Dr. James White on Thanksgiving

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It's good to be with you again. It's been a little while since we've been out here. In fact, I got lost coming out.

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I was out in Chandler and coming from the other direction, got all mixed up and barely made it on time, but that's okay because you're not really strict about starting right at four o 'clock.

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So you may think you are, but it didn't work out that way. So it's a little bit odd.

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I'm always here whenever Jeff's gone, and so we almost never get to do anything together, except for one thing, and that is we definitely seem to be hated by the same people.

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And I'm noticing that some of those same people are becoming very active at the moment, and noticing there's a, ooh,

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I'm noticing I better not lean into this, actually. You know,

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I've taught at John MacArthur's church, and have you ever seen his pulpit?

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That thing is on hydraulics, so it can go down so they can have musicals and stuff like that, but it's only a one hydraulic thing right in the center.

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So if you lean into it, the thing moves. Now, the thing is huge. There are acres up there. I mean, you could put an entire library out on that thing, but if you lean into it, but this one will end up right down the front row, so I need to make sure that we don't lean into this one.

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So anyway, I notice that currently right now there is a tremendous amount of nastiness going on out there directed toward Jeff and myself, and so I would ask your prayers for both of us, really, but especially here for Jeff.

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I just, I don't confess to understand the mindset of many people, but it does seem the more you try to be on the front lines, the more fire you get from behind you, which always keeps you awake,

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I suppose you could say that, but no one, you know, we may all pretend like we're just, oh yeah, it just comes with the territory, all the rest of that stuff.

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No, it's always discouraging, and you try to ignore it, you try to understand it or just put it aside or whatever, but it's just the reality.

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We're human beings, and we will feel that kind of attack, even when we don't necessarily have a whole lot of respect for the people that are shooting our direction, but they're out there, so pray for your elders as they continue to seek to lead your church and to do all the things

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God has called you to do. Now, what I wanna do today is I honestly thought, I really, and I just didn't have the courage to do it,

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I really thought about sneaking something in on the

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Advent and Christmas before Jeff could get to it, but then

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I thought, yeah, he's probably been doing a Christmas series since August, so knowing Jeff, so there's no way

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I'm gonna be able to sneak that in, but in reality, we're only a matter of days away from a holiday here in the

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United States that is becoming more and more countercultural.

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It certainly is countercultural in the sense of recognizing where our culture is today, and it's abject rejection of God's right to rule over his creatures,

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God's right to define what is true and just and honest and lovely and pure, and our duties before him, especially to be thankful.

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And you know, of course, I'm talking about Thanksgiving, and certainly in generations past, certainly in my youth, it was very common to hear political leaders referring to God and Christ, and speaking of Thanksgiving and giving thanks for God's blessings upon the nation.

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We all know that today, especially in the context of our educational system and things like that, that is, well, that's enough to cause someone to flee to a safe space because of how deeply offended they are by such a statement.

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And so I have often thought that the subject of Thanksgiving is a subject that we should visit not once a year, though I'm thankful,

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I'm very thankful that we still have that once a year to be reminded of the necessity of this topic, but when you look at what the

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Bible teaches on the subject of giving thanks, this should not be a once a year thing.

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This is so central, in fact, normally what I would do in most sermons is to go into a particular text and go in depth in that particular text, but as I was looking at the biblical testimony to the subject of giving thanks and thankfulness,

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I was simply overwhelmed by the amount of information. You could quite literally go all

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Puritan on this one. And I'm sure that happened in a

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Puritan church, yeah. Someone did that and they had that thing that you'd use to wrap people to wake them up and they just wrap you over the head and put you to sleep.

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That's what they would do. You could, I mean, the Puritans were known for dragging 10 sermons out of a single text.

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With these, you could go on literally for years. There is just so much.

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And so what I decided to do is sort of do a biblical cluster bomb. It's not normally how

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I do things, but just because I was so overwhelmed by the biblical testimony to the range of applications of the command to be thankful and it struck me that this truly is central to Christian character.

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It's absolutely central to Christian character. We should be a people marked by thanksgiving and thankfulness.

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And when we talk about what makes us happy, when we talk about having true

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Christian character and growing in Christ, I submit that when we talk about the, well, well -known book,

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The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment, do you know what the key to Christian contentment is?

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It's a thankful heart. And to have a truly thankful heart, not just that one day where we get nice, warm feelings and because the turkey smells so good and that kind of thing, but when each and every day our settled attitude is one of thankfulness toward God, that reflects a heart that recognizes that God is truly good.

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In fact, one of the most profound prayers, one of the most profound prayers we have is that child's prayer.

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I had a professor in Bible college that basically preached that when you're doing your prayer before eating, keep it short.

