WWUTT 079 Thanksgiving (Colossians 3:15-17)

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Today, in a spirit of thanksgiving, we are looking at three verses in Colossians 3.
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And three times in those three verses does Paul call us to an attitude of thanksgiving.
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Indeed, if we are satisfied in our Savior Christ in all things, we should exude thanksgiving with our whole lives when we understand the text.
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You're listening to When We Understand The Text, committed to sound teaching of the Word of God. For questions and comments, email whenweunderstandthetext at gmail .com.
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And don't forget our website, www .tt .com. Here's our host, Pastor Gabe.
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Thank you, Becky. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone, at least to all of my listeners who listen in from the United States.
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If you're listening in any other part of the world, hey, every day is a day of thanksgiving in the
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Lord. Amen. And I appreciate you joining me today for Bible study. We're going to be in Colossians 3, reading verses 12 -17, again, talking about thanksgiving, having a spirit of thanksgiving in our hearts, being thankful to the
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Lord in all things. That has been our theme as we have been going through the book of Colossians, is knowing that we are completely satisfied in our
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Savior. And in this section in particular, the paragraph that we've been studying this week, Paul brings up thankfulness several times.
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So as he's giving these instructions of sanctification to the church in Colossae, having a spirit of thanksgiving is a great deal of that instruction.
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So we come to Colossians 3, starting in verse 12. And before opening up the text, let's open our hearts and our minds to the
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Lord in prayer. God, as we come to you today, we want to have a heart and a spirit of thanksgiving.
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Now today, it's very easy to think that way, of course, because that is the name of the holiday. But we desire with our whole lives and with every single day that we are alive to be thankful to God for all that we have been provided with.
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The very fact that we have a job and can make a paycheck, or maybe if there are those who are listening to this broadcast who are praying right now and don't have work, yet you are providing for our every need.
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We've got a way like this to be able to study the scriptures together. We know the salvation that has been given to us in Christ Jesus, which underlines our spirit of thanksgiving in all things.
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We know that we don't have to be anxious about anything, but that the Lord provides for us everything that we need for life.
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And so God, we are so grateful to you and help that to be a spirit that we have all the time, especially as we go out with the gospel, that they might see our good deeds and rejoice in Christ because of our testimony.
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We pray and ask for your spirit as we come to the text today. In the name of Jesus, amen.
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Colossians 3 .12, put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another.
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And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you.
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So you must also forgive and above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful.
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Let the word of Christ dwell in you, richly teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
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And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the
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Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God, the father through him. Surely you identified the number of times that a spirit of thanksgiving or thankfulness came up in that particular paragraph.
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In every single one of Paul's letters, he expresses thankfulness in some way.
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Now the Paul's letter to the Galatians is one letter where he does not express thanksgiving to the
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Galatians. The reason is because they had abandoned the gospel for a different gospel.
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And so he was writing to them to rebuke them. And he was struggling in his spirit for the
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Galatians because he felt like as a as a mother and a father to them that he had to go through labor pains again to bring them to an understanding of the gospel, which he had already done for them once.
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So the fact that he was feeling that anguish again, he said to the Galatians, I cannot express an appreciation for you in this way, but there's still thankfulness expressed in the book of Galatians, a thankfulness to God in all that he has provided for us, especially salvation in Jesus Christ, our
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Lord. So in every single one of Paul's letters, there is a real spirit of thanksgiving, of calling the attention of his readers to thankfulness in Christ.
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And of course, we have that especially here. So remember, as we go through all of chapter three, we've been raised with Christ.
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We are hidden with Christ in God. We are to put to death what is earthly in us, putting off the old self with its practices and putting on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
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And so granted that Christ is all and in all, as it says in verse eleven, we are to put on as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved because of what
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Christ has done. We are holy in the eyes of God. We are beloved by God. We are to put on compassion, hearts, kindness, humility, meekness and patience, bearing with one another.
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And if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other as the Lord has forgiven you.
