"Who Should Give Thanks?" By Brother Parrish Lee November 3rd,
2013 Ah, what kind of God do we
serve? Loving and comforting… Everything you could ask for, and far
beyond. He is that and more. He is the one that looks at the angels, and
charges them with power. Angels! They make movies about those guys, and they
don’t even understand it, and they make movies about how powerful the angels
are. God sits up there and charges them,
and the stars… We send up all these
probes out into space; we want to see how big it is and how bright it is, and
how powerful, and how many planets are out there. He looks at the stars, and they are not pure
in His sight. That same One loved us so
much that He gave His only begotten son to come and die for our sins. He loved us that much! He loved us by the each, and He knows us by name. You got to love a God like that. Giving honor to God, Who is the head
of our lives. That compassionate,
wonderful, redeeming, omnipotent and omniscient God. The One who omnipresence is everywhere and
who is omniscient; Who knows everything, Who is aware of everything… Giving honor to Him Who has never seen a
failure. Who knows how to minister to us
every day, all day long, even in our sleep; He knows what we need. When we done gave up and are looking forward
to the next day, He is still ministering to us.
Giving honor to Him. Giving honor
in this ministry to our founding pastor all the way to our bishop, right now,
who is also our pastor. Their labor,
their families, and all the ones in between who have labored and put their
lives on to answer the call that God has called them. Giving honor to all of us here who wanted to
come and be in the presence of the great God in Heaven; the One who loves us so
much. Giving honor to you. We have completed our sixty-one
days; our time of sanctification and our prayer is that it has been a blessing
for everybody. It, of course, was
completed on Thursday. I like what Bob
Heirtzler said—Bob sent Andy and myself a text, “Man, this time of
sanctification was great! I’m looking forward
to the fruits of sanctification!” Well,
amen. Today’s message, we’re actually
going to be cutting it in half, and the first half is going to be a little bit
of a commentary on the time of sanctification, followed by this month’s theme,
which is going to be, “Giving Thanks.” During this time of sanctification,
we had many people share about the blessings that they received, and its not
about telling each other about your blessings (tell God about your blessings)
but, when you share your blessings, then other people can get nourishment from
your blessings, and they say, “Wow, they got a blessing; I can get a blessing.” 2 Chronicles 31:1 Now when all this was finished, all Israel that were present went out
to the cities of Judah, and brake the images in pieces, and cut down the
groves, and threw down the high places and the altars out of all Judah and
Benjamin, in Ephraim also and Manasseh, until they had utterly destroyed them
all. Then all the children of Bow your heads for just a moment. Lord, we thank you so much, and who is
likened unto You, our Lord and Savior?
So wonderful, so comforting, God, You span everything. Our little minds can’t even fathom it. We just come before You and we thank You, and
we praise You, and we worship You, Almighty God. We revere unto you, and we ask that You would
give unto us at this time in the reading and the speaking of Your Word. Lord, we ask, as You have said in Your Word,
that it would not return unto You void, but that it would do exactly what You
have sent it to do, to accomplish its task.
We thank You and present ourselves to you as we pray this in Jesus’
name, and everyone said, “Amen.” We just read from 2 Chronicles 31,
and this whole chapter talks about a time when the King was Hezekiah, and all
of 2 Chronicles 31:2 And Hezekiah appointed the courses of the priests and the Levites
after their courses, every man according to his service, the priests and
Levites for burnt offerings and for peace offerings, to minister, and to give
thanks, and to praise in the gates of the tents of the LORD. Did you see
that? They went where to give thanks and
to praise? In the gates of the tents of the LORD. “I will enter His gates with thanksgiving in
my heart. I will enter His courts with
praise. I will say this…” He appointed them their portion. You say, “Well, that was just for the priests
and the Levites.” According to Peter, we
are what the Bible calls a chosen generation, a peculiar people, and, what? a
royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9), so this Scripture applies to us. We are given our portion when we take that
time and sanctify ourselves before the Lord.
2 Chronicles 31:3 He appointed also the king's portion of his substance for the burnt offerings,
to wit, for the morning and
evening burnt offerings, and the burnt offerings for the Sabbaths, and for the
new moons, and for the set feasts, as it
is written in the law of the LORD. So the first
portion was for the priests and the Levites and everybody who was going to minister. This was specifically for those that received
blessings, for them to be able to have blessings in their testimonies, and also
to have blessings in their homes and in their walk and in everything that they
went to do. Of course, that means for us
today; we’re going to have blessings for what we’re going to accomplish for and
with God. I like verse three, because
verse three talks about the king, he had to pony up, too. He had to ante up. He wasn’t excused, but he had to be held
accountable for the sacrifice that he had to bring. In fact, the king had to bring more than everybody
else because he had to sat the testimony, he had to set the standard. So many times today, we have people that want
to be exempt from a law that they made everybody else follow. We don’t want to talk about politics, but, if
we were going to talk about politics, we have some people in the church that
are government workers and they got put on something called a “sequester,” and
they didn’t get paid for a while, but the people that made that law, the Congressmen
and Senators, they didn’t lose a dime!
