[Andy Duran] Well, brethren, recently, I was reading in some articles on history.com. I don't know if you've ever stumbled upon that website yourself or anything but, you know, occasionally, I'll see a news article or just a little blog article, come across. They have a lot of articles that say, "Today in history," and it's kind of fun seeing what happened, whether it be in 100 years, or 200 years, or so ago.

But I was reading across some articles discussing the life and travels of a group of Protestants. You see, over 400 years ago, there was a group of disgruntled Protestant group, English Protestants, that left their village in England, and they started moving to a town in Holland. If you're not familiar with Holland, it's a little section in the Netherlands area, I think a couple of provinces that make up Holland, a region. Among other reasons, these people left their homeland in seeking a more religious freedom.

They wanted freedom from the Church of England, which was the established Church of England at the time, seeing that they also didn't want to pledge their allegiance to that church. In Holland, these Protestants became known as separatists because they separated themselves from the Church of England, and they'd hoped to find themselves in Holland, a free place to worship as they liked. As the article continued on, these family members, they actually referred to themselves as saints, did indeed find religious freedom in Holland. However, what was also found was a secular life that was much more difficult to navigate than they would have expected.

During these times, there was Dutch craft guilds that excluded migrants. And because of this, the so-called saints were forced into low-paying jobs. Along with these difficult career hurdles, even worse was the easygoing and different culture atmosphere from the Dutch areas, from the Netherlands, which was proving to be an alarmingly seductive call for these peoples' children. A leader among the group, Mr. William Bradford, wrote in reference to these events as a drifting away of their children by, as he wrote, "by evil example into extravagance and dangerous courses." For their strict religious beliefs of these Protestant separatists, this would be the last straw that broke the camel's back. They knew they couldn't stay in Holland any longer.

So what was next for this group of travelers? While regrouping back in London for supplies and to reorganize, they set their sights on the New World across the Atlantic Ocean. Originally, there were actually two ships that were destined for that same location across the Atlantic, the Mayflower and the Speedwell. However, due to the Speedwell's seaworthiness, or lack thereof, and the leaking that it had, they actually had to turn back and come back to England where they actually all unloaded everything from the Speedwell and crammed everyone on board and all their belongings on the Mayflower. Due to this going back and forth, they were delayed for quite a bit of time. And because of this, they hit the seas and the ocean in what would be the height of bad weather on the ocean… a bad weather and a bad storm season.

The travelers were rough. They had a tough time, some becoming so seasick that they couldn't even get themselves out of bed, or off the floor, or wherever, they would have been bunking down. The waves were so rough that, actually, one of the travelers was swept up off the boat and actually drowned in the ocean. He was not part of the religious group. And Mr. Bradford also writes some more about that guy saying that "It was the hand of God because he was the most proudful and profaning individual," I think is how he quoted it. So this religious group always had God in mind during this whole trip. But upon arriving in the new world and hitting hard winter months ahead, sadly, only about a half of them survived.

However, through all and all, through troublesome travels, to losing some of their young family members to evil society around them, for half of them dying in the winter, this group of colonists met and planned what we now know as the first Thanksgiving with the local Native Americans. What was there to be thankful for? This group of individuals had decades of strife. I didn't give any dates, but I think it's around 1608 that they started their trips to Holland, and then around 1620, I think, when they came across the ocean. But they had decades of strife and travel, losing family members to wicked pulls of the world, losing half of the settlers to the bitter cold months of the winter.

A lot of people would forget Thanksgiving, and some would even curse God. Some would even curse God for all these things, but it wasn't so for these early Americans. Instead, they were thankful for life, abundant crops, new freedom, and thankful for the lessons they learned and their preparedness for the upcoming next winter. They had some positive attitudes, some could say, but I would go a little bit further. And I would say that they had a thanksgiving attitude. With the national holiday known as Thanksgiving coming up, and now that we have our Thanksgiving potluck just an hour or a couple of hours away, I thought it was fitting for this season that we could take a look at a thanksgiving attitude in the Bible.

