Lessons on Thanksgiving from 1 Timothy

Well, let me invite you to turn in your Bibles this morning to First Timothy, First Timothy chapter one. Believe it or not, this Thursday is Thanksgiving. but it's amazing how, how fast this year has, Has gone, but here we are at that time of year where we take some time to focus on what we can be grateful for and for us as believers this particular holiday is a holiday that reminds us of what our mindset should be all the time, every day of the year. Also tonight at 6 o'clock in this building where you're seated now, we're going to have a combined Thanksgiving service with the evangelical Formosan Church.

They've got a special number or two that they're going to do. with their choir, I believe, and we're gonna open up the floor. We're gonna have mics up here, up front, for open mic sharing, and we've asked you guys to, give some thought to what you can, thank the Lord for in terms of how God has worked in your life over this past year. And try to put your thoughts together and come tonight prepared to share for about a minute, we, we want to give time for as many people to share as possible, but just put some thoughts together and come tonight prepared to not only glorify God, but also to edify your brothers and sisters as you give thanks to the Lord.

God has been active in all of our lives, and there is much to thank Him for. And with that in mind, what we're going to be doing today and next Sunday is we're going to be focusing on the theme of gratitude, OK? and we're focusing on it today, leading up to Thanksgiving, but then, the day after Thanksgiving, everyone forgets their gratitude and go shopping. so we're going to focus on that again on Sunday, OK?

and really try to hit this emphasis hard. Gratitude is monster huge and the benefits of gratitude in our life is also huge. A pastor, just a brilliant pastor who lived in the late 1800s, he died in 1923, I believe, John Henry Jowitt, do I have a PowerPoint today? OK.

John Henry Jowett made this statement about gratitude. He says gratitude is a vaccine, an antitoxin, and an antiseptic. We're going to ponder that in a little more detail next week, but the truth is that gratitude is extremely powerful. And even secular observers are catching on to this.

There are books that are being written now on the power of gratitude. Studies are being done where they're they're observing the fact that people who are intentionally, deliberately grateful experience almost a medicinal, a healing effect both physically and emotionally just through The practice of, of gratitude. And so books are being written, people are getting all excited about this thing called gratitude. As a result of that, when we as Christians, maybe we just should have listened to God in the first place when he says in 1 Thessalonians 5:18, And everything be giving thanks, be continuously giving thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.

God is saying, listen, I love you, I care about you. And here's something I want you to do, not only because it glorifies me, but also this is good for you to be. A grateful person. So we're going to focus on this theme, and for what we're going to do today is this.

I want to talk to you about some lessons on Thanksgiving from First Timothy. For those of you that are visiting us, we're doing a study through the Book of First Timothy in our Bibles, and We're in chapter 5 right now, but we're going to pull away from that and just go back through this book and make a list of some observations or lessons that we can learn about Thanksgiving from, from this particular book of the Bible. Now, probably none of us would have listed First Timothy as a book that teaches a lot about Thanksgiving, right?

We might have said the Psalms or maybe Philippians, but, First Timothy might not have made it on our list of books that teach us a lot on this subject, but the truth is it does teach us a lot.

In fact, look at the passages where in 1 Timothy, where there is discussion of thanksgiving. In chapter 1, verse 12, Paul says, I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord, and there's the word for thanks. In chapter 2, verse 1, Paul says, first of all, I urge that entreaties and prayers and petitions and thanksgivings be made on behalf of all men. There's the word thanksgiving.

Chapter 4, verse 3. There were people that Paul was dealing with or that Timothy was dealing with who were saying people shouldn't get married. If you want to be godly and want to be spiritual, then don't get married. And also you need to abstain from certain kinds of foods.

And so Paul says he speaks of marriage and foods, and Paul says which God has created to be thankfully shared in. Verse 4. For everything created by God is good. And nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.

