With Thanksgiving to the Lord
With Thanksgiving December 1, 2024 Psalm 9:1-2 Notes
So you probably feasted this week and enjoyed family, but did you do this with thanksgiving and prayer to Almighty God? We have tendency to separate the physical from the spiritual and we would do well this morning morning to reconnect Thanksgiving to our Lord. Perhaps today, you feel like you have much to be grateful for. How might you turn that into gratitude and prayer unto God? Perhaps for some, though, it has been a terribly hard season. In those times, thanksgiving can feel completely foreign. However, it is in those times that thanksgiving is all the more necessary for your healing.
In Psalm 9, King David wrote of how he willed himself to be thankful to the Lord with all of His heart. We can choose to be thankful to the Lord with all our hearts.
Audio
Good morning. Good morning. What is up, East? Gators and extended family that might have gotten dragged here this morning against your will. I'm happy to see y'all.
Y'all. I got some bad news for you, though. I prayed this morning before I came to church. I said, God, I know that it's probably going to be a light. People are traveling.
People are recovering from the holidays. I know it's going to be a light crew. Just make sure to bring the broken ones, the really broken ones this morning. So I got bad news for you guys. You're it.
There's a bunch of you. Actually, there's a lot more broken people than I thought there were. I am not the normal pastor if you don't. If you're. If you're new here or just visiting.
I'm not the normal pastor. Pastor Gary, he is away doing something. I'm not actually sure what he's doing. I think he's probably hanging out with his family for sure, but he might be up in Virginia. But whatever the case, he asked me a couple of weeks ago if I could cover him, and so here I am.
I'm covering him. Adam. Welcome to all of y'all. Welcome to the gathering place, or as we in the gathering place, know the cool service and welcome anybody that's streaming online. Somebody after the first service, they said you should preach on tv, which I've never gotten that one before, but I guess maybe this is a piece of that.
Although the only preachers that I ever hear about that preached on TV stole a bunch of people's money. So I don't know if. I don't know if that was a compliment or if maybe I was supposed to set the boat right on that one, but. So how many of y'all are fighting up a weight class this morning? How many of y'all after Thanksgiving dinner are not looking to get on a scale anytime soon?
So we did just get through Thanksgiving, and so that's what we're going to talk about this morning. Next week, we're going to start a sermon series about the three gifts that were given to Jesus as a baby. But right now, we're talking about Thanksgiving. We're still on Thanksgiving. We hadn't quite got all the Christmas decorations up yet, so we'll stay in Thanksgiving for a little bit.
So we're going to talk about Thanksgiving, but we're going to talk about it a little bit different than maybe we sometimes do Thanksgiving. So we're going to get into that. One of the big, big parts about Thanksgiving is the food. This is a very American thing. I think that's a good thing.
Thanksgiving is an American holiday. Specifically. I've got some international friends or whatever, and they don't really understand why I'm not at work this past week. I'm happy to not be at work this past week. But Thanksgiving is an American thing.
But it's the idea of coming together for a meal like a feast of celebration, a feast of Thanksgiving, that is not an American idea. That's a God idea that has been happening since way, way, way, way, way back. There's a bunch of the Old Testament that we're the followers of Christ or the followers of God. Children of God, children of Abraham are commanded to get together and have feasts of celebration, feast of thanksgiving. So that's been happening forever.
Food, I think, is a very important thing to people. I think God knows that to the extent that on Jesus last day before being crucified, what was he doing? He was eating with his guys. And so I think there's. If you know, you know, if you want to get into somebody's heart, bring them into your family, bring them into your home and feed them.
It's a universal thing. I think maybe just on an instinctual level, we all understand that if we're eaten, everything's all right. If we're eating, we're not getting chased by a lion, Nobody's eating and running from a cheetah. If you're sitting down and just hanging out and eating, then life's pretty good. And so I think that's one of the reasons why food is a big part of Thanksgiving.
So we do have some unique in America, apparently we have some unique desserts that happen. This is a Google trend search uniquely searched pies. So I do want to point out this is uniquely searched pies in the past 30 days. So this isn't necessarily necessarily what is the most popular in that spot. And I'll start by citing North Carolina and for my Tennessee kids.
For North Carolina and Tennessee, buttermilk pie, y'all. I was born in North Carolina and I growed up in North Carolina, and I'm still in North Carolina. I have never heard of buttermilk pie once. That's a pancake.
So that's. So don't hold any of these desserts against the state, because they might not necessarily, but they are definitely something that when people from not the state got there and somebody asked them, hey, y'all want some buttermilk pie? They went, what in the world is buttermilk pie? Go up one state, we get to Virginia. Coconut pie.
I disagree. I'm gonna come in with a hot take. Coconut. Gross. Coconut's not good.
Coconut's not good. And I'll prove it. If I gave you a bowl of coconut and a bowl of. Have you ever cut, like, PVC pipe with a chop saw? The sawdust stuff that flies off and gets gooped up in the back.
If I gave you a bowl of both, you could not tell the difference. It's wild coconut. Now I'm out. But then the one that wins them. So you know how buck wild this one is.
In the legend over here, they got one color's fruit and one color's custard. I don't know what that is. Savory. Nobody knows what that is. Chocolate and nuts.
We all can get that one. And then there's one. This other. Where the people that were making the legend were just like, I don't even know what this is. Pennsylvania.
What is shoo fly pie? What are you doing? Shoo fly pie. That is a mess. I actually.
I did learn in case any of you. So you don't have to gum up the Google and make North Carolina turn into Shoo Fly Pie search. Don't do that. Somebody from Pennsylvania. It's apparently from Dutch country, Pennsylvania.
It's like a pecan piece, but it's not pecans in it. It's like a molasses pie. Apparently they said, it's like a pecan pie, but they said pecan. Which, by the way, I'm gonna throw another hot take. That's not right.
Pecan. That's pecan. That's pecan. It actually is pecan. By the way, the etymology is algonquin, and it comes from the word bagon.
I looked it up in your face. People say pecan. An honorable mention. In the middle Kansas. Frito chili pie.
They just crumble up fritos on it. I would expect that from their neighbor Colorado, not from Kansas. Kansas. What are y'all doing? So we get some crazy food, some nutty food.
But the good thing is when we're feasting means we got a lot of food. That's a good thing. So that's a reason to be grateful for. I think that's another reason why food is a comfort level that adds it to us. But this is not actually an American idea.
This idea of coming together as a feast of Thanksgiving. This is a God idea. In fact, one of the founders, the very first elected leader that we had as a unified nation. November 26, 1789. George Washington, in a proclamation, he wrote this.
I recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God. So that's the part, unfortunately, that as America, we have slowly, slowly, slowly stripped God away from most of the celebrations that we have, especially celebrations where family will come together because we don't want to stumble on anybody's toes. We're more than happy to weigh into the presidential debate and get everybody mad, but we're not super interested in getting into the religious conversation necessarily. And so we forget that even Thanksgiving, the American holiday, Thanksgiving was set apart to be a celebration to be grateful for the many and signal favors of Almighty God. So maybe you have a tradition.
It's a good tradition. I've been a part of it. I've been to houses where you go around the table and everybody says something that they're thankful for. That's a cool tradition. Probably the majority of those things are earthly, temporal, temporary, material things.
