"Thankfulness in All" By Brother Andy Giebler November 23rd,
2014
I
know I’m not worthy of all that,
but our God is. We
serve a great God. I’m
thankful for that question you asked this
morning: “How great
is it…?” and I just
wanted to scream, “It is great to be in the House of God.” I’m
going to start off with a
praise: 1 Chronicles 16:34-35 O give thanks unto
the LORD; for he is good; for his mercy endureth for ever. And say ye, Save us, O God
of our salvation,
and gather us together, and deliver us from the heathen, that we may
give
thanks to thy holy name, and glory in thy praise. Can
we bow our heads for prayer? God
Almighty, I thank You. I
thank You for Your mercy, for Your grace, for
Your salvation. God,
for the ability
just to speak to give glory to Your name.
I pray for this message, this morning, God that I
would be Your vessel,
that I would be—that the words that I would speak would not be my own,
but that
You would guide me this morning. Bless
each person here this morning as they hear these words.
We thank You, in Jesus’ name.
Amen. I’m
thankful this morning for all
the many things that God has done, I’m thankful for this ministry. I look back at our
pastors, from Pastor
Davis, preaching and leading from behind this pulpit, for Pastor Paine,
for
Pastor Wilson, and Pastor Saniatan, and for many of the brothers that
come up
here and preach, and, if I’d start to name them all, I’m sure I’d miss
somebody. To be
able—after sitting on
that side for many years, I’m thankful.
I count it a privilege to be on this side, to be
able to deliver the
Word, because I don’t take this lightly.
I don’t think any of the men who have come before to
do this have,
either. It’s a
powerful thing to speak
the Word of God. We’re
coming into our
Thanksgiving timeframe—actually, let me back up.
One more thing that I want to say I’m
thankful for is sanctuary. We
come into
this room today, and we call this our sanctuary.
There’s nothing special about this building,
except the fact that you are here.
It’s
our sanctuary because of the God that we serve.
I’m thankful for—we talk about our military, and our
country, and I’m
thankful for that. I’m
thankful for
being in a place where I can serve my God; I can serve openly. But, that’s not guaranteed
to us. It’s not
guaranteed; there’s many countries
where people aren’t free. There
may be a
day when we may not have that privilege.
But, I still thank God, because, when we talk about
sanctuary, because
of the gift of Jesus, who is in our lives, we have our sanctuary,
whether we’re
here in this building or not. You
know,
the woman at the well, Jesus told her, “You must worship in Spirit and
in
truth.” Not in the
mountain, not in the
Temple… It’s good
that we come here;
it’s good that we get fellowship.
It
strengthens us; it’s very needful.
But,
this isn’t the place where God dwells.
This is where God dwells (pointing to his heart). I thank God that, in the
sanctuary, I can
call on God’s name, anytime 24-7. My God is there.
I don’t have to go find a priest.
I don’t have to go kill an animal; I don’t
have to do anything but present myself a living sacrifice to God. We’re
coming into this holiday
season; I’m driving on my way to church this morning, and I’m seeing
people
putting up Christmas lights already.
We
have poinsettias, beautiful flowers, this morning.
It’s just a reminder—we turn on the television
and we see advertising, just a reminder of the holiday season. A reminder of what the
world is about. Before
I get too deep, I just want to hit,
look at: (This is
all for free; this
isn’t what I planned on preaching…) Romans 14:5-6 One man esteemeth one
day above another: another esteemeth every day alike. Let every man be
fully
persuaded in his own mind. He
that
regardeth the day, regardeth it unto the Lord; and he that regardeth
not the
day, to the Lord he doth not regard it. He that eateth, eateth to the
Lord, for
he giveth God thanks; and he that eateth not, to the Lord he eateth
not, and
giveth God thanks. We
have a lot of people that
celebrate different holidays. We
just
finished Hallowe’en, we have Thanksgiving, Christmas, and everything in
between; celebrate unto God. Yes,
I said
Hallowe’en, and I’m not digging too deep into that, but there’s always
part of
that. If you’re
going to do something,
do it unto God. Let
everyone know that,
whether it’s Hallowe’en, Christmas, any of it, that we’re celebrating
it unto
God. With that, I
do want to give an
encouragement: We’re
coming up to
Christmas. Don’t
get caught unawares,
come Christmastime, when you start hearing the Christmas stories, and
you start
seeing the cards, and hearing the verses that come out, “I need to go
back and
study that.” Start
studying now. Start
going back and looking over that
Christmas story now. It
gives it
something—as we go into it, it makes these holidays so much more—we get
so much
more out of the holidays if we look ahead now, and start looking at
those
Scriptures, and start looking at the Christmas story.