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And so here is a PhD in New Testament and toward the end of his life,

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I got to know him more as an individual colleague. We were teaching at the same time and we'd meet up at restaurants and when he'd say the prayer, he'd bow his head and say,

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God is great, God is good. We thank him for our food, amen. And then we went on. That phrase,

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God is good. That's the settled attitude of a truly thankful heart.

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No matter what you face, no matter what you're going through, no matter what your neighbors got that you don't have, no matter what your physical condition is as somebody else's physical condition isn't, if you're convinced that God is good, then you're thankful for what you have.

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We live in a day where our society, the movies, the television, the internet, everything is designed to convince you

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God is not good and you are owed better than what you've got. And if you want a corrosive battery acid to the

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Christian life, if you want something that will destroy everything the

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Bible commands you to be in your relationship with your wife, your husband, your kids, your parents, your extended family, your fellow church members, the people around you, it is an attitude of discontentment and that flows from the idea.

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I'm the center of the universe and God owes me whatever he's given anybody else.

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If somebody else has perfect health and perfect teeth and looks really good and has a great

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God, God owes me anything he's given to anyone else. And it's amazing how prevalent that attitude is.

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And in fact, if you turned on a certain television channel here in the Phoenix area, I never mentioned it by name, but it's between 20 and 22.

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If you turn that particular one on, you're gonna have people making a huge amount of money by trying to convince people, by trying to convince believers that they really have the right to demand of God all that stuff that they see other people possessing.

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That idea of discontentment, that idea that God owes me something, that does not flow out of a heart filled with thanks and thanksgiving.

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And so in the brief time we have together, I want to look at what the Bible says about giving thanks.

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And we're not, you can't even begin. I literally could not read to you at my highest speed everything the

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Bible says about thanksgiving in the time we have, couldn't do it. It is such a prevalent topic. But I want to get through a bunch of passages and just make small commentary just to try to show you the breadth.

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Brothers and sisters, I think one of the problems is if you like I have the great, I give thanks for the fact that I was raised in a

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Christian family. Well, guess what? If you've been raised in the church, you've heard and read the phrase and the wording so often that I think we just stop hearing it.

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It's overexposure. And so I want us to just think together.

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Look at, for example, the heavenly worship itself, Revelation chapter four, verse nine.

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And when the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne, to him who lives forever and ever.

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So here it's describing what's going on. You may not be able to keep up with the text because I'm going to be throwing them out really, really fast.

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If you want to try to, that's great. But I don't mind hearing the pages turning or the tap, tap, tap, tap, whatever else it might be as long as it's not on Facebook.

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But I'm going to be throwing out a bunch of them and I'm not going to be staying on any one for very long. But here in the very throne room of heaven, the living creatures, glory and honor and thanks.

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What do the living creatures give thanks to God for? I mean, they haven't gone through any trials and difficulties, but they're giving thanks to God.

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There is something about being made by God that automatically means that our heart should go out in thanks to the one who gave us existence.

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And man, if that's the case, if in the center of worship, the living creatures are giving thanks to God, how great a sin is the very attitude of the secular humanist who takes all of God's good gifts and thanks himself for them.

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If the highest form of worship shows the living creatures giving thanks to God, then how great a sin is it when people do not give thanks to God?

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In Revelation chapter seven, and all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped

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God saying, amen, blessing and glory and wisdom and what? Thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our

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God forever and ever, amen. I would suggest to you that certainly for the author of the

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Revelation, the idea of thanksgiving is one of that cluster of words of glory and honor and might that is constantly associated with the purest form of the worship of God.

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You are not truly worshiping God if that worship does not flow from a heart filled with thanksgiving to God for all that he has done and all he is.

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See, we so often define thanks on the basis of, and there's nothing wrong with doing this, but I remember one

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Thanksgiving, I passed out little cards to everybody at the table and we were to write down the things we were most thankful for.

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But what we were thinking of was we were thinking of the past year and we were thinking of physical possessions and things like that.

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True thanksgiving, a true attitude of thanksgiving comes from a heart that recognizes who

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God is and who I am and all this other stuff. We need to be thankful for that. We need to be thankful for everything

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God's done for us, yes, but that's not where true thanksgiving comes from. It recognizes who

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God is and who we are. And the very fact of our existence, the very fact that I can take a breath,

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I am always so deeply convicted when I hear Christians who have experienced tremendous difficulty in their physical life.

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Those who are confined to a wheelchair, those who've lost their mobility, their sight, their hearing, whatever it might be, and yet their praise is filled with thanksgiving.

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And I'm convicted because I'm normally thankful for the obvious stuff rather than the truly fundamental and foundational stuff.

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I don't know if any of you remember the name Johnny Faresi. He was a Reformed Baptist that ran a list of Reformed Baptist churches in the

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United States. And you could send emails in and they would be distributed by an email list to various churches.

