Well, Thanksgiving will be this Thursday, and so I thought that I would preach to you a Thanksgiving sermon here this morning. I'd like for you to turn with me to Ephesians chapter 5. Ephesians chapter 5. We're going to be looking at verse 20. Look to our God in prayer before I begin. Oh Lord, you must consider it a very great thing in your sight for your people to be a thankful people or you would not give us this great command in the book of Ephesians. And so we ask, Lord, as we study it this morning, that you would help us to remember just how great a God you are, that you can teach us your ways and you can cause us to learn how to glorify you in all things and in every way to give thanks. And so, Lord, we pray that we would learn together in this way, this holy way, this way of your making. And you have set us on the path of righteousness And You have given us many precious and magnificent promises. And You also have said to us that it's through many trials and tribulations that we enter the Kingdom. And so, Lord, we would be a thankful people in all things. Teach us Your holy way this morning. For we pray it in Jesus' name, Amen. I'm going to begin reading to you in verse 15. And I'll read down to verse 20. See then that you walk circumspectly, the Apostle Paul says, not as fools, but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be unwise, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine, in which is dissipation, but be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. Now as we approach another Thanksgiving Day, it gladdens my heart that this is a holiday that has not been perverted or twisted as other holidays on our calendar have been, like Christmas with its Santa Claus and Easter with its Easter bunny. The only thing which Thanksgiving represents when it's truly celebrated is that we are a thankful people. And we're thankful for all that God has given to us as a nation and as a people. Thanksgiving as a day of thankful remembrance for the United States of America began in 1620 in the Plymouth colony. It is with a thankful heart that we remember the Puritan pilgrims who came over from Delft Haven, Holland, and who settled there in Plymouth in the year 1620. They had fled persecution from their native England not too long before. And now they were launching out in search of a place where they could worship God with freedom of conscience. I think it's particularly fitting that we pause this morning and remember that what we have come to know as thanksgiving began with Christian people experiencing trials and testings to their faith. And yet they were thankful people. The Puritans were men of prayer, Joseph Banvard says. In all their undertakings of importance, they were accustomed to seek direction from their Heavenly Father and implore His blessings. So accordingly, on Saturday, November the 11th, 1620, religious services were held on board of the Mayflower. They fell on their knees and they rendered thanks to God for His kind protection of them during their dangerous voyage across the ocean and implored His favor to rest upon them amid the toils and trials and temptations upon which they were now to enter." This is the kind of people I'm saying that you and I as Christians hope to be in our trials and temptations. Those who will seek and implore God's favor. Those who will give thanks even as they did on that day. We are like Pilgrim and Pilgrim's Progress. We have set out on a journey from this life to the next. And we would be a thankful people, not only on this upcoming Thursday, this day of Thanksgiving, but as our text says, giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. So what I want to do this morning is first of all to share with you the beauty of Christian Thanksgiving. And then secondly, I would like to tell you of the duration of Christian Thanksgiving. And then finally, I would like to set before you the all-inclusive nature of Thanksgiving. First of all, the beauty of Christian Thanksgiving. What is Thanksgiving anyway? The dictionary says that it's an act. It's the act of giving thanks. a grateful acknowledgment of benefits or favors, especially the act of giving thanks to God. It mentions that there twice, so it's very significant that the giving of thanks is that very thing. It begins in our heart, but it doesn't rest there. It comes out on our lips and is declared. It's given to God, giving thanks to Him. It comes out on You may be a thankful person here this morning. You may be thankful to be alive. You may be thankful that you have a house to live in and a family to live there with you. You may be thankful for your daily bread, thankful for good health, thankful for the many possessions that the Lord has given to you. But do you give thanks to God for all that you have and all that you are? Do you give thanks to God for that? Do you tell Him this? with your lips in prayer and praise and thanksgiving. Everything that is good that is in you is from God. And you should give Him thanks for that. And give Him all that you have. Once again, giving Him thanks for all that you have. Truly, you have much to be thankful for. Many unbelieving people do not give thanks at all. And we here who have come to know the Lord Jesus have been shown the Lord's bounty, not only physically with all the physical blessings that we have in this country of food and shelter and jobs and homes and all the rest of it, but we have been given above all people the blessings of salvation, the blessings of our Lord Jesus Christ, the blessings of eternal life, and we of all people, I'm saying, to be thankful. It's a beautiful thing to give praise to God, it says in the Psalms. It's a comely thing. Praise is comely. Giving of