Thanksgiving Praise Service

Faith Baptist Church

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You can use both sides, it's perfectly fine.

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I know, it's like if this were a ship, it would capsize. We need some balancing out of the sides here.

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Alright, well good evening and welcome. I trust you're already having a good

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Thanksgiving week. But the design or the desire for the service tonight is really to get our attention focused in the right direction.

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Be really thinking about Thanksgiving itself and the giving of thanks. So I want to begin tonight with Psalm 100.

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So if you want to follow along in your copy of the Bible, you might want to do that and put a marker there.

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Because later on in the devotional we'll be referring to it.

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Psalm 100. So I want to begin tonight in your psalter, the red book, and sing the song associated with Psalm 100.

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It's number 213. I think you'll recognize the tune here.

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It's 213. Sing to the Lord your God. Psalm 100.

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Alright. Sing to the

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Lord your God And make a joyful sound

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O come from every nation Come from all the earth around With gladness serve the

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Lord In song before His throne For He is

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King of all the earth Forever Lord alone

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Know that the Lord is God The gate

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I am is He Tis He hath made us for Himself His heritage are we

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He shepherds all His sheep Within His pasture land

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He feeds His flock with all good things And guides us with His hand

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Enter His gates with praise His courts with thankfulness

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Draw near unto His throne of grace His holy name to bless

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His good, His lovingkindness sure

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His faithfulness from age to age Forever shall endure

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Let's pray together. Our Father, we are thankful tonight for who

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You are. Thankful that You are our God. Thankful that You have made us.

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You have called us to Yourself. You have made us Your people. And we are the sheep of Your pasture.

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And we thank You for this season of the year and particularly a day set aside to call our attention to the importance of giving of thanks.

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Thanksgiving for all that You have done for us as a nation. Hence the national holiday.

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But also for all that You have done for us as individuals, as families. We pray that as we consider the giving of thanks tonight that we would truly give thanks with a grateful heart.

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We pray it in Jesus' name. Amen. So what we'll do tonight, we'll sing another hymn here in just a moment.

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And then we'll have a couple of different spots in the service to give you an opportunity just to share a word of thanks.

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And it can be for anything. I suppose the topic is unlimited.

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But we do want you to be able to do that. That's part of the purpose of this service for us as a people, as a church family to give thanks to the

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Lord and to express that thanks publicly even as this psalm encourages us to do.

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To be thankful to Him and bless His name. So before we have first opportunities for some testimonies, number 492 in your hymnal.

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492 is the hymn, For the Beauty of the Earth. For the beauty of the earth

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For the glory of the skies For the love which from our birth

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Over and around us lies Lord of all, to Thee we raise

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This our hymn of grateful praise

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For the wonder of each hour Of the day and of the night

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Hill and vale and tree and flower Sun and moon and stars of light

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Lord of all, to Thee we raise This our hymn of grateful praise

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For the joy of human love Brother, sister, parent, child

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Friends on earth and friends above For all gentle thoughts and mild

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Lord of all, to Thee we raise This our hymn of grateful praise

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For Thyself, best gift divine To our race so freely given

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For that great, great love of Thine Peace on earth, joy in heaven

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Lord of all, to Thee we raise This our hymn of grateful praise

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Alright, so I've asked a couple of men to man these microphones and if you would just please speak into those so everyone can hear

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Sometimes you don't realize when we speak in the congregation that there are some people who are far away who can't hear so we're going to use those microphones tonight so Stan and Ed will help us with that So, testimonies of Thanksgiving Who will be first?

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Okay, Sue? Drought. We had one this year and our creek is still dry from that drought but it is gorgeous to walk down there

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It's like a pathway that's completely sheltered from wind completely sheltered from weather at all so it's very pleasant to walk down there and even though we had a drought this was by far the best canning season

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I've ever had The Lord just blessed and blessed and blessed more apples than we've ever had on any of our trees more fruit and vegetables than we've gotten from the garden even though some things didn't do well, some things did really well and you know,

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I just, I can't take any credit for that you know, except for mulch maybe you know, that makes a big difference but the

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Lord just really blessed this year and I'm just really thankful for that Amen Yes, we're thankful too because we got some of your apples

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Very good Alright, someone else Okay, Dan Well, I'm truly thankful for the last couple of years we've had marriages in our family and I'm thankful for my son -in -law two daughter -in -laws and just really grateful that my kids have found mates that love the

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Lord and that they can go forth and serve the Lord as generations go forth and it's really so easy to be unthankful in this world and I'm talking to myself there's so many things each day that you can be thankful for and I'm just grateful for the health that I have and that my health could turn but those kinds of things come in our lives and I think whatever happens, we need to be thankful whatever event the

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Lord chooses to use in our lives In all things, give thanks, right?