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And I know on our Wednesday nights, we'd read a lot of the emails that would come from Johnny Faresi. Well, Johnny was a quadriplegic.

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He ran that email list using his mouth and tapping on things.

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And he passed away a couple of years ago. And yet his testimony of thankfulness to God for a full life and his friends and the opportunity to be redeemed was really convicting.

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Because so many of us, we will have to admit, as soon as there is any level of adversity, the first thing out of our mouth is complaint.

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Complaint, a truly thankful heart. Complaint isn't understood from a truly thankful heart.

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Revelation 11, 16, and the 24 elders who sit on their thrones before God fell on their faces and worshiped

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God saying, we give you thanks, O Lord the Almighty, or Lord God the

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Almighty, who are and who were because you have taken your great power and have begun to reign.

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So here is a giving of thanks in the context of the redemptive act, the reigning act.

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Here, the bringing about of the completion of time and judgment of sin.

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There is thanksgiving that is being given in heaven, even in that context.

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So we see clearly in heaven, thanksgiving is taking place. And yet here on earth, in the

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Psalter, Psalm 50, offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving and pay your vows to the

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Most High. Right in the law itself were those thanks offerings. When we think of offerings, we think of the bloody sacrifices and the need for the forgiveness of sin and everything else.

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But remember, there was the provision for the giving of thanks to God by sacrifice.

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And that would be in the context of giving thanks to God that he has provided, he has made provision for us to be able to find forgiveness and to be right with him.

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And so we have this idea of a sacrifice of thanksgiving, a sacrifice of thanksgiving.

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When Paul wrote to Timothy, he said, I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord, who has strengthened me because he considered me faithful, putting me into service.

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I thank, here he is writing to Timothy, important and pressing things.

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And yet all through the Pauline corpus, one of the words you immediately learn when you first start learning to translate

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Paul in the original language is that beautiful, beautiful Greek word, eukaristeo, eukaristeo.

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It's sad that that term has been somewhat stolen from us. Eucharist, when

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I use the term Eucharist, for some of you, it doesn't make any particular connection, but for a number of you, there's an immediate connection because that's the terminology used to the

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Roman Catholic mass. It's called the Eucharist, the Eucharistic sacrifice. And so sadly, in many ways, that term has been stolen from us.

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We don't generally tend to use it. I've thought about starting a campaign to get it back, but I just decided that it wasn't really worthwhile.

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But I do speak on it very often, and it is a shame that one of the most beautiful words in the

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New Testament is one that we tend to shy away from, the Eucharist, eukaristeo, to give thanks.

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And when you translate Paul, it doesn't matter where he is, whether it's in the epistles he writes when he's free and traveling, or when he is imprisoned.

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It is absolutely a matter of his self -expression.

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I give thanks, I give thanks.

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He is a thankful man. And he gives thanks to Christ Jesus, our

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Lord, who has strengthened me because he considered me faithful, putting me into service. Do you thank

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God for the calling that he has given to you? You say, well, if you knew my calling, as soon as someone says that, do you realize the attitude it's expressing?

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It shows a lack of trust in the wisdom of the one who has called you into the situation you are now facing.

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Let's say you have a situation at work right now. You just, you're a boss, or there's somebody at work, and it's just, you don't see a way out, and you're praying for wisdom, but have you given thanks to God for your calling in the place where you are?

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The difficulty that is yours? You see, that would require you to have a fundamental trust that God is sovereign in your life, and that the calling he's given you is a wise calling, and that he's going to sustain you in that.

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You see, thanksgiving lives in the heart of a person who trusts God. And if there isn't thanksgiving, you really have to ask yourself the question, do

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I really trust God? Do I really trust where he's leading me?

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Do I really trust what he's calling me to? When Paul first starts speaking to the

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Romans, he says, first, I thank my God, through Jesus Christ, for you all, because your faith is being proclaimed throughout the whole world.

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Paul gave thanks to God through Jesus Christ for a church, the long to come and to evangelize, which means, obviously, evangelism isn't just preaching the gospel to lost folks.

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But he gave thanks to God through Christ for the believers there in Rome.

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He was thankful for his fellow believers. Are we thankful for our fellow believers?

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Well, we can say that we are. This is one of the reasons why we are commanded to gather together as the body of Christ, because I tell you, the internet has really made this bad.

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There are so many today who will talk about how they love the body of Christ.

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They love their fellow Christians. And they say that from the comfort of their easy chair at home.

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And they never get together with those messy people. And they never get involved in their messy lives.

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It's real easy from the position of isolation to say, oh, I love

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God's people. But see, we're commanded not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together.

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There's a reason for that. And the reason is you find out if you really do love when you have to live with other people.

