Now I'm thinking about doing something. Dan, you said this thing has got pretty good range? Yeah. Okay. I'm going to ask you two and Sally to move back because I'm going to move right back down there, okay? And Richard, you're going to have to go back unless you want to see my back. We'll see if he can worship from different places. Now we might get a feedback here. We'll try. But see, if you try to run from me, see, I'll chase you. It is a privilege to be back with you and appreciate you allowing us the privilege of parking our motorhome out here for the last few weeks. It's been a real help to us, because we've been doing a lot of running since we came back from up north. We came down to Santa Clarita. I was actually there for ordination in the middle of the month, and moderated that for Scott Basolo, who's the pastor there at San Antonio Baptist Church, and spoke there. I had the privilege of speaking with him on Sunday. In fact, it was kind of a privilege, because I got to preach in the morning, and Dr. MacArthur, John MacArthur, preached the ceremony in the afternoon and that afternoon, then we came down here. We had hoped to get here in time to go to the thing, but that didn't work out because we got too far behind in the traffic. But in any event, we've had our motorhome here since that time. And after that, we came back. Let's see, actually, Sunday before that we were in, I stop and think here, we were actually in Los Angeles. at L.A. Calvary Baptist, I'm going to say it wrong, Faith Calvary. We have Calvary and everything. We are Faith Calvary, which is a Filipino church, the Lubitans, and a great ministry there. And then we had the ordination, and then last week we had the privilege of having a brand new church, and I trust you might pray about this church. It's called Hope Community Baptist Church. It's in Cherry Valley, just above Beaumont. When you keep going on the same road that goes to Victory Ranch, 79, if you would keep going north, it's up there a few miles, and they're in the process of moving, but they're talking to us about joining the association. Back in June, we were at Yreka, which some of you know where Yreka is, just before you enter Oregon. And we have a pastor there to contact us, and the church has voted to join, so it's good to see some new churches coming our way. We've got some other contacts along the way, but it really has been interesting. But last Friday night, our grandson played a week ago Friday. He played his last football game of the year down in La Jolla, so we brought him with us. came up here, got in here about midnight that night, and then we spent a day with him, which was really nice to have a time. We went down and saw Pastor Henshaw at the hospital and spent some time with them and then took him on the coast. But then last Sunday we actually left here early in the morning. Our motor home was here, but we left early in the morning. We went out to Cherry Valley and preached there, came back, and then Sunday night we were at Huntington Park at Bible Baptist Church. They had a Thanksgiving banquet, and that night we had to turn right after that was over and turn and drive back to Brawley. Now some of you know where Brawley is at, but that's two hundred miles, because our grandson had driver's training the next morning. So we got down there late that night, Wednesday night then, I took a granddaughter with me and left Brawley and went to National City, which is south of downtown San Diego, and spoke at a Filipino Thanksgiving banquet there with my granddaughter. Sally was fixing Thanksgiving dinner, and so we drove over in the late afternoon and drove back late that night and had a good time with those folks. And then we went back. We were there for Thanksgiving and came up here yesterday and then be with you Tuesday. We get the privilege of going to Master's College has their Christmas musical, and Dr. Plew has given Sally and I a couple of tickets to that, so we're going to attend that, and then as you pray for us as we do travel, representing the Association and our Lord, Wednesday then we leave there and we go up to Modesto. and will be looking there is a situation and then from there will be preaching in two churches that need the same facility on the same morning in Martinez one of the English speaking and will be with them for Sunday school morning service. and then roll right from there into the Hispanic service, and I'll be preaching for the Hispanic service at the end of the morning. Then that week Sally speaks on Tuesday night, the ladies at Pinole for a Christmas ladies meeting, and Friday night we're inviting all the pastors from up in that area to meet with us for Christmas dinner in Yuba City. And then Sunday we'll be preaching in Citrus Heights. of Sacramento, and then we turn around and come back down here, hopefully, to make the Monday night of the thirteenth to be at the Southern California Christmas Pastors' Dinner, and then we're going to go to Raleigh and crash. In my making, I'm frustrating my wife because she's thinking about the schedule. But that's what we're going to be doing the next few weeks. We really appreciate prayer. As we do travel, the Lord's given us an opportunity to meet a lot of wonderful people, but it is kind of a grueling schedule at times. My wife would say a lot of times, but it is. But the Lord's been blessing and it's exciting to see some new ministries, some new contacts with people. I was going to ask you how flexible you are. Can we switch the closing song today? 113. 