Man, Psalm 100 is a great Psalm for thanksgiving.
The Bible reads in verse number one,
make a joyful noise under the Lord all ye lands,
serve the Lord with gladness,
come before his presence with singing.
And then in verse number four, it says,
enter into his gates with thanksgiving
and into his courts with praise,
be thankful unto him and bless his name.
And the first thing I want to point out here
about this Psalm is the connection between joy
and thanksgiving, okay?
Because he starts out in verse number one saying,
make a joyful noise under the Lord all ye lands.
Then in verse two, he says,
serve the Lord with gladness.
And then he says, come before his presence with singing,
which singing is a sign of gladness.
You know, when people are in a good mood, they sing.
And the Bible even says in James chapter five,
is any among you afflicted?
Let him pray.
Is any merry?
Let him sing Psalms, right?
So singing, gladness, joyful.
And then he says, enter his gates with thanksgiving
and into his courts with praise.
And the reason that I want to point that out
is that a person who is gloomy and down
and sad all the time is probably an unthankful person.
Why?
Because thanksgiving and joy go hand in hand
just as they do in this passage.
One of the ways that we show our thankfulness to God
is by making a joyful noise unto him,
by entering his presence with singing,
entering his courts with praise,
serving the Lord with gladness.
You know, if we're actually thankful
for all of the Lord's benefits toward us,
all the good things in our life,
then we're going to have joy and gladness, right?
People who are perpetually sad, gloomy, melancholy,
they're obviously not focusing on the good things.
God has given them.
They're obviously focusing on the things that they don't have
or the things in their life that are going wrong
or the negative things that are out there
instead of being thankful for what they do have.
All right.
So these things go hand in hand.
You can't separate them.
If you want to do a little self test
on your thankfulness level, you know,
a couple of things that I would look at are number one,
do you have real joy in your life?
Because if you don't have joy in your life,
you're obviously not thankful as you should be, okay?
You say, well, you know, that's just how I am.
I'm that personality type of the melancholic, you know,
then go move to Seattle or something.
You know, this is Phoenix, Arizona, all right?
This is the valley of the sun, all right?
You're supposed to be happy here.
You have no excuse that it's cloudy all the time
or raining all the time or something.
We get excited when it gets cloudy
because it's such a rare thing here, all right?
But what I'm saying is, you know, people who say,
well, that's just my personality.
This is just who I am.
I'm just a gloomy individual.
What does the Bible say?
You know, the Bible says rejoice in the Lord always.
And again, I say rejoice.
So the Bible says rejoice in the Lord always.
And again, I say rejoice.
The Bible says this is the day which the Lord has made.
We will rejoice and be glad in it.
You say, which day is that?
That's every day.
All right.
Now, I'm not saying that there aren't times
when it's appropriate to be sad.
The Bible says there's a time to mourn and a time to laugh.
So there are times when joy would be inappropriate.
There are times when we should be sad
and when we should be mourning and when sad things happen
and we would go through periods of grieving.
We know Jesus wept.
Jesus was a man of sorrows.
Jesus was well acquainted with grief.
But you know what, though?
When you are perpetually down, perpetually gloomy,
something is wrong with you spiritually,
you need to be thankful and rejoice
and find joy in the Lord, okay?
So part of the test of whether you're thankful
is your joy level, okay?
The Bible says we rejoice with joy unspeakable
and full of glory.
The Bible says rejoice evermore.
I mean, there's so many scriptures
that we could point to telling us to rejoice,
telling us that the fruit of the Spirit is love, peace, joy.
All right, that's the third thing that's mentioned.
The Holy Spirit is also known as the oil of gladness.
So when someone is filled with the Spirit,
there should be joy and gladness in that individual.
That's part of the fullness of the Holy Spirit is joy.
And so that's one way to tell is how joyful you are.
So the Bible says make a joyful noise
unto the Lord all you lands.
Now, the other thing I want to point out here
in verse number one is that
it's not just enough to feel joy in our heart
or to feel thankfulness in our heart.
We need to express that with a noise, all right?
We need to make a joyful noise.
Now, if you have a gloomy face
and you're not saying anything thankful
and you're not saying anything glad or joyful,
but you say, well, I'm rejoicing on the inside.
Well, that's not enough
because we need to make a joyful noise unto the Lord.
It needs to come out of our mouth.
We need to enter into his gates with thanksgiving,
the verse four says, and into his courts with praise.