There’s some people, that the only thing they
know of Christmas is what they see on a Hallmark card; what they see on
television. Every
year, as generations
go, that gets even further and further away from people knowing the
Christmas
story, so we need to know it, not just for ourselves, and I learned
this from
Pastor Paine on studying and learning, learn it to teach somebody. Learn it so that as we go
to celebrate these
holidays, we celebrate them unto God, that people know it, and we can
enlighten
them as well. Amen. At
Thanksgiving, we talk about the
original settlers, and they came over, the Pilgrims, and I’m not a big
historian on that, but that’s kind of the basics on where we start our
Thanksgiving celebration. I
look back,
and they talk about how they gave thanks.
I look back, and I say, “Okay, they gave thanks, but
what were they
giving thanks for? When
they came to
this new land, what were they looking for?”
They’re giving thanks for something they came to get. They didn’t get here by
chance; they were
looking for something. They
sought
something. They
made a plan. They
had to make alliances with people.
You know, they didn’t just say, “Hey, let’s
get on a boat and go across the ocean.”
That was kind of fairly unheard of at that point in
time, and a pretty
scary thought. You
might go out on a
boat and never come back. So,
they made
preparations; they sought for it.
I look
at us in our different stages of our life, whether it’s age or careers,
or whatever
we’re doing in life, whether it’s an infant—the want something: they may want to be fed;
they may want to have
a diaper changed; they want to be warm; they want affection—as a child
grows
up, at every stage of life, they want and need something a little
different. When I
was in the military, I
had just left home, at eighteen, and I was looking for something. I had needs; I had things
I wanted; I had
things I was seeking for. I
thank God
that He met me there. I
thank God that
He gave me the needs and the desires of my heart. As
we get older in our careers, we
change. And, we all
have things that we
seek for. The
question is, how do we get
it? Well, we seek
God. You know, in
this country that we live in, we
hear a lot about asking and receiving, and, “Just ask God! He’s going to give it to
you!“ But there’s
not so much talk about, “Okay,
what are we going to do to receive it?”
How are we living?
I want to look
at a Scripture: We
sang a song this morning, “Call
Him Up.” I asked
for a blessing; I asked
for direction; I asked for the Holy Ghost; I asked for salvation. “Ye have not because ye
ask not.” Parrish
was sharing with some people and he
was talking about making a list, writing things down.
Saying, “God, these are things that I put
before Your throne. Now,
that’s a
double-edged sword in itself. Sometimes
we put down these things on the list, but we leave some things off. We stay away from some
areas in our
lives. We say,
“God, here’s my list, and
this one over here is mine.” We
don’t
put things on the list because we don’t want God to touch them. We don’t want God to get
into that area of
our life. We have
not because we ask
not. It’s all
bout—this morning I want
to talk about how God rewards faithfulness.
That’s our faithfulness to God in everything we do. If we’re not faithful in
everything we do,
how do we expect God to bless us?
We
have to realize, there’s nothing too big for God.
Most of us pretty much get that, but, on the
other side, there’s nothing too insignificant to bring to God as well. There’s nothing so small
that we can say,
“God, I got this.” There’s
nothing too
small that we can’t say, “God, can You guide me on this?” Those are the ones that
get us in trouble. Those
are the ones that put us to the point
where, I guess, you get numb to it.
Parrish was talking about how somebody gave him some
vitamins, and they
made him feel good. He
took them for a
few days, and then he forgot about it, because he felt so good. You know, sometimes God
does things for us
and we fail to even recognize that God did it for us.