I'm glad for, you know, family, glad for health. Health is a good thing to be happy for. It's a temporary thing. Glad, you know, for all this food, for the hands that cook this food. You know, some kids might be happy for toys or whatever.
We rarely are outwardly grateful to the Almighty God. And so I want to take this time to point our Thanksgiving to the one that gives us anything to be thankful for. I want to take this time to turn our hearts of thanksgiving to the Spirit by which we are given things to be grateful for. Thanksgiving is not just something to celebrate on one day. We have a reason to be thankful every day inte infinitum.
And so in Psalm 9, King David writes about how he wills himself to be grateful to the Lord with all of his heart. We can be grateful to the Lord with our hearts. We can choose that. It's a choice that we can make. How do we do that?
We're going to be given three decisions in this text. If you want to go ahead and start getting there. If you've got an old fashioned biblical device and it's going to take you a second Psalm 91:2. If you've got a new one, just say Siri, open Psalm 9.
If you don't know where Psalm 9 is. I learned this back when I was a young lad in Presbyterian school. If you open the Bible in the middle, apparently you hit Psalms. But I don't ever hit Psalms. I always hit the prophets after the Psalms.
So that's what they told me. But I think they might have had a bigger thing in the back of their Bible because I always land in the prophets. Psalm 91:2. I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart. I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.
I will be glad and exult in you. I will sing praise to your name. O Most High God, bless the reading of his Word. Amen.
So we're given three decisions to make on how to choose to be thankful with all of our heart. The first one is, remember God's wonderful deeds. Remember God's wonderful deeds. Be conscious about God's wonderful deeds, the incredible things that God has done for you. Because the thing about joy, the thing about Thanksgiving, it comes out of joy.
It's an idea that it's just somewhere that you live. It's just somewhere where you are. It's just the thing you always are. So it's not a response to a thing. That's happiness.
Happiness is, you know, I saw a TV show, it made me happy. Or, you know, I got to go to the park, it made me happy. It's good to be happy. Happy is a good thing. But the idea of going through life with joy, with Thanksgiving, is.
It's all encompassing. It's bigger than that because God's bigger than that. It's meant to be sung in the valleys, not just on the mountaintops. And so we're going to make some conscious decisions here. The first one we're doing, remember God's wonderful deeds.
I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart. I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. Now, if you were astute when you were looking through the. When you were reading through the verse just a second ago, you notice that there are four I will statements. So there were four I wills, but only three I will decisions in my what I just told you we were going to do.
So the reason why is not because I am beholden to only have three points. I'm allowed to have four if I want. I chose not to. And the reason why I chose not to is because this first, I will, is the verb in Hebrew is conjugated a little bit differently. So it's an imperfect tense verb.
So it's basically a universal I will. It's kind of like a state of being. So, like, I am six feet tall, I will be six feet tall. I just will be. It's not something that I do specifically.
It just is my state of being. Do I round up a half an inch? I'm not telling you, but it just is the way. It just is how I will be. And so that first verb that I will, there is that.
And so it's kind of saying like I just always am and will be thankful to the Lord with my whole heart. It's not anything done or conscious. It's not a choice to be made. So it just. I can't help but be this thing.
So that's why that one, the I will is treated a little bit differently. It's not intentional. The other ones is a different verb tense, which is the active choosing of. And so that's what the second I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. So that's where we get.
Remember God's wonderful deeds. In case you haven't noticed, the through line, like in all the preaching, if you ever are curious what the points are going to be, we just take the Bible and say those words again. We try not to stray too far from this here book because this here book is true and I'm an idiot. And so y'all don't want me to just make some interpretations. We just, we just say what the words are.
So I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. Remember God's wonderful deeds. That's our. Our first decision to be made. So recount is a specific word if you think about it, like mathematically.
So the word itself means to give a precise value to. To give an exact value to. And if you think about it mathematically, if I count something, I'm pretty sure I know how many there are. But if I recount it now, I know. So you can kind of think of it that way.
I will recount. I will be intentional. I'll go through all of God's wonderful deeds. And then I'll go through them again, nail them down and be very specific, be very precise with the wonderful deeds. And these wonderful deeds are big.
They're really big. So this is one of the things that we kind of. We're going to get into a little bit more on decision, the second decision that we're going to make. But I just want to plant the seed that the wonderful deeds in your life, you might not have even noticed them all, that we have so many things to be one to be, to be thankful for, to be grateful for, and to put out into the world. Look at all the incredible things that God has done for me.
But even I, as smart as I am, guys, I don't see them all. I don't see God things. I don't see them all. And so as much as I can be grateful. And as much as I can give thanks, it's still not enough for what's actually happening.
And that makes me even more grateful.
The idea that somebody might have done something in my life that I didn't even know they did, but it changed the trajectory of my life in a huge way. God has done for everybody in a huge way. Because outside of God, we can't get to God. It doesn't matter that you want to get to God. You can't get to God without God, without God getting us there.
And so even getting away from the small daily blessings that you might get, and even getting away from maybe the bigger blessings that you like, life blessings that you get, and then even getting outside of the idea of there being blessings that you don't necessarily even see, there's this massive blessing that puts it all around the circle of it where God loved you so much that he made a way for you to get to him, that he loved you so much that the bridge that you burned down, he rebuilt. He put it back and he said, come home. He made the incredible sacrifice for me, for silly, dumb me. How nuts is that? That's absolutely incredible.
I will recount all of your wonderful deeds, Father. God in James 1, verse 17 Every good and perfect gift is from above coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like the shifting shadow. God is the same today as he was yesterday, as he was the first day time started and as he was before time started. That one melts my brain. And when time stops that one melts my brain.
God will still be right there in the center of it. And he gives us every good thing. He gives us every good thing, even the ones we don't see. Everything God gives us is good because he's perfect. He's good.
It can't not be good. So we approach God with a heart of Thanksgiving. In Psalm 100. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him.
Bless his name, for the Lord is good. His steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.
Philippians 4 Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise. Think of these things. So in your life right now, let's be intentional. Let's make the choice right now. You know what?
Going forward, I'm going to look at every good thing. I'm going to look at every blessing that I have. I'm going to Be grateful for every little thing that I get. Because the truth be told, if you boil it all the way down, I've done nothing, I've accomplished nothing, there's nothing that I can be grateful to me for. Because even the things that I have accomplished that somebody might attribute to me, I was only able to do them because I was given a talent for it.
I was only able to do them because I was given a drive for it. I was only able to do them because I was put around people that supported me in it or taught me how to do it, or any myriad different reasons why the things, anything that I could say, I did this thing and it was good. It was given to me by God. And so every single thing that I could possibly celebrate it was given to me by God.
Being joyful, being thankful, just living this abundant. All my heart. I'm thankful for all of my heart. The very first line, I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart, my entire heart. Everything that I can give thanks with, I give thanks with.
Living that way is not based on circumstances. So I can live that way when I'm heavy. In fact, if I live that way when the world seems against me, then the world seems a good bit smaller. The hard things seem a lot more attainable. If when I'm down, I'm grateful for all the incredible things that I have, but I'm blessed with the knowledge to know that all of the great things, the incredible things that I have, are not all the great things, the incredible things I will ever have.
That God's going to continue to bless me. And that God has already blessed me with an incredible, incredible gift of eternal life with him. Imperfection that I didn't earn.
