the world receives God’s blessings whether they acknowledge Him or not. Everyone receives life, light, family, warmth, and turkey and sweet potatoes, etc, etc. But nine of those lepers don’t get anything more than that. That’s all they get. Why? Because they turn their backs to Jesus and run away.
Now you can live that way. In fact, most people in the world live that way. Every day they enjoy God’s gifts like love and pleasure and the sun and warmth and light and family and wine and food and music and science and learning—but their backs are turned to God so they don’t see that all of it is coming from Him. In fact, often they even deny that he’s there. Once a year, on the fourth Thursday of November, they observe a kind of “thanksgiving” although most don’t ever thank Him directly. Most just eat a bunch of food and watch football.
Furthermore, like the nine lepers, they don’t ever realize God has even much better gifts to give them. Yes, God has better gifts than food and wine and pleasure and music (if you can believe it). And if you face Him, if you believe in Him, have faith in Him, then you receive His greatest gifts—which are His Spirit, His love, His mercy, His forgiveness, His eternal life, His hope.
One of the lepers saw that turning His back to Jesus was the wrong option. He wanted to be face to face with God. He wanted God to shine His face upon him. He wanted to bask in the glory of God in Jesus Christ. So he turned around and ran back to Jesus falling at His feet giving Him thanks. And Jesus says, “Yes, man. I love you. Yes, I want to shine my face upon you. Yes, man, your faith has made you well.”
So being thankful is as simple as this: keeping your face turned toward God in faith. Living your life with your face turned toward God. He wants to bless you and shine upon you. That’s why He gave Moses and Aaron the benediction. He told them to say this blessing over His people. Face to face, in other words. And here’s what He told them to say, “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.”
God is describing His blessing using the sun. The sun shines on you. God shines on you. That’s the idea. This time of year when it gets dark sooner and longer and when the days are much cloudier and grayer—we start to understand how important it is to have the sun shining on us. When we have our backs to the sun, like we do right now when it’s dark, then life is darker and colder.
The sun makes everything better and everything less scary. If the wind’s blowing like today when the sun is shining we don’t mind nearly as much. But if it’s the middle of the night and cold—then we definitely mind more. And if you’re dealing with difficult times in life, if you’re suffering, and you have your back turned to God, those difficult times will be much worse and much harder. But if your face is turned to God through faith in Christ, then God keeps shining on you with His grace through every trial and trouble you have to face.
So the sun makes everything better—God’s face makes everything better. Keep your face turned to Jesus. In 2 Corinthians 4:6, “For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.” Basically, the essence of that verse is this: In Jesus God is shining light on you.
So to conclude tonight I’d like to give you a litany of verses from God’s Word about God shining His face on you. Just think of it this way: this Thanksgiving God wants to give you a gift, a blessing. He wants to see you face-to-face so that His grace may shine on you in all you do. So here is His blessing:
Psalm 11:7 “For the Lord is righteous; he loves righteous deeds; the upright shall behold his face.”
Psalm 17:15 “As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake, I shall be satisfied with your likeness.”
Psalm 34:5 “Those who look to [the LORD] are radiant, and their faces shall never be ashamed.”
Psalm 80 “Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved!”
Psalm 89:15 “Blessed are the people who know the festal shout, who walk, O Lord, in the light of your face.”
Psalm 119:135 “Make your face shine upon your servant, and teach me your statutes.”
Isaiah chapter 60, “The sun shall be no more your light by day, nor for brightness shall the moon give you light; but the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your God will be your glory. Your sun shall no more go down, nor your moon withdraw itself; for the Lord will be your everlasting light, and your days of mourning shall be ended.”
Receive then the blessing of the Lord:
The Lord God who has called you out of the darkness of sin and death and hell and into His marvelous light; who has shone His light into your hearts in the face of Jesus Christ; the Lord be gracious to you and bless you; and the Lord make His face shine upon you, now and forevermore. Amen.