Thanksgiving Pt.2

Thanksgiving Pt.2

This morning we are going to continue talking about thanksgiving. A few things that we are going to be talking about is that God is faithful. Especially in our times of suffering and our times of trouble. We need to remember all of the time that God is faithful. There should not be a day that we should not thank God for that. That's one of those things that we don't often think about, especially when everything is going good and everything in our lives seems to be going the way it should. We don't think about thanking God for being there for us. Because we get in in our mind that we don't need him, we get in it in our mind. When everything is going perfect, that we don't need God, that we don't need his help, we don't need his comfort. But when everything is going bad, that's when we turn to him. That's when we are looking for His comfort, that's when we are looking for the peace that he gives us.

Wouldn't it be great if we turn to God first? Wouldn't it be great if we thought and we thanked him for being there even when times are good? Because we understand and we remember when times are bad and when everything is terrible, we know God's there. People remind us of it all the time. We read it in Scripture. It's first and foremost in our mind. But that doesn't seem to be the case when everything seems to be going OK. That's one thing that I want us to really think about this morning as we're going through this message. I want us to think about how often we give God thanks for everything He does for us.

We're going to go ahead and get into some scripture this morning look at second Corinthians chapter one just two verses here verses 3 and 4. It says, “blessed be the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in our affliction, so that we will be able to comfort those who are in any affliction with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.”

So a couple of things that we need to talk about here. Blessed be the God and the Father. In other words, we need to thank God for everything that He does for us, thank Him for comforting us, thank Him for being there for us. Now, Paul wrote this letter to the Corinthian church. It's a second letter that he wrote to them. And this was one thing that he wanted them to understand. And it's something that we can. Know for ourselves as well. God is the only person that we can find all the comfort from.

Now we ourselves, we can go out and look for comfort everywhere. We can look for it in a bottle, we can look for it in alcohol, drugs, we can look for it in all these things, but we will not find true comfort. You will not find true peace unless it comes from God. That's it. There is no other way. There's no other option. Because all the other comfort is just false. It might seem right at the time, it might seem like a good idea at the time, but it will not last. There's no way it can last. But when we find comfort and when we find peace from God, it will last forever. It will last through eternity. So we have to ask ourselves, do we want temporary comfort, Do we want temporary peace, or do we want peace that surpasses all understanding? We want peace that will never go away. Do we want comfort that will never go away? We have to make that choice. Which one do we want? But if we want the long lasting, if we want the everlasting comfort, it has to come from God.

The next thing that I want to mention here is that we're supposed to help others. Verse 4 says He comforts us in our affliction so that we may be able to comfort those who are in in any affliction. So this is not just for us, this is not a gift just for us, but it is a gift from God that we need to be passing on to everybody else. Because that's part of loving people, that's part of being there for people. Comfort to be there for them, pray for them. We'll touch on prayer again here in just a little bit. We need to be there for somebody else. There is never anything bad that can come from helping someone, from being there for someone, from comforting someone.

Because whether we realize it or not, every single one of us needs that at some point. Now, we may say that we're strong, and we may be the strongest person ever, but there becomes a point in our lives where we need help, where we need a shoulder to cry on. We need somebody. The tail lights that they love us. We need somebody else to be there with us. We need to be with fellow like minded believers. Sometimes we just need somebody to sit beside us on the couch and not even say a word. Have we been that person for someone else? If we haven't, we should.

The Greek word for comfort means the one who comes alongside the help. You know, I think a lot about the Apostle Paul. With everything that he went through, with the beatings, with the stoning, everything that he went through in his life, he was still able to help somebody else. He still wanted to help other people. He still wanted to preach the gospel. He still wanted to help people get to heaven. Are we that way?

I may be wrong, but it seems to me a lot of times when something bad happens to us, when things are not going the perfect way that we think that they should, we want to give up. We want to quit. I'm sure there were times that if we were Paul and we went through a half of what he went through, we would have done, gave up, we would have quit. The devil would have won. We wouldn't even speak about God anymore. We can't do that. We can't quit. We can't give up. There's too much at stake.