Or, if we do, we let it pass without saying,
“God, thank You.” The
lepers, ten were
healed, one came back. He
didn’t just
say, “Hey, thanks, Jesus.” No,
he turned
around and he praised God with a loud voice; he gave glory to his God. He made sure that He knew
that he gave glory
to the One Who healed him. We
have to
make sure that it’s all-encompassing, because if we look at James
chapter 1
(I’m not going to turn to it, but you can look it up), it says a
double-minded
man in unstable in all his ways (James 1:8).
You can’t bring this piece to God and just leave it. That’s not faithfulness to
God. God may give
you some blessings—because
there’s things God gives us that we don’t even ask for, sometimes, and
there’s
things that we have to go seek His face for.
God desires more than just service out of obligation. More than just, “Well,
here’s the letter of
the law; I’ve got to do it. I
can do
this; I can do this… Man,
I can’t do
that!” He wants our
love. Deuteronomy 6:1-6
Now
these are
the commandments, the statutes, and the judgments, which the LORD your
God
commanded to teach you, that ye might do them in the land whither ye go
to
possess it: That thou mightest fear the LORD thy God, to keep all his
statutes
and his commandments, which I command thee, thou, and thy son, and thy
son's
son, all the days of thy life; and that thy days may be prolonged. Hear
therefore, O Israel, and observe to do it; that it may be well with
thee, and
that ye may increase mightily, as the LORD God of thy fathers hath
promised
thee, in the land that floweth with milk and honey. [This
was God speaking
through His prophet to the nation of Israel] Hear,
O Israel: The LORD our God is one LORD: And thou shalt love the
LORD thy God with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all
thy
might. And these words, which I command thee this day, shall be in
thine heart: This
was Old Testament. God
wants us to love Him. That
was before the death, burial, and
resurrection. That
was before the
Comforter, the gift of the Holy Ghost.
That was God speaking to His people there. He wanted to—that has been
a statute, you
know God has been the same forever.
He
wants us to love Him; He wants us to commune with Him.
He wants us to take time to seek His
face. That’s the
starting-point of God
rewarding us, the starting-point of God’s blessing, because when we go
seek His
face, then he rewards us. Thankfulness. What does it mean to be
thankful? We talk
about the word thankful. How
do we show it? We
have—we teach our kids. Any
one of us, we go to a young person, and
hand them a present or a piece of candy, and they turn around and walk
off,
what’s the first thing we say to them?
“What do you say?”
We teach them
to say thank you. It’s
our culture. It’s
proper; it’s what we do. It
goes beyond that; that’s just the starting
of teaching of thankfulness. We
teach
our kids to be thankful, to be cognizant of who gave them the gift, to
realize
that someone didn’t have to do that for them.
So, how do we show that love and appreciation? It’s more than just an
obligatory thank
you. Let
me use an analogy, something
that happened in our house: My
wife has
a job, and she has the privilege of not having to go to her place of
employment
on Fridays. I’ve
learned not to say that
she doesn’t work on Fridays, because that gets me in trouble. It’s kind of like telling
a stay-at-home mom
that she doesn’t have a job or she doesn’t work.
That’ll get you in trouble.
So, she takes the time to clean our home that
day. Now, if I’m to
come home and find
the place clean, and just leave my stuff spread out across the floor,
that’s
not a good thing. I
might feel
justified, because I’ve had a long day, and I’ll get it later, but,
seriously,
does that show my appreciation for what she did?
That she took the time to clean the
house? I walk in
the kitchen; there’s no
dishes in the sink, everything’s clean.
I walk in the living room, everything’s in its place… Now, I have a choice at
that point: I can
disregard it, or I can respect it.
Now, the choices are there, it’s why I do
it. I can say,
“Well, I know she’s not
going to be happy if I leave things a mess.”
That’s one way to look at it.
The
other side is, I know that she did something out of love, and I respect
that,
and I’m going to show here my love by not making a mess. By taking little things
that I think are
maybe insignificant to me and taking the time to keep things in their
place. I can do it
out of love. That’s
what I was talking about earlier,
doing things out of obligation, the letter of the law.
