There’s a theological phrase which I’m sure at least some of you in this sanctuary have heard before. It’s the idea of the Already But Not Yet. It’s the idea that there are things which God has promised us which we experience to a certain degree but the fullness of that promise is still in the future. We can dwell with God now and He lives in us through the Holy Spirit, but at the same time, the fulfillment of His promise is still ahead of us when we’re physically with Him in heaven, for example. There’s all kinds of examples of the Already But Not Yet in our lives. There’s obviously the fact that we’re on earth and one day we’ll dwell physically with God in the New Heaven and New Earth. There’s also just normal realities of life. For example, for me, I’ve lived in Medicine Hat now for just under two months. And before that, I worked in a city in British Columbia called Surrey. And I worked for almost a year, this nonprofit job where I was working admin. And — all love to everyone who works admin here, who has worked admin — but it just wasn’t... It just wasn’t my cup of tea. And I was getting really tired of it. And I was dreading going to work like basically every day. And then one Friday morning, I was on my way to work. And I opened up my Mail app and there was an email forwarded to me by a priest in BC. And the email was from Pastor Roland and it had the job description of the internship that I’m doing now. And I remember reading it and I was like, this is a Godsend. And now here I am. So in a sense, I was in this place that didn’t feel… It felt like there was more, but that’s where I was. And I’m sure many of us can relate to that experience. The Israelites related to that experience. The passage, the Old Testament passage this morning from Deuteronomy chapter 8 is basically a speech from Moses to the Israelites who are about to enter into the Promised Land. They’ve been in the wilderness for 40 years. And Moses is giving them, like it was mentioned earlier, he gives them a warning not to forget God in prosperity. Verses 7-10 read: 7For the Lord your God is bringing you into a good land of flowing streams and pools of water, with fountains and springs that gush out in the valleys and hills. 8It is a land of wheat and barley; of grapevines, fig trees, and pomegranates; of olive oil and honey. 9It is a land where food is plentiful and nothing is lacking. It is a land where iron is as common as stone, and copper is abundant in the hills. 10When you have eaten your fill, be sure to praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. Moses is aware that, sometimes, as human beings, we receive an amazing blessing, even a blessing that we’ve been praying for, and we forget to give thanks for it. Something else I noticed in the passage was in verses 2 to 4, where Moses, instead of kind of casting the vision for how the Israelites should thank God in the future when they get to the Promised Land, he kind of looks back and he calls them to remember the 40 years in the wilderness. He says: 2Remember how the Lord your God led you through the wilderness for these forty years, humbling you and testing you to prove your character, and to find out whether or not you would obey his commands. 3Yes, he humbled you by letting you go hungry and then feeding you with manna, a food previously unknown to you and your ancestors. He did it to teach you that people do not live by bread alone; rather, we live by every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord. 4For all these forty years your clothes didn’t wear out, and your feet didn’t blister or swell. Moses is reminding the Israelites that not only is God faithful to His ultimate promise, but even in the wilderness, God was present. We tend to think that God is only worthy of thanks when He has fulfilled the promise at the end of the story. But the truth is that even in the in-between, even in the wilderness season, even when I’m commuting to this admin job in Surrey day in day out, God is still faithful, even in those seasons. It is very intuitive to thank Him when He has answered a prayer. I mean, for those of you who have children, you’ve taught your children that when someone does something nice for you, you say thank-you. It’s one of the magic words, right? However, it’s less intuitive to thank God when you’re still waiting for that prayer to be answered. When you’re still waiting to be pregnant with your first child. Whatever it may be. It’s less intuitive. And yet, this is what Scripture over and over again calls us to. One of the experts of this posture was the Apostle Paul himself. In today’s New Testament reading, Paul says: I have learned how to be content with whatever I have. 12I know how to live on almost nothing or with everything. I have learned the secret of living in every situation, whether it is with a full stomach or empty, with plenty or little. 