"Our Legacy of Thanks" By Chris Ulrich November 17th,
2013
Our theme this month has been
thankfulness. I just want to share real
quick: Would you bow your heads with me for
a word of prayer, please? God, we just
thank You this morning for just knowing the truth, and knowing that it’s real,
and that we have stuff to give thanks to You for, and for the music this
morning, God, and the testimonies, and the praise report that Pastor Paine
shared. We thank You for guiding us, we
thank You for being real, and for being here.
I pray, God, that I would get out of the way and that we would hear from
You. In Your name, Jesus, amen. We have a tradition, here in the Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear
God, and keep his commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment,
with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil. I would say that looking at a verse
like that, it probably sounds more like the end of a message rather than the
beginning. But we need to have a
starting point with regards to this thing we call thankfulness. We can see that the world isn’t filled with
it. There’re places,, obviously, where there are people that are genuinely
giving thanks to God. What are our
options? We could be at the other end of
the scale, and we’ll get to that a little bit later, but our option is to fear
Go and keep His commandments because this is the whole duty of man. When we believe that, and were sincere about
it, that’s knowing the end from the beginning (Isaiah 46:10). We can’t just look at it from the standpoint
of, “Well, what’s my current situation?” We’re al going to have struggles; we’re all
going to have successes in life. I think
that’s one of the big things: we have to look at from a big picture standpoint. We’ve all got different stories,
different backgrounds. We’ve all got
different backgrounds. There’ a lot of
people from a lot of different places.
Thank God that God’s called us all to one ministry. Regardless of what our upbringing was or is; we
have to look at it like, what do we really think we deserve in this life? I’ve heard, and I think we’ve all heard this,
that we all deserve to die. Okay, that’s
one vantage point, and I’m not going to get into that. When you look at it from the standpoint of
Mosaic law, we all should have been finished.
There’s also a perspective where some people think,, “Well I deserve to
get everything I want.” We have to have
reason, here, too. We have to have a
balance. What re we wiling to go
after. Put it in the perspective of
“Okay, we have boundaries within Christ.”
We have to understand that we have to fear God and keep His
commandments. This is our whole duty. It’s not grievous; the Bible talks about, in
First John, “…we keep his commandments: and his commandments are not grievous.”
(1 John 5:3) Now, the world is going to
try have us think that, “Oh, it’s
impossible to live like that,” or, “You don’t want to live like that,” or, “I
can’t get away with what I want to…”
Then you have to look at it like, “What am I really trying to get away
with?” The Bible talks about, “Surely
our sins shall find us out.” (Numbers 32:23) One we understand that we have to connect the
Old and New Testament; it’s not just Grace.
Yes, I understand that Grace is very important, but we also have to
understand that there’s a connection between the Old and the New. Sometimes we have to ask those kinds of
questions to help get us back to reality and gain an understanding of what God
expects from us. God does have an
expectation. It is, after all, a two-way
relationship. I would say that, when
someone doesn’t have a full understanding—and it’s not like we know it all; the
Bible says that the secret things belong to God, but the things that are
revealed are enough that we can know the law and do it (Deuteronomy 29:29), so
we have an understanding of God to establish a path—it’s clear. I understand that it’s a walk in faith, and
without faith it is impossible to please God (Hebrews 11:6). Jeremiah 29:11-13 For I know the thoughts that I think toward you,
saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected
end. Then shall ye call upon me, and ye
shall go and pray unto me, and I will hearken unto you. And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye
shall search for me with all your heart. One thing for sure is that we don’t
find the truth of God by accident. It
takes searching. Now, I understand that
there’s a lot of children here whose parents sought God and found the
truth. Really they (the children) don’t
have an understanding, yet of what God has for them. They have an experience with God, but, you
take a child of three or five (whatever—I’m just picking a number), they don’t
have an understanding. I look back in my
own life, I didn’t know what God had for my life. I remember a point in time where I did say
prayers, but, it was like, “I’ll just say them as fast as I can,” as though
that were my duty. It was like,
“NowIlaymedowntosleep,IpraytheLordmysoultokeep…” You know.
I would pray, “Bless everybody in the world. Thank You, God for
everything. God bless I have to say, this was a couple of
weeks ago—I do some travelling—I got this job, south of Matthew 6:25-26 Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your
life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink; nor yet for your body, what ye
shall put on. Is not the life more than meat, and the body than raiment? Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow
not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father
feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they?
