Let's open our Bibles to Psalm 111. In a few days, it's going to be Thanksgiving. We've already taken our turkey out of the freezer and hopefully it is starting to thaw out. Usually ours likes to thaw out by Friday or Saturday after Thanksgiving, but we're hoping it's going to be ready this time. And certainly people are making preparations for Thanksgiving. Thanksgiving is an American holiday, and in fact it is older than America. Four hundred and, let's see, four years ago, was the first Thanksgiving here on the soil of North America before it was America. In 1620, the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock. That first winter was terribly hard for them. Many of them became sick, and the ones who were still healthy helped out with their care. But in spite of all of that, about half of their number died before spring. And they were down to about 50 people by the end of that winter. Well, spring came and they set to work. And with the help of local native people, they grew crops. They hunted and fished. They tapped maple trees, making one of my favorites, maple syrup. So they tapped maple trees and harvested a great quantity of food. And in the fall, they set aside a day to give thanks to God for bringing such an abundant harvest. And we have a letter that survives written by Edward Winslow. And this gives the one eyewitness account of the first Thanksgiving. Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fouling, that is, bird hunting. So they went out bird hunting, that we might, after a more special manner, rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruits of our labors. They four, in one day, killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms. That's not waving your arms around, but they did some target shooting with the neighbors. many of the Indians coming amongst us, and among the rest their greatest king, Massasoit, with some ninety men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted, and they went out and killed five deer, which they brought to the plantation and bestowed on our governor and upon the captain and others. And although it was not always so plentiful as it was at this time with us, yet by the goodness of God, we were far from want that we often wish you partakers of our plenty." So that's a brief account, eyewitness account of the first Thanksgiving, not just one day, but three days. I don't know if that's how we get the idea of a four-day weekend for Thanksgiving, but they started it and they really had a great time with the native people and God provided in abundance. And so they set aside this day for Thanksgiving. Well, for us as believers, Thanksgiving is more than one day a year, but Thanksgiving is for every day. How do we give thanks and why? Well, Psalm 111 gives us the answers and shows us how to be people of Thanksgiving every day. And number one is this, praise him together. Praise him together. Take a look at verse one. Praise the Lord. I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart in the company of the upright and in the assembly. Now, this first phrase, praise the Lord, is literally hallelujah. That's two Hebrew words put together. So when we say hallelujah, we're speaking Hebrew. See, you know two words in Hebrew already, hallelujah. And this is a hallelujah psalm. There are several hallelujah psalms in the Bible. And this is a word that is a call to praise the Lord. It's actually a command to obey. God has given us this command, this call to praise, because we can easily forget in the midst of many distractions that we should praise him and thank him for his many blessings. And so we should remember to take time to praise the Lord. Now, there are many people who are independent minded, and they seem to prefer solitude and isolation. I read a book one time about the pioneers in northern New England, and one of the ways that a pioneer would know that it was time to move is if he looked outside from his cabin and could see the smoke from the chimney of another cabin. He would say, well, it's time to move. The neighbors are getting too close. And he preferred the solitude and even the isolation of his life there in northern New England. Now, as believers, our Christian faith is an individual faith. That is, we're saved as individuals. When a member of the family is saved, that one is saved. And one after another after another, we hope and pray, will make that decision. So we're saved as individuals. Each one believes on his own. But we're not saved to be isolated. But in fact, we're saved into the church, an assembly of believers. We're saved into a spiritual body, the body of Christ. Each one of us is part of that spiritual body. We're saved into a spiritual temple. Each new believer is a new stone in the temple. I've been watching the construction on our fire station here, and it looks like they're going to be going up a floor. They have some cement blocks staged around the roof, and they're getting ready to raise the height of the fire station. I thought, just like the church as a living temple, we're not living cinder blocks, we're living stones. Each one is placed in as each person believes, and the temple grows. And so we're saved not to be isolated, but we're saved to be together with other believers. We're saved into the family of God, the household of God. We're not saved to be alone, but together. And we see this in Acts chapter 2 on the birthday of the church and in the days that followed. We read this. Day by