and I have to do lift up. And in James 1, verse 17, we hear James is calling out to the different scattered tribes, the 12 tribes, and he's greeting them. He's giving them some incredible Christian practical applications for their lives. And really, it's so bold, it's almost like reading some of the mandates that Paul the Apostle gives in Romans 12 and in many other areas of the prison epistles that he gives us. But we read in James 1.17, Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness and neither shadow of turning." Are we aware of the gifts from above? One of the things that the Lord cried out, and I think one of the top maybe three things that He was the most upset with in Scripture, and I believe as Christians we try, at best that we can, as hard as it is, to try to think like the Lord. And we can see how He thinks and what He says in Scripture, but one of the worst things that was in Scripture was the ingratitude that many showed for all the blessings and the gifts. Remember the complaining. of the Israelites when the Lord had provided so much for them and how upset that he got. But are we grateful for them? Are we blinded to the gifts that are essential to our eternity? And here's some of the questions we could be answering. Every good gift, every good gift is from above. This is a magnificent and a mighty thanksgiving message. And it's a call for us to be thankful for every good gift that cometh from above. And as Matthew said, count your blessings. If you got up in the morning and just named all of the processes that your body has to go through to be healthy, to just be able to get up and go out and do all of the work you want to do, you couldn't even begin to count the blessings of what it takes just to be healthy. Not to mention all the components around you that allow you to work and provide and all the things that you have. It's incredible. It says, count your blessings, name them one by one, count your many blessings, see what God has done. We see here that the Lord wants us to be thankful. Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above. And it does come down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variable, there is no shadow of turning. We do not worship a fickle God. We see here that James, the brother of Jesus, referred to as James the just, has pronounced these offerings. And he says, every good gift. What does that mean by good? If we read Genesis 1, verses 1 through 3, in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and the earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters, and God said, Let there be light, and there was light." And look at that from here, our Lord God Almighty, He engineers, He designs, He colors, He decorates, and He creates all things by His very spoken Word. We see the Logos, the Word. He commands all things into being, the light, the day, the night, the firmament, the waters, the heaven, the earth, the grass, herb-yielding seed, fruit-bearing trees, sun, moon, and stars, living creatures, birds, fish, whales, cattle, creeping things and beasts. And isn't it incredible that as you read in verses 4, verse 10, verse 12, verse 18, verse 21, and verse 25, the refrain in Genesis is, that it was good. And then he takes it to a superlative degree in verse 31, it was very good. And all of this fell under the classification of the righteousness of God. And when he makes things, they're wonderful. They're good. Our God gives us a world. And here's another song. Does anyone remember this? This is my father's world. And I can hear the words, I can hear, I remember, I love the message that Pastor Sinclair Ferguson, if you've ever heard from him, he preaches a message called, This is Our Father's World, and he's got a Scottish accent, and he says, This is our father's world. And he says it in that accent, I can't get that out of my head. And I love that message. And he talks about the writer of that song, whose name was Maltby Davenport Babcock, written in 1901. And Maltby looked frequently, he would take walks in upstate New York overlooking Lake Ontario, where he was from, and he would say to his wife, based on Psalm 50, verse 12, Let's go out and take a walk today. Let's go out to see our Father's world. And Psalm 50 12, For the world is mine and the fullness thereof. And we see how time begins here in creation and it's punctuated by the wonders of God's creation. This is a good gift, a wonderful gift that the Lord provides. Colossians 3.15 we read, And let the peace of God rule in your hearts, to which also ye are called in one body, and be ye thankful. You know, our Lord God Almighty does not ask us for much, does He? Two things, believe and be thankful. I don't think that's too unreasonable. Our Father works everything in the universe for the good of his people, for the good of those that love God and who are called according to his purpose. We read in Romans 8, 28. And Paul, the apostle, he tells us over and over and over again. And we know this. Lord God Almighty, is a wonderful God. It's amazing our Father, He also cares for and He provides even for the enemies, His enemies. He reigns on their yards. He shines upon their fields. He heals their bodies and He cares for the just and the unjust. He even cares for those that blaspheme His