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Okay, Jim Yes, I'm thankful for Thanksgiving based on the founding of our country in 1611 and so on when the pilgrims came over from persecution as we all know in the history of that and wanting to exercise freedom of religion which is what the basis of this country was founded upon and we sit here today in exercising that freedom of religion worshiping freely without persecution so far and even though our country is in dire straits now we know

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God is in control and we thank God for bringing conviction and for men and women that can stand upon what is right and truth taking a stand and even sacrificing so much as the first pilgrims lost 50 % of their population in that first winter yet they didn't go back, they stood fast and it grew into the nation we are today so I thank

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God for our founding fathers Good Someone else?

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Okay, Maggie Right behind you Yes, I'm truly thankful and very blessed that being alone

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I can have my own home have my own car I have good health and I can come and go as I want and I have

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Susie and Ed and Beth to step up if there's help I need Good So we're grateful for your being here and for the help that you have from your family

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Good Is that Tom back there first?

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Yeah Tom? I'm thankful for the family that God has given me I don't know of anybody here that knows that 58 years ago

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I was very sick and really was not expected to live and a doctor came out to the house and told my folks that if I made it through the night that I might not be

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I might lose some intelligence and would be retarded but he also said that your son will never have children would never be able to father children and God proved that doctor wrong because I fathered seven children one of them has gone to heaven and someday

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I will meet her again but I'm just thankful that God provides and he has miracles that we don't even know he's going to do and he allows us to just live in this world and be a blessing to other people hopefully and sometimes you don't know why he's put us in a place but yet if we are open to his will and willing to do whatever he asks us to do he will use us and I just thank him for that Amen Thank you

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Tom One more, Mike? I've been thinking about this all day and I'm just so thankful for the path that the

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Lord has had myself and my family on it hasn't always been fun it hasn't always been enjoyable but over the last six months or so to find this church so close to our home with such good teaching has been such a blessing to me and I'm also blessed today to have so much of my family here and I'm very thankful for all of those things

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Amen I want to turn to Psalm 103 looking at three different psalms tonight that are really

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Thanksgiving oriented they express thanks in a couple of different ways

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Psalm 103 gives us a list of things to be thankful for I'm really kind of using the first few verses of Psalm 103 as the start of the devotionals every day the online devotionals this week

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I want to read just the first 14 verses of the psalm David writes, he says who heals all your diseases who redeems your life from destruction who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercies who satisfies your mouth with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagles the

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Lord executes righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed he made known his ways to Moses his acts to the children of Israel the

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Lord is merciful and gracious slow to anger and abounding in mercy he will not always strive with us nor will he keep his anger forever he has not dealt with us according to our sins nor punished us according to our iniquities for as the heavens are high above the earth so great is his mercy toward those who fear him as far as the east is from the west so far has he removed our transgressions from us as a father pities his children so the

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Lord pities those who fear him for he knows our frame he remembers that we are dust and let's turn in our psalter again to number 219 219 is the song

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Praise my soul, the King of Heaven 219 we're going to sing stanzas 1, 2, and 3 alright

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Praise my soul, the King of Heaven to his feet your tribute bring ransomed, healed, restored, forgiven evermore his praises sing

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Alleluia, Alleluia praise the everlasting

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King Alleluia, Alleluia praise the everlasting

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King praise him for his grace and favor to our fathers in distress slow to chide and swift to bless

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Alleluia, Alleluia praise the everlasting

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King Alleluia, Alleluia praise his faithfulness father like he tends and spares us well our feeble frame he knows in his hands he gently bears us rescues us from all our foes

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Alleluia, Alleluia widely yet his mercy flows

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Alleluia, Alleluia praise the everlasting King alright

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I thought we knew that song I thought I knew that song anyway number 64 we have sung times in the past the song