day, continuing with one mind in the temple and breaking bread from house to house, they were taking their meals together with gladness and sincerity of heart, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the very first believers were saved and were together in various different ways. and we are saved to be together. says, I will give thanks to the Lord with all my heart in the company of the upright. Now, the company of the upright is a smaller group of very close friends. And there is a sense in which the church is a small group of fellow believers who are close friends. But then also, he says, the assembly. And this is a larger group. A large group would be the church around the world, all believers everywhere. And so we're part of that. We have that close relationship, that fellowship relationship with other believers. But we're also part of a vast, huge group that is the church around the world. We get information about other Grace Brethren churches in different places. And I got some this week about churches in another country. And I thought, you know, They're part of us, and we're part of them. They're fellow believers, and we are as well, and we know them, kind of, through what we hear, and hopefully someday they'll know about us as well. So we're part of a large group that extends all over the world. Now, again, a person sometimes tries to live an isolated Christian life for who knows what reasons, but they say, well, I don't really go to church, but I have my own relationship with the Lord. That's what I do. Well, when a person does that, they miss out on certain things. As you read through the New Testament, one of the things you can find and be on the lookout for is the little phrase, one another, one another. You find it a lot in the epistles and Bible students call those, not surprisingly, the one another's of the Bible. And these are words and verses that describe the kind of blessings we enjoy as part of the fellowship of a local church. And there's many of them. Here's some of them. Hebrews 3, encourage one another day after day as long as it is still called today. We all believe in the return of Jesus Christ. It can happen at any time. And we can encourage one another now so that we remain strong in our faith, strong in the Lord, and stay away from sin. We can do that to encourage one another. I remember working with my friend George, the German carpenter. I didn't realize that carpenters also dug large holes. And we were on a project that was a large hole. Doug in hot, hot weather. And he was really good at encouraging us and keeping going. And he would say in his great German accent, we're the last of the Iron Men. He would try to keep us moving along and we try to get this work done, you know. And he would encourage us, which was pretty good because otherwise we would have been dragging. And in Galatians 6, bear one another's burdens and thereby fulfill the law of Christ. We were moving a machine into somebody's pickup truck the other day, and it was a two-person job that should have been about a four-person job. But one of us bore one side of the burden, one bore the other. Nobody had to go to the doctor when we were done, thank the Lord, and we got the thing on there. And those things happen. We can bear one another's burdens, not just heavy physical loads, but the burdens that we have. And then also 1 Thessalonians 4, dealing with death and bereavement, talking about the return of the Lord Jesus, Paul concludes with these words, therefore comfort one another with these words. And there's a lot that we can do to minister to one another as part of the one another's. The person who lives an isolated, solitary Christian life misses out on all of that. That's part of the problem. And we find the one another as we experience them in the fellowship of the local church. And so again, we're saved to be together, not to be isolated. But we are saved to be together. There was a man who had not been in church for quite some time. And the pastor paid him a visit. And he found him at home sitting in his comfortable chair by the fireplace. So the pastor joined him in the other chair. And the fireplace was burning pretty well. And they got talking. And this man just had no interest in being in the church, although he said he was a believer. So the pastor took one of the fireplace tools, and he pulled a red-hot coal a little bit away from the fire. And this man saw that. The pastor didn't say anything. He just did that. Then he put the tool back, and they continued to talk. And then the pastor said, do you see that? And what had happened to that red hot coal is it had cooled off and it was almost black. And the man looked at that and he said, I see what you mean. And the idea is that a believer in the fellowship of other believers has a strong and stable faith. One who is separated from that would not do so well. And he was in church next Sunday. And so we're saved to be together. So when it comes to being a person of thankfulness, praise the Lord and praise him together. 