113. I just came to praise the Lord. That's a simple one. Hopefully you know that one. But I think that fits better in the context of where we're going this morning. We do pray for you and it's exciting, like I say, to be here and to be with the different churches. I'd like to have you turn your Bibles with me this morning to Psalm 103. Psalm 103. And there's an interesting, one of my favorite texts of Scripture for Thanksgiving season is found in this passage. And we'll really only introduce it today, but I thought you might be, if you don't mind a little bit of light in this, I came across something a while back that I thought was kind of cute. It's called the Thanksgiving Ode, and some of us have just been through here, but here's how it goes. "'Twas the night of Thanksgiving, and I just couldn't sleep. I tried counting backward, I tried counting sheep. The leftovers beckoned, the dark meat and the white, but I fought the temptation with all my might. Tossing and turning with anticipation, the thought of a snack became an infatuation. So I raced to the kitchen, flung open the door, and gazed at the fridge full of goodies galore. I gobbled up the turkey and the buttered potatoes, pickles and carrots, beans and tomatoes. I felt myself swelling, so plump and so round, till all of a sudden I rose off the ground. I crashed through the ceiling, floating into the sky with a warm mouthful of pudding and a handful of pie. But I managed to yell as I soared past the trees. Happy eating to all. Pass the cranberries, please. May your stuffing be tasty. May your turkey be plump. May your potatoes and gravy have nearly a lump. May your yams be delicious. May your pies take the prize. May your Thanksgiving dinner stay off your thighs." I don't know, but I kind of get a kick out of that. also read one that. Someone had wrote that is also kind of on a more serious level. Thinking about the theme of Thanksgiving. I don't know about you, but one of the more difficult commands I find in Scripture is one of the shortest version of the Bible. Just four words in that verse. It starts out in everything, give, thanks. Do you ever find that to be a problem? A little difficult? It's interesting as you... I was reading my personal devotions this morning out of the book of Psalms. If you go to chapter fifty five and fifty six, it's kind of interesting sometimes just do it. But the Thomas David is writing there and writing about a very difficult time in his life, and as he writes about the difficult time in his life, he talks about the fears and how the fears all day and all night. The fears were there, but then he talked about trusting the Lord. And just let me share with you the Bible gives us command and everything to give thanks. And that's what we should do. But it's pretty hard. Sometimes there are certain when when certain things hit when when some sickness happens when you get the note of foreclosure when your wife dies or I mean there's a lot of things out there and God is not insensitive. God doesn't think that we live in some plane where everything's there. But when you read through the Psalms you get one of the things that a lot of people like about Psalms is that it's a very emotional. It's music and it's emotion and music is typically emotion. And it's musical emotion about what happens in people's lives. And if you go through the, you read the various Psalms and many of them are even about Jesus, their Messianic Psalms, you'll find they have the highs and you'll find they have the lows. They have the positive side, trust, and the negative side of fear of man. And just this morning, like I say, just reading in a couple of chapters there, I was thinking about that, how the, the, the emotion flip flop here, but we're told who in everything give thanks. Someone wrote this. I don't have the author's name. I can't give credit, but it says, I dreamt that I went to heaven and an angel was showing me around. We walked side by side into a large workroom filled with angels. My angel guided to guide me, stopped in front of the first section that said this is the receiving section here. All the petitions God said in prayer to God said in prayer are received. I looked around the area and it was terribly busy with so many angels sorting out petitions written on paper sheets and scraps from people all over the world. Then we moved down the long corridor until we reached the second section. The angel said to me, this is the packaging and delivery section. Here, the graces and blessings that people ask for are processed and delivered to a living person who asks for them. Now, by the way, you know this is not theologically correct, okay? You understand, I don't want to give you a wrong implication here. But it just caught my attention. I noticed how busy it was there. There were many angels working hard at that station since so many blessings had been requested and were being packaged for delivery to Earth. Finally, at the farthest end of the long corridor, we stopped at the door of a very small station. To my surprise, only one angel was seated there idly doing nothing. This, I was told by the angel, is the acknowledgment section. My angel said this, obviously being embarrassed. How is it that there are no worse going on here?" I asked. So sad, the angel sighed. After people received the blessing that they asked for, very few sent back acknowledgments. How does one acknowledge God's blessing, I asked. Simple, the angel answered. Just say, Thank you, Lord. 103. Starts out like this. