Giving in Thanksgiving For God's Grace

How a Service of Praise For the Lord's Deliverance is a Means of Witnessing Love

Howdy!

I waffled on taking this in two installments. However, I decided to just go ahead and take it all in one bite. It will be good for us to go ahead and proceed past the section on Thanksgiving with this last word. Following this portion of the Directory for Public Worship we will be almost done with the DPW. All that is left is a section on the singing of the psalms and then some odds and ends. I noted a few weeks ago that after our completion of the DPW we’ll go to the Directory of Church Government in order to learn more about our Presbyterianism. All of this going back to when we started with the Westminster Shorter Catechism back in 2021 has served to provide a resource to better understand our faith and what we as Christians believe about the Bible and the life our Savior Jesus Christ has granted to us by His grace. I continue to pray that these weekly installments are a blessing to your daily walk and always if they inspire questions or comments or even concerns always feel free to email me or send me a message. I do enjoy writing these and want them to be as helpful as possible in the love of God in the feeding of His sheep.

Let’s go ahead and look at the long testimony today from the DPW:

Then let the minister, who is to preach, proceed to further exhortation and prayer before his sermon, with special reference to the present work: after which, let him preach upon some text of Scripture pertinent to the occasion.

The sermon ended, let him not only pray, as at other times after preaching is directed, with remembrance of the necessities of the Church, King, and State, (if before the sermon they were omitted,) but enlarge himself in due and solemn thanksgiving for former mercies and deliverances; but more especially for that which at the present calls them together to give thanks: with humble petition for the continuance and renewing of God’s wonted mercies, as need shall be, and for sanctifying grace to make a right use thereof. And so, having sung another psalm, suitable to the mercy, let him dismiss the congregation with a blessing, that they may have some convenient time for their repast and refreshing.

But the minister (before their dismission) is solemnly to admonish them to beware of all excess and riot, tending to gluttony or drunkenness, and much more of these sins themselves, in their eating and refreshing; and to take care that their mirth and rejoicing be not carnal, but spiritual, which may make God’s praise to be glorious, and themselves humble and sober; and that both their feeding and rejoicing may render them more cheerful and enlarged, further to celebrate his praises in the midst of the congregation, when they return unto it in the remaining part of that day.

When the congregation shall be again assembled, the like course in praying, reading, preaching, singing of psalms, and offering up of more praise and thanksgiving, that is before directed for the morning, is to be renewed and continued, so far as the time will give leave.

At one or both of the publick meetings that day, a collection is to be made for the poor, (and in the like manner upon the day of publick humiliation,) that their loins may bless us, and rejoice the more with us. And the people are to be exhorted, at the end of the latter meeting, to spend the residue of that day in holy duties, and testifications of Christian love and charity one towards another, and of rejoicing more and more in the Lord; as becometh those who make the joy of the Lord their strength.

We don’t have proper space to go through every part of the closing, but in many ways we do not need to. Much of what was covered last week is repeated somewhat in the specific directions for how a church should host a Thanksgiving service. The content of the worship includes all the same movements as a normal gathering of the Lord’s Day covenant community. That is important because any time the people come as one they should do so with the same biblical commitments to spirit-led and directed worship as at any other time. As we seek the Lord’s grace in thanksgiving we do so with the same assurances and promises that we receive in the ordinary weekly worship of the church. This is key to understanding our praising His name at all times.

For example, when the DPW section above says we are to keep in our heart a, “. . . humble petition for the continuance and renewing of God’s wonted mercies” we are reminded that while the public service itself is come to an end part of the use of a thanksgiving service (not just in the month of November, but any time of the year) it is so that God in His grace might use this time to renew our covenantal oaths and promises to the Lord to rest in Him and His sovereign will over space and the creation itself. We are to use these special occasions to especially thank God for His comfort and care in extraordinary moments using His ordinary means. That is part of why the Biblical Christian faith is so simple in the eyes of the world. We need not special formulas or garments or forms to show our praise unto Him in a day of holiness for His special labors. For He is the same yesterday, today, and forever in the awesomeness of His Trinitarian personhood.

In closing, the last part of the above referencing taking up a collection, an offering for the poor. It is a fascinating idea. Why would the DPW include this? Consider for a moment that the whole purpose of a service of thanksgiving is to give thanks to God for what He has done. What greater example of having learned a spiritual lesson from this time than to show that through helping a person in need with a providential gift witnessing your blessing in the midst of whatever it is that you are thanking God either in a positive sense, for deliverance or perseverance through a trial. We give back in offerings what God has given to us. What more can we do for others than to pass on that same gift and grant by faith to those who need it more than us in a day of plenty?

One More Thought:

https://gentlereformation.com/2022/11/24/thanksgiving-day-the-presbyterian-holy-day/

Blessings in Christ,

Rev. Benjamin Glaser

Pastor, Bethany ARP Church