Wilderness Wanderings

An extended Sunday Sermon edition of Wilderness Wanderings! The text is 1 Samuel 13:1-15 from the New International Version of the Bible. Dive In discussion questions are below for further reflection!

To see this sermon in the context of the worship service it comes from, find it here on YouTube. Or, head to our website to connect with the worshiping community of Immanuel CRC: immanuelministries.ca

DIVE IN QUESTIONS

1. Where are the Philistines and their chariots attacking you right now? I.e. what are the biggest challenges and/or anxieties that you face in your life right now?
2. What does Deuteronomy 20:1-4 say about how Israel was to engage in battles? What are the parallels to the situation in 1 Samuel 13:1-15? Where did the Israelites/Saul follow this command? Where did they not?
3. What do the hiding places of the Israelites say about their fear and belief? Notice the use of the number 7 in this passage. When was Samuel supposed to come, and on what day did he come? What does that say about Saul's trust?
4. What's the difference between a faithful "after God's own heart-ness" and a faithless pragmatism like Saul's?
5. What is the significance of Gilgal? What is the significance of church?
6. How will you continue to cultivate an active trust and faith in the ever-present work of God in your life this week, even amid the challenges?

Before we get to today's text in psalm 143, let me say a bit about it. It is the last of the penitential psalms, which are the psalms the church has recognized as psalms fit to teach us what it means to repent. Soon, the psalter will take the turn from repentance to joy in the final 5 psalms.

But first, a recognition of who we are before God and our utter dependence on him for salvation from our sinful state, salvation from our earthly enemies, and the sort of sanctification that teaches and grows us up into any form of righteous living. Aside from knowing the particular means by which Jesus Christ and the work of the Spirit would later become our salvation and sanctification, you can already hear much of the New Testament pattern of dead to sin/alive in Christ here in Psalm 143.

So, before we get to those psalms of praise that lift our eyes to the hope and joy of our life in God, perhaps it's fitting in our devotion today to simply read and pray this psalm as our own psalm of repentance and hope.

Lord, hear my prayer, listen to my cry for mercy; in your faithfulness and righteousness come to my relief. Do not bring your servant into judgment, for no one living is righteous before you. The enemy pursues me, he crushes me to the ground; he makes me dwell in the darkness like those long dead. So my spirit grows faint within me; my heart within me is dismayed. I remember the days of long ago; I meditate on all your works and consider what your hands have done. I spread out my hands to you; I thirst for you like a parched land.

Answer me quickly, Lord; my spirit fails. Do not hide your face from me or I will be like those who go down to the pit. Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in you. Show me the way I should go, for to you I entrust my life. Rescue me from my enemies, Lord, for I hide myself in you. Teach me to do your will, for you are my God; may your good Spirit lead me on level ground.

For your name's sake, Lord, preserve my life; in your righteousness, bring me out of trouble. In your unfailing love, silence my enemies; destroy all my foes, for I am your servant. (Psalm 143)

I call out to the Lord. I pray to him for mercy. I pour out my problem to him. I tell him about my trouble. When I grow weak, you are watching over my life (Psalm 142:1-3a).

At some point, most children must wrestle with a sense of abandonment. This loss is felt when parents leave the room. As they return time after time, the child will grow confident that their leaving is not permanent. For some children this is a more difficult journey than others. And some children, mostly due to neglect and the withholding of love, struggle to trust anyone. As they grow up, they find it difficult to develop healthy attachments. Even into old age, they remain afraid of being abandoned.

Our psalm for today, touches on this matter of abandonment, being left alone, without human community. We can imagine this psalm on the lips of Jeremiah, cast into the well, then drawn out only to be imprisoned until the fall of Jerusalem. No effort is needed to hear this prayer welling up from the throat of Job, as he sat on his dung heap, bereft of every earthly comfort. We could include Jacob fleeing from his brother Esau, Joseph thrown into an Egyptian prison and Elijah running from Jezebel.

When we think of those unjustly accused who may have prayed this psalm, other people come to mind, such as Daniel in the lion's den and his three friends in the fiery furnace. We might include Hannah, surrounded by children not her own. And David fleeing from Saul and later from Absalom. Of course, many Christians today living in places of persecution understand the sentiments of this psalm.