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that's within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all of its benefits, who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases. who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with loving kindness and tender mercy, who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagles. The Lord executes righteousness and justice for all who are oppressed. He made known his ways to Moses, his acts to the children of Israel. The Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in mercy. He will not always thrive with us nor will he keep his anger forever. He is not dealt with according to our sins nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his mercy toward those who fear him. As far as the east is from the west, so far he has removed our transgressions from us. As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him. He knows our frame. He remembers that we are dust. As for man, his days are like grass, as the flower of the field so flourishes. For the while the wind passes over it and it is gone in his place remember no more. But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him and his righteousness to the children's children to such as keep his covenant to those who remember his commandments to do them. The Lord has established his throne in heaven and his kingdom rules over all. Bless the Lord, you with angels, who excel in strength, who do his word, heeding the voice of his word. Bless the Lord, all his hosts, you ministers of his, who do his pleasure. Bless the Lord, all his works, in all places, in all of his dominions. Bless the Lord, O my soul. The chapter begins, led by the Spirit of God through the pen of David, put to music. It starts out with the words, Bless the Lord. The first time I preached here, I preached on the passage of Numbers chapter six, when it talks about a God-given prayer. And one of the things I mentioned there is what starts out in that passage. It says the Lord bless you, and I gave you a demonstration of what that word bless means. It means to kneel down. Well, the point I made at that passage, because it's talking about God's relationship with us, is the fact that he was kneeling down for God to have a relationship with us. He has to come down here because we can't come up to heaven. And so he eventually sent his son, and then he sent his Holy Spirit prior to that part. For some people it's for certain times. Now for every believer we have the Holy Spirit who dwells within us if we're a child of God, if we're born again. The word blessed, when it's used for you and I, has the same concept. It means to kneel down. It means to kneel down before someone of greater stature, of someone of greater position. So it starts out with less the Lord, oh my soul, all within the blessed holy name, so it wants us to come to pray. Now I want to back up, I want you to pick up with a word. In verse two it says, bless the Lord, oh my soul, and forget not all of his, what? Benefits. Benefits. In the world of business and employment, one of the most familiar terms and one of the more important terms is the word benefits. the day and age we live in today. Now we talk about things like Obamacare and all these other things are out there, but some of you know that one of the more important benefits that anyone can have is a good health insurance. You know what I'm talking about? and some of the return of we have one that actually sponsored by the government of the before Obamacare got here. So that was in the situation, but we have benefits. It's interesting, because in many cases the benefits we talked about before our youngest son used to work for company to make that much money, but he had wonderful benefits. in that company, and so it was worth him making a little less money to have that. Some of you are familiar with the name Lea Iacocca. How many remember Lea Iacocca? Some of you remember, typically we think of him from Chrysler, but actually he was with Ford before that, and actually before that there was a little bit of an interesting situation that happened. Lea Iacocca was a very sharp individual. I went to Lehigh University was a very good Lehigh University, and so when he was graduating from Lehigh University, actually right out of college, he was offered a very substantial position, a position that was one of fifty with Ford Motor Company that had this position, and Lee Iacocca was offered one of those positions. Just about the same time he was graduating the offering that there was a professor told him about a special program of fellowship, a graduate fellowship at Princeton, and there were only two of these offered each year out of Princeton, just two. And so we had a big decision to make. Do I go right into Ford Motor Company and had a really good salary and benefits that were there, or should I take this fellowship? And basically, as he thought through the situation, he said, Well, you know what? And his professor kind of encouraged him. You don't get too many opportunities like this. Only two people in the entire will be invited to come to Princeton to do this. And you didn't even go there. So he made the decision that he would take that position after talking to for the talk the man when the higher board said this is a one-year fellowship and Would you hold my position open for me? And I'll take this one year get it in and come back and work for you And the man said he was willing to do that because they thought this was a sharp guy that had a lot of potential well He was so motivated to get on to work and very sharp guy. He finished that fellowship instead of in a year He finished it in a semester And so he came back, he got a hold of Ford, and it was about time he saw he was going to be able to finish up and get this, finish this fellowship. He came back to Ford Motor Company and come to find out the man who had originally hired him no longer was with the company. But he said, I have a