thanks is a beautiful thing in the sight of God. God is not pleased when men do not give Him thanks. I want to show you this. I want you to turn over with me to Romans 1 and verse 20. Romans 1 and verse 20. You know, God expects praise. He expects thanksgiving from His highest creation here upon the earth, mankind. He expects praise, and a part of praise being thanksgiving, that people would be thankful and express that to Him as a part of their worship to Him. here in verse 20 of chapter 1 of the book of Romans. For since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even His eternal power and His Godhead, so that they are without excuse. Because although they knew God, they did not glorify Him as God, nor were thankful. but became futile in their thoughts, and their foolish hearts were darkened. Professing to be wise, they became fools, and exchanged the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man, and birds, and four-footed animals, and creeping things." Now, since the creation of the world it's saying here, God has expected something of His creature man. He has expected something of Him above and beyond all of the animals. He has expected worship and praise to ascend to Himself. Since the creation of the world, His invisible attributes have been seen, men knew much more about God in the sense of His attributes being displayed there at the creation. And they had the direct testimony of Adam and Eve to their being created and to all of these things that God had done. They had every reason to give thanks to God and praise to Him for His creation, revealing these eternal attributes. And it says they became futile in their thinking. And men are no different today. Men all around us today gaze at the television set, and they look at Channel 11, and they see pictures of apes walking in front of them, turning into men. And people talking about billions of years having gone by with no mention made of the eternal and almighty God who has made them or created them. They have become futile in their speculations. Their foolish hearts have become darkened. And professing to be wise, they have become fools. And you and I must turn them back from that if we can. The way that we must do this is by your and I being a thankful people. You and I will turn many other people back from their foolish, darkened ways if we will only give praise to God for His eternal attributes and not be afraid of those who believe in the doctrine of evolution. That you and I must be a thankful people, even as it says here, because we have come to see of all people the beauty and the glory of God and what it means to praise Him and to thank Him for all that He has done. We know so little of these things apart from grace. But now that sin has entered into the world through one man, Adam's sin, and death through sin, men do not see God and His goodness much in the creation. It tells us here that it's a great grief to God. They were not thankful. They were not thankful for all that God had done, for all that God had displayed, for all that God had set forth of Himself. And yet they deliberately and willfully ignore that, and turn their back on it, and create something in the image of four-footed, crawling, creepy creatures, crawling across the earth, and worship that as Almighty God. How devastating it is to the Almighty. It grieves Him that it is so, that men are not thankful. He speaks to them in His blessed word and they do not pay attention to it. It says in the book of Psalms, all the men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness and His wonderful works to the children of men. Do you give thanks to Him? Do you give praise to Him? Do you give worship to Him? Each and every day that He has revealed these saving truths to you. not only the truth of His creating you and all the creatures and all the creation, but His making you into a new creation through Jesus Christ our Lord that you believed in Him at one point in time if you have believed in Him. And He caused you to be born again and made you into a new creation so that you can show forth the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness and into His marvelous light. Oh, that men would give thanks to the Lord for His goodness and for His wonderful works to the children of men. It says that in Psalm 107. It says, For He satisfies the longing soul and fills the hungry soul with goodness. I know you're all thankful for food on your tables, but are you thankful that He satisfies the hungry soul and fills the hungry soul? Blessed are those who hunger and thirst. for righteousness, for they shall be filled." Are you thankful for what the Lord sets upon your spiritual table? In sermons prepared and preached to you week after week, yes, but the Word of God itself even more. The precious Word of God that He brings home with power to your soul day by day in your devotion. and worship and praise to Him. It's a beautiful thing to praise and to give thanks to the Lord. You may have much reason, humanly speaking, to give thanks for all that the Lord has given you to satisfy your body here within this life. But do you give Him thanks for the satisfactions of the soul, which are so much greater, so much precious, that the Lord would pour out His lovingkindness upon you day by day that He does this. As it says in Psalm 103, Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me. Bless His holy name, who heals all your diseases, who forgives all of your iniquities. He redeems your life from destruction. He crowns your years with loving kindness and tender mercies. He satisfies your mouth with good things. so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. If this is what the Lord has given to you