And so, for today, let's take a look at some key components listed in what is known as a Thanksgiving Psalm. Turn with me over to Psalm 100. Psalm 100, if you have a little tie down or bookmark, you're welcome to place it there. Won't say you have to because I can't really force you, but we're going to be turning back and forth from this scripture here. So, it may help you. Psalm 100 starts with a beginning saying, "A song of praise for the Lord's faithfulness to his people." It has a title "A Psalm of Thanksgiving." Verse 1, "Make a joyful shout to the Lord, all you lands! Serve the Lord with gladness; come before His presence with singing. Know that the Lord, He is God; it is He who made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture. Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name. For the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations."

The first key component I want to pull out of this scripture here and kind of dive into a little bit deeper is Psalm 100:1. "Make a joyful shout to the Lord.” It's a joyful shout. What does that mean? Is it as obvious as it means? Sort of. There's always a little bit more we can get from the Scriptures than just in the original English. I won't point out the Hebrew word to you, but it gives this idea and this meaning of, to raise a noise. You could do this with voices or with instruments, all sorts of ways you could raise the noise, specifically, a horn, or, traditionally, a ram's horn, excuse me, during this time known as a shofar, if you're familiar with that.

It's interesting when playing the trumpet… I guess show of hands if you're comfortable. How many of you played a brass instrument back in the day? Trumpet or… oh, it's a lot of people. Okay. I played trumpet when I was in elementary school for probably a couple weeks. I didn't last at a lot of things very long back to when I was a child. But when playing the trumpet, there was many things that were taught to us as young kids. One specific thing that comes to mind, we were taught about breathing.

Breathing techniques and different ways we could get air within our bodies for blowing out of this trumpet. We were told to take deep, full breaths. We were taught to be relaxed, don't raise your shoulders. Let the air come in naturally filling with air to the beat into the tempo, in and out in rhythm. You can imagine taking a deep breath and letting it hit the deepest part of your core, filling up your dia… well, I don't know the anatomy, filling up with diaphragm, and lungs, and all how that works.

But the idea here that kind of plays into this imagery is that a shout of joy would be from the very depths of who we are, from the fold and the deep parts of who we are, from our very most core to God above. Maybe we have a realization that all of a sudden, we have blessing, direction. Maybe God has provided healing in our lives, either physically or spiritually. Maybe God solved the problem that we were facing, and we realize all of a sudden, "Ah, that's all from God." And it comes from the deepest parts of who we are.

And, therefore, we bring a deep and sincerely-felt shout to God. Reminds me of a story and how this phrase really works in our lives. I was told a story about a doctor. There's this doctor who worked in a remote village, maybe in India, where there had happened to be a progressive blindness of the people. You see, the people were born healthy with healthy vision, but naturally over something, whether it was environmental or some foods that they ate, a lot of people began going blind in that area. People were to lose their sight as they matured through the ages, through the years.

But there's a certain doctor who had developed a process which would start… excuse me, stop the progressive blindness. People would come to him all over this area, and he would perform this operation, and these people would leave realizing that they would have become blind if it wasn't for this doctor. But now they were going to be able to see for the rest of their lives. This doctor had said they never said thank you because the phrase "thank you" was not in their language. Instead, they spoke a word that meant, "I will tell of your name."

Wherever they went, whatever they did, they would tell the name of the doctor who had stopped their progressive blindness. They would tell the name of the doctor who had cured their blindness. You see, they had received something so wonderful, something so exciting, and they eagerly would proclaim it to the world around them. This is what Psalm 101 is really telling us to do, proclaim God's name everywhere that we are. We may have that sudden realization in our lives, God is good.

I know it's an obvious statement, God is good. But sometimes we have that realization almost, and we want to just tell it to everyone around us. We just can't keep it inside any longer. We want to shout it. We want to proclaim his greatness with joy. Look at Jeremiah 31:6. Wow, I turned right to it. I'll give you time, 31, Jeremiah 31:6. That doesn't normally happen. But we know that God is great, and God is good, and sometimes we just can't keep it inside any longer and nor should we.

We want to proclaim God, proclaim the Lord, to all that we come across. Jeremiah 31:6, "For there shall be a day when the watchman will cry on Mount Ephraim, 'Arise, and let us go up to Zion, to the Lord our God.' For thus says the Lord: 'Sing with gladness for Jacob, and shout among the chiefs of the nations; proclaim, give praise, and say, 'O Lord, save Your people, the remnant of Israel!’" I think I'll stop there.