contract. Well, they said, we've already filled the 50 positions in the contract. He said, but this was we hadn't thought and so here's the short of the thing up. Here's what they did. They went ahead and made him the fifty first person in a fifty person program. There was no real budget for that. OK. Now, you can imagine in that type of position, this kind of fellow with all the background, with everything he had, his first check with Ford Motor Company was thirty seven dollars and forty cents. Now you're talking about somebody that was going in on an executive level. In 1978, some of you who went back during that time, you will remember that he and, I can't remember which board it was that was running at that time, but they were loggerheads. Iacocca was saying we need to make a change, new direction, new size of vehicles. Ford wanted to continue as they had been, so we've been successful. Iacocca was always forward-looking in his situation, so they ended up banging heads. But at the time he left in 1978, his salary at that time was $360,000 a year. Now he'd moved up very quickly. However, His benefits were far beyond, because his benefit was going to be 1.5 million dollars that next year working for them. So he paid 346,000, but it was going to be 1.5 million. Well, they just couldn't get along. Things weren't going well at all, so basically he turned to Ford and says, I'm out of here. By the way, that that. When they set up the situation, they they made the contingent that if he was going to leave, they would give him the one point five million dollars. But he couldn't go to work for any other automobile company, no competition, because they saw he had a lot of ability. Well, Chrysler heard that he was being let go and Chrysler got ahold of him right away and Chrysler said we'd like to have you come here and he explained the situation and Chrysler said listen this is what we'll do and I don't remember what the salary was but they said we will pay you up front your 1.5 million dollar bonus. We'll just give it to you up front. Not salary. but both and he would work for Chrysler, and some of you know Chrysler actually was the first company that was taken over the government came in and bailed them out eventually. They got things going, but my point is, here's a guy that was one of the sharpest guys in this country. He started out with a first-rate paycheck of three thirty seven dollars and forty cents, but the benefits the benefits. Far off that the lack of funds. When you look here, he says, the Spirit of God says in verse two, bless the Lord all my soul and forget not all of his benefit. I want to have you think with me, and I'm just going to skip here because I'm going to move some things, but some thoughts from a prince. Charles Haddon Spurgeon, still called by many the prince of preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon made a statement about some one hundred three that caught my attention. He said, As the lofty Alps, some peaks rise above others among the inspired some there are heights of some which overtop the rest. Some one hundred three is the apple tree among the trees of the By the way, apples, if you remember, kind of hold a special place in God, even as he says, Israel is the apple of his eye. He says, as an apple tree, the apple tree seems in Solomon's favorite, possibly the Holy Spirit as well, because he says, the apple tree among the trees of the wood in Song of Solomon, chapter two, verse three. As the apple tree is among the trees of the wood, so is my beloved among the suns. I sat down under his shadow with great delight. Psalm 103 is a very special psalm that many have written accolades about. I want to share with you, though, quickly some thoughts from our passage. I want you, as you go through this passage, and by the way, if I counted up right, you might have a different count than I would come up with, but I came up with like thirteen different things that the Lord says here that are benefits, and then there's some applications that go with that, and we're not going to go through them. Actually, we're just going to introduce this But some thoughts from our passage that I want you to think about. Number one thought is there is an absolute absence of petitions. Remember that little ditty about the prayer going to heaven and the petition room, the place where the prayers come in, all these prayers coming in. If you go through this passage, you're not going to find one petition, not one thing asked for. There's a second thing here is the appearance of the person. the appearance of the person. There's an absence of petitions and there's the appearance of the person. with all the names for God that appear in this chapter back eleven times and by the way the word covenant comes in eleven times the name for God, the covenant name for God is there that this word Lord if you look at verse one capital L, capital O, capital R, capital D, which is the all ever present, all powerful, the Yahweh, the Jehovah, the name that's so high and holy that some Jews will not even pronounce it to this day, but will supplement another. It's interesting as you go into this passage that The psalmist David here is caught up with the greatness of the Lord. He says, bless the Lord, O my soul. There's that word. In verse 2, bless the Lord, O my soul. And as you just continue on down, you'll find that in verse 6, the Lord executes righteousness and justice. Verse 8, the Lord is merciful. And it doesn't have the word right there, but I love in verse 13, as the father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him. and ends up less the Lord, oh, my soul. So you find a person not petition now, and