through the Lord Jesus Christ, and the Lord Jesus Christ has died so that these things might be brought to your soul as realities, then will you not give Him thanks here this day? I want you to turn with me over to Psalm 92. Psalm 92. We're going to speak a little bit here about the acts of thanksgiving. Psalm 92, it says it is good to give thanks to the Lord, to declare your loving kindness in the morning and your faithfulness every night. These are the acts, I'm saying to you, of thanksgiving to God. to declare His lovingkindness in the morning, and to declare His faithfulness every night, it says here. Now, if this seems like legalism to you, then you haven't come to understand the meaning of thanksgiving, the beauty of thanksgiving. This should not at all seem like legalism to you, to declare His lovingkindness in the morning. Do you get up in the morning? And you say to the Lord, I'm declaring Your loving kindness this morning. You are so good to me, God. You are so gracious to me, God. You are so much better to me than I ever deserve, O Lord. You pour out Your loving kindness upon me. Your faithfulness, how great it is. You say this to Him every morning. And you say this to Him every night. It is an act of thanksgiving. Now you say to me, well, the Lord reads my heart. He knows everything that's in my heart. I don't have to declare thanks to God. No, it says that you should declare it every morning. You should say this to Him in prayer. You should consciously reflect upon the goodness and kindness and mercy and grace of the Lord Jesus that has been given to you. And you should declare this in the morning, it says. And also that you should, it says here, you should declare His faithfulness Every night you should say to the Lord, every night before you go to bed, you should say to Him, O Lord, how thankful I am that You have brought me through this day. You have kept me safe from harm. You have fed me and clothed me with food and You have given me shelter and all these blessings. And You have sustained and nourished my soul and upheld me so that I didn't grow overly discouraged, that I was able to face temptations, that I was able to think about You in my heart and mind, that I was able to put away sin and clothe myself with righteousness. All of this because of your faithfulness. Thank you, God, that you have done this for me. He's saying you should declare this every night. The whole world is full of the goodness of the Lord. And you and I can't stop. And every morning, once in the morning and once in the evening, we can't stop and declare God's loving kindness and His faithfulness Every day each? Just twice a day. Two times a day. And yet we don't do that sometimes. We don't consciously stop and give thanks to God. But I'm saying the acts of thanksgiving are important to the Almighty God. He is pleased with it. He is pleased with the beauty of praise and thanksgiving. I think God must wonder at us sometimes that we have so little love of Him. That we cannot do this. That we go day after day. We never even make mention of Thanksgiving. In our prayers to Him, we barely say thank you to Him. And yet He fills us full of blessings. And His loving kindness faithfully is pursuing us each day. That He providentially orders everything according to His will and watches over us and cares for us. The Lord, He is your keeper. The Lord, He is your shade. It's your right hand. And the sun will not smite you by day nor the moon by night. The Lord will protect you from all evil. He will keep your soul. The Lord will guard you going out and you're coming in from this day forth and forevermore. And yet we do not give Him thanks. I'm sure the Lord must wonder at this. He must say to Himself, I wonder if they're truly thankful. I wonder if they remember that I'm giving them all of this, all of these blessings each day, and yet they do not say this to me. They never tell me. They just simply do not tell me. The Lord must wonder over His people sometimes in that way. Surely if you're a Christian, God has given you grace not only to do it twice in a day, but even more during the day. More than twice during the day? Well, turn with me over to Daniel chapter 6, and we'll look at that just for a moment. Daniel chapter 6. Now, perhaps you remember what's going on in Daniel chapter 6 here. Sometimes people will conspire against you if you are a godly man or woman. I hope that you understand that, that the more progress and righteousness that you make, the greater the likelihood that people will eventually conspire against you because of your faith. I don't say that to discourage you. I say that so that you'll take heart, so that you'll understand what Daniel did here in these verses. It says of Daniel in verse 3 here that he distinguished himself above the governors and the satraps because an excellent spirit was in him. And the king gave thought to setting him over the whole realm. And the governors and satraps sought to find some charge against Daniel. concerning the kingdom, but they couldn't find any charge, they couldn't find any fault, because he was faithless, nor was there any error or fault found in him. Then these men said, we shall not find any charge against this Daniel unless we find it against him concerning the law of his God. So they go in to the king, and they ask him to prohibit prayer to any god for 30 days except prayer to Darius, the king, and Darius, when he's presented with this petition, like a dummy, he signs it. I mean, what kind of a fool must that man have been? That a bunch of guys come to him, and he's got to think so much of himself that all these characters hoodwink him into signing a petition that no prayer is to be offered to you, oh