You see, cry here, cry out when it says, "When the watchman will cry on Mount Ephraim," it's another Hebrew word that gives the same phrasing of an idea attributed to shouting and singing with gladness or joy, joyful singing, proclaiming, giving praise to God. So, it's a remarkable thing that we should be a part of. And so the first key component to thanksgiving we see Psalm 100 is that we should be making a joyful noise, proclaiming God from our innermost being. Let's turn back to Psalm 100.

Psalm 100, let's continue on, another key component we find is in verse 2. "Serve the Lord with gladness." So we see another key component with thanksgiving is serving the Lord with gladness, serving the Lord with gladness. It's interesting what’s... you know, you can almost read right by it and miss it, but it constantly says "Serving the Lord." It doesn't say, "Serve the Church," or, "Serve the pastor… serve the brethren… serve the administration," or any other word you want to put in there, it says "Serve the Lord with gladness."

Now, yes, we are to be physically serving one another, but more or less as stewards of God's grace to us. We should be serving one another, yes. But really, we are to be serving the Lord with gladness. Look at 1 John 5:1. I very much enjoyed the sermonette this morning. We had a quick, brief talk before the message, and he had said, "I saw your title, and I hope I don't stomp on it too much, but I think they work really well together." Unity and seeking peace is always something that I like to study.

And no doubt about it, we will have true peace if we have more thanksgiving in our lives, thanksgiving to God. 1 John 5:1, "Whoever believes that Jesus is the Christ is born of God, and everyone who loves Him who begot also loves..." Excuse me, let me start over. "And everyone who loves Him who begot also loves him who is begotten of Him. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and keep His commandments. For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments. And His commandments are not burdensome."

You see, brethren, the love of God, or to have love towards God is more than just a feeling. You know, hopefully, we understand this. But love is an action. It produces actions in our lives, it should produce actions in our lives. It's a sacrificial love, a love that we'd be willing to lay down our lives for one another, lay down our lives for God. Love is keeping God's commandments. It says, "They are not burdensome." You know, God's commandments are not too hard for us. They're not meant to be burdensome. They're not too demanding. They're not difficult. Paul says elsewhere that they are “holy, just, and good.” You know, the law of God shows us what love is, keeping God's commandments, you know, honoring one another in deeds of good and in actions. Those are the good things to do.

Until we truly grasp this understanding of serving the Lord? Not just how we serve, you know, in this action or that action, you know, service projects and physical help. It's not just how we serve, but instead why we serve. Maybe we can ask ourselves, "Do I serve out of fear? Maybe I'm afraid of the repercussions of not serving. Do I serve out of obligation? Do I think I have to serve, and that's why I'm serving? Maybe, do I serve out of recognition or appreciation?" It's coming up in another word there? Do we serve out of recognition? You know, desiring appreciation can be fine at times, but we need to be careful that it's not our motivating factor for serving, right?

Look at Colossians 3. Our sermonette, during our sermonette, we went to Colossians 3. We didn't hit on the scriptures I will talk through today. Colossians 3:23 says, "And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord, you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ. But he who does wrong will be repaid for what he has done, and there is no partiality." It says understanding that ultimately we serve the Lord, the Lord ultimately will appreciate our service. Understanding that when we serve one another, we're really truly serving the Lord.

If you remember, if it comes to mind, Jesus Christ had some words that are very similar to this. I didn't put it in my notes, but you know, Jesus Christ talks about where, "When you clothed Me when I was naked, or when you gave Me food when I was hungry," you know, the disciples, whoever were talking with Him said, "Well, when did we do this, Lord? When did we clothe You? When did we feed You when You were hungry?" He said, "Inasmuch as you've done this to the least of my brethren, you've done this to Me," right?

Ultimately, we're serving the Lord. Let's turn over to one final section for this point, one final scripture, Psalm 118 because we should be serving the Lord with gladness. Psalm 118:17, "I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord." Interesting. I may have put a scripture out of order here. That kind of fits a little bit more with shouting before the Lord, so let's just file that away with point number one.

I don't know. I mean, I have that written in here. It's not even printed, so check that off as a mistake. But it's still a good scripture. And so we're to serve the Lord with gladness. It should be a part of who we are. It should be why we serve the Lord, out of gladness, because we love Him because we keep His commandments because we are glad to do it. You know, God commands that we do certain things, and that's ultimately why we have to do them, but we also love to do them.

