Giving Thanks Always for all Things

It is with a thankful heart that we remember the Puritan Pilgrims who first came over from Delph Haven in Holland in the year 1620. They had fled persecution from their native England not too long before and now they were launching out to search for a place where they could worship God with freedom of conscience. I think that it is peculiarly fitting that we pause this morning and remember that what we have come to know as Thanksgiving began with Christian people experiencing trials and testings to their faith. And yet they were a thankful people. This is the kind of people that you and I who are Christians hope to be, in our trials and difficulties on our journey through this life to heaven. We are like Pilgrim in Pilgrim's Progress; we have set out on a journey from this life to the next, and we would be a thankful people, not only on this upcoming day of Thanksgiving, but as our text says, "giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ." So what I would like to do this morning is to first of all to share with you the beauty of Christian thanksgiving. Then secondly I would like to tell you of the duration of Christian thanksgiving. And then finally I would like to set before you the all-inclusive nature of Christian thanksgiving.