[0:00] How about that? That's better? Okay. Let's turn your Bibles today to 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. You know, when Pastor texted me, I happened to have my Bible open on my lap, I believe.
[0:16] You know, at that point, I was just fixing to get into my own personal enjoyment reading. And that changed right there. I didn't confer with flesh, that's what the Bible says.
[0:30] And I conferred with my iPhone instead. And you say, why is that? You know, when I used to get thoughts about, you know, sermons and teaching as I'm reading through my Bible, I used to write them on a piece of paper. And I'd stack them. I'd just stack them.
[0:45] I got a stack of paper big. And every few years, I take a look at that stack and I look at it and it pretty much goes the same way. It goes right back in the stack. And that's been for 20 years, probably.
[0:57] And, you know, sometimes I'll pull out three or four or five of them and put them to the side and they end up in another stack. And three years later, you know, I'm thinking about that stack. But, you know, they just kind of stay off in there. But, you know, I started using the iPhone as a tool and now they go in a folder, you know, and I take pictures of it. So I kind of look back for it. You know, I call it fresh oil.
[1:17] Jack Hiles. I don't know if anybody heard of the name Jack Hiles. Okay. An old saint, you know, did a lot for the Lord. You know, probably not, you know, some of the things we probably wouldn't agree with.
[1:29] But he talked about, he preached a message one time, I'll never forget. And it was about fresh oil. And I never got over that. And that's what I seek for when I'm preaching or teaching or anything like that is I want fresh oil from God.
[1:44] So I'm looking for, you know, I don't typically, the first thing I don't do is go to my sermon folder and go looking to pull out a sermon. You know, if Pastor Walski called me about an hour ago, it would be a little different.
[1:55] I'd probably go right to the sermon box. You know, I'm just out with the guys that just gets up Lester Roloff. You know, I don't know if you heard his name. I know I feel real old right now. But Lester Roloff, you know, he just, he just get up in the pulpit.
[2:07] He preached. He was that kind of man of God. You know, you knew he was, he knew he was there. You know, they had a communication. But, you know, when I'm, when the fresher the oil, the better, you know, my thinking, you know.
[2:22] So we'll look at, we'll look at, I want to look at 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. And I want to look at thankfulness. Thankfulness. Let's pray.
[2:32] Father, we are thankful to be here this morning. And it's easy to forget about the important things in this life we continue to travel through.
[2:44] And a lot of the times just in the flesh. And I pray this morning we consider these things and realize their importance and, and just get them, get them more important in our lives.
[2:56] In Jesus name. Amen. Okay. Before I strain my eyes, I'm going to move into my focus this year, I think. First, what I do is I just, I use the wrong glasses for the wrong thing.
[3:10] And before I know my eyes are strained and then I got to go shut them for an hour. And this is kind of a beating. Getting old. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.
[3:23] 1 Thessalonians chapter 5. I want you to start in verse, looking at verse 18. It says, it says, In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.
[3:35] This is the will of God. It is the will of God for you to be thankful and to give thanks. In one form or another, the word thanks in one form, one form or another, there is, is over a hundred times in your Bible.
[3:48] It's important. It's not, not something I think we're worried about doing too much. Right. I don't know if I've ever heard somebody, somebody say, you know, that person is just way too thankful.
[4:00] I don't know. I just, I just don't think I've ever heard that. You know, it's a spiritual indicator. Thankfulness and being thankful for the Christian is so important that it ends up being a big part in your spiritual thermometer.
[4:15] So if you're a thankful person or if you're not a thankful person or you, you know, if you look back and see how much thanks you give or how often you give thanks, you know, that's a real good spiritual indicator of where you are on the map spiritually.
[4:29] So you take a look at that. You look back and you go, okay. So when was the last time I said, thank you besides your Christmas gifts? No, right.
[4:40] We did. We, we, we just got through Christmas and I'm sure everybody was like, thank you for this. Thank you for that. Now, if you look back and you say, I got some Christmas gifts and I didn't even say thank you. Hmm. That's a, that's a real good indicator that you might have a spiritual problem there.