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Praise Ye Jehovah and this hymn can be applied in many different ways it was originally written as an anniversary hymn for founding a 50th year of Bob Jones University but the application of the text of this hymn goes beyond just a university you can think of a church, you can think of a nation but what

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God has done in establishing these various institutions and places of gathering for God's name

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Praise Ye Jehovah, 64 in your hymnal Praise Ye Jehovah who from the beginning what he established in mercy maintains founding, providing, protecting, abiding praise to the

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Savior who constant remains Praise Ye Jehovah for heroes before us battle scarred victors at rest from the fray praying, contending, proclaiming, defending faith of our fathers we will not betray

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Praise Ye Jehovah who like as a father comforts our sorrows and quiets our fears chastening, restraining, forgiving, sustaining from the beginning to fullness of years

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Praise Ye Jehovah from furnace of testing fears though the fire the

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Savior walks there loving, beholding, preserving, enfolding from the beginning till he shall appear

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Praise Ye Jehovah for glories awaiting prizes he giveth and crowns to be won claiming, progressing, obtaining, possessing all he has promised through Jesus the

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Son Alright, some more testimonies

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Right here, Ed, Eric My wife and I have been gone for a number of weeks because we've entered into a new chapter in our life and it just reinforced all the more the great blessing and how thankful we are for a church family number one, and number two getting more personal

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Pastor, your daily devotions were just a highlight of Monday through Friday and it was so wonderful because of technology to be able to tune in to the services on Sunday so, very thankful for a church like this

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Very good Anybody else? Priscilla?

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I pray for you to make a story for my Daniel's mom and sister and favorite song is

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Into My Heart for my Daniel and Pastor Ray, sing for her

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Into My Heart 623 Okay That's a favorite song of yours?

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Into My Heart Oh, Daniel's aunt passed away Oh, okay

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So, yes I never thought

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I would be the next generation in my family On one side I am, and I have one more aunt above me and when we got married

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I didn't think we'd make it as far as we have because I was the older bride and so, it's he's taken us on a journey, that's for sure we were planning to go to a mission field and they told us to get a little more experience for something and we went back but there was a little clause that we didn't know you couldn't go with a seventh child or sixth child this was the reason but he totally, totally changed our looking to a different mission we've worked with special needs since she was born and it started the day she was born when my own pastor's wife said

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I don't know what I would do if I had her and we were looking at her as a blessing when we had car trouble or anything else that was happening prior to this time and we had car trouble a lot but back in those days they had a gas station or a shop that had

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Christian books to be read and picked up and sold at Born almost every time we picked up a book

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I would read to the children but every time it was something about a special needs child so God really did prepare us for that and I don't know how many times people would say how could you do that?

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how could you keep her? how can you do this? a doctor in the hospital as we were bringing her out you know you can put her in an institution and I just looked at him and said not my child and we also had learned or we thought a niece of Tom's was expecting a child with a special needs and we prayed that it would be ours and not theirs we didn't even know we were pregnant yet God had it all planned out and that's how we got into working with people with special needs and are still doing that in different ways all through there's other things that we've been approached with we thought we would be doing it didn't happen so God just knows what everything's there for us and we're so happy that we're here

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I thank the Lord for his providential directing in our lives and we think we know what we want to do where we're going to go and how things are going to work out he says

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I got another plan for you it's my way's better so good someone else?

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yes Roger this is part of David's role okay and I'm afraid he won't say anything all right so if David if you want to say something you're sure welcome to interrupt me anytime you want to okay so Roger's Roger's going to speak on your behalf

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David if you want to interrupt him you're welcome to do it so go ahead so David and I had lunch today it was today wasn't it?

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Monday Monday that was yesterday Roger today's Tuesday just make it

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I'm losing track of more than you know so but anyway so we had a conversation and it ended up that I asked

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David about a car if he'd be interested in a car and because he wants a job and a car would be a necessary part of that so coming back from lunch we stopped at the car dealership

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Kunis out on east of town and we talked to Jonathan my grandson so I told him what we wanted to do and that it would have to be very reasonable for David to be able to afford it so Jonathan found a car that had just come in hadn't even been prepared yet it's a nice looking car five years old with very low mileage so he engaged your son

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Scott Vice as a sales manager and Scott then engaged the general manager and then he then engaged the insurance man so all these people contributed to that car and everybody forgave their profits wow everybody wow nice there were six people involved in this and I was watching