“That’s just not fair!” I
agree. If you’re going to be part of the
system, if you’re going to lead, then lead by example. That’s enough of that. 2 Chronicles 31:4 Moreover he commanded the people that dwelt in So that they
might be encouraged! That’s why we bring
our—and don’t mind that we’re talking about tithes and offerings. “Oh, they want my money; they want my money;
they want my money!” Absolutely! You have to bring your tithes and offerings
to the Lord, but, it you can’t stop there.
You have to bring your prayers, you have to bring your thoughts, you
have to bring the Spirit of God, that’s in you, into the realm of God’s
people. You have to; you have to. It encourages you, yes, but it also encourages
your brothers and your sisters! It
encourages the young, and it encourages the old! It encourages the males and the females1 It needs to be brought in to encourage all of
them that dwell within. 2 Chronicles 31:5 And as soon as the commandment came abroad, the children of Israel
brought in abundance the firstfruits of corn, wine, and oil, and honey, and of
all the increase of the field; and the tithe of all things brought they in abundantly. So they brought
all this in, in abundance. We didn’t have
a place for you to see all the things that people brought in for
rededication. We didn’t have a place for
you to see them physically. Could you
feel an outpouring of the Holy Spirit in the unity of people’s lives, even
today? Kirk, I disagree with you about
one thing: Yeah, I thank the system for
having an extra hour of sleep, but that didn’t have a lot to do with the
blessing that God poured out on us today.
People were making themselves ready.
When you raise your expectation before God; when you raise it, and your
prepare yourself, and you make yourself ready, then the blessing gets poured
out in abundance. 2 Chronicles 31:8-9 And when Hezekiah and the princes came and saw the heaps, they
blessed the LORD, and his people There were heaps
of blessings, because the people said, we’re just going to take this time and
present ourselves before the Lord. There
were heaps, and so much so, that when Hezekiah and his entourage saw it, they
went over to the priests, and they said, “What’s all this? What is all that?” 2 Chronicles 31:10 And Azariah the chief priest of the house of Zadok answered him,
and said, Since the people
began to bring the offerings into the house of the LORD, we have had enough to eat, and have left plenty: for the LORD hath blessed his people; and that which is left is this great store. “What
is all this, oh great king? What is
it? Since the people have turned around,
and started bringing blessings into the house, everybody has had enough to
eat! In fact, not only have we been able
to sustain ourselves—“ and, don’t limit
yourself to sustaining yourself, because, when the prayers go in, and the
offerings, and the good fellowship; good fellowship, it doesn’t just last for
that immediate time—when I get good fellowship, it lasts me all week. People wonder, “What got into Parrish?” “Hey, you know what? a brother or sister
shared something with me! I can’t hold
it! I know you’re not interested in
hearing about it, but you’re going to hear it anyway!” When we bring these blessings into the house,
not only is there an abundance, but it goes to everybody. So, that which is left, is in great
store. “I got so much that it’s going to
hold me over—yes, I’m going to ask God for some stuff tomorrow—but I got so
much today, I got to share it!” 2 Chronicles 31:14-15 And
Kore the son of Imnah the Levite, the porter toward the east, was over the freewill offerings of
God, to distribute the oblations of the LORD, and the most holy
things. And next him were Eden, and Miniamin, and Jeshua,
and Shemaiah, Amariah, and Shecaniah, in the cities of the priests, in their set office, to give to their
brethren by courses, as well to the great as to the small: To the great and
to the small. 2 Chronicles 31:18 And to the genealogy of all their little ones, their wives, and
their sons, and their daughters, through all the congregation: for in their set
office they sanctified themselves in holiness: You’ve got to
love this verse. If I were a child, I
would love it. If I were a woman, I’d
love it, because, so often, the Bible doesn’t mention so much about the
wives. Sometimes it doesn’t mention so
much about the kids, because it’s understood.
They didn’t have such a problem back then, but today, you do have a
problem. I’ve had so many people tell
me, “Hey, the Bible only talks about the men, the men, the men, the men…” We’ve got to change that mentality. But, here, it specifically says, “And to the genealogy of all their little ones,
their wives, and their sons, and their daughters, through all the congregation:
… they sanctified themselves…” So, this
blessing, that was so abundant that people had to ask questions about it, was
for everybody; yeah, the little ones, too.