Let's turn back to Psalm 100 and look at another key component. Psalm 100:2 b, as some will find it in some books and some different things. In verse 2, in the second half of the verse, "Come before His presence with singing." And so a third key component that we can find with thanksgiving is to “come before His presence with singing.” The Hebrew word here for singing is pretty interesting. I found it interesting it's only used four times in the Old Testament. It's a common Hebrew word but only four times in the Hebrew Scriptures in four poetic references, two in Job and two in Psalms.

And it's usually to shout for joy or to rejoice, you know, some type of triumphantly cause of joy in our lives. Let's look over one of those examples in Psalm 63:5. Psalm 63:5 is one of the examples where this Hebrew word is used. Psalm 63:5, "My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise You with joyful lips. When I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches. Because You have been my help, therefore in the shadow of Your wings, I will rejoice."

It's an interesting set of words there in English, "Be satisfied as with marrow and fatness." There's another translation. Let me read to you from the New Revised Standard Version. This says, "My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast, and my mouth praises You with joyful lips when I think of You on my bed, and meditate on You in the watches of the night. For You have been my help, and in the shadow of Your wings I shall sing for joy." Here, that same word, that same Hebrew word is translated, "joyful lips." "And my mouth shall praise you with joyful lips," in Verse 5.

"And so we are to come before his presence with joyful lips, with singing, with shouting of joy." Let's take a pause here, and let's reflect on the first three points because it's interesting to see that the first three key components of thanksgiving have to do with joy. They have to do with being happy. It's almost like God is saying, "I want you to be happy, shout with joy, serve with gladness, come with joyful singing." Isn't it wonderful that we have a loving God that wants us to be happy? I think it's great. I think it's wonderful.

But are we truly being thankful at all times? How do we show our thanksgiving to God? There's an interesting proclamation by Abraham Lincoln, maybe if you've heard it. In October 3, 1863, then President Lincoln had a proclamation of thanksgiving, and I'll pull two quotes out of it kind of mashing together. It says "We have been the recipients of the choicest blessings of heaven." Later on, he said, "No mortal hand worked out these great things. They are gifts from the Most High God."

It's a pretty good quote. It's wonderful how men in times past focused on God and noticed and recognized that our gifts are from God, our nation, the blessings that we have, this land. It's so huge. It's got the oceans that buffer us from danger. It's wonderful, and they are from God above. It's a remarkable statement. We're given the choicest of blessings. Not just bummer blessings, but the choicest.

God's blessings, it weren't of our own power and our own doing. And so we look around at these great blessings that we have in the United States and all over the world, not to just single out the United States because God has blessed many people and many nations. And what is our general responses been as mankind? What has been the fruit of our thanksgiving as a whole? Well, as a creation, as man, we definitely polluted the gifts that we've been given.

Sometimes we wipe out whole ecosystems, and we wipe out fishing streams, and we pollute different areas. You know, there's places all over the world where we pollute the air so bad that, you know, the citizens have to wear masks, and it causes asthma problems and all sorts of things. However, this shouldn't be how we are in God's Church. We should always offer to God a thanksgiving, have gratitude, have appreciation, having minds that are grateful for the gifts that He's given us. We should be coming before Him with gratitude, singing our praises to God, attentive of all the blessings He's given us.

We should be preserving the gifts that He's given us, not polluting them. And so here we find another key component of thanksgiving. It is to come before Him, come before His presence with singing. Let's look back at Psalm 100. Psalm 100, we'll see a fourth key component. Psalm 100:3 says "Know that the Lord, He is God; it is He who has made us, and not we ourselves; we are His people and the sheep of His pasture." This key components that we can pull out here is having an understanding of a full dependency on God.

You know, understanding… it's interesting, there are three aspects to God listed in this key component. One, God is God, we are not. Da da da, maybe yet? Because God is building His family, right? But God is the I am, the ever existing. You remember what God told Moses? He said, "I am who I am. I've always been. I've always existed." Another aspect to it is that God is the Creator of all, including you and I, including mankind. Let's look at Nehemiah 9:6. I haven't been to Nehemiah lately… I almost started turning the wrong direction.

