Thanksgiving Pt.3

Thanksgiving Pt.3

This morning we're going to finish up our series on looking at Thanksgiving, and this is a fitting time because we all know Thursday is Thanksgiving Day. A day where we have set aside to give thanks to give thanks for what we have. And just like I've talked about this whole series, this is something that we should be doing each and every day. It shouldn't be something that we just do on a random Thursday in November. Giving thanks should be first and foremost in our minds all the time. Because think about where we would be without God. Where would we be without Him blessing us? Where would we be without him helping us? We need to thank Him for that.

Another thing Thanksgiving does for us is when we get in the mind frame and we get in the habit of giving thanks. It changes our mind, it changes our outlook. Because that is how we can feel blessed. That is how we can feel that we are blessed no matter what happens. I want to go ahead and get into the scripture this morning. Look at Ephesians chapter 1, verses 15 through 17. It says, “For this reason, I too, having heard of the faith in the Lord Jesus, which exist among you for your love and for all the Saints, do not cease giving thanks for you while making mention of you in my prayers. That the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the God of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.”

So the first thing that I want to mention here about this, this is one of the prison epistles of Paul. We know that he wrote this when he was in prison in Rome. Now think about his mindset while he was in prison. He was giving thanks, He was thanking God not only for himself and what he had, but for others as well. Could we do the same thing when we are in that bad of a spot? And remember, this is a first century prison. Horrible place to be. He was giving thanks. He was praying. And we would all like to think that we would do the exact same thing, but I think it would be very difficult for us to do that.

And if you notice a few things he talks about here, not only is things giving things, prayer, love. He's got all that we need right there in these 3 verses, even from the bad situation that he's in. We need to love other believers. We need to love everybody. We need to be there for other believers. We need to be there to comfort and to help, and that's what we talked about a lot last week with coming to church and attending church. That's something that happens here. That's awesome. When we're able to be with each other, help each other to pray with each other.

Now, if you study Paul's words and you study what Paul says, he is always giving thanks. If you look at his letters, there's usually not very far apart that he is thanking God or thinking someone else for something. That is how we developed the habit of giving thanks. That's how we develop a habit for everything as we continually do it, whether it's a good habit or a bad habit, whether we realize it or not, that's how we develop those. If we want to develop a habit of giving things, do it multiple times a day for several days in a row, and then you'll do it without even thinking about it anymore. The same thing with prayer. If we want, and we should be developing a habit of prayer, pray multiple times every day and eventually you will get to the point where you don't think about taking time to pray, you just do it. It's out of habit. That is where we need to get in our lives, where we have a habit of Thanksgiving, we have a habit of prayer in our daily lives.

Another thing I want to talk about here is faith. Faith is one of the foundation principles of Christianity. It all has to start with faith. We have to have faith that Christ is who He said that he was. We have to have faith that God will take care of us. We have to have faith. In order to be a Christian. Take a look at a couple of verses on faith. Look at Matthew 17 verses 20 and 21. It says, “And he said to them, because of the littleness of your faith, for truly I say to you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you. But this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting.”

Do we have the faith that we should? Probably most, if not all of us at some point we have seen the mustard seed. I remember years ago there used to be Bible bookmarks with a mustard seed. There used to be little tie pins. Good friend of mine used to wear a tie pin all the time to church that had a little mustard seed in it. Now, if you've seen the mustard seed, it is very, very small. Very tiny. But it reminds us of this verse. If you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you could move this mountain. Think about how powerful that is. Think about the power that God has. We know that nothing is impossible with God. We know that if we need something, if we want something, we need to pray, we need to ask God for it. If it's in His will, we know it'll be done no matter what it is.

But along with that prayer, we need to have the right faith. We need to have the faith that God can do it no matter what we're asking Him to do. We need to have the faith that God can and will answer our prayers. We also need to have faith in God's will, God's plan, God's time. Because a lot of times we get carried away in our own. We forget about God, we forget about his wheel, we forget about His time. We get Him in the mindset that ours is the only one that matters. That is very dangerous to do. We need to make sure that we are not doing that.

Another thing I want to mention real quick about these verses. Verse 21 says, but this kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting. How often do we pray for wisdom? How often do we pray for knowledge and strength? I thought about that the other day as I was preparing this message. I thought about how often we pray, and a lot of times we pray for physical needs, we pray for others, and there's nothing wrong with that. That's what we need to be doing. But how often do we pray for knowledge? How often do we pray for wisdom? How often do we pray for strength? It will allow for a lot of things that we just don't think about. But it's very important for us to be able to get through this race of life. Because if you think about it, we always need knowledge, we always need wisdom, we always need strength.

Move down. Look at Ephesians chapter 1, verses 18 through 23. It says, “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you will know what is the hope of His calling? What are your riches of the glory of His inheritance in the Saints? What is the surpassing greatness of His power? Toward us who believe these are in accordance with the working of the strength of his mind. Which he brought about in Christ, when he raised him from the dead, and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority. And power, and dominion, and every name that is named not only in this age, but also in the one who come. And he put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him head over all things to the Church, which is the body fullness of him who fulfills All in all.”

So just a few things I want to talk about here real quick. We see again that Paul is still praying for people. He's doing this from prison again as well. It's just something that amazes me. I wanted to touch on a couple of times here. This morning. But Paul is praying that believers will have the disposition of godly knowledge and insight. Now what does that mean? Do we truly understand the greatness of the hope? That we have What I mean by that? Do we truly understand heaven? Do we truly understand how great, how vast heaven will be? Do we truly understand what it means? We truly understand the hope that we have.