They brought in an offering so great, so immense, that people were
asking, “What is all that?” 2
Chronicles 31:20-21 And thus did Hezekiah throughout all So, why take out
that time? Let’s face it saints, we do
it as God lays it on our heart, but this was a time that we could do it as a
family. “And in every work that he began in the service of the house of
God, and in the law, and in the commandments, to seek his God, he did it
with all his heart, and..” Why did he do
it? Why? because he prospered. Now that word, prospered, yes, it means to
profit, and it means to benefit, yes, but it also means to break out. This word also means to come mightily. I also means to go over. To break out, yeah, to be delivered. To go over, yeah, to be victorious, and to
get deliverance. This ‘prosper,’ yeah,
you were going to have some things coming into you, but you were also going to
have some internal things going on, and you were also going to have some
physical things going on. So, that’s a wrap-up from the Book of Second Chronicles
31, verses 1 through 18: Time of Sanctification
as a family, epilogue. So, it was verse 2, there, “And Hezekiah appointed
the courses of the priests and the Levites after their courses, every man according
to his service, the priests and Levites for burnt offerings and for peace
offerings, to minister, and to give thanks…”
And, to give thanks, which is hat we’re going to talk about now, giving
thanks. So, we had a time
of sanctification, or preparation, or however you want to say it. Now we’re going to talk about giving
thanks. We’re going to start with our
Scripture theme for the month: Ephesians 5:20 Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the
name of our Lord Jesus Christ; Giving
thanks. Now, the Bible gives us a
viewpoint on what role thankfulness plays in our Christian walk. You know, when you are thankful, you are reminded,
you are put in remembrance. You remember
something that somebody did, and that’s because you’ve received something. That goes along with the remembrance. So, we thank God, and that makes us remember
what he has done for us. You thank God
for salvation, because you remember what it was like when you were not saved;
let me correct that: when we were not saved. We thank God for His Word, because we
remember when we had confusion, and when we didn’t know the answers, and we
were looking for them, and we were kind of hoping that we could get them, shoe
how, some way… we thank God for His
Spirit because we remember a time when we didn’t have the focus, and the direction,
and the guidance, and the comfort, and His dwelling with us. Let’s take just a
thought here, now, I’ve hard people say, “I don’t need to thank God for everything, because a lot of things I
have done for myself.” I’ve actually
heard that. The point is, that God, when
we come and bring thank offerings and praise to God, does that really do so much for God? Or, does it really do so much for us? We learn that when we thank God and we
remember, God always remembers what He’s done for us. We get put into remembrance, “Oh, before I go
too far, I haven’t thanked Him…
Hmmm.” That reminded me of a
quick story: There was this lady, and
she decided that everything was going wrong.
“Before I became Christian, I
didn’t have all of these problems. Since
I became a Christian, it seems like people turn their back on you they talk
about you; they gossip… They shut you
off, shut you down; they don’t help you out sometimes. I’m just going to leave off of this, but
before I do, I’m just going to tell God thank you for the things that He’s done
for me, just to clear the table right out.”
So, she started out, and she said, “God, I thank You for my children,
and I thank You for that time I was sick and You helped me out. God, I thank You for, when I needed some
understanding, I thank You for shoring up a relationship that I needed for a
while. I thank You for, when people that
were evil, and they were talking bout me, God, You delivered me from that. God, I want to thank You for the last however
many years that You’ve been good to me.
I just can’t take the heat, but You’ve been good to me, over and over
and over.” The story goes on, and it
says that in the midst of her thanking God, she had to say, “Wait a
minute! Wait a minute! I can’t leave God, He’s been too good to
me! The other people can go on their
way, but God has been good to me.” So, when we are
put into remembrance, when we thank God, it is for us to remember what God has
done for us—not that God needed anything, but that we needed that remembrance.
So many of us, we’re taught to be thankful, you know, when you’re young;
your parents know that, if you’re not a thankful person, you’re going to turn
out to be a certain type of person. They
don’t ant you to be like that, because they have learned from their parents,
who taught them, who have learned from their parents, who have taught them, “We
want you to learn to be thankful, because we know what you turn out to be when
you’re not.” We’re going to
talk about four people here right quick.
The first person is going to be David: Psalms 107:1 O give thanks unto the LORD, for he is good: for his mercy endureth for ever. There’s actually eight places that David says this (1
Chronicles 16:34, Psalms 106:1, Psalms 107:1, Psalms 118:1, Psalms 118:29,
Psalms 136). I had to look it up, because all the Psalms aren’t written by
David; this one is. All the other ones
where it says, “O give thanks unto the LORD, for he is good: for his mercy endureth
for ever.” It also talks about it in
Chronicles. David said this over and
over and over again, giving thanks unto God.