If this lament is a fitting supplication for those in prison, then even John the Baptist is to be counted among those who may have prayed it and the Apostles Peter, Paul, and John. But most of all, and adding dignity to the rest, there is Christ our Lord, the Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, abandoned by His closest friends, betrayed by one of them and denied in public by another, finding His sole refuge in the Father.

Here is a lament of a person who has been faithful to God, but who feels oppressed and abandoned by the community of faith. Words and phrases such as "complaint," "my spirit grows faint," "no one is concerned for me," "no one cares for me," "desperate need," "set me free from prison" haunt its verses.

Yet, throughout the song, there is one ray of light, God has not abandoned this singer. This is the one thing that holds despair at bay. "When I grow weak, you are watching over my life" (3); "You are my place of safety. You are everything I need in this life" (5); "Set me free so I can praise your name" (7). This is one of the hall marks of the Christian faith: that God does not abandon us. Jesus' incarnation is the proof. It's a matter of faith to believe that God remains with us even if we cannot see or feel him.

This song speaks into our impersonal world. We work with, go to school with, live next door to, worship with people whom we hardly know. What burdens do they carry? Do they feel that the very breath of life is being sucked away by traps and snares? Do they feel that no one regards them, no one inquires after their well-being? Maybe some of you express those questions for yourself.

This psalmist expresses these fears of abandonment, and the ultimate fear of death, in this cry to God. He will be a refuge when all others fail. But more than a place to hide, God will also be our "portion," that is, He will be the satisfaction of our lives. He will be everything we need in life. The trouble is we often need to lose the little refuges we cherish to know that God is still our ever-present refuge.

Let me finish with this question: has not the church been called to be a place of refuge in the land of the living? How can we know the presence of God if we are not that presence to each other? What ever church you are part of, get out the directory, look through it, pray through it. Who is God calling you to be present with so that they will know that God has not abandoned them?

The psalm-singer pleads for deliverance by God for one reason: to give thanks to the name of God (7); that once more the righteous will gather round in community. In the third and final expression of trust, the psalmist is confident that after God delivers, the righteous will gather round, and the psalm-singer will no longer feel abandoned and alone. Why not reach out to make that happen today?

I call to you, Lord, come quickly to me; hear me when I call to you. May my prayer be set before you like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice. Set a guard over my mouth, Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips. Do not let my heart be drawn to what is evil so that I take part in wicked deeds along with those who are evildoers; do not let me eat their delicacies. (Psalm 141:1-4)

This is a psalm that has often marked services of daily, common prayer throughout the history of the Christian church—particularly the service of evening prayer. Indeed, in the CRC's newest red hymnal (Lift Up Your Hearts), this is the psalm written in for the service of evening prayer (#381).

The psalm is really quite general in terms of what it asks God for. Hear me. Help me. Guard my words. Guard my heart. Keep me from evil and from the evil of evildoers. These last petitions resonate with the Lord's Prayer: "lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

While general, there is also something quite deliberate and attentive about this psalm. It names our mouth, our hearts, our eyes, our actions. It is a psalm that desires wisdom and growth away from the ways of evil and toward the ways of righteousness. Perhaps most significantly, it recognizes that we cannot do this alone, but need God's help if we're going to turn away from evil and toward the good.

It's not enough for us to watch what we say: we also need God's accountability and help to watch over the door of our lips. We also need God's help to check us against the ever-restless desires of our hearts for the "delicacies" of any number of different "appetites" of relationship, body, status, or possession that may not quite be ours to enjoy.

Salvation is not our doing. We know that. But neither is living in grateful response to the salvation gift that we have been given. We are equally as dependent on God for living Christianly as we were for becoming a Christian in the first place. There's a whole lot of Christian life and living that comes after the point of our "salvation," which for a good number of us may have been the day we were born into the covenantal Christian community as infants. That means we need a whole lot of very boring, ordinary, general, everyday help from God.

Psalm 141, therefore, is a good prayer for all of us. We need a good prayer for this general, everyday life use. We need a Holy Spirit guard over our eyes and lips and hearts day-by-day against all the "little" sins, "white" lies, and ordinary, glancing temptations so that our little eyes might be careful what they see, our little tongues what they say, and our little hearts what they covet.