Nehemiah 9:6, here we find, "You alone are the Lord; You have made heaven, the heaven of heavens, with all their hosts, the earth and everything on it, the seas and all that is in them, and You preserve them all. The host of heaven worships You." It's a wonderful praise scripture. It says "God has made all and all." You know, God the Father is creator of all through Jesus Christ. God created us. God took every bone that we have, every joint that we have, and He welded them together with sinews, and muscles, and covered them with skin.

It's interesting, He gave us eyes that can see, brains that can think, fingers that can pick things up. You know, God made us inside and out. He put a lot of time and thought into the delicacies and intricacies of what we are as human. And not only did He give us the physical components, but then He gave us the spirit of man to understand, to have reasoning, to think things out, to be different than the animal kind, to be after the God kind.

What's amazing, what's a great thing about this that God is creating us, He's actually not done, is He? You know, God is still creating us. Let's look at Philippians 1:6. Recognizing that God is the creator of all, Philippines 1:6, and He's not done, is He? Philippians 1:6, jumping into a thought here, it says "being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ." Let's look over in chapter 2 in verse 13. Philippines 2:13, "For it is God who works in you both to will and to do for His good pleasure."

You see God has created us physically, but also He's not done. He's completing a work within us. God is our Maker. We are made in His image. We should give Him thanks for that. Give Him thanks that we're not just okay instinctual beings like monkeys, give Him thanks that we're made after His image, and given the spirit of man to reason. And then if we're baptized, and we had the laying on hands, and we were given God's Spirit, we should be thanks for that as well, another component to what He's building within us and how He's still creating. It's amazing.

And this is another aspect to that key component that God is creator of all. Another aspect we see in that key component is that is the Lord is our Shepherd. The Lord is our shepherd. Let's turn over to maybe what is a familiar scripture, Psalm 23. I personally love this section of the Bible, Psalm 23. There's a short book out there. I don't know the author, but it's a shepherd's look at Psalm 23. It's an interesting read if you ever have the time. It's about a shepherd's perspective on this chapter of the Bible.

Psalm 23, starting in verse 1, we see a title, "The Lord the Shepherd of His People” “A Psalm of David. The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me to lie down in green pastures; He leads me beside the still waters. He restores my soul; He leads me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake." At different times in our lives, maybe we can find ourselves wanting to be the shepherds and not necessarily the sheep. We can maybe say, "What's fun about being a sheep?"

Have you ever watched sheep from time to time? I've only seen them in the zoo, so they're a little bit different than the wild. But sometimes we think, "I want to be the shepherd, I want to lead." But here it's saying the Lord is the true Shepherd, understanding that He leads. And without Him, we can't find green pastures. Without Him leading, we can't find green pastures. A key to thanksgiving is fully depending on God. Let's jump to another speech and another proclamation. This time, it's the year 1789. Who is it? It's the first president, George Washington.

I believe the first election was 1789. I should have checked that fact. But 1789, George Washington has a public Thanksgiving Proclamation. And he says, "Whereas it is the duty of all the Nations to acknowledge the providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits, and to humbly implore His protection and favor, and whereas both Houses of Congress..." I’ll interject here. It's interesting that both were in agreement here.

So there was unity at some point in our political system. He writes, though, continuing, “…have by their joint Committee requested me ‘to recommend to the People of the United States a day of public thanks-giving and prayer to be observed by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal flavors of Almighty God… favors,’” not flavors. I'm sorry. "Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th day of November next to be devoted by the People of these states to the service of the great and glorious Being, who is the beneficent Author of all the good that was, all that is, or that will be."

Such a remarkable section in a speech, which seems like so far long ago. You know some politicians and some presidents do honor God in some of their speech, but it's remarkable how you can find a lot of examples from older times. It's an amazing, and strong, and absolute acknowledgment of a Creator and all-powerful God who made the universe, provider of good things. Also on our nation's dependence on Him. You see dependence on God is key for thanksgiving. So, we find here another component, which is to understand God is God, no other like Him, Creator, and Shepherd.