2. Praise Him for His great works. God does nothing small or insignificant. Well, you know, if you could get a hold of an electron microscope, you would see there's nothing small about that insect. It is so complex and so amazing. And God put this precision insect together for reasons we'll never know. Why would mosquitoes? I don't know why mosquitoes are in the world, but they are there. And God does those things. He does nothing that is small, nothing that is insignificant, some things on a huge, grand, grand scale. And again, it says here, great. are the works of the Lord. And the idea means that they are great, magnificent, impressive, excellent, they are the best of their kind. You can't look at something God said, you know, I could have done a better job. It's just, it's not possible. Anything we look at that God has done, if you stop and think about it, there's no way it could be done any better than it was done. and His great works are all around us. We find them in history, we find them in the church, and we see them in creation. And we are especially blessed where we live here to have creation all around us and see the hand of God at work and doing so many different things. I was over visiting a friend of mine who was in the mint business, and he took me into their laboratory, and he said, I want to show you something. And you think, well, mint? OK. It makes your iced tea taste pretty good. They make toothpaste out of it. It's pretty good stuff. And he said, well, take a look at this. And he was showing me a test that they had done. He said, there's 100 different things in mint. I said, who put those there? Well, God put 100 things in mint, and he made it possible for us to, not me, but somebody who knows what they're doing, to take out whatever things they want. And I thought, isn't that interesting? God created something like mint, and it's something that we can work with. We can make things out of it. We can take things out of it and use them for other things. All of that. God did that. Just one of his great many works. And there's many in creation. Psalm 104 says this, covering yourself with light as with a cloak, stretching out heaven like a tent curtain. What's interesting is that in the original, it says he's still stretching out the heavens. And scientists tell us there's something called redshift. And it's a measurement they can make that shows us that the stars, the galaxies, are moving away from us. And of course, one of the explanations for that is the Big Bang. And even if you had a Big Bang, someone had to light the fuse. Who did that? Well, nobody knows. And there was no Big Bang, but we'll get into that on another day. But the point is, the universe is expanding and God is stretching it out. like a tent curtain. We've all put a tent up one time or another and you have that little tent all rolled up and you roll it out and you stretch it out and you move in and it becomes your vacation home for a while. That's what it is. And so God is stretching out and every time scientists take that measurement, the red shift, What they see is God's hand at work, stretching out his universe. Then the big question is, stretching it out into what? Well, we don't know, but he's stretching it out, and he is expanding the reach of space. And then also, Psalm 104, again, he waters the mountains from his upper chambers, and the earth is satisfied with the fruit of his works. You know, we can travel an hour from here and be in a really deep forest full of huge trees. Who irrigates that place? There's nobody putting irrigation pipes out there, but yet all those trees are watered. And if you ever planted a tree in the middle of your lawn, you know how much water a tree will drink. There's usually a pretty dry area around that tree. Trees take a tremendous amount of water in the course of a day. And God irrigates the forests all around the country, all around the world. He does that. He does it from his upper chambers. And the earth is satisfied with the fruit of his works. He causes the grass to grow for the cattle, vegetation for the labor of man, so that he may bring forth food from the earth. As you think about creation and the cultivated world, again, raising livestock, growing field crops, God is involved in causing them to grow. There's things that man does, but without God, nothing would happen. There's one default setting on light, and it's called Planck's constant. And light's pretty interesting. You need all of the settings to be in the right place. You can't have any of them off. I'm calling our car lately the rolling computer. And it has settings in it. And I don't even know what all of them are. I was driving down the road and the steering wheel was burning my hands off. And I'm like, a heated steering wheel? Who ordered such a thing? And I had no idea how to turn the thing off. So I had to take out War and Peace, otherwise known as the manual, and look through there and found out there's a setting for that. And there are settings in creation. There are settings for light. And there's something called Planck's constant. If it's off by the teeniest, tiniest bit, you'll still have light, but light won't cause plants to grow. And if plants don't grow, nothing lives. And so God set these default settings and makes the universe function. He does all that. And then also, when we think of his great works, not just creation, but salvation. Think about Jesus' birth. We'll be celebrating that in the weeks to come. The miracle of his birth, the timing of it, the purpose and the way he was born, all of that. And in his life and death for us, his resurrection, all of that, God's amazing plan. And then Israel, from one man, Abraham, as the Bible says, as good as dead. He had a descendant, and that expanded out into the great nation Israel today, a nation that will always exist into eternity. God has a plan for his people. and in God's sovereign