We need to, verse two, serve the Lord with gladness
and come before his presence with singing.
So this inward joy and gladness
needs to manifest itself outwardly
through praises to God, singing to God,
and just opening our mouths and saying how thankful we are.
Sometimes you'll go to a family gathering
and somebody will do something that maybe it's awkward,
maybe it's not awkward, like, all right,
we're gonna go around the table
and talk about what we're thankful for.
Who's ever done something like that in a family?
Yeah, pretty much everybody.
So, hey, we're gonna talk about what we're thankful for
and everybody's like, oh man, I don't know.
But honestly, those kinds of things
need to just come out of our mouth.
I'm not saying to put somebody on the spot tomorrow,
but it shouldn't even really have to be something
that's scheduled or planned.
If it's Thanksgiving, we should talk about
the good things that God has given us.
We should talk about the blessings.
We should talk about all the nice things that we have,
the people in our lives.
And I'm sure you could find many things to complain about.
Everybody has things in their life
that aren't the way that they want them to be.
But what about all the good things?
I mean, even the most unfortunate person
in this room tonight, I guarantee you,
has a lot of things to be thankful for.
We live in the United States.
We have freedom.
We have abundance of food.
We're all gonna eat an amazing meal tomorrow.
And you say, well, I'm not.
Well, then get down to Tucson and you will, okay?
See, there's no excuse, right?
Hitchhike down to Tucson and there's a great meal
waiting for you down there.
So there's no excuse to not eat amazing food tomorrow.
But we're gonna be feasting.
We're gonna be eating literally like kings tomorrow.
Even kings throughout history did not eat
like we eat in America.
Even the kings of yesteryear in the wintertime
didn't have airplanes dropping off fresh produce from Chile.
We do, all right?
So we really have it made.
We've got our climate-controlled dwellings.
We've got all kinds of opportunities.
We've got freedom.
We've got church.
And thank God for our church.
I mean, we have a great church.
It's nice to have a big church too,
because then there's so many opportunities for friendship.
And if you don't get along with people,
you can just keep going until you find one
that you get along with,
because there's just so many people here.
So we have a nice big church, lots of friends,
lots of activities.
We've got a great fellowship.
There's just a lot to be thankful for living in Arizona
and having our church and our friends and our families.
And we've got the Lord.
So there's no reason not to make a joyful noise unto him.
There's no reason not to serve him with gladness
and come before his presence with singing.
But another thing that jumped out at me,
not only in this past,
because I'm talking a lot about this Psalm,
but really we could look at a whole bunch of other Psalms
that talk about the subject of Thanksgiving.
And you'll see a lot of the same themes
coming up over and over again
when it comes to Thanksgiving.
And one of the other themes that comes up,
besides just the joy and gladness,
and besides expressing that joy and gladness
and opening our mouths in prayer to the Lord,
thanking him for things,
and also opening our mouth to our fellow man
and expressing our Thanksgiving
and telling of the Lord's wondrous works.
Not only that, another theme that kept coming up
was that we come to the Lord with Thanksgiving.
Often we come to his house with Thanksgiving,
or we come to his courts with Thanksgiving.
There's this geographic trip that's made to thank the Lord.
That's another thing that comes up over and over again
in scripture if we look up the words,
thank or thanks or Thanksgiving, those type of words.
Church is what I'm talking about.
And you guys nailed this tonight because you're here.
Giving thanks unto the Lord often involves
going to the house of the Lord,
going into his courts.
The courts that the Bible is talking about there,
when it says enter into his courts with praise,
obviously that's just a metaphorical courts,
but there's also a literal court that it's talking about
because back in the Old Testament,
the tabernacle and later the temple,
it wasn't just a building that you went into,
but actually it had around it a courtyard.
That was part of the plan when God's explaining to Moses
how you're gonna build this thing
and how Solomon built it.
There's a courtyard involved.
So when it talks about entering into his courts,
that's talking about going to the house of God,
because the house of God in the Old Testament
included a courtyard or courts surrounding it, that area.
So the Bible says, come before his presence with singing,
know ye, verse three, that the Lord, he is God.
It is he that has made us and not we ourselves.
We are his people and the sheep of his pasture.
And according to the Bible,
that's something that we should be glad about.
We are not just some kind of a cosmic accident.
We are not an evolved monkey.
We are not just a stardust accident or whatever.
We are here for a reason.
We've been created by God.
He made us, we're his people.
We're the sheep of his pasture.