So 4 times just in this book there is discussion of Thanksgiving, and what we're going to do is I want to just give you 9 lessons today with the time we have on Thanksgiving that we can learn from 1 Timothy. Before we look at that, let's break the Greek word for Thanksgiving down. We've done this before, but let's set the stage for what it really means. The Greek word for Thanksgiving is eukharista, and it's the prefix you that means good.

All right, if I deliver a eulogy at your funeral, I'm speaking a good word about you, right? So you means good, and then charis is the Greek word for grace that speaks of an undeserved, in fact, an ill-deserved favor or blessing. So when you take that literally to do thanksgiving means to good grace. Now what does that mean?

What it means is that we look at what God has provided us and we call it good. We label it, we pronounce it good, and we look at what God has given to us and we call it a grace. In other words, we acknowledge in all humility, God, I don't deserve this. In fact, I've earned the opposite as a result of my sin.

But nonetheless, in Your goodness and Your kindness, you have given this to me instead of the judgment that I deserve for my sins. And so this is indeed a grace. You might want to, if you're taking notes, just write the word humility somewhere in there because you can only have this gratitude if you're a humble person. There are people that, they walk through each day thinking that they have, they're entitled to this and that and the other, and when they don't get their way, just from the circumstances of life or from people, then they're, they're unleashing a ton of profanity.

And they're cursing life, cursing God, cursing people, and where that comes from is an arrogance that says I'm entitled to better than what I am getting. But a humble person sees their sins against God. They understand what they deserve from God, and then they look at every blessing, large and small, and they say, this is good, and this is a wonderful grace. From God.

When you think this way, it adds passion to your gratitude. It adds a double layer to your gratitude to the Lord. All right. So that's basically what it means to be thankful, to express thanksgiving.

but let's, let's begin looking at some lessons we can learn about Thanksgiving in First Timothy. Lesson number one, Is that ultimately our thanksgiving should be directed to God. When we give thanks, ultimately we give our thanks to God. In chapter 1, verse 12, Paul says, I thank Christ Jesus, our Lord.

And then he goes on to say what he's thankful for, but I just want to point out that the thanks that Paul is feeling in his heart, and that he's expressing ultimately goes to God. What's interesting to me about the word for thanksgiving that Paul uses in all of his letters that we find in the New Testament, is that every single time, as far as I know that Paul uses this word, God is always the object of his Thanksgiving. In fact, as far as I know, there's no passage where Paul uses yuccariteo and thanks somebody, some human being for something.

Not that that would be a bad thing, but it's just interesting that whenever Paul uses this word, it's always God that he is thanking.

Which means that ultimately, Paul understood that every good thing that he experienced in life ultimately came from God to him. And so all of the praise went to God. In fact, look at this, just in Paul's letters in Romans 1:8, he says, first, I thank my God. 1 Corinthians 1:4, I thank my God.

Philippians 1:3, I thank my God. 1:3, we give thanks to God. First Thessalonians 1:2, we give thanks to God. Second Thessalonians 1:3, we ought always to give thanks to God.

Philemon 1:4, I thank God always. Anytime Paul was expressing thanksgiving, it's always God that he was thanking. What's, what's interesting about all of the passages you see on the screen behind me. is that in every one of these passages, Paul is actually thanking God for the people he's writing to, or some quality in them that blesses him.

He's thankful for people, and yet he is thanking God, which means even when we experience blessing through somebody, through just the way they are or something that they have done for us that encourages us or blesses us, we thank God ultimately because we realize that Even blessings that come through people have originated in God. And so let's follow Paul's example. And I'm not saying don't ever thank anybody for any kind thing they do for you, but just even when you do that, to just recognize that ultimately that kindness from this person has originated in God.

as I pondered this this week, I began to think about, people that are atheists.

are in an awkward predicament because they are people that don't believe in God. It's, it's an awkward situation because who do they think? Who do they thank when some good thing happens in their, their life? Some have worked their way around that awkwardness by thanking the universe.