Let's turn back to Psalm 100. Psalm 100 for a fifth key component. Psalm 100:4, I believe. Yes. Psalm 100:4, "Enter into His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise. Be thankful to Him, and bless His name." So, we see another component. It is to enter His gates and enter His courts with praise. "Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise." You know, the word "enter" here is a very common Hebrew word. There's maybe nothing too special about it. But here, in this section of the Bible, we see that it gives this idea of more of coming with solemnity or in a formality sense. Let's parallel it with a couple of chapters back, Psalm 95:6. Psalm 95:6, it says, "Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the Lord our Maker."

Here we see that same concept of entering, but in here, it says, "Oh, come, let us worship and bow down." This idea of solemnity or coming with formality, a formal or dignified approach, coming to worship the very living God. Here we see the symbolism of gates and courts. Maybe they weren't so symbolic back then, but now we would see them more symbolic because the gates and the courts were aligned with the physical temple. You see, the people of Israel were to come through the gates, and they would come into the courts to praise God as a single congregation, as a united body.

In the Old Testament, God's presence was signified and was made evident in the tabernacle, in the temple, and the different physical elements back then, but there's no physical temple anymore right now. We don't have a building we look to that says, "That's God's temple." So, how does this apply to us? How do we come into His gates? How do we come into His courts? You see, but as members of God's Body, we are part of the living temple, God's Church is His temple, individually and collectively as a whole. God is dwelling in each one of His Church members. Everyone that the Spirit is leading, God is dwelling there.

As a group, we are God's temple. And so when we obey the Sabbath command, we not only rest from our normal labor's, right? We don't go to work. We don't punch the clock. I mean, how many people punch a time clock anymore? Never mind. But we don't just rest on the Sabbath. Yes, those are appropriate, and, yes, that is commanded, but we also assemble together, right? That's part of the command. We assemble together, and so we come through the gates and into the courts metaphorically. Each Sabbath day during services, we should be coming here, or your respected congregation, every Sabbath with thanksgiving and praise.

And so we can ask ourselves, are we always coming before God in a thanksgiving attitude? Are we always coming before Him with gratitude and appreciate, and with a grateful attitude? Have we thought how we treat God at times? Maybe that's a more difficult question to blow out of our… maybe it's a difficult question and such broad. Maybe flip the question. What if God dealt with me like I deal with Him? What if He was ill committed to us? What if He dealt with us like we deal with Him?

What if God met our needs to the same extent in which we give Him our lives? What if He wouldn't bless us today because we didn't thank Him for something yesterday? What if God answered our prayers the way we answer Him sometimes, other times not, not listening, maybe staring at His phone, not paying attention? What if God decided to stop leading us tomorrow because we didn't follow Him today? Thankfully, we don't have a God like that.

Turn with me over to Psalm 103. Psalm 103:6, we see some uplifting and hopeful scriptures. Psalm 103:6, "The Lord executes righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy. He will not always strive with us, nor will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to His iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy towards those who fear Him; as far as the east is from the west, so far He has removed our transgressions from us."

Such a remarkable section of Scripture. It definitely points to a God that doesn't act towards us like we act towards Him. Instead, His mercy is of a bounding level. Some tremendous statements indeed. God truly blesses us, sure, materially at times. Sometimes we have a really nice house, so we have a really good job that pays us well, but also much more than that. You know, if we don't find ourselves with the most abounding riches in the world around us, God is still blessing us. He's still providing stuff for us because the greatest blessing is in the spiritual realm.

Look at 2 Corinthians 4:16. Sometimes I have to always remember that if maybe I don't have the best job, or I don't have the best salary, or I don't have this or that, I'm still blessed by God spiritually. And we can all feel that way. 2 Corinthians 4:16 says, "Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing...." Yes, we're aging. We're slowly falling apart at times. Sometimes I feel like I'm aging a little bit faster than everyone else.

But it says, "Although our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal."

So, sometimes we can look around us and say, "Oh, great, I have all this wealth, I have all these physical things," but those are temporary. We should look towards the things that are eternal. And so we can ask ourselves as we look through these key components of thankfulness, "What are we thankful for? What can we be thankful for?" We can be thankful for a lot of things in our daily lives, but let's get specific.

You know, we can be thankful, we can be grateful for the Church of God. The Church of God is precious, brethren. If you want to write down for your notes, Ephesians 3:10 and going on, it's a very good study about how precious the church is, how precious the Church of God is. We should praise God. We should thank Him. We should be appreciative for the Church of God. What about another aspect? What can we be thankful for in the physical sense?