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God doing all that God could do for him so in watching

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God provide a car for David it was one of the best experiences of my life watching all the resources

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God pulled together to make that happen and I have to say that Scott your son

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Scott was a central part of that he was all in and did everything he could to make that work good

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I hope that I'm sorry I was going to say something about how

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I hope the Lord uses even that in his life so good thank you somebody else yes one of my favorite verses is

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Philippians 2 .13 it is God who is at work in us both to will and to do of his good pleasure and even the thing you were talking about Roger and what you were talking about God works in us to will and to do of his good pleasure and I thought way back 61 years ago when

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I told said God I don't want to obey you but I know

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I must and even as a rebel against him at that point he was at work in me both to will and to do of his good pleasure

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I failed and failed and failed over and over again but he kept with me and I am so thankful for his work in us and then another verse that my sister got me to memorize as a new

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Christian there has no temptation taken you but such as is common to man but God is faithful who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able but will with the temptation also make a way of escape that you may be able to bear it and I'll never forget this is when

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I started going to the jail with Jim and all of a sudden it hit me

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I should have thought of it long before that but if God makes a way of escape for whatever temptation

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I'm in at that time he's got to be watching me and involved in my life all that time the

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God, the creator of the universe involved in my life like that I never couldn't get over that and that was what, how many, 13 years ago

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I started going and I can still remember going down down those cement corridors and that thought just struck me just he's got to know what

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I'm every situation I'm in to provide that way of escape thankful for who he is thankful for who he is alright

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I want to read Psalm 30 Psalm 30 and then we will sing this

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Psalm again in this altar okay it says it's a song at the dedication of the house of David his favor is for life weeping may endure for a night but joy comes in the morning now in my prosperity

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I said I shall never be moved Lord by your favor you have made my mountain stand strong you hid your face and I was troubled

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I cried out to you oh Lord and to the Lord I made supplication what profit is there in my blood when

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I go down to the pit will the dust praise you will it declare your truth hear oh

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Lord and have mercy on me Lord be my helper you have turned for me my mourning into dancing you have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness to the end that my glory may sing praise to you and not be silent oh

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Lord my God I will give thanks to you forever and so then let's turn to number 62 in the psalter number 62

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I will sing your mercies okay now this tune is completely new to us so we sing the stanza in unison notice that and then when you get to the chorus we sing stanzas 1 and 2 then the chorus 3 and 4 and the chorus and then stanza 5 so Kelly how about if you just play that melody line for us on the stanza and then work into the chorus okay stanzas 1 and 2 and then the chorus on the first stanza

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I will sing your mercies Lord how you heard and answered prayer foes disarmed and fears relieved you have lifted my despair your displeasure swiftly fades even when your anger burns though the night is full of tears with the dawn our joy returns

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I will sing I will sing I will sing your mercies

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Lord the third and fourth I have tasted both extremes grievance and deep dismay from your strength purity from your silence disarray in profound distress

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I prayed gracious God prolong my days can a grave extol your name let me live and sing your praise

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I will sing I will sing I will sing your mercies

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Lord then my grief was turned to joy then my laughter was restored one unending song of thanks

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I will bring to you my Lord I will sing

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I will sing I will sing your mercies

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Lord one more opportunity for some testimonies anybody?

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alright let's go back to Psalm 100

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I was watching a news oriented talk show the other night and they played on this talk show they played a clip of some guy who was just ranting about what he called the myth of the white man's thanksgiving and the idea the notion that the whole story of the pilgrims and how they were all a bunch of nice people and so on and so forth was all a bunch of baloney and so on and so on and the guy was just ranting and in his rage he went through this whole thing dissing thanksgiving and never never said anything that he was thankful for and so then after the clip was played one of the people on the panel commenting on the guy's rant remarked how ungrateful people are usually very they show themselves to be very unhappy people and often times very angry at least very easily showing anger just like this ranting fool he couldn't say anything good about America he couldn't say anything good about the celebration of Thanksgiving he couldn't say anything good about the founding of our nation nothing good at all all he could do was just rant just in anger voice all this stuff no word of gratitude at all but then that person who commented on that she related herself about a daily practice that she has she said that every night before retiring for the night she looks back over the day and rehearses things that happened during the day events that occurred in the course of the day but she stopped to think about what did she have to be thankful for and she wouldn't go to sleep until she came up with several things to give thanks for and she actually brought