I don't know if you've heard that language before. I don't know why I bought this book. It's a book entitled Inner Simplicity. I bought it about 10 years ago.

because we were trying to simplify our lives and this author had written another book on how to declutter your life and I thought it was good. So she then published this book, Inner Simplicity, and in a moment of mindlessness, I bought it. And anyway, but here's, here's one of the suggestions on how to experience inner simplicity. suggestion 33, ask for help from the universe.

And she tells a story how she pulled over, she was overwhelmed one day, pulled over by the side of the road and said, Who's ever out there, I'm overwhelmed and I need help. I need guidance. And then suddenly later that day, she realized that she felt better. And she's like, oh, something, something has happened.

And she says this, obviously, this is nothing new. We've all had similar experiences. Some might call this prayer and say God was listening. Others would call it a higher power.

Still others would say it was my higher self responding to my desperation. I like to think of it as the power of the universe. And so in her mind it was the universe that responded, so the universe is where the thanks should go. In fact, recently I was reading another work by someone who was just, they were just talking about how an old friend came back into their life and they were grateful for that.

And they said just in passing, I thank the universe for making me reconnect with a friend. That's where their thanks went. And then another guy, Gary Evans, is talking about how to how to have a soul mate come into your life, how to get them to come into your life. And so first you've got to image the person and then start contemplating and meditating and then you'll attract that person.

It's a law of attraction. That person will come to you if you imagine them. And so he says, if you do what I'm saying here, guaranteed it'll work. And then at the very end he says, and when it happens, don't forget to thank the universe.

It's just the way some people talk and, and actually, I don't want to beat these guys up. It, it's sad because who do you think when something good happens? How about a personal God who loves you and cares about you, and who hears your prayers? And how God must be offended when he does something for somebody and then they thank the universe that God has created.

if I came to you and said, Man, I have a need, could you give me 100 bucks and you give me 100 bucks, and then I take that 100 bucks and I walk over to someone else and say thank you so much for this gift, how would you feel? Well, that's how God feels when he lavishes His kindness on people and then they go to the universe that He's created and they thank the universe. Well Paul teaches us that God is the source of all good things in our life. every breath we breathe, every heartbeat, every function of every organ in our body, and ultimately God is the source of every blessing.

So let's go to this personal living God and give thanks to him. Well, there's a second lesson that we can learn about Thanksgiving, just in this book, and that is that we should be thankful that Christ has treated us the opposite of what we deserve. We can be thankful that Christ has treated us the opposite of what we have deserved. He says, I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has considered me faithful, putting me into service even though I was formerly a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent aggressor.

Paul has been in the ministry now for a few decades. it's not just that he got saved a week ago and he's amazed by this. No, it's been decades, and he's still amazed by this. He's like, there was a time where Jesus came into my life, and he saved me and he called me to be an apostle.

He considered me faithful, even though, and then Paul began to list off his past sins. I was a persecutor, a violent aggressor, and a blasphemer. Jesus looked over my resume, and he saw that I killed Christians and looked at my resume and saw that I dragged many Christians off into prison. I held the coats of those that stoned Stephen.

outside of Jerusalem, and he looked at my resume and saw that I was a blasphemer against him, and I tried to force other Christians to blaspheme Jesus. Jesus looks over my resume, and then he reckons me faithful and calls me to be an apostle. Paul's like, that's crazy. That's the way Jesus is.

Now Paul's talking about his ministry here, but what, we can apply this. And every other area of our life, that every good thing that God bestows upon us is the opposite of what we've deserved from Him as a result of us breaking His law, violating His commandments, and sinning against God, and ultimately all of us being responsible to one degree or another for the killing, for the crucifixion of Jesus from the dead, and or killing Jesus on the cross, and yet God in His grace gives us breath, gives us heartbeats.

And provides so much for us. And as Christian people, he gives us grace.

He gives us forgiveness. He is so generous to us. And it is the opposite of what we deserve. CJ Mahaney, many of who he is.

one of the ways that he preaches the gospel to himself is that when people ask him, how are you doing, he'll say, I'm doing better than I deserve. And that's just the way he reminds himself, what, I know what I deserve, and yet look at my circumstances. My circumstances may even be painful, but they're better than what I actually deserve from God. And he tells in his book The Cross Centered Life.