So how incredible is that? To just walk through life? Just take a second, make a quick laundry list of the things you have to be grateful for. Maybe when you woke up this morning, you were feeling a little heavy. Maybe you had to spend some time with family at Thanksgiving and you don't much care for your family.
I'm blessed. My in laws are awesome. I love my in laws. So if you don't like your in laws, you're doing it wrong. My in laws are dope.
And I'm not saying that just because they're sitting over there.
I'm incredibly blessed. But maybe you're not blessed in that particular way. Maybe you got some egr in laws, some extra grace required in laws, but that gives you an opportunity to grow closer to them. So just whatever it is you're grateful for, take A second. But then acknowledge that that thing is just a small piece of evidence to a much greater reason to be grateful that you were given that incredible blessing by God, the creator of the universe.
How mind numbing is that? The creator of the universe cares about you enough to bless you. And that gets us to our second decision that we can make. Rejoice in God's perfect character. Rejoice in God's perfect character.
I will be glad and exult in you. Be glad we can all understand. Exult, weird word. They mean the same thing. So if you want to throw exult around in your normal everyday vernacular, exult, be glad, it's the same thing.
It's a synonym. It basically means the same thing.
So we are grateful, we're happy, we're rejoicing, but we have reason to rejoice. And that is, and this is nutty, this is insane to me, the creator of the universe, the controller of all things, the power outside. So actually let's real quick go through a laundry list of some of the stuff that God actually is and then we'll try to wrap our head around that God is the creator of everything. He's the creator of everything. So, town of Wilson, North Carolina with a T.
The town of Wilson, North Carolina is in the state of North Carolina, which is in America, which is on the Earth, which the Earth is really big. I don't know if you guys have ever flown to the other side of the Earth. It takes so long and you're going so fast. And that is very, very small compared to the solar system. And that is very, very small because compared to the Milky Way galaxy and that is very, very small compared to keep going out.
And now we've gotten into mind numbing size and all of that sits on the workshop bench of the Father God. That he's outside of all of that. He is so incredible that he is outside of time. I don't even know what that means. But for God, yesterday and tomorrow are the same thing.
I'm looking forward to one day God getting to explain that one to me. But for now I can rejoice in knowing that that guy has got my back, that that guy loves me. And that's mind numbing to itself. That's another thing that God is, He's the creator, He's a sustainer. So that the universe, like the world works yesterday the same way it works, it's going to work tomorrow.
Like we all woke up and got ready based on a bunch of rules of physics that we don't really Necessarily, even understand. But, like, tomorrow, when you wake up and try to throw your shirt on, gravity will still pull it down over your body. And like, if you squirm this one particular way to get into this one outfit, like, it'll still get on your body. Like, the physics of just daily life work. Because Father God didn't just make something, but he made it in a way that it doesn't break down.
He made it perfectly too. How crazy is that? And then, and this is the mad leap, this is insane to me. He cared about me. He cares about you specifically.
He cares about you. He loves you. Whoever you are, whoever you are in the gathering place. It's weird to me to look that way for the gathering places, that way. But the camera, I gotta go through that.
Hey, Gathering place, if you're online, if you're watching, he loves you. He loves you specifically. He loves you uniquely. He loves you more than anybody in your life. Loves you.
The Creator and sustainer of the universe loves me enough to sacrifice for me to get me to Him.
He is Grace. It doesn't matter what I've done. He doesn't throw me away. It doesn't matter what you've done. He hasn't thrown you away.
He wants you just like you are. He bought me when I was broken. He didn't buy this dope version of me. That's now, y'all. He bought the weird, messed up, hateful version of me.
If you're trying to fix yourself before you get right with God, stop. You're not going to do it. If you could have fixed yourself, you'd have done it last week and you know it. And even if you do figure it out a couple of days next week, you'll mess it up again. God doesn't want the fixed version of you.
He wants the perfect version of you that he made.
The Creator of the cosmos loves me that much, Forgives me that much. That is nuts to me. That's so insane.
But even all of these things, take a second and personalize it for you. What is he to you specifically? He is all those things outside of you. But just take a moment and make a list of what God is for you.
When you've got that list, put it on your heart that every day you can rejoice in the blessings that God has given you and how incredible God is for you. Psalm 16. You make known to me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness and joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
You make known to me the path of life.
Psalm 4, Pastor Jonathan. There's a translation of the Bible called the Message, and it is buck wild. And he loves to throw these things in here. And every time I read them, I can't, not in my brain, hear it with a Cajun accent. My stepmom is Cajun, and I can't read these.
I'm going to try not to do a Cajun accent with this. But if it happens, that's why. Why is everyone hungry for more, more, more. They say more, more. And I have God's more than enough.
That's actually written correctly, by the way, the way it's sitting here. I didn't mess it up. I have God's more than enough. More joy in one ordinary day than they get in all their shopping sprees at day's end. I'm ready for sound sleep for you.
God have put my life back together. That's a crazy, crazy way to say A very, a very good statement. I've got more than enough every single day. It doesn't matter what Bill Gates owns. He ain't happier than me.
He's just not. It doesn't matter what. Fill in the blank. Mark Wahlberg. Not throwing shade at Mark Wahlberg.
I don't know anything about him, but he's not happier than me. I promise. He's not happier than me. He might be as happy than me. I hope he is, but he's not happier.
People that have 26 houses, I got more than them. People that got real dope cars, I got more than them.
I got God's perfect love.
More than that, I've got God's perfect sacrifice.
I've got a God that loves me enough. This is. Take a second. Take inventory. Especially you guys that have kids, I'm sure there are some days that you wish your kids would go away from your presence, but if truth be told, when they're out of your presence, you like them quite a bit.
Like, you have a unique. There's a unique relationship. And I don't, you know, I don't think it's a bad choice to choose not to have kids. I think that's fine. If you don't want kids, I think that's fine.
And so maybe it's annoying to hear if you're a person that doesn't have kids or has chosen not to have kids, but it's a different experience, right? If you have a kid, you just feel differently about that particular human than you do any other human on earth. It's just a different thing that if you Got kids. You know what I'm talking about. Now, how many of you, if you don't have kids, take the most important person in your life?
Maybe it's a parent, maybe it's a friend, maybe it's whatever it is. How many of you would sacrifice that person's life for the life of a convicted murderer? That's such a bonkers. And yet God, the creator of a universe, loved me so much that he was willing to sacrifice his only son for me. For you.
I am loved that much. How can I not rejoice?
And that gets us to the third decision we can make. Sing praise to God's beautiful name Sing praise to God's Beautiful Name Verse 2. I will sing praise to your name, O Most High. Sing praise. So I've got.
So sing praise. So I've got this theory. It's an idea. This is not biblical. So I'm gonna spout some non biblical stuff real quick.
But I think it's still right. I think that heaven language is music. Like I think that language in heaven is music. And I don't quite really know what that means, but music is universal. You can have music with no words and it can still make you cry or it can still make you happy.
And I think that heaven translates that way universally. And so that's why I think some of this language I will sing praise and the psalms, a lot of them are songs. I think music is an important aspect of worship. We were just singing a while ago. I'm blessed to be on the worship team.
And so I get to sometimes just be up here and just take a quiet second and just listen to you guys sing. And it's so moving to me when I get that opportunity to just listen to you guys sing and worship my God, my ABBA father, and to know that you worship him the same as me, it just warms my heart.