government. You know, you come in contact with the news and the question that comes into my mind, who is in charge of this mess? Well, God is in charge. The Bible says this about him. It is he who changes the times and the epics. He removes kings and establishes kings. He gives wisdom to wise men and knowledge to men of understanding. God is in control. No matter who holds whatever office, even the highest offices, there's one above him who's actually the one who is in sovereign control. And these are just a sampling of the great works of God. And the Bible says this here in Psalm 111, verse 2, great are the works of the Lord. They are studied by all who delight in them. They are searched out by all who delight in them. Saw a video by a guy who has a gold mine. And you know, you think of a gold mine and you go in there and you start digging out and you come out with chunks of gold, you know, the size of rocks. It's not like that. You come out with rocks and there's gold in the rocks and he goes through this whole long process. Then he comes out with this little thing of gold, which nowadays is worth, you know, the price of a used car. Anyway, it's a lot of work. They're seeking out gold, and he's always looking for where it is. Kind of interesting. And again, when you think about gold nuggets, the great works of the Lord are the most valuable gold nuggets we could ever find, and we should search them out and study them and become familiar with them and benefit from knowing all about them. And he's done them to be remembered. He didn't just do these things so that they could be forgotten. He has made his wonders, verse 4, to be remembered. And as we think about the things that God has done, whether it's history or creation, salvation, these are memorials. If you've been to Washington, D.C., it's a city full of memorials. And you can walk through that city, travel around. And what you find is the history of this country in memorials. And again, we see the greatness of God in the memorials he has left for us in creation, salvation, and his many great works. And so praise the Lord for his great works. And then number three, praise him for his righteousness. Verse three, Splendid and majestic is his work, and his righteousness endures forever." Now, our God is a God who is the definition of what is right. Back in the early days, I would buy used tools. And I found out there's one tool you should never buy from certain places, especially from a used tool dealer who sells old tools. I bought a combination square. And it's supposed to be a perfect 90 degrees. I worked for a guy who was trained in England as a joiner, very talented guy. He says, well, let's test this thing, see if it's any good. So we did the little test. He says, you know, that thing is off by about a degree. I said, what? And I paid $4 of hard earned money for that thing. He says, well, it's off. And anything you do will be off by that much. And I said, oh, brother. And so I finally replaced it. It still has a place of honor in the shop, but it doesn't get used for anything important anymore. But the idea is it was the standard of a right angle, but the standard was off. God is the definition of what is right. If we want to know what is right, God is the definition. He is righteousness. He is a righteous God. In Genesis 18, Abraham learns that God is going to do something he never did before, destroy two cities and everyone in it because of their sin, Sodom and Gomorrah. Abraham was pondering this, talking to God. And he says, shall not the judge of all the earth do what is right? Abraham considered God's plan to destroy these two cities, but he knew that whatever God did, even if he couldn't understand it, was the right thing, because God is a righteous God. Everything he does is right. And our God is in control of all things. Whatever he does or allows to happen may be hard to understand, but we can be encouraged by the fact that God is a righteous God who never changes from being a righteous God. And so whatever he does may be hard for us to understand, but it is the right thing. And we can count on his perfect righteousness. And then praise him, number four, for his goodness. Praise him for his goodness. The Lord is gracious and compassionate, two words that sum up the goodness of God. And God's graciousness, a gracious God, is a God who hears prayer. Psalm 4 says, be gracious to me and hear my prayer. Be gracious to me and hear my prayer. You know, I like to do amateur radio and make contacts with different stations, and I'm working on getting a hundred different countries. One night I got a call from a ham radio buddy of mine. He said, get on the air, get on the air. Willis is on Wallace. I said, what? Yeah, he's on Wallace Island, way down in the South Pacific. Get on the air. You can talk to him and get credit. So I got on the air and I could barely hear him, he could barely hear me, but there was enough communication that we could make the contact. I got the credit for that. It's kind of fun. Well, you know, there's never a problem with communication with God other than sin. Sin can block the communication line, but God is gracious because he's good and he hears our prayer. And then also, He is with us when we need a friend. Says this, turn to me and be gracious to me, for I am lonely and afflicted. The troubles of my heart are enlarged. Bring me out of my distresses. And our God is a good God. He hears, He forgives, and He's with us. We know that. He's