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So many today. Y 'all mentioned going out to the

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Christmas lights thing at the temple. And most of you know that when we first started going out, we didn't go out to the

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Christmas thing, we were going out to the Easter pageant. One of the rules we developed early on in the first few years was we did not allow you to do that with us if you were not a part of a sound, solid, local assembly.

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Because it's spiritually dangerous to be involved in apologetic work. And if you're in disobedience to the command of Scripture, to be a part of a local fellowship and under the oversight of elders and obeying

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Hebrews chapter 13 and so on and so forth, if you're already in disobedience to God's word, you don't need to be out there talking to other people about their disobedience to God's word.

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And truly, when we, can anything change our attitude toward fellow believers more than truly being thankful for them in our lives?

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You might say, well, I'm not sure how to be thankful for a couple of people I know. Maybe I can be thankful that they're training me in patience, causing me to be more sanctified, something along those lines.

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I'll tell you one thing, I listened to the story of a man who works for Voice of the

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Martyrs who was arrested in an Islamic country a couple years ago. And he spent about a year, an hour, yeah, that would have been bad enough, a year and a half in prison, primarily with Muslims who did not treat him well.

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He was beaten many times. And I can assure you that after that experience, he has a far greater appreciation of Christian fellowship than he ever had before, than he ever had before.

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And yet, even in that context, he was able to give thanks to God because of who

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God is, who we are, and what God has done. But there is that element of our needing to give thanks for our

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Christian fellowship. Of course, we know that when Paul wrote to the Church of Colossae, he said, whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the

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Lord Jesus, doing what? Giving thanks through him to God the

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Father. Giving thanks through him to God the

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Father. How does that work? What do you mean giving thanks through Jesus?

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Well, we pray through our mediator. We are united with him. This is specifically and especially

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Christian thanks. It's, in a sense,

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Trinitarian thanks because you see, it's prompted in our heart by what? The Holy Spirit of God, the

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Holy Spirit who indwells us. He prompts that thanksgiving. He opens our hearts and our minds to understand the glories of what

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God has done. And then we know that we are united with Christ in him through his mediation is why we have peace with God.

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That's how we can approach the throne of grace because we're in Christ. And then the object of our thanks is

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God the Father, the very fountainhead of everything else that I just mentioned, and that is the whole gospel and our union with Christ, our being indwelt by the

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Holy Spirit. It's Trinitarian thanks. It's specifically Christian thanks.

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Now, there is a sense from Romans chapter one that the general revelation around us is sufficient to hold men accountable to do what?

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To give thanks to God. Every one of God's creatures will be held accountable and judged for whether they gave thanks to the one that gave them existence.

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But I think there is a difference between that general revelation and the requirement that that then places upon the creature, man, and what we have here.

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Whatever you do in word or deed, in all of your actions, do it all in the name of the

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Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father. This is descriptive of the entirety of our lives.

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This does not fit in to the Sunday afternoon, maybe

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Wednesday evening, maybe at a fellowship some other time type of Christianity that allows you to have your worldly activities and your

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Christian activities, as if we're all schizophrenic. This is an indication of the fact that we cannot put our

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Christianity aside. This is, whatever you do, on the job, in cleaning the house, in driving the car.

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Ooh, conviction. I have one of those Garmin auto cams in my car.

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Mainly because when you go on YouTube, all the fun stuff you see from Russia, you know, from all those, you know, because they have to have them for insurance purposes because of all the insurance fraud over there, you know?

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And so all sorts of cool stuff ends up on YouTube because the Russians are driving around with cameras on. And you see that Russians drive a lot worse than we do, actually, when you think about it.

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That ice thing has something to do with it, too, which can be really fun to watch. But not that we'd know anything about that, living here in Phoenix.

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Is it ever gonna cool off, by the way? I mean, it is mid -November, isn't it? Anyway, but I have all those things in my car.

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And it records not only what it's seeing, but also what it's hearing. And there are a couple times

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I've thought when I arrived at church, you know, I hope no one ever listens to what my car cam hears me saying about other drivers.

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No, I don't use profanity, but I have deeply insulted the intelligence of other human beings.

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And most of the time, because they're doing really dumb things, but still,

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I get convicted because of how easy it is to separate that out and become comfortable with that.

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Well, that's, no, whatever you do in, word or deed, that pretty much covers everything, and by the way, the word part or the deed part,

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I don't care which one you use, that also includes everything you type on the internet. No, it does, really.

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Think about that for a second. Whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the

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Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father. That's all of life.

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That leaves nothing out. And that means we are to be thankful in all that we do.

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The writer of the Hebrews put it this way. Through him, then, let us continually offer up a sacrifice of praise to God.

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And then, in what's called the use of the appositive, that is, what's the sacrifice of praise to God?