this is the thing, and I again. Maybe I hope you're like me this morning. You also start out the day with prayer and praying for some things, but isn't it so easy to get into the habit of when we go to prayer and immediately we're asking give, give, give. Maybe it's not for you and me. Maybe it's not personal, but we're praying for. We need this thing that health situation, something else, but just to praise the Lord. By the way, if you go through this, you'll find there's also 33 pronouns or interrogatives in this subject that all refer to the Lord. So the psalmist really focused on the Lord, and he calls this name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that's within me, bless his holy name. The word adoration. the adoration phrase, bless the Lord, appears five times. Six, by the way, if you use the italics in verse 11. So bless the Lord is a very important concept that you find in this scripture. Now with those things in mind, that little bit of a foundation, I want to share with you this morning six concepts of praise. Six concepts of Thanksgiving that are essential, I believe, if we're truly going to be thankful people, if our relationship with God will be better than that little ditty about the prayer getting to heaven. Six things are emphasized and by the way, this is just in the first two verses. It's only an introduction. That's what the verse one and two do. Let's notice what they are. If we're going to be a thankful people, if in everything we give thanks, if we're going to be a thankful people, a people who do bless the Lord, who do praise the Lord, let's notice these together. Number one, if we're a thankful person, it must either be penned or verbalized. It must be penned or verbalized. And it's better if you can mix the two. Both depend to write something and to verbalize it, and that's exactly what the what David does as the Spirit of God moving in his life, because he both writes this down and verbalizes it and puts the song, and then he teaches the song to his people. He teaches the priest and the priest teaches the people. It gets passed on down the line. Some of you know that one of the things that often is a great area of conflict in marriages is after a very short period of time, the absence of praises, the absence of thankfulness. The attitude that especially a man. OK, now things maybe have changed some things, but basically, I'll just be honest with you. I don't cook. All right. I can do a few things, my wife would tell you, I can sustain, I could take care of her when she was injured right after we moved to this to to California eight years ago. In fact, that was just eight years ago, the 14th of this month. She was almost killed. I had to do a lot of things, and I can do those things, but basically out of the forty-four, almost forty-four and a half years we've been married now, I can tell you ahead of time that about ninety-nine point, probably nine percent of the meals we've eaten, my wife has fixed those meals. Now after forty-four and a half years of a lot of meals, You know, sometimes is an easy, just kind of pretty soon. You just take your wife for granted. You just, you know, you just expect it. You just don't say that's a nice meal, or it looks nice, or I like this or or those type of things. And there's a lot of a lot of women that that's, you know, one of those things that just really strikes them because We're just taking them for granted. And by the way, if you own a home and maybe you're like us now in our situation, some women really like to work outside the lawn, but my wife didn't care for that. So I would take care of the lawn. And I don't know. Did you have you ever mowed our lawn? How many times? Maybe five and forty four to have years, maybe five times. So, but we both like my wife and I both like things to look nice. We like things to be organized. We like things to be kept up outside the house, inside the house. And my job basically is outside the house to take care of those things. And you know, and it's easy for wives to, you know, the guy goes, maybe he works, maybe she works too, but maybe he works and works long hours. But she expects him to come home and take care of the outside and keep the lawn up and keep the place painted. And, you know, if the stool is not working, she likes to have a stool working. If the dishwasher quits, you want to get that fixed. That's most usually the guy's job. But isn't it easy after a certain period of time that you forget to thank your husband for taking care of those things that we just kind of tend to expect that type of circumstance? I remember a statement that still reminds me of my father-in-law, that he's no longer with us. Praise the Lord. Five days before he went to eternity, he accepted Christ as Savior. We had the privilege of meeting the Lord five days before he died. My father-in-law was a man of very few words, and sometimes if he had words they were kind of really rough, you know. And he could say some things, but basically he kind of had the attitude, like a lot of people you know, the person, the couple went in to visit with the pastor and he was counseling them about their marriage, and basically the wife is telling the pastor that she's just so frustrated because She never hears her husband tell her that he loves her. And the pastor turned to the husband and said, is this true? And he said, well, yeah. And the pastor says, well, why don't you tell her you love her? He says, I told her I loved her when I asked her to marry me. I have not changed my mind, so why do I need to say anything? Now, you've probably heard that. Don't you like to hear. Thankfulness if you have children. When your