Darius. for the next 30 days." No prayers to be offered to anybody except you, O King, for the next 30 days. No other God. Darius goes, oh man, I really must be something, you know. I really must have it together. It says in verse 10, when Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went home. I think this is very significant here. And in his upper room with his windows open toward Jerusalem, he knelt down on his knees, it says, He knelt down on his knees three times that day and prayed and gave thanks before his God as his custom had been since early days." Now notice that. This had been Daniel's custom from early days. It was his custom. It was his act of devotion to God. I think that sometimes we as Christians Because we are so sure that God reads our hearts and sees everything that we are in our hearts, that we don't go on to become people of acts of devotion. And so we spend very little conscious time in a prayer closet. We spend very little conscious time giving thanks to Almighty God for particular mercies, benefits, and blessings which He has given to us. But that's what was happening here with Daniel. And Daniel was doing it right in the face of an edict and a decree that came from the king that no man was to petition any god for thirty days, only to petition Darius. But Daniel's custom was to give thanks three times in a day. He gave thanks in the morning, he probably gave thanks at the noontime, and he gave thanks in the evening. I don't know how it was with him, but that's how I speculate that it was with him. And he's going to get into trouble here, because it's the middle of the day, and he's going to go home, and he's going to give thanks. He's not going to let anybody else talk him out of giving thanks. He's going to give thanks. No matter what any king says, no matter what any edict says, No matter what anybody else thinks, Daniel is going to give thanks. And that's what got him into trouble here. That's what got him into trouble. He went home for a short time to give thanks and to lay the case of these men's dishonoring plans before the Lord. And while men would scheme evil against him, he would worship. Now ask yourself the question if that's you. When you have the sneaking suspicion or perhaps even the open notion that men are speaking against you and they are contriving evil against you, scheming against you to bring you down from your religious devotion to God and get you in trouble with the king because they would like your position or whatever it is in the company, what do you do? Well, what Daniel did was he went home and he prayed. He laid the case before God, and he did what it was his custom to do. And what I'm saying to you here this morning is this, beloved, that if you will develop these holy customs of thanksgiving to God, it will do you well in the times when men come against you for the gospel's sake. Why? Because you're not going to be anxious at that time. You know that this is all in God's hands. You know that God is fully sovereign, and you know that the Lord is leading these things, so you cannot be anxious at that point in time. You give prayer and thanksgiving to God. That is so. You read the testimony of the old martyrs that died under the Roman emperors back there in the beginning of the early church, and over and over again, You read of some of those early church fathers, and the people come to take them, and they're going to be burned, or they're going to be beheaded, or they're going to suffer some terrible physical agony, and they're saying, praise God. Now, how in the world can they do that? I think that you and I, maybe not you, but probably me, I'd be weeping and crying and say, oh, this cannot be. This simply cannot be. And yet those people were giving thanks. That's what Daniel did. That's what Daniel did. And he was thrown into the lion's den as a result. Well, while these men would scheme evil against him, he would worship. It says that in the Psalms someplace that David was doing that same place. I'm in prayer, but they want to kill me. They want to take my life, but I am in prayer for them. And it's just an amazing thing. Well, how can people do that? They do that because they're thankful. They are thankful people. When you are a thankful person, not much will move you in terms of what men will do to you. What can men do to me? Is your thought. Well, they can do many things to you. They can tear me apart and leave me for dead and not actually kill me. I mean, it could be a terrible situation. What do I do? Well, you give thanks that God has given you the opportunity to walk into this situation and to live in this way. Now, we don't have that in nature, do we? We don't have that in our human nature, but we do have it by grace. I'm here to declare this morning the faithfulness of God, His loving kindness. We have this by grace. And God does not give us that grace until we need it, but we will have it. Dearly beloved, believe it. Praise and thanksgiving are a beautiful thing. How is it with you? That's what I'm asking here. Are you so in the habit of giving thanks to God that if a law was passed in this country saying that none of us could pray and give thanks to God, what would you do? I would say to you that we would immediately disobey it. We would immediately disobey it, even as Daniel did. We do not want to be disobedient to human government. We want to submit to it. But when a law is made by higher powers, saying you cannot pray and give thanks, then we must respectfully say, no, we will pray. And we will have our acts of devotion, because God has commanded it to us, even if the Constitution, God forbid, was taken away. Now secondly, I want to tell you of the duration of Christian thanksgiving. Our text says, giving thanks always. Giving thanks always. This goes a step beyond a certain number of times of giving thanks in the day. It means that thanksgiving to God should fill our hearts at all times. Thanksgiving to God should fill our hearts at all times. Now we're being exhorted to be a thankful people always. How can this be, you say? It sounds quite impossible. And as I've been telling you, it really is impossible, quite impossible apart from grace. Even all the commands of holiness are quite impossible apart from grace. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Rejoice in the Lord always. And again I say rejoice. Philippians 4.4. Quite impossible. Except the grace of God comes. It's the same kind of command as that. It requires that the focus of your faith be upon what God the Father has given to us in the person and work of Christ and the presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit. If you don't think and meditate upon those things, you will not be thankful, always. But if you think upon them and meditate upon them, what God the Father has given to you in the Lord Jesus Christ, what He has given to you in giving you the gift of the Holy Spirit, then you will understand the way to proceed. You will begin to be thankful. Without thinking and meditating upon this, the commandment is quite impossible. But if you will think for a moment with me about verses 18 and 19 here in the text that we are reading in Ephesians. Verses 18 and 19 of Ephesians 5. The verses right before our text. You can see how a believer is always to give thanks. How he can do that. How he can begin to do so. It says, And do not be drunk with wine, which is dissipation, but be filled with the Holy Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always. You see, all those verses are connected together. That's the context. A Christian being drunk with wine is a grief to the Holy Spirit. You see that back up farther up the page. I don't know where it is exactly in the book of Ephesians, but it's back up the page farther. Do not grieve the Holy Spirit by whom you were sealed into the day of redemption. But we grieve the Holy Spirit as Christians if we are drunk with wine because that is dissipation. All of our focus, all of our thoughts is not upon and meditating upon God Himself. It is focused on the earthly experience of our feeling good at that particular time. It's that earthly experience of feeling high. It's of being able to forget what is around me for a time and then come back to it later, hopefully. But you see, the Christian doesn't need to do that because his focus is always upon the Lord Jesus Christ. I have set the Lord always before me, it says in Psalm 16. that I might do and keep your commandments, that I might please, be pleasing to you." That's what he's saying there. And so what I'm saying there in this text is that we need to take into consideration the context that the Holy Spirit and His being in us, He is given to us forever. He is given to us always. He is given to us to teach us all things and bring to our remembrance all things spoken to us by the Lord in the Scriptures, so that then we can live them out and be thankful. The way that you can be thankful always is to remember that the Holy Spirit is with you always. The Holy Spirit is with you always there to lift you up, to strengthen you, to encourage you. He is the Spirit of grace and supplication. He is the Comforter. He is the Helper. He is the One who will hear your prayers and the groanings of your heart, and He will intercede in connection with the work of the Lord Jesus on your behalf, so that when you come to Him in prayer, that you will know that you are having the requests that are made for you before the throne of God. We don't know how to pray as we ought. It says in the book of Romans. But the Spirit knows. And the Spirit makes intercession with groanings too deep for words, on our behalf. He's able to take it there. We're able to give thanks. Why is it that when we pray, we often start out and we say, I give you thanks. Well, that's where we need to start out. We need to start out right there. We need to start out right at the beginning by giving thanks. Because we have Jesus Christ. We have the Holy Spirit. We have all the blessings in the heavenly places in Jesus Christ at the right hand of the Father. To be drunk with wine as a Christian means you have not come to know this blessed truth that the Spirit has come to live within you and abide with you forever. And when you come to think about this a little bit, dear believer, you'll find that you'll be caught up in this relationship of meditating upon Christ and biblical truth. And by means of His gracious influences, you will give thanks, beginning a step at a time. You will live that truth out. Devotion to God and to our Christ in our thoughts is where we begin. This cannot come through excess of wine. I would venture to say it can't come through excess of any worldly pleasure, which wine is a picture of. But it comes from meditating and thinking upon the indwelling Holy Spirit and Christ in you. who is the hope of glory. And earthly high like wine or drugs is saying that you need to add to your sensory perception something more than what God has given to you naturally. That's what it means when you get drunk. You've got to add to something that God has given you. Your sensory perception. Your way of looking at the world. Your way of feeling. You have to add to that. in order to get through what you're going through, and to be thankful. But not so with a Christian. Not so with a Christian. No, with the Christian, if you have Christ and the Spirit, you need nothing else, ultimately. You