verse 12 of chapter 3 Colossians, through verse 17. Put on therefore as the elect of God, holy and beloved bowels of kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, forbearing one another and forgiving one another, if any man have a quarrel against any, even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye. And above all things, put on charity, which is the bond of perfectness, and let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also you are called in one body, and be ye thankful. The word of Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another in songs and hymns, spiritual songs, singing with grace in your hearts to the Lord. And whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, our dear God, we are thankful. We see your tender mercies in our lives every day. And while sometimes our minds and our hearts have been drawn away from you, and it may become difficult to see your tender mercies, nevertheless, we know that we receive them because you have promised to give them. I pray tonight, Father, We will learn something about thankfulness and learn to be thankful more so than we have, perhaps. But we are all thankful for Jesus Christ. We're thankful for his obedience unto the death of the cross. We're thankful that he laid down his life for his sheep. Thank you that he has promised to bring his sheep into your very presence. We're thankful for redemption in him, for the hope of heaven we have through him. So now bless our evening. Make us thankful for it. I pray in Christ's name, amen. Heard a little. News broadcast, I think it was probably on public radio. I don't even know the name of the new director of the FBI. It's one of President Clinton's appointees. I do know a little about him. I know that he was formerly an FBI agent and left the Bureau because he couldn't stand the waste and bureaucracy that was in the Bureau. That was years ago. Subsequently went on to be a, I think, a business executive somewhere. Anyway, the President of the United States asked him to be his director of the FBI. I can imagine that those who were at the upper levels of the bureaucracy trembled a little at the very idea that someone who left the Bureau because he couldn't stand the bureaucracy was now going to be their boss. And so he made a list of the 80 highest level ranking positions in the Bureau. And he called each one of the men, over a period of time, of course, because there were 80 of them, into his office one at a time. And he said, among other things, I'm sure he exchanged pleasantries, and he said, I want you to now have 10 minutes to justify your position in this Bureau. And more than 70% of them couldn't give him a concise answer. in 10 minutes. Now, to say, I mean, this is really, it's refreshing because every one of those who couldn't give an answer, his whole hypothesis was you ought to be able to tell me in 10 minutes what you're doing here and whether or not what you're doing is important here. Anyway, the 70%, the 56 or 60 of them that couldn't give a concise answer within 10 minutes all found themselves in and other places where there were FBI agencies, but they were no longer upper echelon supervisory bureaucrats. Now you say, what does this have to do with what we're going to talk about? I give you 30 seconds to tell me what you're thankful for. You ought to be able to tell me what you're thankful for in something in 30 seconds. You should be able to tell me that at the instant I'm asking it. You should be able to tell me what you're thankful for, something you're thankful for. So here's the problem. The problem is that some of us would have to think just a little bit and then we might say something that would be expected of us to say and we'll say it because Christians have... Christians use canned idiom a lot. They say certain things the same way over and over again. After a while, you know, we don't speak in tongues, but we speak in a Christian language that others understand. We say things that you would expect Christians to say, you know, thankful for the Lord Jesus Christ. Well, of course we are. And certainly that should come out very quickly, instantly. But I'm talking about thankfulness that comes from the soul, that's burned in your mind, in your psyche, that is very real. has been an experience for you. And I don't mean always great things either. I mean, unpleasant things can be bases for being thankful. Did you know that? Now, I wanna give you the basis for all Christian thankfulness. Every Christian should be thankful for everything that occurs in his life on the basis of that one promise in scripture that all things work together for good to those who love God, who are called, those who are called according to his purpose. Now, if that's a true, and it is a truth, then we need to position our hearts so that we recognize God's hands in all the affairs of our lives, in all of the experiences of our lives, and therefore we need to learn to be thankful. If we aren't thankful at the moment, we need to learn to be thankful at the outcome, because the outcome is always good. It's always good. Think of an unpleasant experience that's happened to you in the past, not since last Thanksgiving, past year. something that you wish hadn't happened, something that you experienced a lot of pain. Think of even the difficulty in our own church and the friends that have left and then all of the chatter about, you know, the unkind things that are said about each other. Think of all those kinds of things. And it's very hard for you to put the note of thankfulness on that. But in the long run, in the end, it's going to work for everybody's good, for all believers' good, for our church's good, for everybody's good, it will work. Well, because the promises in the scriptures is not my idea, it's God's idea. He's the one who gave it and he's the one who executes it. But even besides that, I can think of things in my own life I think of business reversals and times of great anxiety that might otherwise have consumed me that, thanks God, did not. But the point is that in the end, I really am very thankful because I think I'm very definitely a very different and in many ways a better person than I was before those experiences. The other night, there was a resurrection of the old family radio program, a television program called the Waltons. I don't know how many of you ever even know about them or watched it. Jerry and I did because we're old-fashioned and and in many