I don't know if I would have the same feeling if you were all just talking, if you were saying the exact same words but just saying them, I don't think it would move me the same way. And so I think that's where what this Sing Praise it is, you know, Sing. Some of you are fortunate. The double edged sword of me being blessed enough to be on the worship team is I also always, always, always have a worship song on loop in my head, which is a good thing. I'd like to be able to switch it up every now and then.
But it's always whatever the song we're doing the next Sunday is. And then once we get done with that when I go home and immediately download the next Sundays into my brain. But I am blessed with it. When I wake up in the morning, whatever that song is starts me up. I know that some of you probably your morning ritual is wake up, get to bed, maybe start brushing teeth, throw some worship music on, get started.
Some of you maybe when you get in the car, you listen to worship music. So I think worship music does have a place, but I think here it's got a broader implication and application. That music helps me to understand and that is to sing praise in that universal heaven language. To always just emote, to just always go through my life as though I'm singing as though music is playing all the time. And I think if we go through life that way, it does an incredible thing.
It does a very important thing. And that important thing is the people around you notice. The people around you notice. Even if you're only singing in your heart and in your head, you walk through life differently. And then the people that don't have that music, they see it and they want that thing, whatever that thing.
What has that guy got? What's that lady got? Emoting this praise, emoting this music.
Not necessarily reciting Bible verses at people or putting post it note of Bible verses. And by the way, if you're in a corporate environment and you do post it, note a Bible verse and you have it, please live in a way that that Bible verse reflects. My biggest pet peeve is People with 86 post it Notes of Bible verses everywhere or like Bible verses on their neck or whatever. And then they're like just not good people mean people. If you're going to emote God, really emote God.
If you're going to sing God's praise, really sing God's praise.
Psalm 66, verse 2. Sing the glory of his name, make his praise glorious.
Not Let me tell you about God. God's awesome. You know what I mean? There's a big difference between the idea of singing the glory of God, singing his praise and then just like telling somebody else all the good stuff is happening in your life that can land wrong sometimes.
But the idea that the good things that are happening in my life is evidence that there's more than this is evidence that the stuff that you're struggling with, there's a different way to go about it that hurts way less, that's got some use. Sing God's glory. Sing the glory of God's name. In Habakkuk 3, even though the fig trees have no blossoms We've all been there, right? Fig trees have no blossoms.
There are no grapes on the vine. Even though the olive crops fail and the fields lie empty and barren. Even though the flocks die in the fields and the cattle barns are empty. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord. So maybe you're not farmers.
Statistically, we're in rural North Carolina. So a good handful of you got gardens at least some of you got some chickens. Maybe one or two of you got a cow or a horse. So all that's dead. The fields are empty.
There's no food. Yet I will rejoice in the Lord I will sing the praise of God. Let me hit you with this. Song in the valley is more beautiful than song on the mountaintop. Song in a valley resonates off the walls.
Everybody in the valley can hear it. Song on a mountaintop is still song, but only the person on the mountaintop can hear it. And it's gone. So when you are walking through your life, it's good to sing when you're on the mountaintop too. But don't only sing when you're on the mountaintop.
Sing when you're walking and you know you're walking down into the valley. And sing when you're at your lowest. Because the truth of the matter is the person that hears your voice singing can only hear your voice singing if they're in the valley with you.
And that is the person that needs to hear it the most. So as you go through life, sing praise to God's beautiful name. Always, always, always.
Hebrews 13. So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore, let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come through him. Then let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God that is the fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.
A sacrifice of praise to God when we don't have the protection of a city or when we're walking into an enemy city. A sacrifice of praise to God that we live sacrificially the same way he did we walk sacrificially the same way he walked. That the people can see our reflection of God's real light. That people can hear the incredible message that Jesus brought to us. That God hasn't forgotten us.
He has not forgotten you. He's reaching out his hand.
Praise God. Sing praise always.
So as you walk through the next year of your life, next 10 years of your life, whatever it is, walk through it with joy. Walk through it with thanksgiving. But not just appreciation, and not just happiness, but endless, all encompassing joy, thanksgiving. And do that by choosing these three things. To remember God's deeds in your life.
To remember God's deed throughout history. To know that, that there is nothing God can't do. He's proved it so many times. So whatever it is that it's too big in your life, just look at the evidence that God's bigger than that thing and let it go. And be joyful.
Rejoice in God to know that God made the creator. He's the creator of everything. He's so big, he's so powerful. But he still loves you. Specifically, he still loves you.
You like you actual just you. That's nuts.
Go through joy. Go through life with joy, knowing the Creator. God is also Abba. Father.
And sing praise to his name with your mouth words, sure, but with your whole life, with your heart, with every action that you do, sing the praise of God. Because I got unfortunate news. We're walking through a very dark, scared world and we're only mirrors. So how you orient your mirror specifically changes how you can light the world. Amen.
Let's pray. Father God, thank you for today. Thank you for these incredible walls and this incredible roof to keep out the cold that we get to worship you today in comfort. But Father God, help us to be a follower. Help us to be a child that would worship you in the rain, that would worship you in the cold, in the hot, in the humid, in the pollen.
Father God, help us to be your children, your body outside of the comfort of these walls. Father God, thank you for being a God that is worth praising. Thank you for being a God that gives us something to be thankful for. Thank you for being a God that gives us the ultimate gift of eternal life with you perfection. Thank you for being a God that's so loving that you made a way.
Thank you for God that's being a God that's so big that you lift all fear. And if you're hearing my voice right now and you don't know that God, I've got incredible news that God is right there with you. That God's hand is outstretched and he's just waiting for you to take it. The work's already been done, the sacrifice has already been made. And all it takes to have the kingdom of heaven, the bounty of heaven is just to pray to him.
Father God, I'm a sinner. I've done terrible things and you know, I've done terrible things, and I'm a bad person. I've done things that I'm ashamed of, and I can't undo them. I wish I could. But thank you for loving me anyway.
I know that the sacrifice that you made takes my uncleanliness away. It removes my sin and trades me for the perfection of your son, who sacrificed himself for me. Jesus, I love you. Thank you for making that sacrifice. I accept your gift.
I accept your sacrifice. I want to follow you. I want to walk in the light of God.
If you pray that prayer, welcome to family. That's incredible news.
Or maybe you follow God a long time, but you feel a little distant. Father God, I've been running from you. I've been intentionally not doing that thing you told me to do. Father God, I know that any distance that I've put between us is all on me. And I just want to get back to you.
Father God, help me get back to you. Help me get back to the way we used to be. Before I started hiding, before I ran away. And if you pray that prayer, congratulations. Welcome back.
Welcome back home. We love you. If you're doing well. Father God, thank you for the incredible gifts you've given me. Thank you for the blessings that you've put into my life.
Help me to see them even more and help me to sing about them in a way that people would want what I have. Help me to serve you. Give me a new challenge, and then give me the strength to overcome that challenge. Father God, I'm ready. I'm here.
I'm ready to go to war for you. Point me to the battlefield. Father God, thank you so much for being an incredible, incredible God. For being a God that's worthy of praise. But thank you even more for being a God that is so loving that I get to call you my daddy.
And I get to call you my Abba. Father, thank you for all the gifts that you've given me in my life. Thank you for all the gifts that you've given this church body. But help us to praise you when we're in the valley. Help us to sing your song when we're in the trenches.
Help us to reflect your light into the world that needs you so, so, so much right now. We love you. Amen.