That’s
something that—Ken, I think you mentioned in the prayer meeting, Friday night,
that God takes care of the fowls of the air.
It’s one thing to have worry—and we’re going to get into that in a
minute—but, I appreciate that prayer, and I appreciate the things that were
shared, and the sincerity, that we aren’t just thankful ofr the physical
things, but it is something to be thankful. Matthew 6:27-34 Which of you by taking thought can add one cubit
unto his stature? And why take ye
thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil
not, neither do they spin: And yet I say
unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to
morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little
faith? Therefore take no thought,
saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be
clothed? (For after all these things do
the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all
these things. But seek ye first the So, these are a lot of things to be
thankful for and not just this time of year, and not just things that are in
the phtsical, the things that have manifested themselves. I know that we all have concerns, we all have
worries, that’s something that I personally fight, whether it’s a mortgage, or
keeping my job, or inflation, or terrorism, or whatever problem comes down the
pike, because there’s plenty of them.
But, on the other end of the scale, we can’t be so care-free and think
that, “I don’t have any responsibility.”
We have to have that balance. We have
to understand that there are bills to pay, there is an order, there is a
structure, there is a society that we’re trying to have… I’m not saying don’t have a plan; this isn’t
talking about, “Don’t have a plan,” or, “Don’t prepare for the proverbial rainy
day.” We don’t want to wind up in the
boat of being unthankful. 2 Timothy 3:1-5 This know also, that in the last days perilous times
shall come. For men shall be lovers of
their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents,
unthankful, unholy, Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers,
incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, Traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of
pleasures more than lovers of God; Having a form of godliness, but denying the
power thereof: from such turn away. So, we look at that and there are a
lot of characteristics that we don’t want to have. You could probably have a study on each one
of those (which we’re not going to, by the way). The point is, you look at the unthankful, and
it’s included in with these other works of the flesh. It’s something that we want to avoid. We’ve all had missed opportunities in life,
things we wish had gone better, or things that we’d like to take back. Some chances we wish we would have taken and
maybe others not so much. Hindsight is
20/20 and if we knew now what we do it could change everything, right? That’s a place where God doesn’t want us to
live, though, in regret. We can’t change
the past. Paul talked about, “…forgetting those things which are behind… I
press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”
(Philippians 3:13-14) I think, a lot of
times, when we get to places in our lives when we are able to evaluate, to
examine ourselves, to look at what we’ve got, to look at what we’ve missed, to
look at, maybe, where we’ve scored, to look at where we’ve failed… There is
still a lot to be thankful for. There’s probably
not anybody who’s going to get—the Bible talks about, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain
the whole world, and lose his own soul?” (Mark 8:35) and Christ talks about that, but He knows good
and well there’s no such thing as gaining the whole world. I don’t care who the richest person is (I
know Carlos Slim and Bill Gates are pretty high up there, Michael Dell…) You hear about these things in Fortune
magazine and on Yahoo—this guy’s got sixty billion and this guy's the richest—okay. Would I want to change shoes with them? If
they’re not in the faith (and I’m not saying that they are or they’re not), I
look at it like—and this is certainly not a criticism; there’s a girl that I
went to high school with, who ended up marrying the guy who founded Yankee
Candle. Anybody here ever hear of Yankee
Candle? She ended up marrying the guy—he
had sold the company back in 1999 for $450 million. He came with her to our high school reunion a
few years back, and I got to talking to him—he’s friendly guy and
whatnot... I heard, the last time I was
home, that he’d actually had a stroke—now he’s a little bit older, I think
early sixties by now, or maybe late fifties, but—I guess I look at it like,
would I exchange shoes with anybody that’s accumulated a vast amount of wealth
without knowing God? Because that’s the
caveat; you have to look at it like, okay—because there’s plenty of us, and
we’ve come from a lot of different backgrounds, and we live at a lot of
different levels of society, but that’s good.
That’s what God is expecting—He’s not looking for a bunch of
clones. Now, I’m going to ask this question:
if you’ve come here today (and I
certainly hope that nobody has) and are adamantly opposed to giving God thanks
(I would have to say you’re probably sitting in the wrong place) but I would
say this much, sometimes people have it set in their heart that that’s what
they’re going to do, that’s what they’re going to be, they’ve dug their heels
into the sand; dynamite can’t move them.