Now, when we talk about David, we know his testimony. He was a shepherd boy. He was the boy that just kept the little flock. His dad called him a ruddy youth. I mean, you know, “What’s going to really become
of him?” David knew what he was,
too. He knew that when the prophet came
to his house, that his dad put all his brothers up before him (1 Samuel
16:1-13). David also knew that, after he
was anointed, he had some battles. David
knew he was on the run. David also knew
that he got strengthened. He also knew
that he had wars. He also knew that he
went down and he slew Goliath with one rock.
One rock. One. One stone. One.
He slew him when the whole nation of Next, we’re going
to talk a little bit about Solomon. 1 Kings 3:5-10 In What a humble
prayer! If we were to read on, we’d see
that the Lord answered and said, “Because you haven’t asked for your enemies to
be destroyed, because you haven’t asked for long life for yourself, because you
haven’t asked for great riches, I will grant it. Because you weren’t thinking about you, I
will answer this. This request pleased
the Lord. Solomon made sure that it
wasn’t about him. He wanted to see the
people get blessed. He humbled himself
to say, “I am but a little child and I don’t even know my own coming in or
going out. I’m turning this all over to
You, Lord.” There are times when—well,
let’s say this first: So, we have the
two people here. We have David, who knew
the path that God brought him through, the wars, the fighting, the time he had
to face Goliath, the time he had to run from Saul. He knew that he had to be on his guard, that
somebody wouldn’t kill him and try to take him to the king to get that reward. He knew what it was like. He even knew what it was like when they
didn’t have the Spirit of God, and he knew what it was like when it came back. David knew that. The Bible talks about how he danced before
the Lord with all his might. But, like
any good parent, you want your kids to have something better than you. You want them to be blessed. I have heard many parents say, “I don’t ant
them to go through what I had to go through.
I don’t want them to be subjected to what I was subjected to. I don’t want them to suffer like I had to
suffer. I want my kids, I want my
children,, my son, my daughter, I want them to make it further than me.” So, Solomon, he wasn’t born taking care of
the sheep and the cattle and all.
Solomon was born in the palace.
He was born in the king’ house, so he started off with a bit of an advantage. So, David, knowing the path that God had brought
him through, had to be more thankful; he knew what it took to get those
things. Solomon, in his great wisdom—the
Bible talks about his great wisdom, that there was no man likened unto him;
people came from all around just because of the wisdom that he asked God for
and God granted it to him—even though he was wise, he didn’t know the
cost. He didn’t know the ins and the outs
and the sufferings and the hidings and the wars and the sweat and the fighting;
he was born in the palace. He kind of
had a jump on that. He couldn’t
appreciate it enough, because he hadn’t gone through that path enough. I’m not giving him an excuse, because he knew
that God had given him some such things.
But, let’s talk about us: why do
we go through so many things that we go through? it's to make us appreciate it
when God delivers us! It’s to make us to
know, “I didn’t have this before, so how did I get it? God gave it to me, and
to Him belongs all the praise and the glory.”
That’s why. There’s two
specific things about coming before God.
We come before God when we have a request, right? We lay out our request, “God, we want you to
answer this.” We come before God because
we have a request, we have a need. There’s
something that we want God to do for us.
And then there are times when we go before God because we just love Him,
because you just want to bless God. We
just want that relationship going. I
spoke with a married person, and they told me—this was some time ago—they told
me, “Parrish, I’ll tell you something:
If you want to be married, if you want to have a successful marriage,
one of the things that you’ve got to be bale to do, is you’ve got to be bale to
minister to the needs. You got to be
able to listen to them. You know? If they need something, you’ve got to help
them out. If they’re always needing
something, and you’re not helping them, then, well, so much for that
marriage.” And I’m like, “Well, I guess
you’re right, I don’t know, I guess you’re right.” He said, “One thing is, you’ve got to remember
special things like birthdays and anniversaries and special dates. You got to make sure that you remember
them. If you forget them enough, then
they’re going to start wondering how much does it really mean to you.” He said, “There’s another thing that you’ve
got to do.” I said, “It sounds like a
lot already. You better not tell me that
you have to share your food, because someplace you’ve got to draw the
line.” He said, “No, there are times when
you’ve got to make something special.
You’ve got to have like a date night.