And that is surrounded by these bookends of be glad,
praise the Lord, isn't this great?
Isn't it great to be God's people?
Isn't it great to be his sheep?
Isn't it great to have a light that matters
and that means something and not to just be
some kind of an overly sophisticated animal.
It says in verse four,
enter into his gates with thanksgiving
and into his courts with praise.
Be thankful unto him and bless his name.
Why?
For the Lord is good.
So the reason to be thankful is that God is so good.
The Lord is good.
His mercy is everlasting.
I mean, that's the only reason why we're even saved
is that God's mercy is everlasting.
There's no end to his forgiveness.
Where sin abounds, grace much more abounds.
Where sin abounded, there did grace abound.
And so there's no end to his mercy.
His mercy is everlasting.
His truth endureth to all generations.
So this is never going to become obsolete.
It's never going to come to a point where,
oh, sorry, salvation isn't by grace anymore.
We're in a new dispensation now and it's all by works.
Wrong.
You know what?
God's mercy endures forever.
His truth endures to all generations.
Salvation's not going to change.
The Bible's not going to change.
God's word is unchanging.
The flower fades.
The grass withers and fails.
But God's word endures forever.
And he that doeth the will of God abideth forever.
And so we have security.
We have so much to be thankful for just in this one song.
Now back up if you would to Psalm 26.
So that's Psalm 100, great Psalm on Thanksgiving.
But go back to Psalm 26.
Psalm 26, verse number six, the Bible reads,
I will wash mine hands in innocency.
So will I compass thine altar, oh Lord.
So again, we have the movement toward the house of God
in this Psalm, going to the altar, going to the courts,
going to the tabernacle or the temple.
And then he says that I may publish with the voice
of Thanksgiving and tell of all thy wondrous works.
So again, we have the movement toward God's house.
You know, if you're thankful to God,
you'll show up at God's house.
You know, people who just don't go to church,
they don't have time to go to church,
they get busy, probably unthankful.
So number one, you know, if you're thankful,
you'll be glad, you'll be rejoicing.
But number two, if you're thankful,
you're going to show up at God's house.
Because if Jesus Christ purchased the church
with his own blood, but then you can't be bothered
to come down here, but maybe three times a month,
if nothing else is going on or something,
you know what, you're showing that you're probably
not that thankful for what he's done for you.
If you just totally get out of church for months on end,
because he's not the main thing in your life.
In all things, he must have the preeminence, the Bible says.
Seek ye first the kingdom of God and his righteousness,
and all these things shall be added unto you.
That shows that your job should never be to a point where it's,
well, I just got to focus on work now.
So I'm just going to have to skip church
for the next few months and just really focus on work.
You know, you'll get more work done
if you just spend those three hours a week in church.
And you'll actually get more productive the rest of the week,
because if you seek first the kingdom of God,
then all the other things will be added unto you.
But in order to understand that,
you have to be thankful for the fact
that he already did that for you in the past.
Any money that you've ever made, the Bible says,
it's God that gave you the power to get wealth.
So any money I've ever made in my life,
it was God that gave me that wisdom, that ability,
that skill, that aptitude, that opportunity,
all the things that went into that money being made,
God allowed that.
So if I'm thankful to him, I'm going to say,
you know what, God, you get the glory.
I succeeded because you allowed me to succeed.
You gave me everything I have.
Any intellect I have is from you.
Any skill with my fingers is from you.
Anything that I've done to make money came from you.
And so therefore going forward, I'm going to rely on you.
I'm going to acknowledge that in 2019, it was you.
In 2018, it was you.
In 2017, it was you.
That means in 2020, it's going to be you.
Therefore, if I'm faithful to church in 2020,
then God's more likely to bless me,
because he said that if I seek first the kingdom of God
and his righteousness,
all these things will be added unto me.
So going to the altar, going to the courtyard,
going to, the picture is going to church in the New Testament,
because the New Testament house of God
is not a physical building or courtyard or altar,
but it's rather the assembling of ourselves together.
It is the local church.
And then we also see the gladness, the joy.
And we see the voice of Thanksgiving,
not just the feeling in my heart of Thanksgiving,
but the voice of Thanksgiving.
We need to open our mouths and express what we feel.
And by the way, not just for the Lord,
but what about the other people in our lives
that do things for us?
You know, it's a good time to thank mom and thank dad
and thank other people that have invested in us
and people that help us and that do good things for us
with the voice of Thanksgiving, right?