name. He cares for those that hate Him and say that He's not real. We read in Matthew 5.45, that ye may be children of your Father which is in heaven, for He maketh His Son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and the unjust. And why do you think He does that? He does that as a testimony to bring even those that hate Him the most to Him. There are a great many examples in Scripture of those that despised God and mocked His name and blasphemed Him, that turned to the Lord, that loved Him. Paul the Apostle, who we just read Romans 8.28, he was one of them. He was the one holding the cloaks with Stephen, the most faithful deacon we read up in Scripture, loved the Lord, gave this oratory to the Pharisees and the Sadducees, went all through the Old Testament beckoning them to come to the gospel of Jesus Christ, and it was Saul of Tarsus standing there holding the coats of the very ones that stoned Stephen. And dear Paul lived the rest of his life lamenting over what he had done. When the Lord had lit that light up in his heart so bright that he couldn't miss it and he saved him, he could see all the bad things that he had done, thinking he was doing good things in the name of the Lord at the time. And look what he does. He reigns upon the just and the unjust. The gifts are from our Creator. This raises several questions of the age as we started off the message. There are questions. Why is there a created universe that became something from nothing? Why is there reality? Why is there existence? This is the questions of a lot of the metaphysical Greek philosophers. Why are we here? Why are all things brought into being? Who am I? Where do I fit into this universe? Do I have a foreordained purpose? Our purpose is to love God, to learn about His gifts and be grateful for them. And all this makes sense as we read in the responsive reading. Psalm 136 answers this question. If you read Psalm 136, you will find out why you're here. The purpose is the Lord gave you this earth and gave you breath in your life to glorify Him. The humanists, the evolutionists, the relativists, the pantheists, The atheist abortionists and all the advocates of all the wicked things today say we came from nothing, we exist by nothing, we become nothing. What does that mean? That we're worth nothing. With the Lord Jesus Christ you have purpose. If we came from nothing, if we exist by nothing, if we become nothing, then ultimately we would stand to reason that we are worth nothing, and that is not true at all. Why are we here? Who are we? Why do we exist? The shorter catechism of the Westminster Confession of Faith affirms the nature of what our purpose is by asking, what is the chief end of man? And you can go to the larger catechism, it's extended a little bit, that says, what is the chief and highest end of man? And I think it's so profound because I believe as Christians, it's so important. Say one is coming out of a life that has nothing to do with God or nothing to do with church, and all of a sudden the Lord's working on their hearts, and they want to go find a ministry. They want to go find a church. It's so vitally important to go to Scripture first. but go to the creeds and the confessions of that church. What are the creeds? What are the confessions? And the constitution of this church is the Westminster Confession of Faith, the original one from the 17th century, and it says, what is the chief and highest end of man? And this is our purpose. Simple. The chief and highest end of man is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. We see in 1 Corinthians 10, verse 26 says, For the earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof, whether therefore you go forward to chapter 10, verse 31, whether therefore you eat or drink or whatsoever you do, do all to the glory of God. So our existence is a gift from the Father. And I believe This is a very profound passage for thanksgiving. What are we to be thankful for? There's many messages, I love them all, the thanksgiving messages that go to the Hebrews chapter like this morning in Sunday School class, verses 13 to 16, where we talk about pilgrims. So many Psalms about being thankful or give thanks unto the Lord. And then we see in Psalm 100, giving praises to the Lord and thanking Him. We sing that from the Psalter and all. But then I think if we take it a next step further, which is the objective this morning, what are we thankful for? And I think that Scripture gives us detail and does not leave out what we are to be thankful for, and those are the gifts of God. And I believe this verse is so profound. Our Lord's purpose is to display Himself as our Father. It's marvelous how even the youngest, newest Christians who open the Word of God can know the answers that He says that even a child can understand it. In Genesis 1, He unveils Himself. He creates. Our Lord Jesus Christ speaks and He says, Let there be light. And the Holy Spirit moves upon the face of the water and breathes life. You see the work of the Triune God? God the Father. God the Son, God the Holy Spirit come together and you see the superlative highest degree that God the Son and God the Father give the Holy Spirit because it's when the Holy Spirit moves over the face of the water that the lights come