a good God. Praise Him for His goodness. We've all experienced it. And number five, praise Him for His provision. We're going to consume some calories over the next week. Where does it all come from? Well, you can say, I shop in this store, I shop in that store, I grow my own. That's true. But where does it come from? It ultimately comes from God. And we see this in verse five. He has given food to those who fear him. And everything we eat ultimately comes from God. He provides for our needs. He provides through work. Proverbs 12 says, he who tills his land will have plenty of bread, but he who pursues worthless things lacks sense. It is unlikely that a person could have a few acres and just go out and sit down and pray and ask the Lord to provide food. There might be some things that person has to do. It says here, the one who tills his land will have plenty of bread. So he works with the strength that God provides, and God blesses that effort, and crops grow, and he has food. The two things work together. God provides through work. George Mueller was a man of real faith and lived in the 1800s. He had a home for boys. And one morning they sat down to breakfast, but there was a problem. No food anywhere. And so he said, boys, let's pray. And so they thanked the Lord for the breakfast they were going to have when there was no food. And then he opened his eyes after praying. There's a knock on the door. It's the dairy, the milkman. And he said, I've got some extra milk. Can you use it? He said, we certainly can. In came the milk. Close the door. A couple minutes later. It's the bakery delivery man. I've got more bread than I need. Can you use some? Oh yes, bring it in." So they had a good breakfast of bread and milk for all those boys God provided for their needs. And certainly God will do that. Jesus said this, for this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life as to what you will eat or what you will drink, nor for your body as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air that they do not sow nor reap or gather into barns. And yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you. So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will care for itself, and every day has enough trouble of its own. And God feeds the birds. Stop and think about that. I was having lunch one day at this place, and there was people were leaving French fries in the parking lot. And there were birds there. And thank the Lord for the balanced diet He provides. I think if these birds had gotten any rounder, I don't think they could get off the ground. They were living off of these French fries, and they were getting rounder and rounder. And I thought, wow, something to see. But God provides for all these birds. Think about that. And Jesus says He doesn't just provide for them. He provides for us. Bring the needs. Bring the list to Him. You know, in these days, people are worried about high costs and the economy. But we can praise the Lord who does provide for our needs. Psalm 37, we have this testimony. I've been young and now I am old, yet I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his descendants begging bread. All day long he is gracious and lends. And good news there God provides. And then also praise him for Israel. Now, Israel truly is God's miracle. And certainly we could say since 1948, Israel is a miracle. The fact that they're in their land, in spite of all the trouble they've had, and they're still there today. The fact that they've been an identifiable people since their founding. For centuries, they were scattered around the world, and God brought them back. And so again, as someone has said this, If there was no God, there would be no Israel. And Israel really is living proof of the existence of God. And we can praise him for this amazing miracle. Verse 6, we see this. He has made known to his people the power of his works in giving them the heritage of the nations. His people would be Israel. The heritage of the nations would be the land of Canaan, home to several other nations that were there. when the Israelites came in. And during the days of Joshua, they were expelled from the land and the Israelites moved in to the land that God gave them as their home. And God did that. And then also So he's made known to his people the power of his works. And Israel moving into the land at that time is really a picture of the power of God. Now today, many people are opposed to Israel, and yet there are God's own chosen people, and they will endure no matter who their enemies are. And so praise the Lord for Israel, God's chosen people. Praise him for Israel. and then praise him for his word. I got a radio kit at a bargain price, but one thing was missing, good instructions. It's a little hard to know what to do when you don't know what to do. And without instructions, you really don't know what to do. But somebody said this about the Bible, B-I-B-L-E, basic instructions before leaving earth. And the Bible is our instruction book. for living life. And praise the Lord for his word. It is the instruction we need in this confusing world. Verse seven, the works of his hands are truth and justice. All his precepts are sure. So God's word is described here as his precepts. What are precepts? Well, precepts come from words that are related to the idea of a supervisor, of an administrator, someone who is watching over what we're doing and giving direction. And the Word of God is like that. It's like a