[4:54] Look at Ephesians chapter five, Ephesians chapter five. You know, Jesus led by example for Thanksgiving, uh, three verses. You can write them down. Look at them when you get a chance. Matthew chapter 11, verse 25, Matthew 15 and verse 36, Matthew 26 and verse 27.
[5:11] If you didn't get all those, you can always just look up, uh, thanks and one form or another in your concordance. And you'll see where Jesus was thankful. He led by example. It's who he is.
[5:22] Okay. Thankfulness is that important. Um, I preach a message on the, um, on the most importance. Now, you know, when I say the most importance, the most importance to me, the Bible didn't say, this is the most important thing.
[5:36] Didn't say that. But, um, I consider those, you know, I tell people what I've, I've learned in 40 years and 40 years I've learned. And I wrote down a lot of things. One of them I learned is what I, what I think to be the most importance.
[5:49] Um, I think it's fear, fear, um, love, fear, faith. All right. Now, uh, love. God is love. That's pretty important. God is love. Um, fear. The fear of the Lord is the beginning. Yeah.
[6:00] That gets pretty important right there. Uh, without faith, it is impossible to please him. Right? So, you know, and we'll see, maybe it's right here in this verse. Let's look at the verse first.
[6:11] Ephesians chapter five. Ephesians chapter five. And start in verse one. It says, uh, be ye therefore follows of God as dear children and walk in love as Christ also has loved us.
[6:27] And I've given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweet smelling savor. Uh, but fornication and all uncleanness or covetousness.
[6:37] Let it not be once named among you as becoming saints. Okay. That's pretty strong. Don't let it become once named among you. Right? But that doesn't say it's not going to be named among you.
[6:49] You're supposed to not let it be. Um, he also say, goes on, he says, neither filthiness nor foolish talking nor jesting, which are not convenient, but rather giving of thanks.
[6:59] I thought, wow. So he just got done telling you, don't, you know, let this, don't be a part of this. Don't do that. Don't let this be once named among you. He says, but. And he tells you something to be part of, having you and to make sure you partake enough.
[7:15] And he could have said anything. But he said, thanks. He said, uh. He said, but giving of thanks, right?
[7:26] Yeah. But rather giving of thanks. So when he goes through and he tells you all these different things you don't do, don't do it. Give thanks. So hopefully you do that and you, you, you know, you want to see what the importance is in that.
[7:38] And so I thought about that message that I preached on and, you know, uh, the most importance. And I list three and I'm sure you could travel right on down the list. And there's probably a ton of them because, uh, there's a lot of things God says are important.
[7:50] Right? Yeah. Okay. Um, so thanks. Thanks is probably, you know, probably top 10, probably right in the top 10 there. Maybe even top five. I don't know.
[8:00] It's, it's, uh, you know, I, I don't make any misnomer on, um, on having God figured out. Right. Like, like what I'm going to give you if I have time is just some things that'll cause you to be thankful because I don't have them all for sure.
[8:16] I don't, I wouldn't know everything anyway. So, you know, I got away from years ago. I got away from like, uh, uh, giving people the formula, the formula, you know, like, like I have arrived and here's the five boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.
[8:32] There you go. And then I, you know, I say, I say what I've learned in 40 years. I learned in 40 years. I didn't have to figure it out. I learned, I learned that, you know, yeah, I went through with six, seven, eight, nine, 10, you know, whatever.
[8:44] So, and, uh, you know, maybe my, maybe my one or two didn't even belong there or something, but, uh, the importance of being thankful. It's, uh, and then he, um, he goes on throughout the chapter, um, and then he gets down to verse 20.
[8:59] I think it's verse 20. Uh, let's go to, uh, you know, he's continuing down through the chapter, verse 17, wherefore be not unwise, but understanding what the will of the Lord is and be not drunk with wine, where in his excess, but be filled with the spirit, speaking to yourselves in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always.