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God into it I wouldn't say whether or not she was a believer in Christ or not

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I don't know but frankly outside the four walls of the church that is unusual to hear somebody on a secular television program voice thanks to God for what has happened in the course of their day and to say that they make that a daily practice now incidentally as other panelists chimed in on that video clip they talked about their own practices on Thanksgiving and one of the guys mentioned that on Thanksgiving he just eats like a glutton watches

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TV, takes a nap, wakes up eats some more watches more football eats some more and then goes to bed again said nothing about Thanksgiving at all

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I wonder how many people celebrate Thanksgiving without giving thanks

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I wouldn't have any way of knowing that I don't want to take any surveys to find out but I would guess it's probably more than we would want to know and then there are those who actually do there are some people who and maybe many maybe a small, maybe a large minority

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I wouldn't again know how many that actually do take some time to go around the table and ask everybody what are you thankful for and people say

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I'm thankful for this or I'm thankful for that but the question that I often ask and wonder when people do that is well to whom are you thankful they say

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I'm thankful for good health I'm thankful for lots of food to eat I'm thankful for this day when we get to just stuff ourselves they'll say things they're thankful for but to whom are you thankful you see to whom are you thankful and Psalm 100 gives us some good a good way to go when it comes to this matter of giving thanks it provides us with a path to thanksgiving that might be celebrated well you notice in the first three verses that there is this call to worship thankfully it's a call to worship but to worship thankfully as the psalm goes on and I want to notice several qualities about that that form of worship worship can be thought of as dull and lifeless because it's something we just do out of ritual it's just a formality that we go through if that's the case that's the way it's going to be but the psalmist here exhorts us to worship thankfully with exuberance in verse 1 make a joyful shout to the

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Lord all you lands a joyful shout you don't shout about something that you don't care about you don't shout if you're if you're really very apathetic about it if it's just a thing you do you shout about something that you're excited about and the emphasis here is not that we come to church on Sunday morning and everybody's shouting like a bunch of wild people the idea expressed is that of exuberance worship the

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Lord exuberantly and notice that the call to this worship is universal all the lands this is not something just for Israel the

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Christian faith is a global faith it's a faith for all the lands so we do so exuberantly then we worship with thanksgiving joyfully says make a joyful shout but then in verse 2 he elaborates on that and says serve the

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Lord with gladness serve the Lord with gladness now

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I want us to be sure we understand what that word serve means it's not talking about it's not talking about what we used to do before COVID when the deacons would serve communion by passing the plates down the down the different pews not talking about working in the nursery or teaching a

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Sunday school class all those things are acts of service and they're good not even talking about mowing the lawn which is also another act of service which is good but that's not what this word means this word is talking about worship so worship the

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Lord with gladness and that exhortation challenges us to consider our attitude when we come to God's house together or anytime we are reciting things that we're thankful for what's my attitude in this?

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what is my frame of mind? what is my demeanor on the typical

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Sunday morning when I come to God's house to worship with God's people so we're to do so exuberantly we're to do so joyfully and then the last part of verse 2 tells us that we are to come before His presence with singing so we're to worship with thanksgiving musically musically you know it's interesting that I really think the

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Christian faith and even Judaism before Christ but the

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Christian faith is uniquely a faith of song it is uniquely a faith of song you think about some of the other religions in the world they have mantras they have wrote prayers that they go through some will have mind emptying meditation that they experience but what about singing?

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what about singing? singing expresses that joy and that gladness we're to do so musically that's why singing in a worship service is such an important thing such an important component of that worship service then verse 3 this is a call to worship thankfully we do so exuberantly we do so joyfully we do so musically and then we're to do so thoughtfully the first word in the verse look at it know know know that the

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Lord He is God we're to do so thoughtfully we're to do so worship as we worship we do so knowing that we're worshiping the one who is exclusively

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God know that the Lord Yahweh the God of Israel He is

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God now that statement in its time in its place was a lot it had a much more powerful punch than it has for us today because as I've often mentioned as we've talked about especially in Old Testament texts about surrounding nations the

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Moabites, the Ammonites, the Hittites the Jebusites, the Philistines and so on and so forth they all had their gods all these different nations all around Israel they all had their gods and they looked at those gods as being very territorial so that the

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God of Moab, well he was the God of Moab, he wasn't the God of the

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Hittites, you know and that God wasn't the God of the Philistines they all had their territorial gods but what what

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God emphasizes is that Yahweh which is the name that God gave to Israel as the personal name, the covenant name between God and His people, that Yahweh He is

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God all these others that claim to be gods are not now do we have false gods in our day?