need nothing else. Now, the Lord knows all of our needs, doesn't He? He says, seek first His Kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you, He says. No, you don't need anything else but Jesus Christ. You may need to learn to pursue holiness more in your everyday life. And you may need to learn how to pursue it in very practical ways. Verse 19 is saying that you may need to think more of how you can encourage other believers around you by speaking to them of the things which you are learning in your own private devotion to the Word of God. Do you do that? Now I know it's very easy when you're speaking to one another here, even here at church, on the Lord's Day, this day of days of the week, where we should have our minds focused upon things above, upon spiritual things, because we're giving the day to God. We want to behold His glory, but we find ourselves talking about nothing but earthly things. Why is that? It's because of the fact that we really haven't given thanks for the spiritual things that He is giving to us. Nor are we meditating upon them. If we were meditating upon them, we would be showing forth our thankfulness to God. And that thankfulness would flow out on our lips to other people. I am so thankful, you would say to people around you, that this is what the Lord is showing me right now. This is what the Lord has done for me. This is what has made me glad today in the Lord. Let me share with you, you would say to people, let me share with you a verse that was a great encouragement to me today. I sought the Lord and He answered me and delivered me from all my fears. Or a hundred different promises of the Word of God. You would take those and not only keep them to yourself and say, you know, I'm so thankful, Lord, that I have all these satisfactions that you have given to me spiritually, But I'm so thankful that I have them spiritually, Lord, that I'm going to tell someone else about this. I'm going to share this with my wife. I'm going to share this with my family. I'm going to share this with a co-worker. I'm going to share this with other believers. Even on the Lord's Day when we're all gathered here and we're down at lunch this afternoon, we could be thinking about these things in our heart and mind and saying, now this is what the Lord has really encouraged me with this week. This is what the Lord is doing in my life this week. He's showing me this particular truth, or He's given me this particular trial, but I've been given grace to face it. You know, I was so thankful for our Thanksgiving dinner the other night. Weren't you? On Friday evening. I just really enjoyed it. And you know why I enjoyed it so much this last Friday night? I enjoyed it so much because there were so many people who had never been in our church before, and yet when we opened it up, they spoke up and they said things that they were thankful for. One person might have said, well, I'm thankful for this lost item that I'm now able to find. Or two other ladies stood up and they gave thanks that even though they lost their husbands, that the Lord was with them, and that the Lord had helped them. And it's things like that that we need to understand, that if unbelieving people, or people that don't even go to our church, can stand up and say these things, that we, who know the Lord and have all these rich blessings of the Lord Jesus, should be able to do that with each other. And we should, beloved. And we should. I'm not saying that we don't. But I'm saying that if we do, we should be encouraged to do it more. And we should think about it, is what I'm saying. We should think just as much about spiritual things, if not more so, than we do earthly, worldly things. That's what I'm saying. here this morning. That shows a thankful heart. Because we've been given so much. If we've been given so much, then we should be able to give thanks for it. As I said before, a person who is thankful at all times for everything cannot be much discontented. He realizes what God has done to him through Jesus Christ is enough. Whether his earthly estate grows or whether it shrinks. whether He abounds or whether He is abased. And that's what I want to set before you here thirdly. I'd like to set before you the all-inclusive nature of Christian thanksgiving. All-inclusive nature of thanksgiving. You know, the Bible is just full of commandments of what we're to give thanks for. I will magnify Him with thanksgiving. Psalm 69, verse 30. I will magnify Him. I will magnify God with thanksgiving. I will bless the Lord at all times. His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make its boast in the Lord, and the humble shall hear it and rejoice. Oh, magnify the Lord with me, and let us exalt His name together. Psalm 34. I will enter into His gates with thanksgiving. Psalm 100, verse 4. I will offer to God sacrifices of thanksgiving. Psalm 116, verse 7. I will be rooted and built up in Christ and established in my faith even as I have been taught abounding in it with thanksgiving. Colossians chapter 2. So I will give thanks to the Lord, in other words, for what Christ has done for me as long as I live, forever and ever. Think of it that way. I mean, if you stop to think about the fact that our thanksgiving begins here upon this earth, even this very day we have opportunity to give thanks unto the Lord and continues and will continue to give thanks. We will continue to give thanks to the Lord forever and forevermore. Now that is a blessed thing to think about. So praise must be a beautiful thing if we're in Thanksgiving. It must be a beautiful thing. And it must be something that has an everlasting duration, secondly. But thirdly, it is all-inclusive. It's not only always, but