[9:19] So he gets right back into giving thanks again. So thanks is a very important thing. You know, you, you know, you can do, you can do thank, thanking the wrong way. You can do thanking the right way.
[9:32] And, you know, look at Luke chapter 18, Luke chapter 18. Here's a guy that was thankful the wrong way. Luke chapter 18. I say that because, you know, you automatically assume, you know, I remember somebody a long time ago telling me you can love the wrong thing.
[9:49] I think it was pastor Dave. And that was probably, you know, I don't know, maybe 30 years ago. But he mentioned that, you know, you can love the wrong thing. And I think the first thing I heard, first time I heard that, well, I'm thinking, you know, I was young and I thought God is love and I love now and I'm full of love.
[10:05] So I got to love the right things. And then I realized, you know what? You can love the wrong things. You can be thankful the wrong way. Luke chapter 18. Luke chapter 18 and verse 11.
[10:17] It says, here's a Pharisee. He says, the Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself. God, I thank thee that I am not as other men are extortioners, unjust adulterers or even as this publican.
[10:29] Well, if you know the story, you know, the publican was a good guy. Right. The publican was out of the two. He was the guy. So you should have been, you should have gotten right with God instead of being thankful you're not like the publican.
[10:44] You need to be like that. You need to get more like that. So he was, he was thankful the wrong way. You know, if you get one thing this morning, if you get one thing out of Sunday school, I want you to get this.
[10:55] You need to navigate the things of God, God's way. And, and, and, and being thankful is no exception. You want to do things God's way.
[11:05] And, you know, I get it. You know, we were saved and, and I think, you know, been saved for a long time. And, and, um, you know, you think you got to figure it out or you want to have it figured out.
[11:16] Um, you know, and it goes all the way from being saved for two years to being saved. You know, you think two years I've been saved. That means I've been saved 600 and something days, man. I've been saved a long time. I get it.
[11:27] But you, you, you're going to learn that, you know, you need to navigate it God's way. So you want to be thankful the right way. You want to be thankful for the right things and you want to be thankful.
[11:40] You know what I'm saying? So, I mean, if you want to see the importance of being thankful, I don't know how important it is to you. I don't know if you really, you know, if you really see the importance of it.
[11:52] If you did, you'd probably make sure that it was part of your life more. That's what I'm thinking. And, you know, if it is, you know, I remember, I remember, uh, my pastor Dave, one of the things I noticed about him a long, long time ago was that he was always given thanks.
[12:10] You know, and I, I kind of picked up that habit. You know, I, I send somebody a text and I, and I'll, and I'll, and I'll say something and I'll say thanks. You know, and sometimes you look at it and you go, I don't know, what's he thankful for?
[12:21] I mean, this isn't a thank thing, but it just becomes a, it becomes a, a, what you do. So, um, you know, and I, and you know, you need to try to walk in the spirit because, uh, that's how you're going to be able to recognize some of them things of God.
[12:36] You need to walk in the spirit. Um, so you can see, right, which probably isn't the easiest thing to do today. Right. With all the, with all the worldly influence around us and all the worldly influence we indulge in.
[12:49] Right. Go like that. Eh, okay. All right. You know, um, you could be, it'd be a good place to read. Maybe would be, um, how about the last message to the last church?
[13:03] That'd be probably pretty good to hang out there for a little bit. I mean, I mean, if you're getting the last message to the last church, that's, that's pretty good right there. That's where you want. You want to check that out because you are the last church and you're at the last.
[13:16] So you probably want to check that out and be familiar with the last message. Message to the last church. And, um, and just tell you straight up, it isn't that good. It isn't real good.
[13:28] The message isn't, doesn't come across to you real good. I mean, there's good things to do in there and all that revelation chapter three. If you didn't, if you didn't know what I was talking about, um, look at Philippians chapter four, Philippians chapter four, Philippians chapter four.
[13:51] And, um, verse six, be careful for nothing. It says, but in everything by prayer and supplication, we are, we know that, right? We're all going to pray about everything.