children are growing up don't you like to hear them say thank you mom for that meal or thank you mom and dad for the clothes or if we come to Christmas for this present that or do your children just open those up and look at them. We had some friends years ago in Denver when we were in college and seminary that that were fairly wealthy, and we still remember Scotty and one of their children. He just got tired of opening presents. He wouldn't even open the new ones. He didn't want to open them. He just wanted to go. And he wasn't saying thank you, was he? We just sat there. We were in awe, negative awe of his attitude, OK? But let me say this. Are we thankful people to God? If we're going to be thankful people to God, it needs to be penned. And can you write something to God? Well, I think you can journal, don't you? Love you journal, but you do you have a diary or journal you don't want other people read it, but God read it. But particularly we need to be thankful verbally. It starts out by saying bless the Lord. Bless the Lord. Bless the Lord. It needs to be. Pinned or verbalized number two. It must be personal. It must be personal. Bless the Lord. Oh, and the next word is what? My. My. We were just a couple weeks ago with Pastor Almodov and we were at the funeral back we were there Monday night with your pastor and went to the service they have a Monday night and Tuesday we went to the the funeral. I thought I were parked here and we drove them to Brawley right after the funeral. One of the texts of scripture that we often use at funerals one of my favorites to use especially with non-believers because most everybody knows it is Psalm 23. How does Psalm 23 start out? The Lord, the Lord is my shepherd. Word four. The Lord is my shepherd. Here, bless the Lord, O my, fifth word, my. You know some twenty three is is a great problem. You know the Lord is my shepherd. I shall not want. He makes me lie down in the green pastures, leaves you beside still waters. He restores my soul to go like this. That situation, you know, that's a wonderful thing, and I have shared that. I don't know how many times again when someone has died or, you know, you go to their home and you visit with them. But what makes that, Psalm 23, a lot of people like it and they find comfort, but what makes that really powerful is when you can say, M-Y. The Lord is my shepherd. You see, I've preached hundreds of funerals over the years, literally. And in those hundreds of funerals, I've had lots of people there that like Psalm 23, but they cannot say the Lord is my shepherd. They have to say, well, pastor, that's your shepherd. In fact, some people that I've had funerals for their loved one, they don't believe in God. So what do they have there? I read that and it sounds good and it sounds comforting to them. But it's not until you get down to that personal side of the situation when you can say the Lord is my shepherd. When you can say today, the Lord is my Savior, we can talk all we want, and I shared briefly my testimony with you when we were here the first time. I share with you that I grew up in an atheistic home, and I did hardly ever went to church. I did go to one-room country school, and I did have a teacher there that taught us about not only reading, writing, arithmetic, but about God. Most of what I learned about God, heaven, and hell, all that, I learned in one-room country school. I, I, I believe if you remember my testimony, I believed ever since I was a little kid that there was a God in heaven, there was a heaven to go to and a hell that you really don't want to go to. But I kind of thought in some ways that I'd kind of like to go there rather than there because I didn't like what it is. I don't want to go back too far into my testimony, but that's the way I look. And I can hear people and I can hear them talking about Jesus and being the savior, but he was not my savior. God being the God of Heaven, but he was not my God. I knew enough about those things to know that that wasn't mine. In this text it says, bless the Lord, oh my. It must be verbalized or penned, true praise, biblical thanksgiving, and it must be personal. It's not good enough to thank God for what God has done for somebody else, and you didn't have a really a very good Thanksgiving as far as God's concerned. If all you could give thanks for this Thanksgiving is what God did for somebody else, what has God done for me? It must be personal. Number three, it must be penetrating. Biblical praise and Thanksgiving must be penetrating, and you'll see the word then Oh my soul. Oh my soul. Now we tend to focus on the body and the outward appearance and the face and I have my bride here whom I very much from the first day I saw her even though at that point I was dating somebody else later I was engaged to somebody else the very first time I saw her I knew she was beautiful. You might not, but I knew that. And eventually, I didn't break up with the gal I was going with because of her. But I did break up with the gal I was going with and I never forgot how she looked. And to this day, to this day, I mean, she flips my trigger. I mean, she captivates me. She does. And I can say that from the inside, not just from the outside. But there's an intensity of that, and in 44 plus years, it's only grown the appreciation of how much she means to me. How about if we're saved? How long have we been saved? And if we're saved, and how long we've been saved, how do we feel about God in the inside? in the inside, where God only can really see. You know, it's easy to come to church and put on some kind of a facade. And I don't know about you, but I'm just going to be honest with you. I