on, that everything comes in. And life comes in. God makes the creatures perfectly to have environments, to live in with all their provisions. Birds with wings that fly, giraffes that have long necks to be able to reach for their food, creatures that can survive in water, even hidden creatures. And every good gift is made perfectly by our Lord. Where in the verses we discussed earlier, the Lord says, it is all good. As a father, God said, Genesis 2.16, And the Lord commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat, but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil thou shalt not eat of it. For in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die. You know that work was never ever declared as a sin. You realize that? Work was already going on before man sent in the garden. Can you imagine the wonderful... We were talking about in the Sunday school class a few weeks ago. Can you imagine the wonderful bond that the Lord God Jehovah has with Adam? And He's in the garden and He's having Adam. name, he gives him all the dominion over naming the animals, the plants, the trees, and he says, you name that a giraffe, you name that a whale, you name that an elephant, you do all of these, and all these things he's saying, he starts with basically the sun, moon, and the stars, but he says, don't eat of that tree. One tree. You do realize he could have taken that garden and gave him one tree to eat of and he couldn't touch anything else. But he gave him everything. But one legislation, One piece of justice. He says, do not eat of that tree. And my point is this. We'd be here for all afternoon if I kept going on, but I could tell you this. What happened? Man ate of the tree. And with every good gift the Lord gave, he gave the earth, the fullness thereof, the beautiful pastures, the beautiful skies, all of the mountains, gave it to mankind. And then he even gave him a helpmate. He said, it's not good for man. Everything was good, except this was not good for Adam to be alone, that he should have help and have a helpmate on this earth. And he gives him Eve. And they both fell. Man was created. And what we had here was a cathedral with a congregation to praise and to glorify Him. And to praise His Son and to glorify His Son. Colossians 1.13, we read, God, who hath delivered us from the power of darkness and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son, in the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature. For by him were all things created that are in heaven and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers. All things were created by him and for him. All these wonderful gifts were in the garden. And then we see what happens. Perfect gifts. And look at the ultimate gift that He gave us in Isaiah chapter 9 verse 6. For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace. All I can say is hallelujah to that. Praise the Lord. Jesus is the perfect gift. Why? Everything was fine. Everything was fine in the garden and our Lord God Almighty had it all perfectly laid out. Everything was fine. But then man ate of that tree. The woman ate of the tree together. She ate first. She helped and he, of course, ate with her. And then all of a sudden it all started to come apart, didn't it? Never forget the rules of creation. The rules of creation that are laid down are the rules of life. Where our Lord God says, You may eat of everything freely eaten in the garden, but of this tree, the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, ye may not surely eat, or else what? You will die. What kind of death? First, see, everyone always says spiritual, and that's true. That's true. but immediately it became a physical death. Immediately at that moment, as soon as they bit into that fruit, and everybody says it's an apple, it's on all the commercials, it's an apple, we don't know what it was, could have been anything, but it was a fruit, fruit of the tree, they started aging. Immediately they started aging. That everlasting process now had a noose around it, basically. So, basically, what we see here is the need for an ultimate gift. And this is the problem, and this is the core of everlasting life, is that most people, sadly, and I talk to many, most people do not believe they need this perfect gift. The one we just read from Isaiah 9, 6. That wonderful counselor. That now man sinned. Sin is rampant. It's everywhere. You don't hear it much in churches today or on the radio. You don't hear about that because it doesn't draw crowds. But to stand up here and to lie and say it's not a problem would be a horrible thing for me to do, is to lie to you and say you're okay. That God loves you unconditionally no matter what you do, that's not true. Paul says there's a heaven to gain and a hell to shun. Sin is true. And if you believe you need a Savior, and you are saved by the Gospel of Jesus Christ, by His blood, and you love His blood, you have everything you could ever want because you're clothed in His righteousness. And that is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. That is the essence of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. that whosoever believeth on him should not perish." John 3.15. Whosoever is open to all whom he ever created, an unbelief is the deadly