May God indeed do this work daily. May God keep us hungry for him and satisfied in him alone. May he keep our words pure and in step with the fruit of the Spirit in all situations. May he keep our eyes on the gifts he's given us and off the gifts he's given others. "Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

Lord, save me from sinful people. Keep me safe from those who want to hurt me. They make evil plans in their hearts. They are always starting fights. Their tongues are as deadly as the tongue of a serpent. The words from their lips are like the poison of a snake. I say to the Lord, "You are my God." Lord, hear my cry for mercy. Lord and King, you save me because you are strong. You are like a shield that keeps me safe in the day of battle" (Psalm 140:1-3,6,7).

Its interesting to trace the use of a Psalm among God's people; to explore in which contexts worshippers have found this song helpful for their faith. Often, we must travel back in time to find such a setting.

For Psalm 140, no time travelling is needed to find people praying this psalm. It has been adopted by many women who suffer domestic violence. Psalm 140 has become a fervent prayer of such people.

Let me pause for a moment to say this, if you are in danger, please call a local abuse hotline. Even if your abuser professes to be a Christian, you should not stay in a place of danger.

In this psalm, we can hear the realities of both physical and verbal abuse. The scars of the later may run deeper than those on the body. When this happens in the privacy of the home, within the sanctuary of a marriage, the horrors are magnified.

The church has often been silent and complicit. As such, the church has not read her own psalms very well. This song ends, I know that the Lord makes sure that poor people are treated fairly. He stands up for those who are in need. I'm sure that those who do right will praise your name. Those who are honest will live with you (12,13).

Here is a song for the abused.

It is those with power who do the abusing. They also need to read and pray this psalm. It is clear here and in so many other places in scripture that abuse of any sort is evil. It is a misuse of power. Let us be clear, power is to be used to protect those who need protecting. God does not intend power to be used to control or manipulate. It is never to be used for selfish ends.

Jesus was quite blunt about this, "You know about those who are rulers of the Gentiles. They hold power over their people. Their high officials order them around. Don't be like that. Instead, anyone who wants to be important among you must be your servant. And anyone who wants to be first must be the slave of everyone. Even the Son of Man did not come to be served. Instead, he came to serve others. He came to give his life as the price for setting many people free" (Mark 10:42-45).

He said this specifically to his disciples who would later lead the church. Any of us who hold positions of power and influence, whether at home, at school, in the church or the marketplace would do well to carefully heed Jesus' words. We should also spend time with this Psalm wondering if we might be numbered among those this psalm calls out.

The Apostle Paul quotes from this psalm, "The words from their lips are like the poison of a snake" (Romans 3:13). Interestingly, Paul is not referring to or condemning the malicious and violent enemies of the faith, but all humanity. Each of us is capable of plotting maliciousness and engaging in violent ways. Our faith in a God of goodness and wholeness reminds us that we are to be imitators of this God, not creators of violence and abuse.

Often when people have designs on our lives, then, we are reduced to prayer. All we can do is pray for God to show grace. The psalm recalls God's own nature as the one who has the strength to protect, and it recalls occasions in the past when he has provided protection. God is on the side of the lowly and the needy when they are faithful and upright and he is urged to make the would-be evil doers the victims of their own plans.

Evil, injustice, and oppression must be confronted, opposed, hated because God hates them. Too often anger leads us to new forms of violence. This psalmist invites us to submit our anger to God, trusting in both his desire for justice and righteousness and in his ability to bring it about. With the psalmist we pray, "You are my God. Lord, hear my cry for mercy. Lord and King, you save me because you are strong. You are like a shield that keeps me safe in the day of battle".

You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. … Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:1-2,23-24)

Psalm 139 begins and ends in exactly the same way. The psalm praises God in deeply personal and poetic ways for his infinite knowledge, presence, and power. From that basis, the psalm asks God to do it again: "O God who knows me, know me again—here, now today. O God who searches my heart and mind, search me again. O God who is present everywhere and everywhen, lead me into your everlasting presence again today."