If I do things out of, “Well, I know Gods
going to be mad if I do this,” or, “It’s just wrong,” where is my
spirit in all
that? Am I taking
my time to commune
with God? Am I
doing it out of a
heart-felt gratitude for God and the wonders and the miracles and the
salvation
that He’s given me, or, am I doing it out of the letter of the law? If I do it out of the
letter of the law, I’m
going to be in trouble. If
we try to
live by the letter of the law, we have to keep the entire law, and we
are a
debtor to the entire law (Galatians 5:3).
I don’t think that I’m going to be able to do that,
and I thank God for
the grace that He gives. The
Scripture
talks about I do not frustrate the grace of God (Galatians 2:21). I can’t just tempt God by
saying, “I know I’m
covered by grace,” and tempt God by saying, “He’ll forgive me.” That’s tempting God. That’s putting yourself in
a bad place with
God. Serving
God means not withholding
anything from God. I
was reading over
the story of Abraham, and God gave him a promise that he would be the
father of
many nations. He
told him that his seed
would number as the sands of the deserts, the stars in the sky… Many nations would come
from him. When He’s
telling him this, he has no
kids. He has a
wife; they are old. She’s
past the age of bearing children, by
biological standards. She’s
not going to
have any kids. God
says this is what’s going
to happen. Abraham
goes his own way, and
says he’ll have children by another wife, and God says no. Ishmael is not the
promise; he is not the one
for this. Eventually
he has a son,
Isaac. Then God
tells him, “Okay, take
your son, take him on a mountain and sacrifice him.”
Now, He’s given him a promise, “You’re going
to have a mighty nation come out of you.”
He says, “This is the only son you’ve got, go put
him on an altar, and
sacrifice him to me.” Abraham
does; he
gets everything ready to go, takes his son, takes his servants, goes to
the
mountain, he and his son go up. His
son,
Isaac, looks at him and says, “Okay, where’s the sacrifice?” and
Abraham says,
“God will provide Himself a sacrifice.”
Abraham had to be faithful in everything he had,
even if it didn’t make
any sense. God told
him this is what’s
going to happen. All
this is going to
happen. It was a
long time coming just
to get to the point to have his first son.
Then God says, “Now you’re going to sacrifice him.” Abraham did not withhold
anything from God. I
look at my own life, and I realize that I
have to say, “God, what am I withholding from you?
What do You desire?”
We look throughout the Old Testament, and it
shows where Abraham and Isaac, and Moses, they were all spoken to;
prophets
would speak to them. Angels
of God came
and spoke to them. God
spoke to them in
dreams. I believe
that, today, that God
speaks to us. God
speaks to our hearts,
He pricks our hearts; He shows us things.
But they made time to entertain those, and if we
don’t take time to
entertain those, if we don’t take time to commune with God, to
fellowship with
God, take time for servitude to God…
How
does God speak to me, if I don’t do that?
How do I know that God wants me to go do something? And, if I do, I have to
have the faith in God
to know that, “Okay, God’s going to work this out.”
I know there’s many times I can attest to
that God says, “Go do this. Go
speak to
this person. Have
this conversation,”
and it’s just not convenient, but God comes through when we’re faithful
to make
that step, to step out on faith. He’ll
take that, and He’ll show us things that we’ve never seen before; He’ll
show us
things that we could never imagine.
Just
because we can’t see how things are going to work out doesn’t mean that
God
didn’t speak to us. Amen. When we did our coming
together moving up;
when Pastor Paine and his family moved to Virginia, Pastor Paine stood
in the
pulpit and said, “This is where God is leading me right now. This is the step that God
has told me to
take.” He stood
there with his bare face
hanging out and said, “God hasn’t given me the next step beyond that,
but this
is where God told me to go, and this is what we’re going to do.” I’ve taken that as a
challenge to me, to say,
“Okay, I’m going to step out on faith.”
I had no idea where this was going to go. I had no idea where our
fellowship was going
to wind up. I’m
blessed to see the
growth; I’m blessed to see people coming up higher in God; I’m seeing
people
teach… Just to get
a text message on a
Friday night or Saturday morning and say, “Hey, somebody’s getting
baptized!” That’s
awesome. That tells
me that we’re about doing what God
told us to do. Some
of us here have
looked at this and said, “What’s going to happen?” and we said, “Okay,
we’re
going to move forward.” This
is where
we’re at; this is where God has called us to be.