Audio
Good morning, church. Very thankful you're here. I hope you had a great Thanksgiving. I ate so much, I'm still. I may not need to eat this week, to be honest with you.
It was crazy. Had two Thanksgivings, two wonderful trips with my, my in laws and my family and so it was great. I hope you had a good time too this past week and we're gonna kind of carry that over today. We could have gone ahead and jumped into Christmas, but we're gonna wait a week. I, I know some of you have been like itching to get into it.
I am with you. Next week we're going to start a new series called the Three Gifts. We're going to spend some time over the next few weeks and this is a great opportunity. Church. Some people that have been maybe on the fence in your life, co workers, family members, tend to have.
People have a tendency to try church out at Christmas and Easter or maybe if something hard has happened in their life, they'll try it out. But this is normally the kind of year, the time of year, if you will, that people might give us a shot. So I would recommend to you invite people over the next few weeks. I think we're going to have a blast together. But that said, tomorrow night we're going to decorate the place.
We can use all the help we can get. So we're going to extend Thanksgiving into one more Sunday together. And every week's a good time to be thankful and to be grateful to the Lord. And it's not just a good exercise. Thanksgiving is a Christian exercise.
It's as, as deeply Judeo Christian as any other thing. These feasts of Thanksgiving are certainly not a modern idea. Not even close. You can see feasts of Thanksgiving all throughout God's word and certainly throughout history. I've got a few questions for some of you though today who have come from all over the nation.
As to something I stumbled on this week, and that is the unique Thanksgiving pies. The different states. And there's some out there I'm very, very worried about. So you can pop this up. First of all, Pennsylvania is in the gray because it alone is strange.
What is shoo fly pie? Somebody tell me sometime down the road. I have no idea. It sounds awful. Honestly, I don't want to eat flies.
I'm not down. They got grape pie out in the West. I'm like grape. I mean, I'm good with grape, but man, buttermilk pie is apparently popular around here. I don't really.
That's not something we do. So I Don't know. Interesting, interesting. Some of y'all have some weird pies where you come from. And maybe one year we just need to do ultimate pie night around Thanksgiving.
Remember that. Somebody remember that for me next year. I like a good pie. My problem is that I like a lot of food and it's catching up to me anyway, so that's fantastic. Shoo fly pie.
I need to try that once in my life.
I got to. I got to. When you think of Thanksgiving, though, when you think of it, probably most likely you think of food, various foods that maybe you don't eat all year long, sweet potato casseroles, pies, all that good stuff. Maybe you think of Pilgrims and Indians and that thing that we grew up seeing with the fancy buckle hats, which I found out this week is not even accurate. I don't know why we started putting that in our artwork.
Maybe you think, I've asked my wife this question. She said, charlie Brown. I'm like, okay, cool. Nobody really, if you typically ask them. What do you think of when you think of Thanksgiving?
Most people don't think of its Christian, American, Christian origin. This tradition, this holiday is actually something that was introduced very early in American history. On Thursday, November 26, 1789, President George Washington issued a proclamation to recognize the role of Almighty God in the establishment of the Constitution, the newly formed Congress. He wrote this. I recommend to the people of the United States a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal favors of Almighty God.
Did you know we celebrate Thanksgiving because our first president said we ought to honor God with what he's done? This is a good thing. This is a good holiday. In fact, I would argue Thanksgiving might be one of the only holidays in our calendar that most people don't get up in arms about. They're down to eat, they're down to celebrate and be thankful.
But. But it's even better than that, that it should be a time, and I pray this happened in your week, and if not, let's do it today, that you would take some time in prayer and thanksgiving to Almighty God. And that's where we're going to spend time today. We're going to be in the book of Psalms. And we have this tendency in all of our holidays, even in Christmas, to separate the physical realities from the spiritual ones.
And I would argue that even in Thanksgiving we need to reconnect all of these gratitude, all of these holidays back to the Lord. Perhaps today you're feeling a sense of, I've got A lot to be grateful for. Some of you are feeling that. You're feeling like, man, it's been a pretty good year. God's been good to us.
Maybe new life, new children in the home, maybe a new job. Something's gone well this year, something has improved for you. I would. I would ask you, how might you turn that into gratitude and into thanksgiving and prayer unto the Lord? Let's spend some time doing that today.
But some of you in the room, it has been a terribly hard season, a very difficult year. In those times, thanksgiving feels almost completely alien. It feels totally foreign. If you're in a time of testing, a season of difficulty. I want to argue today from Scripture that that is the best time to be thankful, that all times are good times to be grateful to the Lord.
But when it's low, when you're in the valleys, that's even more important, that you would be thankful. And I think we'll see today in the Psalms, while that is true, thanksgiving is not merely for mountaintops. It's not merely for those good times. It's for the valley. And true thanksgiving.
This is the argument of the whole day today. True thanksgiving is not about circumstances. It's about the will of the heart in response to an almighty God. So we're going to be in Psalm 9, just the first two verses. I've got so much room to work today with only two verses.
King David here wrote this psalm, and he wrote about how he willed himself, he encouraged himself to be thankful in all things. And that's where we're going to spend time today. So let's read these two verses. Psalm 9:1:2. It says, I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart.
I will recount all of your wonderful deeds. I will be glad and exult in you. I will sing praise to your name. O most high God, bless the reading of his Word. Amen.
We can choose, as David chose, to be thankful to the Lord with all of our hearts going to give you three decisions that first David made that we too can make in choosing to be thankful to the Lord. The first one is extremely important, and that is that you would remember God's wonderful deeds. Some of you might have done this this week over the dinner table. You might have said, let's go around the room and tell me what you're thankful for, what happened this year, what happened recently that you're thankful for? This is a great exercise.
What are you doing in those moments you're recalling? You're remembering the wonderful deeds of the Lord. Now you'll notice there are four I will statements in this text. And I've just said that David made three decisions. And you might be thinking my math isn't mathing, but there's good reason why I did this.
It's because the first I will statement that David says drives the other three. The first I will is I will give thanks to the Lord. This is in the Hebrew imperfect tense. And I tell you this simply to tell you that it means it is a continuous, incomplete and open ended action. David is saying, this is not something I can achieve in this lifetime.
I'm going to continue all my life to give thanks to the Lord with all my heart. I intend to be a life of praise. I intend to be a life of thanksgiving. That's what David is saying. Then the next three I wills are in a very interesting tense.
The Hebrew cohortative is what it's called. You don't have to remember that. But what it means is this, that it is a determined action. It is a decided action. So what David is saying and what I'm encouraging you with now is he said open ended.
I am going to give thanks. My life, I'm never going to reach this end until the Lord comes or takes me home. But my life is going to be a life of thanks. And there's three ways that I've determined I'm going to do that. The first is this.
To recall. To recall, to remember. He says, I'm going to spend my life giving thanks. Practicing gratitude allows us to recognize and to appreciate the One who's brought all of this goodness. Thanksgiving to Jesus causes us to make really two moves, if you will.
It causes us to look upward. And this hopefully will bring appreciation. It will bring worship as we look at and recall what he has done. But it also kind of causes us to look inward and be more humble and more real about our situation. So we give thanks.
And he says, I give it with my whole heart. That means David is saying, I'm not going to just halfway do this thing. I'm not going to halfway commit my life to Christ. You've probably heard this phrase, I heard it all growing up. And that is either he is Lord of all or he's not Lord at all.