How he was at Starbucks one time and was standing in line and he got up to the front of the line and the person at the counter said, well, how's it going today? And CJ said, much better than I deserve. And the person at the counter was troubled by that and tried to deliver CJ from that mentality. It's like, oh no, no, you shouldn't think that way and you deserve, more than you think.

And CJ said, no, no, no, no, let me, let me tell you my story, and he stood there at the counter and witnessed and told of Christ to this person at the counter and to everyone else behind him in line who was listening. And what guys, listen to me. When, when we begin our train of thought with what we deserve, that doesn't beat us down. What it does is it serves to magnify our appreciation of every blessing that God gives to us, both large and small.

And so let it be just one step in your train of thought to contemplate your past sins and And what you truly deserve from God and then move from that to look at every little blessing that God gives to you and let it only serve to enrich your gratitude and your celebration of God's goodness in your life. We need to hasten on. A third lesson we can learn about Thanksgiving from 1 Timothy is that we should be thankful that the grace of Christ is more abundant than our sin. The grace of Christ is more abundant than our sin.

Paul says, I'm thankful that God's called me into the ministry, even though I used to commit these sins. Nonetheless, he's graced me, and even though my sins are huge, look what he says in chapter 1, verse 14. The grace of our Lord was more than abundant. Yes, my sins are huge.

Yes my sins are many, but the grace of Jesus Christ is way larger than my sins and is sufficient enough to take care of all of the sins that I have committed throughout my life. Look what he says, the grace of our Lord. He could have said the grace of our Lord was abundant, and that would have been sufficient because abundant means all that you need plus some. But he intensifies that and says more than abundant.

So my sins are a big deal. But the grace of Jesus Christ is like way, way, way bigger. The picture I had in my head this week is Imagining myself underwater in the ocean and scuba diving or whatever and I see this like 8 ft fish go swimming by and I look at that and go, man, that's a, that's a big fish. That's bigger than anything I saw up in Mammoth a couple of weeks ago.

That's, that's a good sized fish. And then I keep looking and a minute later here comes like an 80 ft whale. right behind that fish. And now I'm redefining the word big, right?

That's the way it is with our sin and God's grace. We look at our sin, especially under the light of the cross of Jesus Christ, and we're like, wow, our sin is huge, it's big. But then here comes the whale of God's grace that is just so much bigger than our sin. And Paul's like, I thank Jesus.

I thank him. For his work in my life, for treating me the opposite of what I deserve, and I am thankful that his grace is infinitely larger than all the sins that I have committed throughout my life of killing Christians and blaspheming and being a violent aggressor and a persecutor of the church. His grace is bigger. I'm here to tell you that no matter what you've done throughout your life, no matter the quantity, no matter how many sins or the depth of the sins that you have committed, there is forgiveness.

There's forgiveness for those sins. The grace of Jesus is much bigger. Karl Meninger, the famed psychiatrist, said, if I can convince psychiatric patients that their sins were forgiven, 75% of them would walk out of mental hospitals tomorrow. He understood that he didn't really have a solution for it, but he understood that most people we're dealing with are dealing with the ravages of guilt, and they're seeing their sin as something awful and they're under that oppression, but they don't, they don't have any sight of grace.

Yes, sin is big, but grace is bigger, and the privilege is ours to preach this message of grace to people who have committed sins. That leads to 1/4 lesson that we can learn about Thanksgiving in 1 Timothy, and that is that we should be thankful that Christ came into the world to save sinners like us. We can be thankful that Christ came into the world to save sinners like us. Paul obviously is getting excited now, and As the emotion builds, he says in chapter 1 verse 15, he says, it is a trustworthy statement.