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I'm afraid it's not necessarily just a musical thing. It's the fruit of lips that give thanks to his name.

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That's what a sacrifice of praise to God is. The fruit of lips that give thanks to his name.

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You know, when people die, I don't know what it was about last year, but toward the end of the year, did you notice, you know, there are all these famous people that passed away and I don't think any more famous people died in 2016 than died in 2015, but there was just this thing going on where, get it over with already,

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I can't believe all these people have died and this is just terrible, I hate this year and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And when people die, what are they remembered for?

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Well, with all the scandals going on right now, that's gonna change a lot of people's epitaphs,

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I think. But what are you gonna be remembered for? I don't care who you are, you have thought about it.

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If you haven't thought about it, you might be just a tad bit too busy. We all think about it.

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What am I gonna be remembered for? And there's a lot of people, man, there's a lot of people in politics, their entire life is wrapped up in what their legacy is going to be.

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What are people gonna remember me for? As Christians, we have been given some pretty clear guidelines as to what we should be thinking along those lines.

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And without a doubt, we should be remembered as servants, as people who gave ourselves to the ministry that God had called us to, but we should be remembered as individuals who were thankful, who often expressed our thanksgiving to God for all that he had done, even in the midst of our most difficult trials.

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I'm not sure that that's what people would think about first foremost for me. I think each one of us has to think about that.

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The fruit of lips that give thanks to his name. Is that what we're, when people think of us and what we talk about, is that what they think of?

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Is that what they hear in our lives? You know that we are commanded in Ephesians chapter five.

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There's so many things here, but just notice how this just weaves in with all of it. Therefore, be careful how you walk.

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That is how you live your everyday activity. Not as unwise, but as wise.

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Making the most of your time. Oof, don't get me wrong here.

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I don't think there's something wrong with having recreation. Y 'all are having yourselves a football game.

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I hope nobody gets injured, but it sounds like fun.

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I remember doing that on a, I think it was a Christmas. We did it at Washington High School once, I recall. And man,

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I had a touchdown reception that was, I wish I had video. I really, really do.

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It was that good. It was one of those layout things and I got it. I got it. So few of them in my life.

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You remember the few that you have, obviously. But I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that at all, but I am concerned about the young generation right now because there's this thing called video games.

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And I know some young men, to be honest with you, they ain't gonna get married until they're 55 because they don't know how to talk to a girl.

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And the reason they don't know how to talk to a girl is because they know how to kill zombies so well. And if they ever actually held a gun, they would be really good with it because they can snipe people from half a mile away, at least on the computer.

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Those things can take over your life. And as a believer, we are commanded to make the most of our time.

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And if you're spending more time with that than you are in prayer, studying the word of God, memorizing scripture,

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I know I'm gonna sound like a big bummer up here, but you got a problem. Making the most of your time because the days are evil.

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So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is and do not get drunk with wine for that is dissipation, but be filled with the spirit, speaking to one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your hearts of the

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Lord, doing what? Always giving thanks for all things in the name of our

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Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father, and be subject to one another in the fear of Christ.

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I know we hear these words all the time and there's so many commands in it that if we're honest with ourselves, we just sort of get lost.

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I don't know that I can keep track of all that stuff, but they're all connected to one another. We talk about Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing, making melody with your heart to the

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Lord, but that's part of always giving thanks for all things in the name of our

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Lord Jesus Christ to God, even the Father. Notice it's Trinitarian again. Flows from our heart, prompted by the

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Spirit through Jesus Christ, given to God the Father, always giving thanks.

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This isn't something that is just simply done the third week of November. It's a good reminder, but this says always doing this, always giving thanks.

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When Paul wrote to the Corinthians, he said, and he will yet deliver us, you also joining and helping us through your prayers, so that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the favor bestowed on us through the prayers of many.

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Fulfilled prayer should be a reason for giving thanks to God. Isn't it amazing how many times we can get together and we can earnestly pray and we can seek

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God's wisdom and God's grace in a particular situation, maybe the healing of a young child or the deliverance of someone from a horrible situation?

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And like so much of the human family, God comes through, grace is granted, and how fast does our memory fade?

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Of that giving of God's grace. We have such a short memory in our society for anything these days.

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It seems because of the overflow of information, how much data is thrown at us each and every day, that we just can't keep up and it's almost a defense mechanism.

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It was only a matter of weeks ago that a man murdered dozens of people in Las Vegas.

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And maybe it's just because we just can't, we can't process all of it, but it's been forgotten by so many people.

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And just a matter of days ago, a man goes into that church, but that's gonna be forgotten, oh, not by the people that were there, obviously, but by the general population.

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Those are evil things and our minds tend to shove them away as Christians, all the good things

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God has done for us, all the deliverances, all the extensions of grace. And yet, take a test on Thanksgiving day or on the way up to Thanksgiving day and try to think back just over the past year.