I want you to think about it this way. The hope that we have today, the hope that we have as Christians today, is hope that nobody else has. We don't have to worry about death. We don't have to worry about what's going to happen. We know what is going to happen. If we're a Christian, if we're saved, if we've done the steps of salvation, if we have followed all of that, if we were still with Christ, we understand the hope. We know what has to happen. We know what's going to happen when our life here is over. Now, we may not know every little detail, we may not know every little thing that's going to happen, but we've been given a glimpse. We know that there'll be streets of gold. We know that there'll be no more crying, no more pain, no sickness, no death. Nothing like that will be a part of this place called heaven. Now if that's not hope, I don't know what hope is.

Because one of the most feared things in life is death. I don't think it is the most feared thing anymore. I think science done a study on that not too long ago. Now read an article the other day said the most feared thing today was public speaking. But if we are with Christ, we don't have to fear death anymore. We don't have to worry about what is going to happen. We don't have to worry about death. Another thing it does for us, it gives us the hope, it gives us the promise. That while we have eternity taken care of, we don't have much else to worry about. We can live without fear. We can live without anxiety. That's the inheritance that we see in Scripture is heaven where we will spend eternity.

Now there's all kinds of debate. There's all kinds of debate on what will happen. There's all kinds of debate on how many places there is to go, but the scripture only talks about two talks about heaven, and it talks about hell. Heaven, the place of peace, the place of rest, the place of wondrous. All these wonderful things we see and we talk about about heaven. If we look at hail, the scripture talks about the gnashing of teeth, it talks about fire, it talks about torment. I don't know why anybody would want to go there. So I'm gonna ask you this morning, where do you want to spend eternity? Do you want to spend eternity in a place that has streets of gold? A place where there is no death, no crying, no pain, no sickness, No place where we won't have to go to the pharmacy, there'll be no prescriptions to fill? Or do we want to spend eternity in a place called hell, A place where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth? Place of eternal fire. Now, to me, there's not much of a question here. I don't know why there would be very much debate on which place you would want to go, but it appears in our world today that there is. But that is the two options that we have. Which one will you choose?

That's the second thing that I want to talk about this morning is remember our hope. Remember our hope of heaven. Take a look at First John chapter 5, verses 13 and 14. It says, “These things I have written to you who believe in the name of the Son of God, so that you may know that you have eternal life. This is the confidence which we have before Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.”

Now if you notice this morning, that is our memory verse today. But we need to remember the hope that we have for eternal life. That is what gives us hope, that is what gives us peace, and that's what comforts us. And also, just like we've talked about several times, prayer, remember how important prayer is.

Along with that hope, we need to know, and we should know, how much of A joy it is to be a Christian. Look at Philippians chapter 1, verses 3 through 11. It says, “I thank God in all my remembrance of you always offering prayer with joy in my every prayer for you all in view of your participation in the gospel from the first day until now, where I am confident of this very thing, that he who began a work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. For it is only right for me to feel this way about you, because I have you in my heart, since both in my imprisonment and in defence and confirmation of the gospel, you are all partakers of the grace with me. For God is my witness, as long As for you all with the affection of. Jesus Christ, and this I pray that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve the things that are excellent in order to be sincere, blameless until the day of Christ having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Christ Jesus. To the glory and praise of God.”

I want to ask you a question. Are you proud to be a Christian? Are you happy to be a Christian today? We should be, we should be ecstatic. We should be happy that we are a Christian. We should be happy to the point that we tell everybody. We should be proud enough that we are a Christian to tell people that we are to tell people. Why? Why do we believe in God? Why do we have the hope of heaven? Why do we have the hope of eternity?

You see again, Paul is still thinking God. Even said there in verse seven, since both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. He's proud to tell the word of God. He's proud to tell people about Jesus. He's proud to tell people what God has done for him. He's still praying for people, he's still being there for people with joy.

And the last thing that I want to mention this morning is he is not concerned about himself. He's concerned about others. That's humility. That's being humble. And that is what we have to do, is we have to humble ourselves. Take a look at a couple last verses this morning. First Peter chapter 5, verses 6 and 7. Says, “Therefore humble yourselves under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you at the proper time, casting all your anxiety on Him, because he cares for you.”

Humility is something that takes some work. It's not something that's easy. It's not easy to put our pride out of the way. Being prideful is the easy way out. Being concerned about only ourselves is the easy way out. But that's not the life that God wants us to live. That's not the life of Scripture. Humility is the life of Scripture. Being humble, being there for others, concern for others. If we look at Paul's life, if we look at Jesus's. Half especially. Everything he did was for other people. If we look at Paul's life after his transformation. He was always concerned with everyone else. He was always praying for everyone else. He was always there for everyone else. He had to put himself out of the way in order to be able to do that.

We too have the same duties. We're supposed to help other people, we're supposed to love other people. We're supposed to be there for other people. You know, long, like Paul, we need to be joyful about spreading the gospel because of what it can do for other people's lives. And we should know that because what the gospel has done for us.

So I just want to recap just for a minute or two this morning, some things that we talked about. The first thing that we mentioned was that it has to start with faith. In order to be a Christian, we have to have faith. There's no other way. We can't believe in God without faith. We can't pray without faith because we have to have faith that God is real. We have to have faith that God will answer our prayers. Everything has to start with faith. The second thing that we talked about today was remember our hope. Remember the hope of heaven. Remember eternity. We talked about heaven, we talked about hail. Which one are we going to choose? Because the choice is definitely ours, which one will we choose? And the last thing that we mentioned this morning was that we need to humble ourselves. We have to put ourselves out of the way. We have to humble ourselves in order to do God's work, in order to serve other people, in order to love other people. Are we willing to do that today? Are we willing to do what we're supposed to? Are we willing to follow God's Word?

Invitation.