have no big sin in my life. I mean, big sin, you know, like a really big, you know, whatever you want to put on it. But I'll be honest with you, every once in a while, I just have this because I feel kind of like Paul in Romans 7 when he said, Oh, wretched man, you feel like you're a facade. You remember the old Western movies where you see these towns and they look like they have these great big buildings. In fact, if you've gone to Universal City, And you've seen the tour of the Universal City, sometimes looks like a great big building, actually all this is a big front and out behind there's a little building back there. And sometimes we feel like there's this, I don't know, I just feel like I'm just not where I want to be with God. And there's like this facade, what you see of me and what God sees with me. Because God sees penetratingly into my soul. And when we get to real thanksgiving, when we're really getting to the place where thanksgiving is coming from inside us, that God can see. It's not just the words we say in presence, in church, or this type of thing. The word there means life, or health, or breath, the seat of our appetites and our emotions. So, if we're going to have biblical thanksgiving and praise, it must be pandiverbalized, it must be personal, my, it must be penetrating, my soul, and it must be passionate. It must be passionate. We tend to use that as a negative term, but that's a good term. Passionate. What's it say here? Look at your text. And all that is within me. All that's within me. You know, with everything I got. Sometimes we use those type of terms. Or, you know, I'm going to give it everything I got. Or, you know what I'm talking about? Those words, those are passionate words. This is like our love for the Lord to be seen in Mark chapter twelve verse thirty where it says and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart with all your soul with all your mind and with all your strength. This is the first commandment Jesus laid down how it would for really thankful for really thankful again go back to that that that definition of Jesus gave you shall love the Lord your God with all a LL your heart and with a LL your soul and with a LL your mind and with all a LL your strength. That my friend is passionate. Passionate. God likes to hear passionate Thanksgiving that we're really excited about God number five. It must be perceptive It must be perceptive In our text it goes on and it says bless the Lord. Oh my soul and Forget not forget not Now there's a problem for us This word relates to not forgetting or ignoring or allowing, literally it can be used of like a branch that's cut from a tree and it begins to wither. I love in Psalm 63 when he says, because you have been my help, therefore in the shadow of your wings will I trust. We don't forget We don't forget. You know what? Again, think about children at Christmas. And, you know, they got this one special thing that they think they want, that, you know, this is the key thing. And basically, Christmas is not Christmas. They go through their presents. Have you ever seen that? They rip through all their presents. And when they get down to the last one, is this the last one? Why? Because the one thing that they thought that they needed to make them happy above anything else is not there. And how do you feel as a parent? Sometimes the thing that they want is not good for them. Our little nine-year-old granddaughter, who is my date Wednesday night at the Valentine's Day, the Thanksgiving banquet in National City. We have a couple down in Brawley, where we're from, wonderful people, the Dixons. and they've kind of adopted her as the grandparent. Since we've been on the road, they've really come close to her. And frankly, they spoil her rotten. True? Yeah. Okay. They asked her, I don't know if you knew this, maybe you didn't. They asked her what she wanted for Christmas. And she said, I want a cell phone like my mom's. Well, mom got a cell phone that she bought on one of these contracts, you know, two-year contracts. You know how that works? Somebody bought a cell phone. So they went out to find out how much would cost, because they had bought her some nice things. Four hundred and some dollars. I don't remember exactly. It was over four hundred dollars for that phone. Well, they asked her what she wanted. They have some money, but they're not rich people. So they figured we've got to figure out something else. But that's what she wanted. That's what they asked, you know, in that situation. They have done so much for her, but you can disappoint when she found out that when they told her that now they just can't do that much, you know, because we we have a tendency of not being perceptive to remember what's been done for us in the past. And we come to God today to pray. Did we do that? Rather than coming with some Thanksgiving, what God has given to us, did we just jump in again because I want gimme gimme gimme more. It must be perceptive. Number six, and I said there's six, all found in this introduction to this chapter. Biblical praise and thanksgiving to be really what God appreciates is to be particular. What's the word? Benefits. I remember Leah Coca, one of the benefits, $1.5 million, not a bad benefit. There was some other contractual things that were in that situation. Don't forget his benefits. What has God done for me? What has God given to me? And by the way, not what has God just done for me, but stop and think about what God's going to do for me. When we come to Thanksgiving time and we're thinking about things, we think about all these different things that are out here right now, but think about the retirement.