The Notes

This coming Wednesday night, December 10, 2025, we continue the Christmas season with our message series "Finding" and this week's message is on "Finding Joy."  If you, or someone you know, struggles to live life with joy and long-lasting happiness, this message is for you!  If you are not looking forward to (a.k.a. dreading) the Christmas season, this message is for you.  If you are depressed, this message is for you!  Come join us for in person worship at 6:00 p.m. for some mid-week encouragement for the soul. 

If you can't join us in person, you can always participate through our Facebook page - we go "live" at 6:00 p.m., and you will have a front row seat.  If you can't join us live, there are 3 ways to watch the message later - on Facebook, on YouTube, or here on our website.  Messages are posted the following day and you can watch a replay of any message anytime!  

If you want to keep some notes from a message, you can download the notes for a specific message from the "Past and Future Messages" page of our website.  There are many ways to be spiritually fed and encouraged.

This past Wednesday night, November 26, 2025, our topic was, of course, Thanksgiving.  Maybe you've seen the new commercial where a father won't come to the table for Thanksgiving because there are no Hawaiian rolls?  It's just not Thanksgiving without Hawaiian roles.   And there was once a town in Connecticut that postponed Thanksgiving a week because of molasses shortage.  They said there could be no Thanksgiving without pumpkin pie, and apparently, you need molasses for that. 

Those are funny stories. But truly - there can be no Thanksgiving without thanks.

And we know that life isn’t always easy.  Some of us are facing some battles.  Some people are going through rough seasons.

Some people may have difficulty finding thanks right now.

But sometimes, being thankful is just about getting through the struggle.  Sometimes, it's thanks for surviving.  That's how we honor 1 Thessalonians 5:18 – “give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.”

It's not easy, but it's the very foundation of the Thanksgiving holiday, and it’s the mark of mature Christian faith.   

The first Thanksgiving wasn’t a celebration of victory or because life was perfect and wonderful in the "new world".

The Pilgrims sailed on the Mayflower in 1620.   They found themselves to be Immigrants in a new land, and they were not prepared for the winter they faced in New England.

That first Thanksgiving didn’t happen on the fourth Thursday in November, and it wasn’t even called “Thanksgiving.” 

It was a 3-day celebration in late Autumn, 1621, and it was considered to be a harvest celebration and a celebration about surviving that first very difficult year.  

When the Mayflower left on Sept. 6, 1620, it had 102 passengers. They encountered bad weather, 66 days at sea, and landed on Nov. 11, 1620.  They lived onboard the Mayflower the first New England winter.  But it was incredibly hard.  Only 53 passengers and half the crew survived.   The women were hit particularly hard; only 5 of the 19 women survived that cold winter.  The Mayflower sailed back to England in April 1621; and the group moved to land, where they faced even more challenges.

Without the help of Native Americans, likely none would have survived.  They were taught how to hunt local animals, gather shellfish, and grow corn, beans and squash.  That reminds me of 

the scripture in Exodus 22:21 – “Do not mistreat or oppress a foreigner, for you were foreigners in Egypt.”

The Native Americans were helpful to the new immigrants who called themselves Pilgrims.   We ought to do the same. 

Anyway, back to the real point of this week's message - the surviving Pilgrims held a 3-day festival of thanksgiving with the Native Americans.  They were the lucky ones . . . they survived 66 days at sea; a harsh winter, an epidemic of disease, and they lost nearly half the original group.  They gave thanks for surviving.

Life was far from perfect.  But God was with them, and still on the throne.  They were alive.  That was the first thanksgiving.

The first Thanksgiving Proclamation was on Oct. 3, 1863, it was issued to celebrate Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November.  The timing of that Proclamation came during the Civil War where many, many people had become widows, orphans, mourners.   Abraham Lincoln hoped it would help “heal the wounds of the nation.”

That is the origin of Thanksgiving - a time of turning to God in the difficult challenges of life.  We give thanks because we have a perfect God who loves us unconditionally, not because our lives are perfect.  We can give thanks because God is working on our behalf, making good come from the bad.  We give thanks, because God loved us so much, that He gave His one and only Son to us, so that whoever believes in Him will have everlasting life. 

Even if life is not perfect right now, let's follow the lead of our forefathers and give thanks to God.

 Psalm 100:4 - Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise; give thanks to Him and bless His name.