Comforting others and being there for others is one of the great things about coming to church. That's why coming to church is so important. Book of Hebrews chapter 10, verse 25 says, “not forsaking our own, assembling together as it is the habit of sum, but encouraging one another all the more as you see the day drawing near.” Now this verse should bring home to us as well. It seems to be the habit of a lot of us to stay out of church. We forget how important it is to be in church, to hear God's Word, to worship with each other, to fellowship with each other. Because I've said this many times before, there's a lot more that goes on in this church than a few songs being sung, a sermon being preached. We get to be with each other, we get to fellowship with each other, we get to help each other. All of these things that happen in this building are important. That is why we need to come to church. That is why coming to church, assembling together, is an important part of the week. And I know that we have the online platforms and those are great if you can't be here. But I guarantee you if you talk to people who can't come to church. Go talk to someone who is shared in and doesn't have the ability to come to church and ask them what they miss. They missed the fellowship, they missed being here with each other. They missed worshipping God. Those online platforms are great, but they're not a substitute. We need to remember that and remember to come to church.

Go back to the book of Second Corinthians, chapter one. Look at verses 5 through 7. It says, “For just as the sufferings of Christ are ours in abundance, so also our comfort is abundant through Christ. But if we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation, or if we are comforted, it is for your comfort which is effective in the patient enduring of the same sufferings. Which we also suffer and our hope for you is firmly grounded knowing that you are sharers of our sufferings, so also you are shares of our comfort.”

Now, one thing that we have to understand, we have to know is coming. We have to know they're going to be suffering. They're going to be times of suffering. There are going to be bad times. Not everything is going to be perfect all of the time. But we have to realize as well that when those bad times come, we're not alone. We have to realize and understand God's always with us. He will always be there with us. And sometimes the sufferings are not as bad as we think they are. Sometimes we can learn from them, sometimes we can grow from them. Now we don't like to talk about that. We don't want to think about that, especially when we're there because it's terrible. It's hard times. But we can grow. We can build back stronger.

It's kind of like your muscles and your human body. If you go and you lift weights and you exercise, your muscles get tiny little tears in them. In other words, they get broken down. But they have to get broken down in order to grow back stronger. Same thing with our spiritual lives as well. A lot of times we go through a tough time, we go through a trying time, a hard time in our life, a hard season. But when we come out of it, we become stronger. We become closer to God. We become closer to where we need to be.

Take a look at James chapter one, verse 12. It says, “Blessed is a man who perseveres under trial, for once he has been approved, he will receive the crown of life which the Lord has promised to those who love him." So one thing that we see here, it's hard for us to understand, but sometimes the trials, sometimes the bad times may not be as bad as we think. And we need to remember that we are blessed all of the time. We need to remember that we are blessed when everything is going wrong. We are blessed when everything is going right. And oftentimes it's hard for us to get into that frame of mind that we are blessed all of the time. But when we get there. We will see how much better that we are. We will see that we truly understand God's promises. We truly understand peace. We truly understand comfort when we're blessed, when we feel that we're blessed all of the time.

Look at another verse here real quick. First Peter chapter 3, verse 14. It says, “But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed, and do not fear their intimidation. Do not be troubled.” Again, going along with this same theme here, remember that we are blessed no matter what, no matter what happens, no matter the trouble. No matter anything that might come our way, remember that we are blessed and remember that God will take care of us. He'll be there for us. He'll be there with us. He'll help us. He'll provide for us. He'll give us what we need.