[14:02] Aren't we? Isn't that the right thing to do? Right? We pray about things. Uh, you know, you say, you say, I'll pray about it, brother, or, you know, I'll, you know, I'll pray for you. And, and, and, you know, I need to pray about that.
[14:12] We all got that right in everything by prayer and supplication, but notice what else it says. It says everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, with Thanksgiving.
[14:23] I don't know, um, what you do in your prayer time or how your prayers go. Um, but if you don't have thanks in there, you probably ought to get it in there.
[14:34] I'm assuming everybody does, you know, that's just, you know, in my little mind thinking, I just assume everybody gets it and everybody's thankful. And, but you'd be surprised if you find yourself praying and, and, and, and there's a lot of people that you do, they get into prayer and they're just, God, I need this.
[14:51] And I want that and give me that and help me with this. And amen. You know, there's a lot more to prayer than that, but you can see right here, you, you prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving.
[15:03] So make sure you're, you're adding the Thanksgiving. It's very important to the, uh, in your prayer life. All right.
[15:16] So I want to just give you some things that, um, that, uh, will can cause you and help cause you to be thankful. Okay. They'll all start with R. So if you want to write down, you know, some simple R's, just some things, um, not going to, there's not exhaustive and I don't have them all, but there's just some things that you can think about, um, that'll help you to be, uh, that cause you to be thankful.
[15:35] One is, one is receiving something you deem good. You know, uh, think about what, what helps you to be thankful. You know, when you get something good, uh, somebody gives you something like, like for Christmas, you know, I got some, got some things and, and some things, boom, they just kind of made me real thankful.
[15:52] And then some things sometimes don't make you real thankful. I don't know about you, but I remember one year I got a watch and you see me wear watches.
[16:02] I don't wear watches. So when I got that watch, it was like, why, why'd you get me a watch? You know, and I don't know, you know, I guess I could have said, you know, thank you. I think that thing sat in my drawer of 10, 15 years before I gave it away.
[16:15] Um, yeah, that's probably the only, man, I think one time I might've got a coffee maker. Uh, I mean, look, don't get me wrong. I like to get stuff that I can use. I would rather have something I can use and something I can't use.
[16:26] I mean, you talk about thankful. I got, uh, I got a, uh, I got an extractor set. Uh, that's good. I don't have one. I don't have one.
[16:37] Do I need one right now? No, but you don't know when you're going to need it. Um, I got a tap and dice set. That was just, man, it was good. I liked it. That's what I wanted. Uh, I'd rather have something I want.
[16:48] I got, I got things. Sometimes I get some things that I do. I'm like, what am I going to do with that? Oh, thanks. You know, but it really didn't make me thankful. So receiving something you deem good, man, it's just, I don't know.
[17:01] It puts, it's, it excites the dopamine or whatever that is in there. And it, and it caused you to be thankful. Um, hopefully you feel like that when you think about your salvation. Hopefully you think about that when you think about the word of God.
[17:13] Um, hopefully you think about that when you think about the church and you think about, uh, just anything spiritually like that. If you're not, you might want to do a little checkup, uh, receiving something that you deem good.
[17:24] First Timothy, look at first Timothy. We'll just, you know, we'll look at a couple of verses. First Timothy four and verse four, it says for every creature of God is good and nothing to be refused.
[17:37] If it be received with Thanksgiving, right? So you, things you receive that you deem good will help cause you to be thankful. Uh, some things that, something else that may cause you to, uh, to help you to be thankful is, um, the look at Psalms 116.
[17:54] Reflection. You know, when you, uh, when you consider like today, you know, you, you're looking at Thanksgiving, you're thinking about it now. So it's going to help you reflect on it.
[18:05] Hopefully, hopefully it's not something that, you know, I get it. You know, you come to church, you come to church, you get 300 and something messages a year, whatever you do. And chances are you walk out the door and you forget it and you get another one and you forget it and you get another one and forget it.