The same is true with your gratitude. The same is true with your worship. You can't really wholeheartedly, you can't worship God without it being wholehearted, without it being all of your heart. The Word there is the sense that partial gratitude isn't genuine gratitude at all. Well, I'm Sort of.
And we play this game, we may not even think it through, but we say, God, I am thankful for my spouse and for my kids and for my health. And I'm thankful. And you listed off. But God, I gotta admit, I'm not thankful about some of the things we do, this partial gratitude thing. And it's not that we have to be weird and say, God, thank you for this sickness you've put on me.
That's completely insane for one. But you can say, God, thank you for the strength that I feel you've given me in the midst of this sickness, that God, you've entrusted me for some reason with this very tough time. You must also be equipping me and readying me to face it that somehow, God, you gave me this, you entrusted me with this because you believe I'm going to look more like Jesus on the other side. He doesn't do this stuff by accident. Your suffering is not accidental.
And it's an opportunity for true thanksgiving. Now, when he says, in verse one, I recount this word in the Hebrew literally means to accurately number. It means to count it exactly. So he says, I took the time. King David says, I am taking the time to count all of these things that God has done.
I'm not going to leave anything out. I'm going to really maybe write them down. This might be a great exercise for you. Friends, those of you who are feeling a lack of peace, those of you are feeling a sense of ingratitude, a sense of, I don't know, pessimism in your life right now. Why don't you pause for a minute and try to write down a long list of all the things, the little details that God has done.
He says, I counted. I numbered it accurately. And this might cause you to overflow, as David did with gratitude. He says, I took time to count to number all of your wonderful deeds. There's a lot of them out there.
It will take a long time to do. We exist. First of all, we exist because God is creative. That's a wonderful deed. We're saved because God is merciful.
We're in a relationship with God. We have a personal relationship with the Savior of the world. Because God is loving. We're eternal because God desires us to be. He wants us to be with him forever.
Look, I love my family, but some of them I don't want to be with every moment of every day. But this God we serve wants us with him all the time. Incredible. I mean, I love my kids, but I need a break. Not God do you understand that kind of character?
That's that kind of unconditional love. That he's never so ashamed or sick of you, that even when you foul up or even when you're a nuisance and everybody else wants you to be away and get away from me, that God is close and loves you. That's his wonderful deeds. The cross, the resurrection, eternity, the purpose. Every good thing James says in chapter one of his book.
He says, every good and perfect gift. Gift is from above. Everyone coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows. Every good and perfect gift. So we get this opportunity to approach God and say, I'm going to recount, I'm going to remember, I'm going to number and find my heart of gratitude for you.
This is what the psalmist writes in chapter 100. Psalm 100. It says, enter his gates with thanksgiving, his courts with praise. Give thanks to him. Bless his name, for the Lord is good, his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.
Boy, he came in there with a heart of thanksgiving. Paul says, I challenged myself to do this too. That it was an exercise in my life, that I would think about the wonderful deeds of God. Here's what he tells the Philippian Church. Chapter four.
Brothers, whatever's true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. I love that he gives us a nice long list. That's not accidental. He's a good preacher. He's trying to help you.
Bring to mind. Wait a minute. There are some excellent things in my life. There's some stuff that's praiseworthy. Lovely.
Now I'll say we don't always get to choose our circumstances. Now, some of you are facing something right now, something difficult. And you're the reason you did something dumb. And that's why you're facing it. God's still going to help you through that.
But a lot of times our circumstances are not of our choosing. And a lot of times they're pretty difficult times. But here's the thing. We can always choose our mindset in that we can always choose the disposition of our heart in all circumstances. I've noticed something in my marriage, and I bet you've noticed this, too, that as time passes, I've got a ton of good memories.
I got some bad ones, too. I don't know if that's okay to say. Y'all got any few bad Memories didn't always. Hasn't always gone well. Sometimes it's been just outright mob.
Things that I have said were not smart things to say. Same is true for her. Some of the decisions we made as a couple, they're not all good memories. There's joy and there's pain. There's unity and there's disagreement.
There's inspiration, there's discouragement. These have all been true of my marriage. We can't always choose these memories, but we can choose what we dwell on. I've noticed something. I haven't done a whole ton of marriage counseling.
But my. My number's growing. Let's just say I'm getting a pretty good number under my belt. And I've noticed something. In almost every couple that are on the brink or do fail, there's one or both parties choose to dwell only on the negative.
And there's always a whole lot more to that. I'm simplifying for sure, but at some point the person says, mostly all I'm getting from you is bad. The good memories become very, very dim and the bad memories are in bright spotlight. And this is relationships, not just marriages, that a broken friendship, a broken marriage has so much to do with what you choose to dwell on. And maybe the bads have been outnumbering the goods.
But something crazy can happen when you just decide to dwell on the good memories, when you decide to dwell on the things you can be thankful for in a person. This is strange. And I know you may not buy this, but the more you dwell on it and encourage it, the more that that person will live up to the things that you've just been saying. This is true with kids, but the more you tell your husband, you tell your wife, you are good, you're a good cook, I love you, you're beautiful, blah, blah, blah. You send the good, good, good.
You spend time there and all of a sudden they'll start to live up to that, to your language. Children are the same way, son. You're smart. You're going to do great things in life. You're honest.
Yeah, you just screwed up big time on that test. But you can do better. You're smarter than this, and they'll live up to that. You spend all day harping on. You're a deadbeat.
You're a passive husband. I can't believe you did this again. Bom bomb. Guess what they'll do? They'll shrink.
They'll shrink to whatever your language is. This is just true of human relations. The same is true in Your heart disposition with God. Do you understand this? If you choose to constantly dwell on the bad, you will begin to think that God is not good.
You begin to believe that there may not even be a God, and if there is, he can't be good. But when you take time to step aside and look back as David did, and recall the wonderful deeds of God and begin to number them, your heart disposition will change. It's not that he has changed. He has always been and will always be good in every sense of that word. And he loves you more than you could possibly know.
And any darkness you've been through was part of his plan in making you look more like Jesus. And he loves you enough to do that. And I know that's hard. But the more you recall and recount the wonderful deeds of the Lord, the more you will worship. Do you understand this?
Take some time every day to consider how God is good to you. This is what Jesus in fact, teaches his disciples to pray. This is a model of how to pray. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread, and it goes on and on. And forgive us our trespasses, lead us not into temptation. Thine is the kingdom. There's a sense in this prayer of like, I'm going to give God praise. Take time.
Don't just recite this. Say, hallowed be your name. What does that mean? God, you are good God, you are lovely God, you are perfect God. And begin to move your heart.
David says, I've chosen this. I know it's going to take a lifetime for me to give thanks to God with all my heart. Here's how I'm going to start. I'm going to start with just considering all the amazing things he's done in my life and the things I know he's going to continue to do. Remember, here's the second decision that David makes that we can make, and that is to rejoice in God's perfect character.
To rejoice. Verse 2 says, I will be glad and exult in you. The King James says in the this word, glad and exult. There's two words there in the Hebrew. But I think it's intended that David's trying to emphasize the intensity of his gladness, of his exaltation, that he's trying to intensify it, because these words are basically synonyms that he, in a sense, really is saying, I will rejoice, rejoice in you.