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At all the times, God was good and gracious to you and you acknowledged it at the time.

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And now it's not even a part of your thinking anymore. It's not even a part of your memory. You know, if we dwelt on those things, could we possibly be a people who could complain against how our

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God is treating us about what we have, what we possess, what we look like? Could we ever be one of those who could be jealous of others if we truly had hearts filled with thanksgiving that recognized all that God has done for us?

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There's a joke in the big megachurches. I was a member of a megachurch once.

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The greatest source, it's actually not a joke. It's just an observation. The greatest source of division in those large churches almost always comes, sorry guys, from the music department.

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And I ran sound. Where's our sound guy? Okay, and I love the shirt. What does it say again?

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I can't see if I'm here, but basically if I'm guessing, it probably says nobody knows

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I'm here unless something goes wrong. Something along those lines? Yeah, that's pretty much how it is. Now, you gotta picture this.

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I ran sound in a church that had 20 ,000 members. The auditorium sat 4 ,700 people.

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We had a 250 voice choir and a full orchestra. I got there at six o 'clock in the morning and started hooking stuff up.

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And when it all worked perfectly, nobody ever looked at me, said a word to me, and nobody ever said thank you.

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Nobody ever says thank you. No, no, no, no. And, but if something goes wrong, every eye in that auditorium goes right to you because you're right out there in the middle of the balcony.

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You got no place to hide. And it may not have been your fault. I once had some guy in the viola section decide that the full back monitors, these things up here, were too loud.

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And so he reached over and unplugged it. Problem is they were in series, which means the guy at the piano no longer had a full back monitor.

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And he was really mad at me because he didn't, but there wasn't anything I could do about it. I can't fly out of the balcony and fix things like that.

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I'm going to tell you, if you want to see the seamy, ugly underside of people who are standing up there singing like angels, be with them during practice.

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More me, please. We want T -shirts that said more me, and we'd give them to certain soloists because they wanted more me.

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Oh, he's pointing at him. Wow, I'm watching what's going on. You guys can't see this. I'm seeing some insights right here.

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This is fun. Mm. Oh, a little, we might have to do a little sound counseling here.

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Maybe something I have special gifts in. But there were certain soloists, and man, you could tell they, and you know what?

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In a church that many people, we had some absolutely professional level people. They were awesome. They really were.

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They did some great stuff. If you want an example, go on YouTube and search

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Glenn Campbell. Glenn Campbell is a member of that church. Glenn Campbell, what's that beautiful song he sang?

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No More Night. Search Glenn Campbell, No More Night. I'll go ahead and say it.

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North Phoenix Baptist Church. And you'll see that was recorded about two months after I left that church.

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And you'll see the choir, the orchestra. I mean, it was a professional thing.

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But I'm gonna tell you something. Man, some of the greatest divisions came out of that music, that music.

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Because people were so enthralled with themselves. There were some huge egos involved.

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And I'm gonna tell you something. I think the greatest antidote to egotism in the church is a proper attitude of thanks to God.

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Not only for who he is, but for everyone else, and a recognition that if I have a talent, if I have a skill, if I have an ability, it was given to me by someone else.

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And I cannot boast over someone else. Man, if we really lived in light of that, can you imagine?

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Talk about making life in the body smooth.

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I think of Philippians chapter two. Don't look out for your own things, but the things of others. Put others before yourself.

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That is the very oil, the grease that makes it all work. And I think the only person can do that is a person whose heart is trained in being thankful to God for everything he's done, for who he is, for who

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I am. And every gift that I have came from his hand. I cannot boast of anyone.

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I can't boast to anybody that I'm somehow better than you, or I've accomplished something. No, it's all from God's hand.

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And a person who recognizes that will be the person who will give thanks and desire.

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You'll notice in this text, you also joining in helping us through your prayers so that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the favor bestowed on us through the prayers of many.

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We should be desirous that God would receive thanksgiving because of what he's done in our life, a deliverance that he's given to us.

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So many of these things. And this isn't something new. This has been a description of God's people all along.

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Now, when Daniel, Daniel chapter six, verse 10, now when Daniel knew that the document was signed, he entered his house.

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Now in his roof chamber, he had windows open toward Jerusalem and he continued kneeling on his knees three times a day, praying and doing what?

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Giving thanks before his God as he had been doing previously. It's his duty.

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It was his joy, but it's also his duty. It didn't matter if it was decreed that you weren't allowed to do that.

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We have to give thanks to God no matter what it costs us. We even end up in a lion's den.

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That's just the way it is. We give thanks to God. There is a recognition.

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And man, if Daniel had reason to give thanks to God, how much more do we? Think about how much more we know of the mystery of God and what he's accomplished.