it is for all things as well. We're to give thanks always for all things. as well. Now, this does seem to be the most impassable part of thanksgiving altogether. I mean, who can do such a thing? A Christian learns to do this, and it says here, in the name of the Lord Jesus. So it must be something that he does in prayer. Because it's calling upon the name of the Lord that is the way that we're saved. And it is calling upon the name of the Lord that we find the strength to do the things that we are doing. The Christian who is walking in the Spirit, trying to walk in obedience, trying to be holy, even as God is holy, is learning to do this very thing. You remember the verse in Philippians 2.14? Do all things without murmuring and complaining. I don't know how many times I've been convicted about that this past week. How many times? Have I complained and murmured about the things that I'm going through? And the Bible says, do all things without murmuring and complaining. I'm like, Lord, it's impossible. It's impossible for me to do that. No, I have to start thinking differently. I have to start thinking differently. I have to do this in the name of the Lord. That whenever I am tempted, whenever I find myself beginning to be tempted to complain, what do I do? In the name of the Lord, I say to the Lord, Lord, let me not be of a complaining spirit here. Let me be thankful for all that You have given to me and all the opportunity that You're giving to me here and now to glorify You in this. You see, I think that the reason that we don't praise God and thank Him more is we don't see our trials as opportunities to glorify Him. We don't see it that way. We see it as something to be endured rather than something to glorify God by going through with a spirit of thanksgiving and praise. What a mighty witness it is. What a mighty testimony it is to the grace of God. When we do not murmur and complain, when we're going through things that we don't like going through, Now, think about the verse in Philippians 4. You can turn over there with me. Philippians 4.10 and following. Philippians 4.10. It's a very significant portion of Scripture in regard to what we're talking about here. But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly that now at last your care for me, Paul says, has flourished again, though you surely did care, but you lacked opportunity." Now he's talking about financial things, which is usually the thing that bothers us the most, that we don't have enough money. We don't have enough of the wherewithal to get through this life, and it bugs us. Well, the Apostle Paul says this, he says, But I rejoiced greatly in the Lord, greatly, that now last your cares again flourished for me, though you surely did care, but you lacked opportunities as to give to Him financially. He says, Not that I speak in regard to need, for I have learned, he says, in whatever state I am, to be content. I know how to be abased, and I know how to bound. Everywhere and in all things I have learned both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." Now notice that Paul says that this is something that he learned. This was not something that he had at hand. This was something that he learned to be content in whatever state that he was. And I would insist that a great part of his contentment consists of his learning to give thanks for all things in the name of the Lord Jesus. A person who is thankful at all times cannot be much discontent. He realizes what God has done for him and that is enough. So a thankful person will still pray Still rest upon the promise of God. He'll rest upon the bare arm of God alone for everything that He needs. And verse 19 says, And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches and glory by Christ Jesus. In verse 14, Paul says, Nevertheless, you've done well that you've shared with me in my distress. God does use means. He uses the means of each other in the congregation to help one another. Those who are in great and distressing financial need. Those in the ministry that you support in the ministry. Those people are supported because of your generosity, your givingness. And it says here that Paul knew how greatly he had been helped by the Philippians, verse 15. Now you Philippians know also, in the beginning of the Gospel, when I departed from Macedonia, that no church shared with me concerning giving and receiving, but you only. For even in Thessalonica, he says, you sent aid once and again for my necessities. Not that I seek the gift, he says, but I seek the fruit that abounds to your account." Now do you see what he's saying here? He's saying, I know that God is going to help me, I know that God is going to supply all my needs. But he's saying, I was praying that you would consider, and you're continuing to give to me, because this would redound to your being fruitful and God taking notice of it, and your being given great reward as a result of it. This was your opportunity. This was your opportunity. Not to be tight-fisted, but to truly give with your money to my ministry, the Apostle Paul. says, so Paul is teaching the believers at Thessalonica and Philippi the greatness of giving to the needs of the saints. He saw the fruit that would abound to their account if they gave to support him in the ministry furthering the Lord's cause, his work, and his kingdom. Remember the words of the Lord Jesus, it is more blessed to give than to receive. And this comes from a thankful heart. A thankful heart is that which gives. It takes a thankful heart to give, not to hoard everything that we have to ourselves. It takes a thankful heart to receive from other people, realizing that God would not have you to be so strong. That God