ways at least and and one of the things that Was said there was grandpa who was now dead had told his son who is now a grandpa He said the worst pain that you'll ever experience is the pain that will be inflicted upon you by your child whether it's a loss of the child or or anything else and And probably that's true if you're a parent and you've raised children or in the process of raising children, you can be sure that if the Lord gives you a reasonably long life, somewhere along the way, either as adults or as teenagers or through physical illness or through disobedience on their part or wandering somewhere where they shouldn't, they're gonna cause you pain. And when your kid causes you pain, it's pain. It's real pain in the heart. And when it's happening, that's not really a whole lot that you can think of. You're not even in the mood to be thankful. Thankfulness is really pretty far from your mind. Usually what you do is you're driven to the Lord, and you don't say, thank you, Lord. You say, help me, Lord. That's very legitimate. There's nothing wrong with that. The point is, I guess, and this is the point, is that through all of those things, the ultimate result of it is, for your good. Because all things work together for good to those who love God. Yeah, you must love Him. And you have to keep on loving Him, of course, because why wouldn't you? He loves you. He first loved you, and that's why you love Him at all. So I guess what I'm saying to you is, whatever has transpired over the course of this past year, I want you to think of some of the difficulties, not all the happy things. A whorling is thankful for everything that happens good to him. You don't have to be much of a believer to be thankful for all the good stuff, but it takes a real appropriation of God's promises and his word and faith to be thankful for the stuff that isn't viewed ordinarily as good. And I want you to think of those things. I know that if you are as adept as I at putting unpleasant things out of your mind, it would be very hard for you to resurrect some of the events at work, or among friends, or among family, or whatever, doing business that maybe weren't pleasant. But there's plenty that must have transpired in your life over the past year. If you can, I want you to think about those things. Remember some of them. and think of whether or not you feel you are better in Christ, you're a better believer in Jesus Christ because of them. And if you come to that conclusion, then be thankful. We need to learn to be thankful no matter what because there's no such thing as benign neglect on the part of our God. He is active in our lives and very definitely has a program because he has foreordained all things that will come to pass in our lives. He has a program for us that is for our benefit. Everything that God does in which you are involved is for your benefit. Everything. Everything is for your benefit. Hard to believe, isn't it? It's true. It's true. Sometimes We lose friends and it's for our benefit and maybe for theirs. Sometimes we gain friends and it's for our benefit. Sometimes unkind things are said to us and we may at the moment think that we didn't deserve it but in the long run, it's for our benefit because if we didn't deserve it, it's humbling and if we did deserve it, it's teaching. So in either way, it's for our benefit and we need to learn to benefit from all the things which are brought to bear in our lives. So the apostle wrote this and he told us about conduct. He said, live your life this way. Be kind, be humble, be meek, be patient, be forbearing, be forgiving, be loving, be at peace. And then he caps it all, he says, and be thankful. If you want to learn to be thankful, you probably ought to learn to be all those other things too, because all those other things are part of the equation of learning to have a thankful heart. And I do believe, I honestly do believe that if we are brought to the place where we learn to truly be thankful as believers in Jesus Christ about our lives and about the things in our lives, the things we don't have as well as the things which we do, I think that that is a real mark of faith and consecration to Jesus Christ. Well, just a little short homily. Now, would you take your Bibles, please? Your King James versions, of course, and turn to the 107th Psalm. If you don't have a King James, well, you can stumble along in whatever version you have. We'll read the first 22 verses together. Are you ready? You have the 107th Psalm? Are you ready now? Everybody have it? Okay, read with me. Oh, give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, for his mercy endureth forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so, whom he hath redeemed from the hand of the enemy. and gathered them out of the lands from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south. They wandered in the wilderness in a solitary way. They found no city to dwell in. Hungry and thirsty, their soul fainted in them. Then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them out of their distresses. And he led them forth by the right way that they might go to a city of habitation. Oh, that men would praise the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the children of men, for He satisfieth the longing soul and filleth the hungry soul with goodness. Such as sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and iron, because they rebelled against the words of God, and contemned the consul of the Most High. Therefore he brought down their heart with labor, they fell down, and there was none to help. And then they cried unto the Lord in their trouble, and he saved them out of their distresses. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and broke their bands asunder. Oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men. For he hath broken the gates of brass and cut the bars of iron in sunder. Fools, because of their transgression and because of their iniquities, are afflicted. Their soul abhorreth all manner of meat, and they draw near unto the gates of death. Then they cry unto the Lord in their trouble and he saveth them out of their distresses. He sent his word and healed them and delivered them from their destructions. Oh, that men would praise the Lord for his goodness and for his wonderful works to the children of men and let them sacrifice the sacrifices of thanksgiving and declare his works with rejoicing. May God bless that word to your hearts.