There is something incredibly comforting about this psalm. We use it often in worship and devotions. Many of us know parts of it by heart. Perhaps we don't think often enough of how frighteningly intimate this psalm is, however.

That God should know every thought and deed of our entire lives—that he should be present as witness in every secret room where we have ever given in to temptation—is actually quite a frightful thought. This is the very thought that sent Adam and Eve off to hide in the bushes when they realized they were naked before the eyes of God and one another. We fear being known so intimately. It takes a great deal of trust built over a great deal of time to be willing to reveal and entrust ourselves—warts and all—so fully to another. This is part of the wisdom that leads the Christian tradition to restrict the naked vulnerability of sex to the safely guarded commitment of marriage: in doing so we claim that intimate knowing of one's body, just like intimate knowing of one's self, ought only be offered in a setting of highest, deepest trust and commitment.

This is just that sort of relationship, and I'd say an even deeper one, that psalm 139 describes. In a marriage, it remains true that one never fully knows the other. Who of us can truly plumb the depths of mystery and living reality that is another human being like ourselves? We can't. But God can, and does. We are fully known by God.

The crazy step of faith that psalm 139 takes, is that it recognizes that God knows our true and authentic self more deeply than even we, ourselves ever will, and actually invites that knowing. "Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."

Far from a cynical, deterministic, or fatalistic look at religion, the psalmist claims a place of agency and responsibility within the relationship with God. Yes, God knows the psalmist anyway, but the psalmist has also come to know and to trust this God. The psalmist is not merely a passive participant in a pre-determined world. There is a relationship here: God created it that way. And so the psalmist has a role in inviting that relationship: inviting God in to see and to know and even to speak into the psalmist's life in ways that lead into even deeper knowing of self and even deeper relationship with the everlasting God.

Our relationship with God is our first relationship of intimacy, our first experience of being seen, known, and yet loved all the same. Will you continue to invite that relationship as psalm 139 does, so that you too can experience what it is to be seen and known, and yet loved and led into even deeper, trusting places of relationship? The grace, forgiveness, and peace of Christ assures us that we can.

A Sunday Sermon edition of Wilderness Wanderings! The text is 1 Samuel 11 from the New International Version of the Bible. Dive In discussion questions are below for further reflection!

To see this sermon in the context of the worship service it comes from, find it here on YouTube. Or, head to our website to connect with the worshiping community of Immanuel CRC: immanuelministries.ca

Dive In Questions

1. What are the challenges facing Israel in this story?
2. Saul rises to the challenge. How does it happen? What are major differences between the work of the Spirit in the Old Testament vs the New Testament? How do we live under the power of the Spirit today?
3. Saul wins a great victory. How does this point towards Jesus' work? How can this shape our faith and living today?
4. Saul refuses to retaliate against his detractors. In this way, he acts in a godly manner. How can you pass on this grace God has offered you?

Lord, I will praise you with all my heart. In front of those who think they are gods I will sing praise to you. I will bow down facing your holy temple. I will praise your name because you are always loving and faithful. You have honored your holy word even more than your own fame (Psalm 138:1-2).

If the psalms of the Old Testament are our prayer book, then it is wise to both pray them and learn to pray from them. So, as we read Psalm 138, what do we learn about prayer?

Let's begin with the phrase, 'all my heart.' What does it mean to pray with 'all my heart'? Prayer is interior work. That is not a phrase which we use very much today but has long been used by Christians to describe the soul work. In a recent devotion I encouraged us to get our bodies involved in our devotional acts. This opens us to the temptation of allowing our acts of devotion to drift towards being only rote physical acts. When the psalmist prays 'with all my heart, we are reminded that our souls, our spirits must be involved.

Today, many of us thing of our hearts as the place of feeling. When we pray, we want an experience that we feel. Many Christians have stopped praying because their hearts are 'no longer in it' so that they do not 'feel sincere.' We tend to identify sincerity with emotional spontaneity. There is nothing wrong with spontaneity. It is good to have the feeling of experiencing intimacy with God. But this is not what our psalmist is hinting at. An intense spiritual experience while at prayer has always been the exception, rather than the norm. It's a gift God gives us of his own choosing, not something we create or may demand from him.