would not have you to be so independent. that you don't need other people around you or their help. You really do need them. And God would have you to need them in order that you could accomplish all that He would have you to, whether it's in the ministry or whether it's in ordinary life. This is how God does things. He supplies the needs of others, but He rewards you who give. That they in turn might come back and that they might supply your need. in some other area perhaps, maybe not even financial. I don't know, but maybe it would be financial too. But what I'm saying is that God works all these things together for good, and He does it based upon a thankful heart, so that if we are seeing the all-inclusive nature of thanksgiving, then we will want it more and more to be a part of our lives. A thankful heart is a generous heart. We never want to be a a burden to others or to the church. Let every person bear their own load, like it says in Galatians. But it's not right either to be the other way and to be stingy or to be unwilling or to think, well, I've got to keep all this to myself. But a thankful heart wants others to have enough as well. That's what I'm saying. A thankful heart wants others to have enough as well. And you come to see Christ as enough? You come to see Christ as your all in all? Then you can do all these things through Christ who strengthens you. Christ is greater riches to me than all the world, you say to yourself. So we have a great need in the sight of God today to be thankful for all that the Lord has done for us as a church and as a nation. He's blessed us much. And we need to be thankful that God has supplied all of our needs, even all of our needs spiritually and physically. I was thinking of the proclamation of Abraham Lincoln, that proclamation that set Thanksgiving Day in order to be a holiday that was to be remembered once a year annually on the last Thursday of November. This is what he said. He said, the year is drawing towards its close. It was October the 3rd, 1863. Now remember, 1863 was when Gettysburg was fought. It was the darkest time period of the war, of the Civil War. And this is what Abraham Lincoln said. He says, the year is drawing to its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies, to these bounties which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come. Others have been added which are of so extraordinary a nature that they can't fail to penetrate and even soften the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God. In the midst of a civil war of unequaled magnitude and severity which has sometimes seemed to foreign states to invite and to provoke their aggression, peace has been preserved with all nations, order has been maintained, the laws have been respected and obeyed, and harmony has prevailed everywhere except in the theater of military conflict. While that theater has been greatly contracted by the advancing armies and navies of the Union, needful diversions of wealth and of strength from the fields of peaceful industry to the national defense have not arrested the plow or the shuttle or the ship. The axe has enlarged the borders of our settlements, and the mines as well as the iron and coal as of precious metals have yielded even more abundantly than heretofore. Population has steadily increased, notwithstanding the waste, he means all the people that have died in battle that has been made in the camp. The siege in the battlefield in the country rejoicing in the consciousness of augmented strength and vigor is permitted to expect continuance of years with large increase of freedom. No human council has devised nor have any mortal hand worked out these great things. For they are the gracious gifts of the Most High, who while dealing with us in anger for our sins, have nevertheless remembered mercy. He says, it seemed to me fit and proper that they should be acknowledged as with one heart and one mind by the whole American people. I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in foreign lands to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November, next is the day of thanksgiving and praise, to our beneficent Father who dwells in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as it may be consistent with the divine purpose to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, and tranquility in the Union." So said Abraham Lincoln, who was thankful during the most dark and difficult days of the Civil War. And so this is when Thanksgiving Day for our nation was instituted. And I'm saying that it's a good thing to give thanks to the Lord. So as we go to the homes of our relatives, and our friends on this Thanksgiving Day 2007, let's remember the reasons, that there are many reasons for us to thank and to praise our God, but remember especially that the greatest of them is that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whoever will believe in him will have everlasting life and not come into judgment. Let's pray together. Father in Heaven, we do thank you for Your goodness to us as a nation and as a people. And we thank you that even though we have been perverse in our ways, that you have shown us great mercy. And we pray that your loving kindness and your truth would still abound and carry on and prevail over our darkened land and that light would spring forth and your goodness would be seen and your name would be magnified. and that people would come to praise you more and more for the help of your countenance. You are God. And may they give thanks to you all the more for your wonderful works, which you have shown to us, to the children of men. For we do give you thanks, and we do give you praise. In the name of our Lord Jesus, amen.