barrier. Christ's blood is sufficient for all. But Christ died for those whom He loves and whom He has chosen. Here the Jews believed that a Messiah would come and avenge them and save Israel and punish all who mistreated Israel. We see here that Jesus says that this is about believing in the Son of Man who is lifted up and whosoever believes will escape judgment, hell, be forgiven, and give an eternal place in heaven. We think of Nicodemus and how Nicodemus came out, and it was blackout that night, it was very dark, and he came to Jesus, and he says, Lord, what must I do to be saved? And he said, you must be born again. Verily, verily, I say unto you, you must be born again. Oh, do I need to be back in my mother's womb to be reborn? He said, no, you need to be born in the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit, that's what it's all about. What a gift. Jesus was teaching, and He sent as a gift to this earth to rescue us and to save us from eternal condemnation. And all that Christ is teaching is He gave Nicodemus the outline. He gave him the truth. He gave him exactly what the remedy is from the sin that was back in the garden. And the gift is that Lord Jesus Christ, He's as our Savior, for God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life in its belief." There's all these ways to heaven people are saying today. All these works, all these things we can do in and of ourselves. Can we bypass the cross to get to heaven? Can we bypass what Christ did for us on the cross? Well, you know Satan tried that. How did he try that? Matthew chapter 4. Remember the three temptations. He says to Jesus, he's standing up on the pinnacle, he already tried to get him to turn the stone into bread and to eat. And the Lord said, man does not eat by bread alone, except by every mouth that proceedeth from the Father. And he says, go take yourself up on top of the synagogue. Do you know that the synagogue was 450 feet high? He says, go throw yourself off of it and the angels will catch you up and we'll see if you really are who you say you are. And he says, tent not the Lord thy God. Don't tent Him. I'm not doing it. Here's the big one. And this is the one that Satan knew, but he tries to get everybody to believe, and a lot of people believe this, that he has the power to grant Jesus the world. Stands there and he actually has the unmitigated gall to tell Jesus Christ our Lord Jesus Christ That's his ineffable name. He says you bow down to me get on one knee and I'll give you Mesopotamia I'll give you Egypt. I'll give you Rome. I'll give you all can you imagine Jesus what he's thinking? You have what do you think you have the power to give me what's already mine? and here what he was saying was I have the power to give you everything without the cross. He knew that he wasn't going to budge Jesus, but he knew that it would go down and be recorded and that people would follow him. And they do. They believe there's other ways to heaven. Are there other ways to heaven? What does John 14, 6 say? I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh unto the Father but by Me. It doesn't say, no man cometh unto Me but by sacraments, or by your works, or by you've decided to follow Jesus out of nowhere. You have to come by Me. And I can tell you that's true, because let me tell you something, there's nobody I'd rather have in my stead when I leave this earth. Where are you going to be a hundred years from now? Maybe some of us, 50, 60, 70, where? Who is going to stand with you in the day of judgment? And anybody that says there's not a day of judgment and it's not true, it's going to be a lot harder for them, because I'm telling you, it's true. Seventy years, half the man, and then comes the judgment. Seventy years, half the man, and then comes the judgment. I'll tell you what, Jesus Christ walks out and He's standing there with the holes in His hands, which would be the only resemblance of this world of salvation, and He holds His hands out and He says, He's mine. Well done, thy good and faithful servant. No one else has that power but Christ. Go to Christ. He's the only way. It's what we preached at Fred's funeral. What else could I preach? Greg said it was a great message. Of course it was. Not because of me. It was because of Christ's words and what we read from John 11. And he stands there and he tells Lazarus to come forth. Look at all the false gods that are out there. You talk about a gift? The gift that you have is a savior whose bones are not in the tomb. He resurrected from the dead. Confucius is dead. All the stuff about Islam right now? Muhammad's dead. He's been dead for over 1400 years and he's never resurrected. I want to worship a Savior that has the power to walk through a tomb and get up after being mutilated and wrongly crucified for three days, bleeding His blood. He completely bled out so that nothing but water came out of His body. When the Roman guard took a spear and pierced His side, Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea proved and they confirmed that they buried him, that he was dead, and in three days he walked out of the wall, that tomb. Read it. Read it really hard. Nobody opened that tomb up for him to walk out. That was opened up after he walked out. He literally walked through