We’re going to step forward, and we’re going
to let God use us, here. It’s
all about
sacrifice. It’s all
about putting what
we have before God and saying, “God, it’s yours.”
Obedience is better than sacrifice.
We’re going to look at a story out of First
Samuel (1 Samuel 15). The
prophet,
Samuel, tells Saul, “You’re going to go to the Amalekites; destroy
everything. Destroy
every man, woman,
child, beast, king… Leave
nothing.” And they
go off into battle. King
Saul comes back, and Samuel hears noises
that aren’t from the army; they aren’t the soldiers.
He didn’t do what he said he was going to do,
or what he was supposed to do. King
Aga,
he brought him back alive. He
brought
back the best of the spoils, the goats and the rams and whatever else. He came back, and he said,
“We’re going to
sacrifice this unto God.” It
wasn’t his
value; I don’t think he regarded it at all.
He said, “We’re going to sacrifice it,” but that
wasn’t what God told
him to do. He said
that God has pleasure
in obedience, rather than sacrifice (1 Samuel 15:22).
Sometimes we look at, and we say, “Oh, we’re
sacrificing, we’re doing things.”
Doing
things may not be what God wants us to do sometimes.
We have to say, “God, what is the sacrifice
You would have me to make? What
is the thing
that You would have me to do?” I
don’t
think God’s going to tell us to go destroy a nation.
I think the things that we have are not
nearly that weighty. It
could be giving
up of our sleep sometimes, giving up things that we think we’re
entitled to,
giving up a meal, giving up a time of sitting in front of a television
program—that time, just sitting there.
We
get caught up in those things. I
know it
sounds funny when I say it from up here, but I think many of us will
say that
there’s times when we get caught up in a story; we get caught up in an
act… I will admit,
there’s some online
games, and a game in itself is not bad, but, you get caught up in a
whole
‘nother world, there. It
could be in
FaceBook, it could be in—and I’m not preaching against anything
specifically,
but I’ve found myself sitting on FaceBook, and I’ll scroll through a
bunch of
pictures, and neat, cute things, and, there’s an hour of my life that
I’ll not
get back. For
nothing, you know? I
know some of you use that as a ministering
tool, and I am not bashing that at all, but I’m saying we’ve got to
stop and
say, “What’s between me and God? What
am
I not giving up? What
am I using as an
excuse?” As King
Saul did; King Saul
said, “Oh, it’s to sacrifice.” What
am I
using as an excuse, you know? I
like what Bob does, because Bob
goes fishing, but I know, if Bob goes fishing, it ain’t about the line
in the
water. It’s about
fishing—fishing for
souls. He may be
going to the bank and
putting the line in the water, but it’s not about the line in the water. It’s easy to—fishing could
become, “I got to
do it every day. I
get off work, I’ve
got to go fishing,” “I’ve got to go hunting,” “I’ve got to go play a
sport,” “I’ve
got to play baseball,” “I’ve got to…” whatever it is.
Like I said, those things, of themselves, are
not wrong, but what are we putting before God and saying, “This is my
sacrifice,” when that’s not what God wanted us to do in the first
place. Later on, in
the Book of First Samuel, at this
point, Saul has been rejected by God as the king.
Samuel has been sent to the house of Jesse to
find who’s going to be the next king.
It’s
a pretty wild story; I’m not hardly getting into any of the details
here, I’m
just making a point out of it. 1 Samuel 16:7 But the LORD said
unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance… He
was looking at the sons of
Jesse, looking at who was going to be the king. 1 Samuel 16:7 But the LORD said
unto Samuel, Look not on his countenance, or on the height of his
stature;
because I have refused him: for the LORD seeth not as man seeth; for
man
looketh on the outward appearance, but the LORD looketh on the heart. He
couldn’t look at the king and
judge him on his outward appearance, either.
God had rejected him.
On his
outward appearance, he was doing what kings do, but God had rejected
him. God looks at
our heart. God
looks at what we’re doing from our
heart. It come back
to loving God. He
wants our—okay, we’re talking Old Testament
here; how does that relate to me, today?