What I'm about to say here, you can take this to the bank. This check is never going to bounce. Absolutely trustworthy and reliable, and this deserves full acceptance, meaning You can just let down all resistance, open up your heart large and wide, and let this in and buy it fully. And that is that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, among whom I am foremost of all.

What he's saying is Jesus left heaven and he came into this broken, fallen, messed up, sinful world. He came into this world to save, to deliver, to rescue, and he came into this world to save, deliver, rescue sinners, people that have sinned against God's law, people that have lied, who have stolen, who have committed adultery. who have committed abortions. Jesus came into the world to save us who have done these things.

Sometimes people think that they are such the sinner, that somehow they're disqualified for a relationship with Jesus. Jesus says, no, the number one qualification you need to be qualified for my salvation is you must be a sinner because those are the only people I came for. If you are a sinner, and you're willing to see your bankruptcy, your inability to save yourself and just come to me by faith and enter into a relationship with me, I'll be your savior. That's the two qualifications to be saved by Jesus.

Number 1, you must be a sinner. And number 2, you must look to Jesus and put your trust in Him to be the one who saves you. And so Paul's like that we would have had no salvation. Through any other person, through any other means, if Jesus didn't leave heaven and come into this world and be crucified on a cross and receive the judgment we deserve for our sins, to have our sins placed upon him that he might die for our sins.

that he might give himself as a ransom. For us. Paul says, I, I'm thankful. For this.

I thank Christ Jesus our Lord. He, he put me in the ministry, even though I used to commit these sins, his grace was more abundant, and he came into the world to save sinners. Paul is like, really grateful for these things. And then there's a 5th lesson that we can learn about Thanksgiving, that continues to move us forward.

And that is that we should be thankful that Christ has put us into service on his behalf. ultimately, in this context, Paul is thanking Jesus for giving him a ministry. Giving him A place to serve. He says, I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has considered me faithful, putting me In the ministry or into the service.

normally, Like if, if someone comes to you and says, hey, could you help me out? Could you serve me in such and such a way? And you say, sure, I'll do that. Normally, the person who asks you is the one who would say thank you to you, right?

But in Paul's mind, Jesus comes to him and says, Hey Paul, here's what I'm calling you to do. And yes, on judgment day Paul will receive his reward for that. But if Jesus came to Paul and said, Paul, listen, thank you for what you're doing, Paul would say, No, no, no, no, thank you for letting me serve. Your purposes.

Thank you for giving me a role and letting me serve you, who has served me so greatly on the cross and dying for my sins. Now think about this ministry that Paul's so excited about and thankful for. Was his ministry sitting in an ivory tower, writing epistles and writing letters with luxury all around him? No, it was a pretty hard ministry, fraught with a lot of dangers and difficulties.

In fact, let's look at some of the things attached to his, his ministry. In 2 Corinthians 11, he says, 5 times I received from the Jews 39 lashes, 3 times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, 3 times I was. Wreck a night and a day I've spent floating in the ocean. I've been on frequent journeys and dangers from rivers, dangers from robbers, dangers from my countrymen, dangers from the Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren.

I have been in labor and hardship through many sleepless nights and hunger and thirst, often without food and cold and exposure, and then almost as if to dismiss and minimize everything he just said. He then says, apart from such external things, there is the daily internal pressure on me of concern. For all the churches. When Paul was with the Corinthians.

He says to them by way of reminding them of the way he was when he was with them, he says, I was with you in weakness and in fear and in much physical trembling. I was a mess. The ministry was difficult for Paul. A lot of dangers and hardships.

And yet Paul's like, I thank Christ Jesus, my Lord, for letting me serve him. and His kingdom. Now, Paul was an apostle, and last I checked, we have no apostles here at Cornerstone. But maybe your ministry is that of a mom.

Or a dad Or a husband or a wife or a Sunday school teacher or a nursery worker or An evangelist to other people. there's a whole list of ministries that, that I could take the time to list off. Whatever ministry you're involved in seeking to impact lives for God's kingdom, there's difficulties and there's hassles. But what, when we all get to heaven where there will be no difficulties and hassles, we're going to be so thankful that we got to endure a few difficulties and hassles for Jesus.