You’ve got to go on a week-end together; you’ve got to go on vacation
together. You’ve got to set some special
things aside. Nothing really great, but
you’ve got to make some special times when you spend time together.” Well, that makes sense, kind of. I didn’t hear you say nothing about sharing,
so… That goes along with what were
talking about. There’s times when you
want to bring things before the Lord, because you’ve got a need, and there’s
times when you want to come before the Lord just because you love Him. This was a man I was talking to. A few of the women told me you want to keep
the love flowing. You’ve got to keep the
home fires burning, so to speak. That’s
the same thing with us, because we are the bride, we want to keep that love flowing. We want to keep that home fire—Heaven is my
home, that fire—we want to keep it
fresh in our minds. The third person
I want to bring up, from the Book of Genesis, is Adam. Genesis 2:7 And the LORD God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed
into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul. We talk about Adam, a little bit
here and a little bit there, but, when you think about it, how must Adam have
been? Talk about the perfect guy, you
know? Somebody asked me one time, “If
you were in a room full of people, and Adam was in the room, how can you tell
it was Adam?” No belly button. Out of all the things about Adam, that’s what
you’re going to be able to tell. I do believe
hat if Adam were in the room, we would all know it. Lets just start here: He was the one that was formed from the dust
of the earth. God especially made him
right off of the bat. He was the one
that named all of the animals. He walked with God in the cool of the day. This guy, that God started off with, yeah,
this guy was awesome. God put Adam in a
pace where there was no pollution; He put him in a place where there were no
storms, there was no sickness, no pain, there was no thorns on bushes, no
rotten fruit, you know. He put him in
that world. Adam’s perspective had to be
awesome. You might say, “Well, what did
Adam have to be thankful for? No
pollution, no sickness; he never knew about those things, he never saw those
things. He wasn’t delivered; he was
never exposed!” There was one thing that
Adam knew. You know what Adam knew? He knew that, “Yesterday, I was dust; I was
dirt in the ground. Yesterday, I was
nothing! Yesterday, I didn’t have eyes
in my head to be able to see. Yesterday,
I didn’t have a mouth to speak, and to eat; I didn’t have legs to walk. Yesterday, I didn’t have arms to raise
up. Yesterday, I didn’t have a heart
beating in my chest. I didn’t have brain in my head. I didn’t have a head! Yesterday, I didn’t know what love was. Yesterday, I didn’t know about that Spirit of
God, walking with me in the cool of the day, but today, I know! I can be thankful for that. That’s Adam.
So Adam was to say, “Why shouldn’t I praise God, and thank Him who has
given me all of this?” The next one we’re going to go to, and
this ins number four: Luke 17:12-19 And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men
that were lepers, which stood afar off: And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests.
And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was
healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God, And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan.
And Jesus answering said, Were there not
ten cleansed? but where are the
nine? There are not found that returned
to give glory to God, save this stranger. And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy
faith hath made thee whole. I saw this documentary on TCM, and it was taking place in
There is one last person we want to talk about here, and
that is this person called Parrish. Now,
he really has a reason to be thankful. I’ve
shared my testimony several times.
Knowing what God has done for me; all the components that went into
making me what I am right now… I know
what I was delivered from, but I want to say something right quick, I had
somebody tell me, “You know, I hear so many other people’s testimonies, and,
you know, I wasn’t really a bad
sinner… Some of them, they were really
bad.” I’ve heard that, and that’s a very
dangerous statement. It’s a dangerous
thought process, because the Bible says that you begin to compare yourselves
with yourselves… The Bible says that they
are not wise. The Bible says that they
that compare themselves with themselves are not wise. If you continue in that course, then you
would think that there are bad sinners, and there are good sinners, and the
next course is that you think, “Well, I didn’t need God as much as them.” Some of the things that you shared, Bob, I
might think, “Well, at least I didn’t do as much as Bob did; Bob was really
bad.” He shared. I haven’t told you about mine, and I’m not
going to. But, I could fall into that
trap. I know this for a fact: It doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter if he was a murderer. It doesn’t matter if you burned down
houses. It doesn’t matter if you’re a
liar. It doesn’t matter if you’re an
adulterer. It doesn’t matter if you’re a
whoremonger. It does not matter if you
were a thief. It does not matter what
your sins were; I know for a fact that I needed to be saved by God. What difference would it make if a few
sinners are on the North side of Hell, and a few more are on the West side of Hell,
and a few others are on the South side of Hell?
Hell is Hell. If you’re burning
in the My final comment: We all have some David in us. We all have some Solomon in us. We all have some Adam in us. Yes, we all have some of that ten lepers in
us. This is why the Bible is so
great. So who should give thanks?
Everybody. Amen. Sermon notes by Pete Shepherd |
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