How does that come home to me, right here, right
now? I
did some re-reading that really
did me some good, reading about Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, and
Moses and
how each one of them were rewarded.
They
were in a land that was not their own, yet each of them were rewarded. Abraham was told, “Get out
of the land of
your father; go to a land that I will give you.”
Jacob had to go, when he—if you’re familiar
with the story of Jacob and Esau, Esau was the firstborn of twins,
Jacob and
Esau, born to Isaac. Esau
was the
firstborn; he had a birthright. It
was
his. All he had to
do was to be born
first, and it was his. Yet,
he despised
his birthright, so Jacob took the birthright.
Jacob, when he went to take a wife, went to the
house of Laban. He
served him for a number of years, for a
wife, and then more for a second wife, because Laban tricked him, and
gave him
the wrong wife. Changed
his wages ten
times… So, he was
in a land that was not
his own. He was in
a land that was
someone else’s, and God blessed him, and he prospered, and Laban
prospered
because of him. Laban
didn’t want him to
leave, because when he (Jacob) served God, then he (Laban) was blessed
of
God. Joseph, when
his brothers cast him
into the pit, and then later took him out and sold him into slavery. He was taken as a slave,
as a servant,
accused wrongly, and cast into prison.
He still served God.
God still
gave him the interpretation of dreams, even in prison.
He was faithful with it.
When his day finally came, that somebody
remembered, “Hey, this guy can interpret dreams,” when Pharaoh had two
dreams
that troubled him, the Pharaoh in Egypt, he pulled him out, and he
interpreted
the dreams. Because
he was faithful to
God, he went from servant to jail to a governor under Pharaoh. Because of his
faithfulness to God, a nation
was saved from famine. There
was seven
years of plenty, and he was in charge of bringing into the storehouses,
and
saving for those seven years, because God showed him in the dream that
the
seven years after that would be famine.
Egypt
was saved because of that; not only that, but the entire nation of
Israel was
saved because of that. The
entire nation
of Israel had come to Israel for food, and his brothers were afraid. His brothers were sure,
when they finally
figured out that’s who they were going to for food, “That’s our
brother; we
sold him into slavery!” They
were pretty
scared at the time, but Joseph said, “No, what was meant for evil, God
meant
for good.” Because
he was faithful to
God, many people were spared of that, and the nation of Israel was
preserved,
too. That goes to
thankfulness; that
goes to gratitude; that goes to serving God.
That goes to the fact that God rewards our
faithfulness, no matter what
situation we’re going through. It’s
easy
when things are down, stuck in prison, “Yeah, God’s left me here.” Joseph didn’t do that. His faithfulness to God is
why he was
blessed. So,
back to us today. Let’s
look at John 14:14-18 If ye shall ask any
thing in my name, I will do it. If ye love me, keep my commandments.
And I will
pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may
abide
with you for ever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot
receive,
because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he
dwelleth
with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless: I will
come to
you. He
said, “I will come to you.” Just
knowing that we have that Spirit here,
that I can go to God anytime and tell Him what I need, and ask Him what
He has
for me. It go a
step further: John 15:14-15 Ye are my friends,
if ye do whatsoever I command you. Henceforth I call you not servants;
for the
servant knoweth not what his lord doeth: but I have called you friends;
for all
things that I have heard of my Father I have made known unto you. In
both those Scriptures, He said,
“Keep My commandments.” Keep
my
commandments. You
look in the Old
Testament, especially in the Book of Genesis, you don’t see a lot of
preaching,
you don’t see a lot of church, you don’t see evangelism, you see men
that
served God. You see
men that kept the
commandments of God. Sure,
church is
good; I won’t down that, but, it’s more than church.
You will find, even in the Old Testament,
they were told to rehearse the Law in their ears.
You can read throughout the Old Testament
what happened when they forgot the Law, when they forgot the statutes,
when
they forgot the commandments of God.
That’s
when they were in bondage; they were under the thumb of someone else
because
they forgot who God was. They
forgot who
their God was. They
weren’t serving Him because
they didn’t know Him. They
didn’t take
the time to do what we do here, to sing praises, to worship, to gather
in homes
that had fellowship. To
gather in a
coffee shop to just talk about the Word of God.