Paul says, I'm thankful. I, I'm glad. To be in the ministry that I'm in, even all the mess I got to deal with, I thank Jesus for letting me serve Him. There's a 6th lesson that we can learn about gratitude or thanksgiving in this book, and that is that we should be thankful on behalf of all people.

We should be thankful on behalf of all people. literally, what we're going to learn here is that Paul wants us as Christians to have a ministry of Thanksgiving, where we feel a calling. I, I've been called to a ministry of thanksgiving. He says, first of all, I urge you that entreaties and prayers and petitions and thanksgivings be made on behalf of all men, for kings and all who are in.

Authority. Now we don't have time to fully lay this open, but at the very least, what it means to be thankful on behalf of all men is we pray for all men, and as we do so, we thank God for the privilege of being able to come into His presence and seek favors on behalf of those that we are praying for. It also Means that we have a disposition of gratitude toward people. Our brothers and sisters in Christ, we're thankful just like Paul was, and we're careful to point out evidences of grace that we see in the lives of our brothers and sisters, and we thank God for them, and then we tell our brothers and sisters that we're thanking God for.

them. That's a ministry of thanksgiving. And then even those that may not presently know Christ as their Lord and Savior, we need to realize that God lavishes his, what we call common grace upon them, and there's beauty to be seen in them. There are even ways that God may use someone who's not even a Christian, to be a blessing in your life.

And so you, you want to be expressive of gratitude and thanksgiving for any blessing that you see in their life or that comes through their life, your way, even for our governing authorities, whether they're in your political party or not. Yes, we pray for them, but we are equally passionate about a ministry of Thanksgiving toward them. I was convicted by this, we might write letters to our congressmen and our president to say, when they're voting on something that we might be concerned about, but how many letters of appreciation have we written to our president?

To our senators and congressmen, both on a national and state level, do we manifest just an attitude of thankfulness towards those that serve us in national Office, I think if we maybe did a better job of that, maybe, I don't know, maybe in some cases it might endear them to things that we might be concerned about.

Maybe just a theory, might happen a time or two. But maybe not. What do I know? but seriously, guys, let's just, let's be a grateful people.

I had an opportunity to practice this ministry of gratitude a few months ago. There's a man that I know, a businessman who's not a, he's not a Christian, but he was sharing with me about something that had gone wrong in his business, a customer base had been lost, and It was very disappointing to him, and I said to him, I said, Can I pray for you? I can go into God's throne room and I can seek favors on your behalf, and I'd like to do that. And I said, Do you have a minute?

He said, Yeah. So I took a minute and, and prayed just for God to do this man a gracious favor and to take care of this particular problem with his business and replace the lost customer base that he had suffered and And as I did so in this man's presence, I'm thanking God for the privilege to be able to go into God's presence and ask these things for this man. Well, two days later, this man calls me up and says, You won't believe God's answered, the prayer that you prayed, and he told me how someone showed up out of nowhere and the customer base.

Completely replenished from the loss of a couple of days earlier and I was able to say to this man, I said, that's God showing His love to you and I said, Do you have a minute because I'd like to take a minute to pray and thank God for this grace in your life.

And he said, I've got 2 minutes. So I got to pray with this guy and again and to thank God for this grace that God was showing to him, this love God was showing to him, and in doing that, I'm genuinely thanking God, but I'm also trying to train this man to see every blessing in his life, whether it's spiritual or mundane, material, business, whatever, every good thing in his life is a gift from his Heavenly Father and to God. All the thanks should go. So, in all of these ways and probably other ways that you guys can think of, we can practice a ministry of thanksgiving.

there's a 7th lesson we can learn about gratitude. This is gonna seem really random to you guys, but we should be thankful for marriage. Where did that come from? which was created by God for us to share in.