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So you must also forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful.
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That's as far as we got yesterday, but that be thankful kind of giving a teaser into our message today as we're talking about having a spirit of thanksgiving, be thankful.
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Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
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Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. That's a great statement immediately following where he just said, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.
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Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. I have said in this broadcast before that the
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Bible reveals to us the mind of God. If you want to know the mind of God, you read the
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Bible. So how can we find ways to think more like God?
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The more scripture we apply to our minds, the more our thinking becomes less conformed to this world and more conformed to the mind of God.
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And it is knowing the word of Christ and having it dwell richly in us, which also will bring the peace of Christ to rule in our hearts.
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We are able to accomplish that better because of the word of Christ that dwells in us richly, that we benefit in having the word of Christ, all of this richly done for us, the more of Christ's word that we have.
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Remember Paul's words in Philippians 4, 8, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable.
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If there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.
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And it's necessary for me also to throw the verse in right before that. Verse 7, the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ.
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It's the same couple of phrases that he uses in Philippians. He also uses for the
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Colossians, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body and be thankful.
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Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom.
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All these things that come from Christ. If there is any excellence, anything worthy of praise, think about these things, practice these things,
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Paul says, Philippians 4, 9, and the God of peace will be with you.
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I recently shared on Twitter that one of the more irritating questions that I receive, so confession here,
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I'm confessing and confessing an irritation. One of the more irritating questions
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I get is, is this one. Is the Bible trustworthy? I will tell you that when
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I hear that question, I don't see that immediately. I don't see that as an opportunity to answer.
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Well, let me tell you about the Bible. I get irritated that a person's even asking me that, you know, in my mind.
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What I'm doing is what are you serious? You're kidding me, right? Is the Bible trustworthy?
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It's the word of God. How can we do anything without it? That's kind of the reaction that I have, which is very impatient of me to respond that way.
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But the spirit of God impresses upon me the words of Romans 15, one through three or one through four, really.
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And here's what we read there. We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.
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OK, this is not arrogant. It's just speaking about knowing that with our longstanding in Christ, we have a greater maturity than many people have with our knowledge and understanding of the scriptures.
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With some people who have a great knowledge of the scriptures, there's a greater maturity there than other people have.
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So we who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak and not to please ourselves.
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Let each of us please his neighbor for his good to build him up for Christ did not please himself.
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But as it is written, the reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me for whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction that through endurance and through the encouragement of the scriptures, we might have hope.
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So when a person asks of me and says to me, is the
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Bible reliable? You know, can we trust the scriptures? I immediately want to get irritated. But the spirit reminds me of that passage.
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I am convicted. I am humbled. And then I answer the question with kindness and with with patience.
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OK, this is an example of knowing the scriptures in such a way that they convict me and prevent me from reacting in a way that might be more of my flesh talking instead of the spirit talking.
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Does that make sense? Do you know what I'm talking about? So the more of the Bible that we store up in our hearts and minds, the more we think that way, the more it governs our thoughts and our actions.
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And and so this is the peace of Christ ruling in our hearts. And this is letting the word of Christ dwell richly in us.
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And sandwiched between those two things is being thankful. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts.
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Be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly. This call to thankfulness that is there.
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One of the reasons why we get angry and we lash out at people is because we're not thankful for them.
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That really is one of the reasons. And so we have to have an appreciation toward one another or else we do something that I mentioned earlier in the week.
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If we're not thankful for each other, if we don't see in one another the image of God in in whose image we were made in Genesis one twenty seven, if we don't have that appreciation of one another as an image bearer of God, then that's when we become that nitpicky, petty, keeping a list of everyone's wrongs, sort of a person that is devilish.
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It is not godly. We're doing the work of the devil when we do that to one another instead of the work of God, encouraging one another in the spirit rather than discouraging one another by a list of all of our fleshly weaknesses.
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So when we express thankfulness to one another, when we actually respect each other, then we are able to avoid that tendency to nitpick everybody's wrongs.