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The psalmist expressed it this way in Psalm 35, verse 18.

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I will give you thanks in the great congregation. I will praise you among a mighty throng.

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If you're familiar with the concept of Hebrew parallelism in poetry, the

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Hebrew language expresses concepts and ideas by repeating them in different terminology.

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And so giving thanks and praise so often, I mean, if I even started working through them, you'd see this becomes a repetitive concept, giving thanks and praise paralleled with one another.

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It's so sad. I may have told you the story before at some point, but it's been so long since I was here, you've probably forgotten it, so it's okay.

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I was speaking at a conference in Chicago. It was one of the last, yeah, it was one of the last conferences that I ever spoke at with Norman Geisler, because this was right as he was publishing his book, "'Chosen but Free '," and right before I wrote my book called "'The

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Potter's Freedom.'" And we haven't been at the same conference together since then for some odd, strange reason.

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I'm not sure why, but anyway, if you've read "'The Potter's Freedom," you know exactly why that is. But I was about to get up and speak, and they had music, and they had a really good worship team.

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I'm not gonna get onto that particular phraseology, though I've always wondered exactly how you put those two words together.

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But anyway, do you go rah, rah better than the other team does? I mean, do you have competitions? I don't know, but anyway, they're really good.

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And they got up before I was gonna speak to do a song, and here's what they said. They said, we're going to, how'd they put it?

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We're going to finish up the worship before the speaker comes.

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And I'm standing down front. I don't know this church. Don't know most of these people.

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And I had a decision to make. Am I gonna say something, or am I not gonna say something?

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So what do you think? What do you think I did? Come on. Aren't I just a lovable fuzzball type guy?

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I mean, come on, you know me. I'm just, I'm a softie. Yeah, of course

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I said something. And so I got up and I tried to be diplomatic.

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I really do try. And I said, before we get started,

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I'd just like to say, now the worship team exited stage right and were gone. They never heard any of this, but I still said it anyways.

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I said, I'd just like to point out before we get started that the worship has not ended.

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It's just started. And that in reality, the most important part of the worship, which is the proclamation of God's truth and his word is just now beginning.

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And everybody just sort of sat there and stared at me. So I'm not really sure it really accomplished much of anything, but it always bothers me when

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I hear that kind of an attitude. But wouldn't our praise, isn't our praise much more real when we are expressing thanksgiving to God?

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I really struggle with the idea of how anyone can really offer true praise to God if their heart is not filled with thanks toward him for all he's done for them.

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If you walk into this place and you are harboring discontentment toward God, and whether you like it or not, discontentment toward God is a questioning of his wisdom.

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If you can honestly say, look, I just don't think God's being fair with me. I just don't, you're questioning his wisdom.

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He has promised to conform you to the image of Christ. Do you think, who has a better idea of how to do that? God or you?

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It's pretty obvious. And so if your heart is filled with discontent, then you are not thankful for what he's placed in your life, who he's placed in your life, where he's placed you, all the things he's done.

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And you can sing your lungs out if you want, but is that truly praise? How can you praise a

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God when in your attitude you are questioning his

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Godship? Because to question his wisdom is to question his Godship. You can't fully be surrendered to him if you do not purposefully recognize the need to be thankful.

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Thankful for everything he's done, but even thankful for the fact that he is so much wiser than you are.

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And you don't have to figure out your own sanctification. He's got that nailed down, he really does.

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Give thanks to you in the great congregation, I will praise you among a mighty throng.

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I know that I look too old to remember this, but I remember the angst of being a 16 -year -old

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Christian man and back in those days, what was the big topic amongst anybody that age?

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What is God's will for my life? Or for guys, is she

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God's will for my life? Now, thankfully,

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God was merciful to me. I was a sophomore in high school. The first week

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I attended that big, big church, this young lady walks into the

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Bible study class and I was like, that must be

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God's will for my life right there. I was that close.

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Remember Maxwell Smart, missed it by that much. That was actually my wife's twin sister and they're identical twins, so I was close.

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In fact, I was right on as far as, yeah, that's, I didn't know because a few weeks later, all of a sudden

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I go, there's two of them, wow, double the opportunity, good. Cause I needed the extra chance,

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I really did. It took me two and a half years. She later admitted that she thought

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I was too spiritual, I used to like girls. What is that? That hurt, but my wrist is vibrating.

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I think it's my wife texting me, don't tell that story. She hates when I tell this story, but it took me like two years to get her attention, but I eventually did and we've been married for close to 36 years.

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So it all worked out. But back then, you know, in Bible study classes and stuff, what was it that everybody always talked about?