[18:17] Right. Hopefully, you know, along the line, you're getting certain things that, that'll stick and that help you grow. So, um, and, uh, so reflection is something that'll help cause you to be thankful.
[18:29] Psalms 116. Psalms 116. So Psalms 116, the psalmist.
[18:44] In verse 12. What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me? You ever think about that? You ever think about the benefits, you know? He daily loaded us with benefits.
[18:56] So, you know, you, you get these benefits. What shall I render unto the Lord for all his benefits toward me? Well, you know, I mean, right off the top of my head, I think Thanksgiving. But, uh, you know, he goes on, he says, um, I will take the cup of salvation and call upon the name of the Lord.
[19:11] I will pay my vows unto the Lord now in the presence of all his people. Uh, precious in the sight of the Lord of the dead of his saints. Oh, Lord, truly, I am thy servant. I am thy servant and the son of thine handmaid.
[19:24] Thou has loosed my bonds. I will offer to thee the sacrifice of Thanksgiving and will call upon the name of the Lord. So here the psalmist, you know, he, he, he poses the question.
[19:35] I got all these benefits. What shall I render unto the Lord? And he goes on and he's doing certain things. And thankfulness is one of them. Thankfulness is one of the things as he reflects on the benefits he's gotten.
[19:47] He, uh, he gives thanks. Um, something else, you know, and this is, you know, this is what we're in. We're in December 28th. So in a couple of days, in a couple of days, it'd be 29, 30, 31.
[20:01] And then his new year's, right? It was 31 days in December, isn't it? You think I'd know that by now. I'm 50 plus years old. Uh, but the new year, right?
[20:13] The new year, how many, how many times you hear somebody telling you you need to reflect, you need to reflect on the past year. And this is the time of year you're doing that. So hopefully you'll reflect on your past year and see how thankful you were.
[20:24] See how, see how the giving of thanks worked in your life. Um, number three is a proper response. So, you know, a proper response will help you to be thankful.
[20:35] You know, obviously the, the Pharisee had a wrong response to what was going on. He, he didn't see it right. He saw it wrong. And that was very unfortunate, but you need to have the proper response.
[20:47] I'll give you, I'll give you an example. Um, I'll give you an example. There was a, um, uh, preacher recently, a pastor, not Pastor Walski. Okay. I'm not talking about Pastor Walski.
[21:00] Everybody got that right. Raise your hand. If you hear me, I'm not talking about Pastor Walski. All right. There, there, there, there, the preacher recently who, who instead of being thankful about something, he was critical.
[21:10] All right. Somebody was telling me the story is in a different church and not Pastor Walski. It's not. Um, but what happened was is, um, he got some information about a thing.
[21:21] And instead of being thankful, he looked at it a different way and perceptions, perceptions a lot. You know, you can, you can see one thing one way and somebody sees it the total opposite way.
[21:31] Right. That's why you got the Hatfields and the McCoys, right? You got, that's why you got people that don't, don't, they just never can get together because they're here. They're here. It's never, they're never going to come together. And, uh, so he was critical about something instead of being thankful about something.
[21:46] And he realizes error later. Okay. He called it an error because he came out and said, I'm, I messed it up. I really messed up on that. And, you know, he went on whatever, but time will only, only time will tell if he can repair that situation.
[22:05] I mean, it was, it's, it's messed up. It's messed up. But, um, he, he didn't have the proper response. So the proper response will cause you to be thankful.
[22:19] You have something from God, you know, the improper response in the Bible would be, uh, complaining, murmuring, right? God blesses them with manna and they go, I got to have this man again.
[22:33] Oh, I'm sorry. How about you start? Would you rather have that? You know, um, so your proper response will, will help you and cause you to be thankful.
[22:47] Um, what else? Um, you know, so, so you, you, you ask yourself, am I thankful or am I, or am I entitled?
[22:58] Right? That's what people, that's how people think. You know, they can either approach it with a thankful response or they can approach you with the, well, I'm entitled to that response.