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And instead, we are encouragers. The peace of Christ that exists between us as brothers and sisters in Christ and the word of Christ dwells in us richly enough that we teach and admonish one another according to that, which is what we read as we go on.
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Verse 16, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom.
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Now, remember, the word admonish means to reprove with goodwill. So it's calling a person to correction, but doing that in a right manner.
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First, Peter three fifteen set apart Christ as holy in your hearts, set apart
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Christ as holy. Always be ready to give an answer for the hope that lies within you.
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But do this with gentleness and respect to one of Paul's pastor students.
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He says something very similar in a second. Timothy two twenty three have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies.
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You know, they breed quarrels. That's one of those things where hindsight's kind of twenty twenty for me.
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Like I won't realize that I should have avoided that quarrel until after the quarrel is over.
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Perhaps you have been there as well. But anyway, have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies.
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You know, they breed quarrels and the Lord's servant must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone able to teach patiently enduring evil, correcting his opponents with gentleness.
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That's admonishing. That's admonishing one another correction with goodwill, correcting opponents with gentleness.
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God may perhaps grant them repentance, leading to a knowledge of the truth, and they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.
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So when we lose our patience with someone else, essentially what's happening here is we think that it is up to us to turn their hearts.
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I'm guilty of this. I've done this before where I've lost my cool with somebody. And when I look back on it, I realize
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I was taking it upon myself to try to correct their error when it's really not upon me to do that.
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Nothing that I say, whether I'm yelling at a person or I'm speaking kindly to a person, nothing that I say is going to turn their heart.
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So I need to be obedient to God and realizing that I need to have a spirit of gentleness when
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I correct somebody so that I'm admonishing. I'm correcting with goodwill, correcting opponents with gentleness.
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And then it is God who grants them repentance. So that spirit of repentance didn't come because I yelled a convincing argument at a person, that spirit of repentance comes because God granted them to have a repentant heart leading to a knowledge of the truth.
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And they may come to their senses and escape from the snare of the devil after being captured by him to do his will.
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The reason why they aren't repentant of their sin is because they have been ensnared by Satan.
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So let us be obedient to the words of scripture, which tell us to correct one another with goodwill instead of with hostile intent.
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So we have this calling to teach and admonish one another in all wisdom.
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And perhaps one of the scriptures that may have come to mind when you read that is 2nd Timothy 3, verses 16 and 17.
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All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction and for training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
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The word of Christ dwells richly teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
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There's that call to thankfulness again. You know, I mentioned yesterday, I believe it was right at the very start of the program that 60 % of the
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Bible is poetry. So there's a lot of song in there. And this is a gift that God has given to us that we would lift up his praises in song.
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And with the doctrine that is in the songs that we sing, we also become an encouragement to one another as we teach and admonish one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
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So remember it was mentioned to us in Colossians 3, 14, that we are to put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
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We compliment one another in the songs that we sing and encourage one another literally and figuratively that our very lives become a song of praise to God.
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Remember what is written in Romans 15 verse five, may the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the
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God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you for the glory of God.
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This is something that speaks to me in a particular way because I came into being a pastor by first being the worship leader at our church.
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I was hired on as an associate pastor with an emphasis in worship. So it was my job to lead the worship every week.
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And I did that for two years until the pastor that I was under stepped down.
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And then I took over his role and became the teaching pastor at our church, which now I've been doing for the past three years.
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So I started out leading songs and still do. In fact, I lead worship at our church.
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And so I particularly connect with this calling to sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your hearts to God and whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the
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Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the father through him. As Paul said to the Corinthians, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all to the glory of God.
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So I say to you, as you go about your day and enjoying your Thanksgiving meal with friends and family, eat and drink to the glory of God.
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God bless you. We'll be back again tomorrow for our Friday review. You've been listening to When We Understand the
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Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. We hope you are a part of the church family committed to gospel teaching, and we thank you for including us in your
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