and he resurrected from the dead, seen by over 500 people, and ascended into heaven. And what we're studying in John 16 in the Sunday school class, which has been our normative study for the last several months, I must needs go to the Father so that I can send you a comforter. And this is just the beginning of the gifts that I have to offer from Scripture this morning. This is just the beginning. The ultimate gift is He, the Lord, died for us. He went up and on the right hand of the Father, He sent the Holy Spirit to give us a comforter. What other false God offers their people a comforter? a comforter to get you through your trials. That Holy Spirit will get you through anything, and if you love Him, you have unlimited power because of Jesus Christ, not of you. Not this bag of dust. You have it because of Jesus Christ. I want to go to a passage. We read it this morning. I memorized it, but I get nervous up here, and I can't. I'll mess it up. But I want to read you something. We quoted it this morning. You in the Sunday school class, you'll remember this. But I'm going to finish with this gift, okay? And this is for Thanksgiving. I love this. We've been going through the consolatory discourse in John chapters 13 to 17, and then we haven't gotten to chapter 18 yet. But the gift of creation, the gift of salvation through Christ because of our sin. And I want to give you another one before we leave. The gift of His doctrine. You know how many people have asked me over the years, what is doctrine? Well, think about the prefix. Doctrine. What do you go to a doctor for? He has knowledge to help you. Doctrine is the teaching and the works and persons of Jesus Christ. What I love about these verses that I'm going to read is that the high priests tried to back Christ into a corner and basically show Pilate, and show Caiaphas, and show Annas, and all these, that he was nothing but an insurrectionist liar, that he was saying all these different things, that what he was saying was against Caesar, they wanted to accuse him of being an insurrectionist, and they said that he spoke of this unbelievable doctrine that nobody knew about, and the whole time they knew what his doctrine was. They heard him over, and over, and over, and over, and he never wavered. And look at what it says here. Go back to John chapter 18, verses 19 to 21. The high priest then asked Jesus of his disciples and of his doctrine. Jesus answered him, I spake openly to the world I ever taught in the synagogue and in the temple, whither the Jews always resort, and in secret have I said nothing. Why askest thou me? Ask them which heard me, what I have said unto them. Behold, they know what I said. I'm begging you this morning is the ultimate gift. Know what He said. John 1.1, In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning. All things were created by Him, and without Him nothing that was made was made. And He is the Logos. Know His Word. And that's the greatest gift that you can give to your family, to those that you witness to, to those that are struggling. The last few weeks, so many people. There's this young man at the bank. He's struggling. He's really struggling. I don't even hardly know the guy. And I'm just telling you this, not because of me, nothing like that. I wanted to tell you his reaction. He's really struggling to the point where he's moving. He's had a lot of hard times. And I sat there and I gave him the gospel of Jesus Christ. And I told him, you follow Christ. You will never be alone. And he just he teared up and gave me a big hug. I don't even know that he ever knew this. He's never been taught it in church, and I gave him the gospel. I gave him verses. Gave him comfort. And that's all you can give when people are hurting. That's a gift. Give them the gospel. Brother Fred, we sat there and we prayed together. Greg, he loved his father, and he gave him the gospel. He told him about faith. Fred turned to the Lord. I believe it too, as Dave said. I believe that for sure, and we just had a wonderful time. So that's the gift. Know the words of Jesus Christ. Get into your Bibles. If you don't know something, don't go to all these websites first. Don't go to all these books. Go to Scripture first and then ask questions. Don't go to me until you've read Scripture. You want to ask me a question? I love to answer your questions. Text me, call me. I don't care how you do it. I'll do it. We're going to go to Scripture first and you'll find out the truth. What a gift. Heavenly Father, praise the Lord Jesus Christ. Praise Thee for Thy name. Praise Thee that Thou art the gift above all gifts. There's nothing else, Lord, that we need more than the Lord Jesus Christ in our hearts. And that is what will save our nation. It will save this world. It will save our family. It will save our children. It will save our grandchildren. As Thou hast said, if you obey me, if you love me, keep my commandments, and I will bless you. I will bless your children, your children's children, your cattle. Your work, everything you have, I will bless it. Keep my commandments. I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved. We thank Thee and praise Thee in Thy name. On this Thanksgiving day, Lord, we give thanks to Thee. In the name of Jesus Christ we pray, Amen.