So that we might get this perspective that he's having. I'm going to just. I'm willing myself to rejoice in the character of God in you. He says there's a whole lot of things in this life we can get really pumped about. Let's be honest.
It's not just that God's good. It's that he has made good things. There's stuff in this life that he gave us that we might enjoy. Do you think he accidentally made food taste good? He did that on purpose.
Now it's a bit dangerous because some of it tastes too good and I ate a lot of it. And that's. Willpower becomes a problem. But do you think he just accidentally made sunsets amazingly beautiful or mountaintops with ice on them? Or that person sitting next to you that you need to remember, that's a pretty beautiful person?
Like God did these things. He didn't make slouches. He made really wonderful stuff. But not just that. See, that's not what David says.
I'm going to be glad and exult and rejoice in. And he had a lot he could be pumped up about. I mean, he killed Goliath with a rock. He led thousands of men into battle and won victories after victories after victories. He's a warrior.
He's got beautiful wives. Oh, my goodness. One of them. He took ill gotten gain. And that's a whole other story.
But there's a lot he could be very, very much thankful for and rejoicing in. He is the king of the most powerful nation in the world. For those two generations, him and Solomon, this is one of the most powerful nations in the world. He doesn't say, I rejoice in this power. We could do that.
And that's okay, God. But as long as it starts with God, I am thankful for your gifts. That's not even what David spends time on. He doesn't, in this section, waste time going, God, thank you for making me king. Thank you for all these hot ladies in my life.
And I says, he doesn't waste time with that. That's okay to stay in church, I hope. I mean, deal with it. I did it. It caused him a lot of problems.
That's a different story. But he doesn't say that, God, thank you for my power, for my strength, for my ability to wage war. Well, thank you for my ability to sing. He writes hymns, he writes songs. He doesn't say any of that.
And we take time on that. We do, and that's okay. But that's not What David does, he says, I rejoice in you. I'm going to spend my time just considering how I might rejoice in the Lord. How do we do that?
I mean, he doesn't give us details. He says, this is what I've decided to do. How do we do it? Here's the thing. I don't think we're terribly bad at this.
I just don't. I don't think human beings are bad at rejoicing in people. I've observed almost, I would say almost every one of you have done this in your life. You have rejoiced in a person in your life. Some of you are going to go home after this and you're going to rejoice in people in uniforms.
I'm down with that. I get it. They're going to have helmets on their heads and pads on their shoulders. And you are going to rejoice in them. Wow, what an excellent stellar arm he has.
Look at the speed they got. The it factor. Well, that's a big brain play right there. He's a freak of nature. We'll say, well, we're super good at rejoicing in people.
We do this in relationships. Those non sports fans in the room, that's my best friend. That's the love of my life. That's the apple of my eye. And we praise our.
You're so smart. We praise our family members. You're so beautiful. You're going to do great things. We're great at rejoicing church.
It's no different when we do it in the Lord. He's made us for this. Do you understand? We are creatures built for worship. It's built in.
How does that look then? Well, those people that you sow praise, especially those close relationships, it starts with knowing them. And I would ask you, do you know him? Do you know the Lord? Do you know the King of Kings?
Have you spent time with him? Here's a healthy exercise that you might consider to rejoice in him. Consider who God is. He's creator. He created everything.
He's sustainer. He's loving, he's gracious. God is spirit. He's a spiritual being that's not limited at all by time, space and matter. He created those things.
He's personal. He's involved deeply in your life. And there's billions of people on this planet and he cares about you. God is personal. God is Trinitarian.
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. He is all powerful. He is eternal. You see this exercise and that's just making it like theological and doctrinal, if you will. You can make it more personal.
I thought of one for myself this week, and that is for me. I'm thankful that God is, and the Bible would call this light. But I'm thankful for me that God is a guide. He is a light, the psalm says, a light unto my steps, that my life's meaning and purpose is in the Lord, period. I don't really understand what life is about apart from God.
That he is my purpose. He brings sense to my relationships and my needs. Even better, he brings meaning to my sufferings. He brings meaning and eternal value to things that I face up and down. That's what I'm thankful for.
That's how I can rejoice in God. I'm thankful that He's a guide. He gives my life purpose. How about you? What can you rejoice in the Lord about today?
Psalm 16 says, you make known to me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy. At your right hand are pleasures forevermore. And look, we're never going to be satisfied in any other way other than coming to God and knowing he is enough. The psalmist writes, I like this translation.
I don't use it often, but Psalm 4 in the message it says, why is everyone hungry for more, more, more? They say, more, more. I have God's more than enough. More joy in an ordinary day than they get in all their shopping sprees at day's end. I'm ready for sound sleep for you.
God have put my life back together. They say, more and more. Have you not observed this in your life? The people, they say, more, more, more. Because it's an endless abyss need that only God can fill.
When I was a freshman in high school, I really thought I was super cool that I got to ride to school with my older brother, who was a senior. He had this little bitty blue geostorm. The thing sounded like a lawnmower. But I thought we were hot stuff in that little thing. And he would A lot of mornings we would stop by.
It was a little bitty gas station near my house called Griffin's. And we'd stop by there and get a little something to eat. They had a little breakfast. You could get there. And I'd sit with all these senior guys like I'm the big deal.
They would primarily just pick on me and make my life a living crap. But I loved it because I'm thinking, man, I get to drive to school. I get to go into school with all these seniors and the girls that were there, juniors and seniors, I'm like, I'm good with this life. I can do this. And feeling like I'm really somebody in all this.
I realize now, looking back that that's just one of many occasions where I really have a need for something that you and I both have a need for. And that is we have a need for like a champion in our life that we're really desperate for. Someone that we can call a true friend. He made me feel a certain way, like I was. Yeah, he was giving me a hard time.
But at the end of the day, I thought, nobody's really going to mess with me because my brother is a senior on the football team and all of his friends, they're going to like, give me noogies and stuff. But I'm good with that. I felt the sense of security, I felt a sense of pride. But that comes from a deeper sense that I need a true friend. I need a true champion.
And we all have this. We all have this deep need and we can rejoice in this truth that. That one, that need that's built in, that's in the true one who is Jesus, that we can rejoice in. This ever present friend, this faithful companion, this merciful savior, this all powerful defender. Where do you find your joy?
Is it in people? Are you finding your security somewhere else? Just know that those things, those places are lacking. Find your way in the Lord. Here's the last.
The last decision he makes, and it's one that we can choose to make as well, that is to sing praise to God's beautiful name. And I know some of you already, as soon as I said it, are thinking, do you mean out loud?
I don't really know how to parse this word any other way other than to say he is vocalizing his praise. This Hebrew word not only means to sing, verbally sing praise, but it also means it can mean to play a musical instrument. It can mean literally to make music. There's no getting around it. That in each and every one of our hearts is a deep, deep love of music.
I've never met anyone that didn't like some kind of music. Now, some of you are wacky, you like some weird stuff, but you still like music. You still like music. Somewhere in your heart is just an amazing thing that God has put in there. And David says, I'm going to spend my life giving thanks.
And part of that is going to be, I'm going to open my mouth, I'm going to sing praise, I'M not going to worry so much about how I sound. I'm not going to worry that at times I sound desperate. I'm not going to worry at times that I might be a little atonal. He's saying, regardless of the conditions, I will praise you. Now the emphasis here is I don't think about how you sound or what you sing.