Now you might ask yourself, well, how can I do that? How can I be blessed? How can I feel blessed when things don't seem to be going right? How can I feel blessed when? Seemed to be going sideways all the time when nothing seems to be going my way. We need to keep our eyes on God. We need to praise God through the storm. We want a praising when the sun shining, we want to praise him when we're on top of the mountain and that's wonderful, that's great, but we also need to praise him in the valley. We need to praise him when the storm is coming, we need to praise him when the storm clouds are here. Praise God all the time. Worship God all the time. Thank God all of the time. That's how we can be blessed, that's how we can feel blessed no matter what's happening. That is the key to success, if you will. Keep our eyes on God, don't let them move.

Go back to 2nd Corinthians chapter one for just a minute. Look at verses 8 through 11. It says, “For we do not want you to be unaware, brethren, of our affliction which come to us in Asia, that we were burdened excessively beyond our strength, so that we may despair even of life. Indeed, we had the sentence of death. Within ourselves, so that we would not trust in ourselves, but in God, who raises the dead, who delivered us from the great peril of death and will deliver us He on whom we have set our hope, 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.”

Now, we don't know exactly what happened to Paul between 1st and 2nd Corinthians. We don't know what happened in Asia. But by looking at those verses, it is obvious that something took place, something happened. And those words that he said in verse 8, so that we despaired even of life. It means they probably shouldn't have survived. This could have ended his ministry. This could have ended what Paul did. This could have ended his life. Now, like I said, we don't know what happened, we don't know what took place, but we do know something big happened. But what did he do? If you look at those verses, he trusted in God, not his self.

I've heard people say I don't trust anybody but me. That can become a problem. We need to trust only in God, because if we try to lead ourselves, we'll get ourselves in the awfulest mess you have ever seen. We need to trust God. We need to trust His plan. Trust his leadership, Trust where He will take us.

The last thing that I want to talk about about these verses this morning, pray for one another. Pray for one another, be there for each other. Just like we talked about all morning, prayer is important. We cannot forget how important it is to pray, James chapter 5 verse 16 says. “Therefore confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. The effective prayer of a righteous man can accomplish much”.

How often do we pray for each other? How often do we do it? How often do we truly pray for each other? Often do we take time out of our busy day to pray? And I know we're all busy. We all have all kinds of things going on. We're here, we're there, we're doing this, we're doing that. For some reason we are busier now than we ever have been. And I'm going to tell you a secret. That day's not any longer than it ever has been. There's still to only 24 hours. Do we ever get too busy to serve God? Do we ever get too busy to pray? Do we ever get too busy to thank God for where we are? I'm sure if we were all to examine our own lives, we could find room for improvement. We could find room to where we could spend more time for God.

But we don't need to neglect prayer. Again, going back to why it's important to come to church, we can see each other, we can talk to each other. We can tell each other where we need help. We can tell each other where we need prayer. We can give someone something to pray for. And we've got our prayer box in the back. We've got our prayer list in the back. Please pick one of those lists up. Look at those names. Pray. We don't have to know the need. We don't have to know the names that are in that prayer box. God knows each and every need. God knows each and every name. We need to make sure that we pray for them.

The last thing that I want to talk about about prayer is when somebody entrusts you to pray for them. We need to make sure that we do it. Because when somebody says, will you please pray for me? They're trusting you to pray. They have faith in you that you will pray. You will go to the Father on their behalf. We need to make sure that we don't forget, that we need to make sure that we do it, that we do what we say that we will.

So just to recap just a little bit this morning, the first thing that we talked about was that we need to be there for someone else. We need to be the person of comfort, the person of uplifting to someone else. One day we may need that, one day we may need someone to be there for us. We all need someone. We all need someone there. And like we've talked about all morning, that's one reason why it is important to come to church. Things that happen here cannot happen anywhere else. Come to church, be there for someone. Remember that we are blessed. No matter where we are at in our lives, remember that we're blessed way beyond what we deserve. And finally, remember to pray. You can't pray too much. You can't talk to God too much. Pray all of the time, no matter what. Pray in the good time. Pray in the bad time. Pray in the sad time. Pray often.

Invitation.