This one's a little bit tricky. It also has a spiritual sense as well. We can be thankful for the Bible, the very Word of God. How many times have we… we looked at this physical book, and we were truly thankful for the gems and the rewards that are found within it. It reminds me of this old spaghetti sauce commercial. Maybe this is familiar to you. There was a company, Prego. I think they still make spaghetti sauce. I don't know. I don't do a lot of cooking.

Okay, so this father comes in. I'll set the stage. There's this a son cooking the spaghetti sauce. Father walks in. He says… he sees his sons stirring the spaghetti sauce, and he says, "What's this? Married only six months, and your wife is using spaghetti sauce from a jar?" The son replies, "Don't worry pops, this is Prego." The father responds, "Listen to me. The ingredients for a successful marriage is garlic." The son stops and says, "Pop, Pop, Pop. It's in there." The father continues, "It's little bits of herbs and onions for that homemade taste."

The Pop stops and says "Pop look, it's in there." The father continues to say "And you need…" and he gets stopped. The son sticks a spoon in his mouth, and the father tastes it, and he goes "Ahh, it's in there!” You see, their concept, their phrase, their slogan, and maybe it's still true today. This is an older advertisement. It was, "It's in there." You see the Bible has everything we need for life. It's in there. We can remember 2 Timothy 3:16-17.

You don't have to go there, but if you'd like to look at it later, talking about all of God's Word is inspired. It's profitable for all these avenues in our life, and for the equipping of us for good works. So if I think to myself, if I need to learn about salvation, it's in there. If I need teaching, it's in there. How about if I need correction, I need to be corrected sometimes? It's in there. If I need to know how to live right, it's in there. If I need to grow up and be mature, it's in there. If I need to know how to properly be trained for good works, guess what? It's in there.

We should be thankful God has given us such a deep and meaningful manual to the life we have. We should be having thankful attitudes, grateful, for such a wonderful and remarkable gem that has been preserved for thousands of years. It's a remarkable book that we have, both physically but also, more deeply, the spiritual content that's within it. You see, brethren, being thankful shouldn't be just a one-time-a-year attitude. Sometimes we can maybe get caught up in that. "It's coming to Thanksgiving, what can I be thankful for?" We should be striving to be thankful, grateful appreciative, having gratitude always.

Let's turn to a couple of scriptures to finish today. Ephesians 5. Ephesians 5:20, let's start in verse 18. Kind of start with… it's hard to get the right point. You're always jumping into a thought with Paul. "And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation; but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord." Verse 20, "Give thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another in fear of God." Submitting to one another and fear of God. Tying a little bit more with that piece concept that we heard in the sermonette that we should be submitting to one another.

Brethren, we need to have the attitudes of thanksgiving always, thanking God our Father through our Lord Jesus Christ. No matter what circumstance we find ourselves in life, there is always something to be thankful for. God deserves our thanksgiving. He deserves our gratitude and our appreciative mindset. Let's turn to 1 Thessalonians 5:16. While we turn there, do you remember our Puritan Protestant travelers from before?

I want to share another quote for you… I want to share another quote with you from William Bradford. You remember that leader that I mentioned earlier? You see, that group of individuals truly believed they were chosen by God to act as beacons to the Christian world. So Bradford wrote this, “…As one small candle may light a thousand, so the light here kindled have shone to many, yea, in some sort to our whole nation."

You see, and truly they did show some wonderful things through all sorts of trials they experienced. They showed examples of a thanksgiving attitude no matter what they found, never ceasing to thank God for His blessings. So let's look in 1 Thessalonians 5:16. It says, "Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you."

Brethren let's remember these key components of thanksgiving found in Psalm 100. Let's “make a joyful shout to the Lord.” Let's “serve the Lord with gladness.” Let's “come before His presence with singing,” fully depending on the Lord, “knowing He is God, and He has created us.” Let's “enter through His gates with thanksgiving, and into His courts with praise.”

God is very much deserving of our praise and our thanks. Psalm 100 closes like this, "We see for the Lord is good; His mercy is everlasting, and His truth endures to all generations.” Let's be grateful, appreciative, and always giving thanks to God the Father through our Lord Jesus Christ.