That's actually in First Timothy. Again, if you go to 1 Timothy 4, Paul's talking about people that are knocking on marriage and saying it's a bad thing. If you want to be spiritual, then you won't get married to somebody and you'll also abstain from foods and look at what he says. People who are forbidding marriage, advocating abstaining from foods, which God has created to be gratefully.

Shared in by those who believe and know the truth, for everything such as marriage and food, created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. At the very least, marriage is one of the things on Paul's mind as something that is created by God, and created by God for us to thankfully rejoice in. And experience we need to be thankful for the institution of marriage. It's a gift from God.

It's not something human beings thought up and came to God and said, Hey, we've been thinking about this, and And can we do this, please, please, please, and God's like, OK, I'll let you guys do this marriage thing. No, the Bible says God created marriage. He invented it, and by the way, therefore, it's his intellectual property, right? He gets to define it however he wants and he does that in Genesis 2:24.

When the Bible says right near the very beginning of the Bible, for this cause, a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his woman, and the two shall be one flesh. That is marriage as God intended it to be, and it's a beautiful thing as God designed it, and we need to be thankful for the institution of marriage and whatever marriages we're in. Right now, we need to be thankful for them. If your marriage is going great, and your spouse is like just the most amazing spouse in the world, be thankful for your marriage.

It is a gift from God. If your marriage is not going well right now, give thanks for your marriage. Because even if your marriage is not going well right now, It is not going well because God has graciously allowed that to happen. So as to surface issues and immaturities in you.

God has allowed this to happen because God has something good he's wanting to accomplish in you to make you more conformed to the image of Christ. You say, but Pastor Millan, you don't know my spouse, but, I don't even want to hear that. I do know this, if you're married, Then I know in God's good providence, God gave that spouse to you. And that spouse, I firmly believe is the perfect person to make you more Christ-like.

Can I get an amen? OK. Hopefully, you looked around and noticed those that did not say amen. but seriously, our spouses, both their good qualities and bad qualities, their good days and bad days, God uses all of that to accomplish things in our life.

God causes everything to work together for good, for those who love God and are called according to His, purpose. just real quick, Solomon, says in Ecclesiastes 9:10, enjoy life with the woman you love all the days of your life. So God wants us to enjoy marriage with thankfulness. We're almost done, guys.

An 8th lesson that we can learn about Thanksgiving in this book is that we should be thankful for food, which was created by God for us to enjoy. Now, now we're waking up here, OK. I know where your minds are. this might seem like a no brainer point, but it's actually a really encouraging thing to think about because what this passage enlightens us about is that food is actually something very personal from God to us.

God could have created us to where we don't need food at all, right? But he made us to where we were dependent upon food, to where a few times a day we have to sit down and put food in our mouths, and God could have just made one food item. That had all the nourishment that we needed and that's when people ate, they ate one thing and yeah, it's a bland taste, a bitter taste, but hey, it's got all the nutrients we need, so everyone's got to eat that 3 times a day and we get our needs met.

God could have done that.

But he didn't do that. Instead, look at all the variety of food that God has created on His good earth. All of the colors, all of the taste, all of the textures. He didn't have to do that.

That's all a reflection of the imagination of God. And when we sit down to eat a meal, we need to be very conscious that that food that In front of us, God has provided that for us. And as the provider, it's a personal thing as we put that food in our mouth and we enjoy the taste, enjoy the sensation. God is, God is sitting there as it were, and he's like, What do you think?

What do you think? Do you like this? This is a gift from me to you. And God has designed it this way so that we would receive every bite of food with thanksgiving to Him.

When my wife and I, I, I've loved lasagna for just about all my life. I loved the way my mom made lasagna. That's about the only lasagna I ever had. And so, when my wife and I got married, it was a big deal the first time she made lasagna because am I going to like her lasagna?

what?. So, we hadn't been married long and she made lasagna for the first time and I put the lasagna on my plate, put the salad on my plate, and I'm eating the salad, and she's like, so what do you think? Do you like it? Do you like it?