[23:10] That wouldn't be good. Uh, number four is a right heart. Psalms 51. Psalms 51. Psalms 51. And you know, I don't need to say much about the heart probably.
[23:21] I mean, you probably, I probably do, but I'm not going to. That's a whole different, that's a whole different, um, run. But in Psalms 51 and verse 10, I recommend you memorize it and use it a lot in your life.
[23:35] Create me a clean heart. Oh God. And renew a right spirit within me. Um, so a right heart, a right heart.
[23:45] What will cause you to have the right response? Uh, this is something that I wrote down on my prayer list. I don't know. I'm going to say, I probably started writing on my prayer list, uh, 25, 30 years ago.
[23:58] And, um, if you don't have a prayer list, you ought to have one. Make one. Okay. You're going to lose it. Okay. You're going to stop doing it. Make another one. All right. I don't know how many times Psalms was 51 10.
[24:12] I don't know how many times Psalms 51 10 went on my prayer list and fell off. I mean, that's like something that ought to be there for the rest of my life. But somehow, somehow it just kind of falls off somewhere.
[24:26] I'm sure it's me, um, making an adjustment somehow, but I try to keep it. You know, there's certain things I keep on. That's one of them. And I, and I pray God create me a clean heart and renew a right spirit within me.
[24:40] A clean heart, a right heart will, uh, will cause you to, uh, be thankful in the right way. Yeah. You, you, you know, uh, Jeremiah 17, nine, everybody should know that.
[24:53] If you don't have that memorized, write it down. Make it a memory verse. But it says, it says the heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked who can know it. I mean, that's why you need to pray and say, God create me a clean heart because your heart is deceitful and desperately wicked.
[25:13] And the fifth thing, uh, I, I'm going to give you this morning and some things that cause you to be thankful would be, uh, I called it respect to God. Um, you know, it is a command, right?
[25:27] Being thankful is a command in everything. Give thanks. Right. So, so if you respect the Lord and, uh, want to be obedient to the Lord, you're going to do this.
[25:38] Uh, if you, uh, hopefully you get to the place where it becomes, I want to call it natural or maybe I should say unnatural, uh, uh, natural in the spirit.
[25:51] Maybe, but, um, you know, it's a command. We started out in the first Thessalonians 518. That's where it is. Um, maybe, maybe a better way of putting it, maybe a better way of putting it. And I have something to do with it is, uh, the fear of the Lord.
[26:04] You know, um, you know, what is the fear of the Lord? It's well, it's very important, but the fear of the Lord is, I remember reading Dr. Ruckman and he just said, it's being scared out of your wits.
[26:17] I thought that's good. I said, I need to hear because you hear everybody, you know, I respect. And I think it, I think it runs from the gamut all the way from your respect to the Lord.
[26:27] Like kind of like the Asians do for their parents. Right. We say that that's probably racist today. Sorry. Um, but all the way to being scared out of your wits.
[26:40] It's okay. He's God. He's God. And you are, but dust. Right. So, um, you do well to fear making God not happy.
[26:56] Right. Um, you do well to do that. Um, now I don't know how thankful you are, but, uh, just examine yourself.
[27:10] Okay. Give yourself a little time today somewhere and just say, how thankful am I? Am I thankful for, I don't know. Let's go through it real quick. Am I thankful for my salvation? Am I thankful for my wife, my children, my dad, my, you know, I'm just looking around, you know, my, my friends, my, uh, you know, just think about that.
[27:28] All right. And I'm going to close there. That's all I had this morning. So you can add to those some reasons, uh, that would cause you to be thankful to God. Let's pray.
[27:39] Father, we are thankful to be able to consider the scripture. And I pray this morning, you blessed I people. And, um, as this subject is brought to their attention, that they would consider those things and, and look at their own lives.
[27:52] Hopefully everybody's got it down to a good science and that they're, uh, it's incorporated in their lives and, but if there'd be some here that maybe, maybe it's not so much, uh, I pray you bless them and you show them how to, uh, fulfill this in their life in Jesus name.
[28:06] Amen.