13For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength. That’s an amazing posture. Whether in heaven or on earth, whether in Medicine Hat or Surrey, whether in the Promised Land or wilderness, God is worthy of our thanks. There’s a woman in our congregation who actually inspired me last week just with how she lives out this teaching. I was in the lobby with Pastor Roland after the 10:30 service and she was coming out of the Fellowship Hall, and Pastor Roland just gave her a colloquial, “How was your week?” or “How are you doing?” Something like that. And then she had such a, such a positive response that we were both kind of taken aback. And then Pastor Roland kind of was asking her specifics of what made her week so good. And I’m not trying to make fun of her (They say imitation is the highest form of admiration, so whoever you are, this is out of love). I think word for word, she was like, “Well, if you can’t think of anything to be grateful for, you’re not looking hard enough.” And she said that verbatim. “You’re just not looking hard enough.” And you could tell she meant it. She wasn’t just saying it as a cliché. Both me and Pastor Roland thought it was very funny. She is someone who practices the art of gratitude every single day. She thanks God no matter the season. She thanks God for the big things, but she also thanks God for the small things. One of my theories of why the nine lepers didn’t come back to thank Jesus after He healed them — I think one of the reasons that only one leper went back to Jesus in the Gospel story — I think part of the reason is probably that the nine who didn’t come back just weren’t in the habit of giving thanks. One of the things that happens when we only think to thank God when He’s answered a prayer or when He’s fulfilled a promise, we get out of practice. And then when those times come, we haven’t been grateful. So it’s hard to turn it on. This is why, when LeAnn Greenwood asks me how to title this sermon for the YouTube page early in the week, I’m going to tell her that the title of this message is “Gratitude Is a Muscle.” I say that because if we fail to exercise this muscle in the wilderness, we will find that it has atrophied by the time we get to the Promised Land. We are called to be like the one leper who did come back to thank Jesus after he was healed of leprosy. But the only way to become like him is to thank God even before He has answered our prayers. In that same spirit, I want to share with you something that I’m thankful for on this Thanksgiving Day. When you look at one of the verses in the Gospel story, I think it was verse 3, when the lepers see Jesus coming to the border of Galilee and Samaria, they shout, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” Now, one of the things about leprosy that was really, really difficult is that it’s not just a skin disease that has physical consequences but, because it was so highly contagious, people who had leprosy were ostracized and marginalized from the community. These are people who hadn’t hugged their family members, probably ever. These are people who craved that human connection that they were made for, but had been deprived of. And so this is where their desperation comes from when they see this Teacher, this Master, this Teacher, Jesus, who’s been healing people, and they’re desperate to be healed of this leprosy. I don’t think, well, I know for a fact that no one in this sanctuary today suffers from leprosy per se. But I’m sure that at least some of us struggle with a type of spiritual leprosy which prevents us from coming into community with people the way we would want to. I think one word that you could use for this spiritual leprosy is shame. One of the things that sin does in our lives is it makes us ashamed. It makes us scared to be seen and to be known by other people. And so we retreat almost as if we had leprosy. But the good news, just like Pastor Roland reminded us at the top of the service, the good news of the Gospel is that Jesus — through his life, death, and resurrection — paid for our sins. Forgiveness is available, and healing from leprosy, healing from shame is available. And there’s nothing you’ve done, nothing you’ve thought, nothing you’ve said, which exempts you from the free gift of forgiveness in Christ. He loves you on your worst day as much as He loves you on your best day. And that is one thing that I’m certainly grateful for this Thanksgiving! Let me pray for us, and then we’ll head into our next song: Father, thank you so much for this holiday which, in Canada, reminds us of Your command all over Scripture to give You praise. You don’t do it because You’re egotistical or because You need us to recognize Your hand in our lives, but You do it because You know it’s good for us. It’s what we were made to do. It makes our lives better. It makes our souls more grateful and more joyful, and it helps us to recognize You