And I'm like, I haven't taken a bite of the lasagna yet, so it's hard to tell. and, but when I finally did take a bite of the lasagna, she was like, so what do you think? What do you think? And I said, it's adequate.

It's adequate. No, I'm kidding. No, I told her, I said, I love this. seriously, I love my wife's lasagna and my wife was so excited on that day.

she had labored over that and provided that for me and just that excitement that was in her heart, that was very godlike in terms of what we're talking about in this passage. God, just making strawberries, bananas, and pears and apples and ice cream bars and Pop-Tarts and, all these varieties that God has made. as, as those are given to us and as we taste them, God's like, it's a gift from Him to us. And so let's not just shovel food in our mouth and I've got to eat, get on with my day.

No, there's something between God and I happening here. God's giving me something. Oh, thank you, Lord, thank you. Paul talks about this in Acts 14.

He says, yet God did not leave himself without witness and that he did good and gave you rains from heaven and fruitful seasons, satisfying your hearts with food and gladness. God likes it when we're satisfied with food and we're made happy by the food that we eat. He likes that. And then especially when we come to him and say, thank you, thank you, God, for this gift from you to me.

Just in closing, a 9th lesson we can learn. About Thanksgiving in this book is that We should thank God for everything else. We got marriage, food, and then anything and everything else. We should thank God for everything else that was created by God for our enrichment and enjoyment.

He says, for everything, which includes marriage and food, but it's more than that. It's everything else created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving. So, I was making a list this week. here's some things I listed, the sunrise, the sunset, the gentle breeze.

fall breeze against your face, the love of a spouse, the love of children, athleticism, art, music, friendship, yes, humor, a job, the ability to even work at a job and to make money, music, the ability to play musical instruments, colors. landscapes, the beauty of nature. And on and on the list can go. All of these things God provides us.

So that we would receive them with thanksgiving and discover Him in those things. And call them good. And call them a grace from God. Well, how much do you have?

Are you content with what you have? Are you thankful for what you have or do you want more? If you want more than what you have, there's one way in which that might be OK. George Herbert, a pastor of years ago and a poet said this to God.

He says, thou hast given so much to me. Give one thing more. A grateful heart. I'm going to ask for one thing beyond what you've given me, Lord, give me.

A grateful heart. If you have a grateful heart, you have everything. Let me ask you to bow your heads. God is a gracious God.

He is full of amazing generosity and even during this service, God has allowed us to breathe gallons of his air. He's allowed our caused our hearts to beat, and none of us have sat in the pews even thinking about it. He's caused every cell to operate the way it should, even while we've been in this service. Every single second that's gone by, he's given us 2 million red blood cells.

Every second. Oh, we, we couldn't even begin to count up all the ways that God is being generous and good to us. Let us be thankful. Knowing that we have a God who delights in the thanksgiving of His people.

And if you're here today, and maybe you've never entered into a relationship with God through Christ and God would say, hey, look, I, I love you. I, I love you so much, that though you've sinned against me, I sent my son into this world to die on the cross that you might have your sins forgiven and be brought into right relationship with me. As your Creator. And God would say, I want you to look.

At me and what I have done for you through Jesus to bring you that forgiveness and salvation. And I want you to be thankful for it and receive it with thanksgiving. And if you've never done that, I would encourage you to do that today between you and God. We're going to take up an offering in just a moment.

We would encourage you to just give as the Lord leads you to give. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for your love for us. You're an amazingly good God.

You've given us so much, and ultimately, you've given us Jesus Christ and we say regarding that, Thanks be unto God for His unspeakably awesome gift of Jesus Christ. What a God you are. Lord, we thank you for the privilege of being able to return to you a portion of what you have blessed us with, receive these funds that we give. And further your kingdom purposes.

And with these funds, Lord, we, we don't want to just say thanks to you. We want our lives to be poured out as a thank offering to you. So may our lives be a living embodiment of this gratitude we've been learning about today. We commit ourselves to You, Lord, we give ourselves to you in the name of Jesus.

And all God's people said,