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You all remember this, what's God's will for my life? What does

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God want me to do with my life? What's God's will for my life? And oh, we ransacked the

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Bible looking for specific directions, you know, looking for names of universities, you know, thumbing through the concordance and couldn't find anything.

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We are told exactly what God's will for us is in Scripture, actually. It's just not the kind of specific stuff that we were looking for.

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So when Paul writes to the Thessalonians, he says, see that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another and for all people.

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Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks for this is

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God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Now, I had Sunday school teachers that pointed me to that text, but I'll be honest with you, it just wasn't specific enough.

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I wanted names and places and universities and stuff like that. But there you have it.

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You wanna know what God's will for you in Christ Jesus is? In everything give thanks. In everything give thanks.

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And you know what? Well, if we really did that, it would so radically change us that we would understand that this is the key text.

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Because people will say, well, don't you really believe what the Bible says? You know, Jesus says, if you pray anything according to God's will, he'll do it.

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Yeah, I do believe that. And you see, when I pray according to God's will, what happens?

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I get changed to God's will. He changes mine.

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Instead of the silliness we have out there in churchianity, where God has to do what

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I command him to do. The reality is the biblical teaching is, if you're giving thanks to God, if you're being conformed to his will, then your prayers will line up with his will.

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And you will exactly see that what you pray for will take place. Because what you're gonna be praying for is the glorification of God, the giving yourself sacrificially in service to him, and all the things related there too.

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And that's going to include that heart of thanksgiving.

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That heart of thanksgiving. There's so much more. I mean,

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I barely covered it. Maybe a 20th. You want a cluster bomb of conviction?

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Go through the topic of thanksgiving. All of us have programs on our phones and our iPads and stuff like that.

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Look up thanksgiving and just start reading through. And man, after about the 25th verse, it's just like, okay,

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I can't take anymore. Because we are so often distracted from all the reasons that we have to give thanks.

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It is a part of Christian character. It is absolutely foundational to Christian character that we be a people who each and every day experience true spirit -born thanksgiving toward God.

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Don't let a day go by, don't let an hour go by that you do not say thanks be to God.

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Not as some kind of rote thing that has no meaning, but from your heart, from your mind, thanks be to God, I have eternal life.

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Thanks be to God, I know the depth of my sin. It's all been forgiven. Thanks be to God, before I ever drew a breath, even though God knew everything

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I was ever gonna do, He set His love upon me. Thanks be to God, I have life,

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I have existence. I'm going to have eternal life in the presence of God. Thanks be to God, He's placed me in God's church amongst

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Christ's people. I have the opportunity of serving them and giving myself in service to them.

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There is so much to be constantly expressing thanks for, and there will be nothing, nothing that will more assist you in cultivating contentment, the great

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Christian jewel of contentment than a heart filled with thanksgiving. In some ways, our

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Thanksgiving Day celebrations almost make it difficult to focus upon Thanksgiving.

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I don't know about you, but we got a turkey cooker last year. You know, the one, you know, the fryer?

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And guess who gets to do that? I'm not really good at that stuff. So I have to be very focused.

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I have to really put a lot of effort. You say, it's not that difficult to do that part, you know?

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Yeah, but I don't want it exploding and shooting through the roof or doing, you know, I've heard all those horrible stories about turkeys blowing up in cookers and stuff like that and burning houses down.

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And so, you know, maybe someday it'll be a little bit easier, but you know, when you're hosting it, there's a lot of stress, you know?

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And we try to do, my dad does the greatest dressing on the planet.

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I'm sorry, I know there's some of you in here who might argue with that. There is no argument here, okay?

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It is to die for, okay? Ask Summer, Summer will tell you greatest dressing.

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I've been trying to do it. I've come close a few times, but man, there's a lot of stress that day.

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And I just haven't found it that to be the best day for really having a lot of time to really focus.

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But try to find some time before or after to really, this year especially, with your family.

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Sometimes the holidays, they just, they rush at us and they rush by so quickly that, how many of you will honestly say that sometimes you get through the holiday season, you get done and you go, well, we certainly did a lot of stuff, but really not sure how much spiritual revival and focus

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I had. I was so focused on all the other stuff that sort of missed it.

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Okay, none of you have ever done that. I will now stand in front of all of you and go, there are times I just go, man, I missed it.

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I just had so many duties and so many things. Maybe if we take some time beforehand, try to sort of plan things out, get our priorities straight.

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Maybe this could be a time when all the way through, you know, it can't just be one day of Thanksgiving. And when you think about what we're celebrating with Christmas, thanks for giving, oh my.

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It's a whole season where we should truly be reflecting on all that God has for us, that we should be thankful for.

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That's what I'm gonna try to do, whether I'm successful or not, the Lord knows, pray for me and I'll pray for you as well.

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But we as a Christian people have a tremendous amount to be thankful for. Let's pray together.