The word "heart," in the biblical and traditional vocabulary of prayer means 'from the very core of ourselves, the center of decision and resolve, a region vastly deeper than our emotions'. It includes our emotions but is not dependent on them. It is at that level that God speaks to us. When Jesus conversed with the Samaritan woman, he told her that true worshippers worship God 'in spirit and in truth' (John 4:24). In prayer, we direct our attention and words towards God and offer him the truth about ourselves. We might say that we allow God to reveal the truth about our hearts to our conscious minds.

Our psalmist speaks about praying, "in front of those who think they are gods". But this is difficult to do. We worship a multitude of gods that hide in the shadows. We turn to God in prayer so that our hearts are laid bare. This will take decision and effort on our part because our hearts will resist giving up those other gods. In prayer, we seek to name the false gods that we worship secretly, so that we can renounce them and worship the Lord God alone.

When we begin to pray, we endeavor to involve, as best we can, our inner core of decision and resolve. To the extent that we can find them or know them at all, we turn our hearts to God, and we confess Him Lord of all gods. From our heart we turn ourselves to God in His throne room, in spirit and in truth.

Continuing, the psalmist says, "I will bow down facing your holy temple. I will praise your name because you are always loving and faithful." The temple that the psalmist was referring to is long gone. In John's gospel, Jesus makes the case that he is the new, the true temple of God (John 2:19-22). He is the abiding-place where we find God. The goal of prayer, after all, is our union with God, so the proper foundation of prayer is the Incarnation, in which God and man are joined. Jesus prayed, "As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us" (John 17:21). Thus, we come to the Father in Christ's name.

As Christians, we know nothing of prayer outside of Christ. Our psalmist prays, "I will praise your name because you are always loving and faithful. You have honored your holy word even more than your own fame." It is in God's glorification Jesus' name that all Christian prayer is safely placed. In Christ, we see the full richness of God's love and faithfulness. The fundamental confession that we make in our hearts is "Jesus is Lord!"

Not every pray we utter needs to run this deep. Even in the Bible, there are many kinds of prayers. But to grow deeper into our Christian faith, we do need to take the time for this kind of deep praying. This is the kind of praying that takes effort, our bodies and souls will resist. It is good work. It is the kind of prayer that usually takes place in 'the closet' that Jesus speaks of. And when our souls learn to commune with God this way, they begin to long for it, they begin to feel at home in his presence and it will become easier.

By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion. There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, "Sing us one of the songs of Zion!" How can we sing the songs of the Lord while in a foreign land? (Psalm 137:1-4)

This is one of the few psalms that comes with a definite historical context. The exiles, weeping before the taunts of their Babylonian captors in a foreign land. In this land of exile, memory plays a central role.

Memory firstly brings forth lament. Things have changed: drastically, violently. Everything familiar has been ripped from place as the people themselves have been ripped from place. And yet, the memory of home is not so easily dislodged. The exiles remember Zion. They remember their past. They remember the goodness, the joy, the laughter—the songs. They remember their God.

It is the dissonance between these two realities: between the city of Babylon and the ever-present memory of the city of God that tells them just how far from home they really are. This dissonance becomes lament. They remember the joyful songs of Zion—the songs of ascent we ourselves just went through—but they can no longer sing them. Not today. Not here. They hang up their harps and weep as their captors laugh in spite and derision.

There are also days when we get our bodies to the church while our souls still linger with a moment in our past—that moment when a spouse said: "I don't know if I love you anymore"; the moment when disease struck; the moment someone we loved died. A similar dissonance plays out and we find that we actually just can't sing the songs of the Lord in this new foreign land of exile, grief, or confusion. We're in the space of lament. A space where we, like the Israelites sitting by the rivers of Babylon, simply have to hang up our harps, weep, and name the fact that we can't sing today.

The psalm also holds on to memory as an act of hope. As exiles, these were people who held out the hope of return. So they swore off any forgetfulness: they would continue to remember Zion, holding out hope that they would once again stand in the land of promise in the presence of their God in the city of their God.

In the Christian faith, we too hold onto a hopeful memory. Not the memory of returning to the way things were before an accident, estrangement, or loss—but rather a memory of the promises Jesus made before he left that things would not always be so painful or lonely as they are now. We remember and place our hope in the fact that he said he would come again to set all things right and make all things new.