We could sit there and say, “You’ve got to be thankful for this, and
that, and what about the rest of life,” and on and on and on, and it’s, “Okay,
yeah, shut up.” After a while, it’s
like, “Okay.” I’m not saying that our
testimony would be in vain, but it’s a matter of looking at it like, again, I
want to touch on this because it’s like, being thankful in the midst of
tragedy; that’s the hardest part. Being
thankful, in the midst of being unemployed— Psalm 103:1-11 Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within
me, bless his holy name. Bless the LORD,
O my soul, and forget not all his benefits:
Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who
crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so
that thy youth is renewed like the eagle's.
The LORD executeth righteousness and judgment for all that are oppressed. He made known his ways unto Moses, his acts
unto the children of I want to say one more thing with
regard to thankfulness: We go through
days and weeks, as we go through time, I think a lot of times the mindset is of
suppressing, whether it’s anger, whether it’s unthankfulness, whether it’s—just
go down the list of what we read earlier.
I want to say that God’s not asking us to suppress, He’s asking us to
give it to Him. There is a difference;
if we suppress it, eventually, you’re going to explode. I mean, it’s going to be ugly. It’s going to be one of those things where
it’s like, “Where did that come from?”
We’ve all heard that expression where it’s like, “Hey! It just happened
like a volcanic eruption!” I’m embarrassed
to say that I’ve had that happen—I’m not talking about sin unto death; I’m
talking about, “What in the world? Why
did I bottle it up for so long, instead of just giving it to God in the first
place?” I’ve said this before and I’ll
say it again. I remember vividly about
20 years ago I was driving one night in You know that sometimes the most
thankful and grateful people are those who don’t appear to have a whole lot;
they don’t have a huge arsenal of possessions.
I’m not against it. I’m not
looking at it like, as a homeowner, we’re going to accumulate some tools and
things… God’s saying, if you have fun, keep it in the right perspective. There is such a thing as godly fun. We’re not here like a bunch of stiffs. I would say that we have to have the right
balance. The world even tries to
convince people like them that they have nothing, and yet as Apostle Paul
stated, “As having nothing, yet possessing all things.” (2 Corinthians 6:10) So what’s our legacy of thanks? And by the way, that’s the title of the
message today, “Legacy of Thanks.”
Thought I’d go from the back to the front for a change. Will we be remembered for whatsoever state we
were in that we were thankful and content?
That we gave thanks to God in all things? That we loved our neighbor as ourselves? For thanking God for the little things? For being one of the ones, Parrish, that did
give thanks for the healing or whatever that we’ve received? We’re all recipients of Gods benefits. It’s not as though—and I reference that a
lot, because I think, “That’s fair!”—the Grace of God that bringeth salvation
hath appeared unto all men… If that’s as
fair as it gets, that seems pretty fair to me.
God aid, “Okay, here’s your opportunity,” to be born again, to be
baptized in His name, to know His truth, to have a walk with God, to have our
names written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, and, like it talked about in the Book
of Revelation, “I will wipe away all tears from their eyes, neither shall the
former things be remembered.” (Revelation 21:4)
That’s where we have to be in tragedy, and also in good times. Being thankful to God, and, again, I’m not
saying like especially when a child precedes it’s parents—and that’s a very
somber awareness in reality; I mean, it breaks my heart—Zena, that book that
you let me read several years ago, it talks about abortion, and what that has
done for this country. It’s an
atrocity. I’m just going to say it like
that. Are we thankful for that? No, I’m not thankful. God’s not asking us to be. God’s asking us to be thankful in the big
picture. He asks us to be thankful for
knowing the Word, and for the breath of life.
To have a legacy of thanks. I want to thank you for your
time. God bless you all. I want to just say something: I know that I touched on a politically
challenging topic of abortion, and I want to say this: God really dealt with me just now; it’s
something that—we don’t always know everybody’s situation, but, it’s something
that d can forgive, and God can give a healing.
It’s something that, it’s a very sad reality, but I know that we’ve had
people in our ministry that have and it’s something that they have regretted,
but God is a healer, and God can forgive.
I just wanted to come back and share that. God bless you. Sermon notes by Pete Shepherd |
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