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We absolutely do, they don't go by names like Malchum or Molech or Baal or whatever there are all kinds of false gods, idols of the heart and so on and so forth but they are false gods, when we come to worship we come knowingly worshipping the

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God who is exclusively God, He is the exclusive God, then notice secondly that we are to know, we are to be thoughtful about the fact that He is our creator, know that it is

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He who has made us and not we ourselves, there is no such thing as a self -made man a self -made person and the person who thinks that fails to take into account the verse of scripture that Paul says what do you have that you have not received even people who boast about their wealth that they have accumulated, the smarts that they have to have made great advances in this and that and the other thing well where did you get that intelligence, where did you get that ability what do you have that you have not received you are a created being you have not created yourself,

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He is our creator, know as we worship that He is our creator and then know that He is our shepherd this is brought out as he continues in the last part of the verse know that we are

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His people and the sheep of His pasture that statement emphasizes the personal relationship that we who are

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God's people have with our God, we are sheep of His pasture and notice how the thoughts here that we have as we worship

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God, they go from the they go from the infinite to the very personal, know that Yahweh He is

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God there is the infinite He has created us and not we ourselves and that's mankind and then there's us we are

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His people the sheep of His pasture so we worship thoughtfully and then we do so personally the first part of verse 4 is an exhortation on a personal level you enter into His gates with thanksgiving and into His courts with praise, you enter

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His gates, you enter His courts and notice the blessing that is ours to be able to have access through His gates into His courts and we know from the book of Hebrews that we have we have that access through the person and work of our

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Lord Jesus Christ so this is a call to worship thankfully then notice that the last part of verse 4 the focus of our thankful worship is to be upon our

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God enter into His courts with thanksgiving, into His courts with praise be thankful to Him here is the answer to the question right

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I'm thankful for a full plate, I'm thankful for good health,

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I'm thankful for a roof over my head, to whom are you thankful? who gave you that plate full of food?

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who put that roof over your head? who gave you the clothes on your back? the car that you have to drive?

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who gave you these things? be thankful to Him because He's the one that is the source of it all to Him, to His name, that's the focus of our thankful worship and then verse 5 the last verse in this psalm gives us three transcendent reasons for thankful worship and what

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I mean by that is these reasons transcend everything they are behind everything of our thanksgiving these things are true and for these things we can be thankful regardless of whatever else is going on in our lives whether life is good, bad up, down, hard easy, comfortable difficult abundant or in need or in want these things you can be thankful for regardless of all that, what are they?

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be thankful that the Lord is inherently good so it says enter into His gates with thanksgiving into His courts with praise, be thankful to Him, bless

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His name for the Lord is good the

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Lord is good, so as you think about Thanksgiving day ask yourself this question, how has the

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Lord shown His goodness to you? Gene mentioned earlier one way the

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Lord showed goodness to her, her family was by totally changing the direction the trajectory of their lives how has

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He shown His goodness to you? what good gifts has He given you to enjoy?

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spiritual gifts, material gifts, relational gifts, the

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Lord is good second transcendent reason for thankful worship is that the

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Lord is incessantly loyal His mercy

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His steadfast love His fidelity to His covenant is endless, it is everlasting,

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He is incessantly loyal how has the Lord showed His steadfast loyalty to His word to you?

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forgiveness, sanctifying growth, assurance of your salvation provision of your needs how has the

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Lord shown steadfast love His incessant loyalty to His word and then thirdly the third reason that transcends all other reasons for worship is that the

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Lord is impeccably truthful He is impeccably truthful His truth endures to all generation the first truth that God revealed to man thousands of years ago stands today and will stand forever even as Jesus said heaven and earth shall pass away but my words shall not pass away so as we celebrate

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Thanksgiving let's be sure that we're worshiping God in our giving of thanks

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I want to close tonight with the doxology and while Kelly comes and is going to play that for us if you need it, it's number 21 in your hymnal

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I want to give you two prayer requests, two things to be praying for one is