That's not the emphasis. It's the idea that you would have lips for praise in your life. That doesn't mean singing. That means that the way you speak, the way you sing, the way that you communicate with people is praise. Now I know this, this is just a fact.
There are people in your life that you love to be around because they are positive. They have lips of encouragement, of praise. It may not even be a spiritual thing, it may not even be praise to the Lord. But they have lips of encouragement and you want to be around them. And you absolutely know that you don't want to be around those discouraging Debbie Downers.
I'm sorry if your name's Debbie today. I don't think we have any Debbies. You can, if that's your middle name or something, you can restore this name. Alright. But he's saying, I'm going to have a life of praise.
I'm going to sing praise. To what? To your name. I've got an object in mind. The name here, the praise is specific.
He's saying the Most High God. We have an even more specific name for this. It is Jesus. That our lives would be a praise, be a music unto the ears of Christ. That the way we speak, the way we act, the way we live, certainly the way that we come into church and worship is praise to the Most High.
It's praise to Jesus. We can praise him at all times. Habakkuk3 says, Even though the fig trees have no blossoms and there are no grapes on the vines, even though the olive crop fails and, and the fields lie empty and barren, even though the flocks die in the fields and the cattle barns are empty, yet I will rejoice in the Lord. You hear the decisions of the saints. King David, Habakkuk the prophet and I could go to place after place.
They made the decision that my heart of praise is not about circumstance. Your thanksgiving church is not about the food on the table. Your thanksgiving is not about who's sitting around the table and who's not. This year. No, it's actually about your heart and the way you will your heart to move towards God.
I'm going to praise you Job says even more boldly, though he slay me, yet I will serve him. I have decided he is my God. We can make as the Hebrew writer. And we didn't get here. We'll have to get there next year when we finish Hebrews in the fall of next year.
But Hebrews 13, in fact, says Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his blood. Therefore, let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here, do you hear this church? Listen to this. Here we have no lasting city, for we seek the city that is to come.
This is not our home. Our home is forevermore in eternity. You understand this? And here's how he ends it. Though him, Through Him.
Excuse me, through him. Then let us continually offer up a what? Sacrifice of praise to God. What does that look like? Fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.
Your life ought to be a sacrifice of praise. Knowing this at the end of the day, this is not your city. This is not your home. And he's coming back. And your eternity is in store.
Oh, rather that I would waste. You know that. And I shouldn't say waste, rather that I would spend my hours on this earth with lips of praise so that I could be prepared for 50, 150 thousands of years of praise in heaven.
The psalmist gets this. King David. The prophets get this. Let me turn as I close here to the Book of Acts, one of the most fascinating stories I could possibly imagine of guys who just decided, saints of old who decided, I will praise him. I will give him a sacrifice of praise, no matter what.
This is in Acts, chapter 16. I want to read just a verse of it. What has happened is Paul and Silas were beaten in the streets. They were accused of misdeeds. They were put into prison.
And it says in verse 25, this is the story of the Philippian jailer. Verse 25 says, about midnight, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God. And the prisoners were listening to them. And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison were shaken. Now, there's a lot of crazy stuff that goes on in this story, and it's not to tell you, hey, if you'll sing praises, you should expect miracles.
As some people might say, hey, if you sing loud enough, God will move mountains. That's not the reason for this story. The reason is actually twofold. First of all, these men did not see their jailing, their time there in prison, as a failure or as if God had put them aside or was not caring for them. They looked at it as an opportunity.
Oh, this is just yet another place where we can pray and sing hymns. These are some wild guys. We don't have a clue what their singing voice was like. It might have been right rough. But they're in there singing in jail.
And yes, God does cause the earthquake. But I want to remind you of something. They didn't leave. They didn't see God's breaking the doors open as an opportunity for their escape, but an opportunity for them to share the love of God with those who jailed them. This is wild stuff.
I don't know what your situation looks like today. I don't know what the year has looked like. I don't know what you're expecting in the next few months, but could you make a sacrifice of praise because something happens in your heart when you do. Something has happened in the lives of Paul and Silas that would cause this to be true for them. That God would open up prison doors and they wouldn't assume God is freeing them, but rather that God is showing his power that they might lead others to faith.
That's wild. You got to spend time with the Lord to see this. You got to know who he is to really rejoice in Him. And you got to offer up a sacrifice of praise with lips. Fruit of lips that acknowledge his name.
I want to close with a couple of thoughts. CS Lewis said praise is inner health made audible. Inner health made audible. I think I made this next quote up, but just in case, if you find it, I may have stolen it, but I think I made it up. When we struggle to praise, it reveals our heart.
But when we determine to praise anyway, it changes our heart. When we struggle to praise, it reveals our heart. When we determine to praise anyway, it changes our heart. That's just true. When you determine to praise God anyway, it changes your heart.
Church True Thanksgiving isn't a response to ups and downs. Maybe you're having a mountaintop moment today. It's been a great year. Maybe it's been the polar opposite for you. It matters not.
Your praise is not tied to those things. Your thanksgiving is tied to who God is and he is unchanging. You believe it. Let's remember his deeds, rejoice in him and sing praise. Let's pray now together.
Church Heavenly Father, we thank you. First of all, let's spend time together as a church, thanking God for who he is and his wonderful deeds. God, there are personal stories in this church of things you have done that are beyond compare. God, you are at work in our lives this very moment and every moment of our days. God, you are personal, but generally, God, we have so much to be thankful for.
Just don't even have to get specific before we're just bowing down in worship. As we look at God, how good you are that you would even desire us to begin with that God, you would be creative enough to say, I'm going to make a people in my image, image bearers of the living God. That's incredible, God. And that more than that, you would say, I want these people to have eternity with me, that I desire to be with them. How could you be so far superior and so much more powerful and something beyond, but still want to be personal with me?
I'm just grateful for that God. And more than that God, that you looked at us and our brokenness and the decisions we made to be your enemies, really to be far from you, that you would steal in that moment. Say, I love them, I care for them. My mercy is great. My grace is beyond compare.
I'm going to save them by the cross. I'm going to personally myself become flesh. Oh, let's not separate the sacred from the secular this Christmas. That the reason God took on flesh was because he loved us and because he was willing to sacrifice for us. That the manger points to the cross.
What a wonder. God, we have so much to be thankful for. You are beyond compare. Just those general wonderful deeds are beyond. And God, I'm thankful for how you've treated me personally.
I can't speak for everyone in the room, but God, you've been so good to me. I'm thankful. And God, I pray that you will help your church have lips of praise. That if nothing else, Lord, our city would know us as the kind of people who are crazy about you. Hey, we might get a lot of things wrong.
We're not going to live this life perfectly, though we want to follow you and we want to do better. God. But I pray that people would know Eastgate Church as a kind of people that truly love God and worship his name. That people would know us as truly a fellowship of believers who love one another and put God first. We may not have everything just right.
We might mess up at times in the way we worship, even in this place. But God, that's not the point. We're here for a sacrifice of praise that our lips, the fruit of our lips, would acknowledge you. I pray for your people right now, God, and their workplaces, among their families. Over these next few weeks, we see family more and more that our lips would acknowledge you that we would have opportunity after opportunity to share the goodness of God with others.
Would you do this in our lives that we wouldn't miss these opportunities that are probably already presenting themselves? God, we want to praise you in what we do and what we say. We pray all of these things in Jesus name, Amen.