Celebrate the Harvest!

These notes were produced for use with Gordon Dalzell's sermon at the harvest thanksgiving service on 27th September 2009.

Deuteronomy 16:13-17, 26:1-12, Psalm 65:1-4, 9-13

The people of Israel celebrated the harvest:

1. As the gift of a generous creator God (Deut.26:9, Ps.65:9b,11, Lev.25:23b)

NOT as the product of a world that just happened to be there

NOT as the product of a world that had divine power in itself

NOT as the product of their own ingenuity and effort - and nothing else

• Cultivate specific expressions of thanksgiving for the food that God provides
• Cultivate thanksgiving for God's other creation gifts: marriage, family life and friendship, work, science, sport, the arts... (1 Tim.4:3-4)

2. With wholehearted joy in both redemption AND creation (Deut.16:14-15)

They combined partying and praising (Neh.8:10,12a, 2 Chron.30:21-23)

• Avoid the sin of joylessness (Psalm 103:1-2, Phil.4:4)
• Learn to blend thanksgiving for both 'the cross and the crops' (Psalm 65:3,11)

3. With generous-heartedness to the needy within the family of God's people
    (Deut. 26:12, Neh.8:10, Deut.16:14,16b,17)

• Thanksgiving and celebration before God is an antidote to selfishness and self-indulgence.
• Make sure that the lonely, the marginalized and those in financial need within the church family (and also beyond it) are included (Acts 4:34-35)