guide, someone who says, go this way, don't go that way, do this, but don't do that. And God's Word is that way. And it is really a word that describes specific instruction from God himself, and God cares about not just the big things, but about smaller details. And verse 7, it says, all his precepts are sure, that is, they are reliable. We can trust everything he says in his word. It is always reliable, upheld forever. The Bible says this about the Word of God. The grass withers and the flower falls off, but the word of the Lord endures forever. This time of year we see the flowers are coming to an end, the grass is turning brown, but the Word of God endures forever and it will never change. It'll never go out of date and never become obsolete. Ever read a book that is obsolete? I have an old book that is now Somewhat obsolete old new ideas have replaced it and I thought well, how about that? No one will ever say here's the book that replaces the Bible forget that old Bible It's obsolete. But again, its precepts endure Forever it is a book forever and it says this also in that he fulfills his word. All his precepts are sure. They are upheld forever and ever. They are performed in truth and uprightness. That is, God does the things he says he's going to do. We all want that in life and from people, and God is the one who does that. In the Gospel of Matthew, we see this phrase again and again. This took place to fulfill. At Christmas time, we're going to see a number of promises that God made centuries earlier, all fulfilled in and around the birth of Christ. God does the things he says he's going to do. That's just a sample. But there are many prophetic promises in the Bible that relate to us as individuals. And these are our real wealth in the world, the promises of God. You know, it's good for us to kind of go through our portfolio of spiritual wealth, which would be the many promises of God. He'll fulfill every one of them to us. And it also prays him for his salvation. Number eight, he has sent salvation to his people. He's ordained his covenant forever. Now this word salvation is described here as redemption. One of several words that describe our salvation. This is a verse that looks back to the Old Testament, to the days of Moses. to the exodus, when the people of Israel were delivered from their slavery in Egypt. They were set free, emancipated from their slavery in Egypt. And it is a word, again, that comes from the marketplace. It is a word that describes a purchase, the transfer of ownership from one person to another through the payment of a price. And God's rescue of Israel was his redemption of his people. Deuteronomy 15 says, You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you. And redemption is costly. It is a word that's used for paying off a mortgage. If a person pays off a mortgage, it's expensive to do that. redemption is costly. The Bible says the redemption of a soul is costly. So the redemption of Israel is a picture of our redemption. Jesus said this, the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve and give his life a ransom for many. That is, we were held captive to Satan, sin, and death, and we could not be set free without the payment of of a price, and the blood of Christ was that price, a priceless price, really. And the Lord Jesus gladly paid it, and he set us free through his death on the cross. Today we're going to celebrate communion together and to remember Jesus' death for us, our redemption, as he purchased our salvation. And then finally, praise him for his promise. God makes many promises to us. He keeps every one. And here is one, the priceless promise of wisdom. The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. A good understanding have all those who do his commandments. His praise endures forever. Now, everybody needs wisdom, and wisdom is the ability to achieve the right goal in the right way. We've been watching this old-time detective show, and it's interesting how people have the right goal, but they go about it in the wrong way. Their goal is to get money to help their family, so then they achieve it in the wrong way. They commit a crime. And then, of course, they get caught by our hero, the detective. And they end up getting some kind of penalty. And that's not wisdom. That's foolishness. But wisdom is achieving the right goal in the right way. And only God can give us that kind of wisdom. And he does that. Verse 10, it says, the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. That's the start. That is wisdom 101. And the fear of the Lord is a healthy reverence for God. It is a healthy reverence that wants more than anything to please him and also to avoid anything that would offend him, to avoid sin at all costs. And this is the beginning of all real wisdom. Many people today are living without any fear of God at all. And the Bible says we need to have that healthy reverence for God. And when we do that, we're on the way to having the wisdom that he wants us to have. Well, this Thanksgiving season, it's time to be thankful and to bring our thanks and praise to the Lord. Many reasons to be thankful here in Psalm 111. Let's pray together. Father, we thank you for your word and thank you for the opportunity we have to praise you and thank you together. And thank you for the many reasons we have to be thankful. And especially in this Thanksgiving season, may we take these reasons to heart and thank you for them every day. In Jesus name. Amen.