The final act of the psalm is an invitation for God to remember. And here the visions converge somewhat. Psalm 137 asks God to remember the violence and evil that was done to his people, that God might bring justice and restoration. That's not far off from the vision of the book of Revelation and our own, Christian prayers. We also ask God to remember us, his people in our pain and hardship, and his promise to come and restore all things when we pray "come, Lord Jesus."

Memory is an important thing: it brings us to face the hardest places of our lives, it calls us to remember our hope, and it invites us to continue to cry out to God until he finally accomplishes his work in Jesus so that we can sing, once again.

Thank God! He deserves your thanks. His love never quits. Thank the God of all gods, His love never quits. Thank the Lord of all lords. His love never quits (Psalm 136:1-3, The Message).

Gratitude is not natural; it certainly does not come easily for most of us. Many Christians bristle at the biblical instructions to give thanks. When I preach on a text such as "Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus" (1 Thessalonians 5:18), the most common response is guilt. Even seasoned Christ followers tend to struggle with discontent.

Is there anything to be done about this? Are there things we can do to develop, as they say, 'an attitude of gratitude'? Can we Christians move from disgruntlement to thanksgiving? The answer is yes. Nothing happens in the Christian life without the movement of the Holy Spirit, so prayer for the Spirit's working is the place to start.

And the first aid of the Holy Spirit is the Word of God. A text such Psalm 136 is a place the Spirit might direct us to. We cannot be sure who originally composed this song or when. But we do know, from its language, that it was adapted by Israel's musicians for post-exilic worship. It was in those days, when Israel was greatly diminished from her glory days of David and Solomon, when she remained largely under the thumb of foreign armies, that this psalm was retooled to nurture the faith of the returned remnant worshipping in temple that looked like a hovel compared to Solomon's.

This psalm encouraged Israel not to get fixated on the stuff of this earth, but rather on the goodness and love of her God. When our focus is on the things of this earth, even such things as happiness, gratitude is generally far away. North America ranks near the top of the world's wealth list but also near the top of the world's unhappiest. The Spirit and the Word draw the eyes of faith away from such things to focus on our God.

The opening paragraphs of Our World Belongs to God articulate the momentum of this song for us, "As followers of Jesus Christ, living in this world-which some seek to control, and others view with despair-we declare with joy and trust: Our world belongs to God! From the beginning, through all the crises of our times, until the kingdom fully comes, God keeps covenant forever: Our world belongs to God! God is King: Let the earth be glad! Christ is victor: his rule has begun! The Spirit is at work: creation is renewed! Hallelujah! Praise the Lord!"

The psalm invites Israel to consider God's character and behaviour throughout her history. Despite Israel's propensity to neglect God, God remained faithful. Whenever Israel sinned, God came after her. Eugene Peterson's rendition of this psalm's refrain is spot on, "His love never quits." All around us, human love quits. It quits in our marriages, in our friendships, in our neighbourhoods, in our churches; we still quit on God. The only love that has never quit is Gods.

Even though God sent Israel into exile, he followed her. And he brought her back. Initially, he liberated her from Egypt, then he rescued her from Babylon. Like wise, he comes to us in our sin and redeems us through the sacrifice of Christ on the cross. "This is how God showed his love for us: God sent his only Son into the world so we might live through him. This is the kind of love we are talking about—not that we once upon a time loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as a sacrifice to clear away our sins and the damage they've done to our relationship with God" (1 John 4:10-11 The Message).

Every Passover, the Jewish people use this psalm to retell the story of their salvation. God heard the Israelites' cries for deliverance from servitude to the Egyptians and brought them into the Promised Land. By remembering God's provision of salvation, the Israelites were reminded of his enduring love.

Jesus saves us from our servitude to sin; he is our Passover lamb. We have not yet entered our promised land, the new heavens and earth, but by faith we believe that God is even now, preparing it for us. It is this faith, in God's redeeming work in Christ, which will be completed when he returns, it is this faith which causes gratitude to well up in our hearts. Seeing what we have in Christ is the way to thanksgiving.