Sure, there’s times that you can’t, but, if you find
that there’s times
that you can, and you don’t, and you find that you’re having a rough
patch,
well… Am I doing
the things that help me
to serve my God? “If
you love Me, keep
My commandments.” There’s
accounts of this scripture
in Matthew, Mark, and Luke; I’m going to go to: Luke 10:25-28 And, behold, a
certain lawyer stood up, and tempted him, saying, Master, what shall I
do to
inherit eternal life? He said unto him, What is written in the law? how
readest
thou? And he answering said, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all
thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy strength, and with all
thy mind;
and thy neighbour as thyself. And he said unto him, Thou hast answered
right:
this do, and thou shalt live. Loving
God with all. Seeking
God with all. With
all your heart, with all your soul, with
all your mind, with all your strength.
That’s pretty much everything.
We
could go into what each one of those means, but, heart, soul, mind, and
strength; everything I’ve got. When
you
give it to God—He’s showing that, when you give it to God, He blesses
unconditionally. God
wants to be first
in everything we do. So,
going back to the
question: How do we
show our
thankfulness? The
Scripture says by
serving Him, keeping His commandments.
How do we show our gratitude to God? by following
His statutes. We
can see that God has always provided a way
for His people. He
sees us in our
affliction. He sees
us in the good times
and the bad times; He hears us when we cry to Him.
There’s nothing too big or too small to take
to God. Once again,
we lack sometimes
because we fail to say, “God, I need this.”
Or, when we don’t know, sometimes, “God, I don’t
even know how to come
to You right now; I don’t even know what to ask for. God,
show me.”
God’s faithful. Final
Scripture: James 1:22-26 But be ye doers of
the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any
be a
hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his
natural
face in a glass: For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and
straightway
forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the
perfect law of
liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a
doer of
the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any man among you
seem to
be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart,
this
man's religion is vain. A
doer of the Word. A
seeker of the Word. The
Word goes deeper than the words on this
page. The Word—in
John, it says the Word
was made flesh, and dwelt among us (John 1:14), the Word of God. The manifestation of God. The divine expression of
God. The Word was
expressed in Jesus Christ. The
Word is expressed in our hearts. David
said, “I have written Thy Word on my
heart, that I might not sin against God.” (Psalms 119:11) It’s more than obeying the
letter of the law;
it’s about seeking God. One
thing that I’ve
found, whether it be Scripture, or something on my heart, if they’re of
God,
they don’t contradict each other.
The Bible
says, try the spirits, and see if they’re of God (1 John 4:1), and, in
the
mouth of two or three witnesses, let it be confirmed (2 Corinthians
13:1). When I talk
to my brothers and sister, and
this is why fellowship is so important—when I read and study on my own,
yeah, I
get something, but when we get together—men’s fellowship is my perfect
example
of this, we have times when we kind of do a do-it-yourself Bible study. Someone gives out topics
to groups, and we
all sit and go over that topic, and God blesses that so much, because,
all of
the sudden, you’re getting something that God revealed to Parrish,
Jesse, Bob,
Pete, Mark, Jose… All
of the sudden, I’m
learning something that I would not learn on my own, because of what
God
blessed in their lives. Be
a doer of the
Word, and not a hearer only. So,
as I wrap up, I just want to
encourage you in this time of thanksgiving, let it be a tie that people
see God
in your lives. Let
our thankfulness be
more than just our obligatory prayer before we eat the turkey, before
we sit
down and have our meal. That’s
important. That is,
but let not that be the only time of
it. I’m not telling
anyone to go preach
at their family, but seek God, “How do I proclaim You, how do I lift
You
up? How do I?” That’s my prayer with my
family. “How do I
share with my parents? How
do I share with my sisters? How
do I share with my nieces and nephews and
my cousins?” How do
I do that without
just walking in and…? God
has a way of
doing that, but, if we don’t seek Him we don’t find it.
Whether it be those of you here with your
families, or Thanksgiving for our celebration for our military, seek to
be a
minister. Seek to
have God’s grace shown
in you. Amen. Thank God.
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