Tell your wife that you're thankful for her.
Tell your husband that you're thankful for him.
Thank your parents.
Thank other people in your lives that do something for you,
right, with the voice of things.
But of course, primarily the main person
who we should be giving thanks to is God.
You know, I wonder, what do the atheists do
with this holiday?
Who are they thanking, the universe?
Yeah, they go shopping, right?
The Black Thursday, Gray Thursday or something, you know?
They're just, they do the early Black Friday or whatever,
which by the way, I hate Black Friday.
And by the way, when I was a kid,
there was no such thing as Black Friday.
When I was a boy, there was no Black Friday garbage.
Folks, Black Friday didn't exist, okay?
When I was a teenager, Black Friday didn't exist, okay?
When I was in my early 20s is the first time
I ever heard of Black Friday.
And it still was not a public thing that I knew of.
The only reason that I heard about it was that
I did fire alarm inspections for department stores.
So I went into Kohl's department store
and I heard them talk about it in the break room
as Black Friday.
And I'm like, what's Black Friday?
And they said, oh, well, we call it Black Friday
because it's the hardest day for us.
We have to work really hard.
We have to work these really long hours.
So it was like a negative thing unto them.
At least that's the way these people interpreted it
that told me that.
It was like in retail, like Black Friday,
like the little guy dreaded it.
I'm sure that the people at the top in the company,
they love all that money coming in on that day.
But I don't remember ever hearing about Black Friday.
Did you hear about this 30 years ago?
Somebody helped me out.
It wasn't a thing, was it?
Yeah, see, I'm not making this up.
This is a new thing, kids, all right?
We grew up in a world without Black Friday
and it was a better place.
It was a better place without Black Friday, okay?
Why?
Because Black Friday is stupid.
And let me tell you why, because it's stupid
to have a day called Thanksgiving
and then the next day is just all about lust.
The very next day.
This is as foolish as the Catholics
where they have fat Tuesday followed by Ash Wednesday.
This is like that in reverse, okay?
This is like the Thankful on Thursday
and then the Fat Friday, okay?
They're kind of, Mardi Gras means Fat Tuesday
and that's what they have before Ash Wednesday.
So it's like, hey, let's go out and party
and get drunk and commit all these sins
because now we're gonna have Lent
and we're gonna give things up or whatever.
Folks, God doesn't want us to live our lives
like we're on some kind of a spiritual binge and purge.
It's like a spiritual bulimia.
You know what I'm talking about?
Like Roman Catholicism is like spiritual bulimia.
What's bulimia?
Bulimia is where they eat a giant meal.
Women are, they look in the mirror
and they look at themselves and they think that they're fat
and many times they're not even fat.
A lot of times they're even already even too thin.
Or maybe they are fat, but either way.
But a lot of times, no, but seriously,
a lot of times they're not even overweight.
Like they look at themselves in the mirror
and they have a mental disorder
where they actually see themselves as fat
even when they're like really skinny.
But anyway, bulimia is something different.
But I'm just setting this up here.
But anyway, they stand there and they're like,
oh, I gotta lose weight.
So what they do is they end up binging.
So they sit down and just eat ice cream and brownies
and just, oh, finally at last.
And then they go and they stick their finger down
and they throw it and they throw it all up.
This is bulimia.
And it's very bad for you.
Extremely harmful, young ladies.
Don't get into this.
Do not even think about it.
Oh, that's an idea, you know?
Yeah, after that Thanksgiving meal,
I can just stick my finger down my throat.
Folks, first of all, your teeth rot out of your mouth.
Because of all that acid and bile coming up,
it actually rots your teeth out of your mouth,
destroys the enamel on your teeth.
Not only that, but people will get to a point
where they can't eat without throwing up.
Because what happens is every time they eat,
they're throwing up, they eat, they're throwing up,
they eat, they're throwing up.
And pretty soon they start to develop
like this just vomiting cycle where they just eat
and then they don't even have to stick their finger
down their throat, they just throw up.
So this is very dangerous practice
of inducing vomiting on yourself.
You know, it's just like all the other stupid,
dangerous things that young people will do
like taking drugs or drinking and all these different things
because of the fact that, you know, they think,
oh, well, I know other people rotted their teeth out
and developed these horrible eating disorders
and ruined their stomach and got ulcers
and ruined their throat and ruined everything.
You know, it's not gonna happen to me.
Well, yes, it will, okay?
Because that's what everybody thinks.
But the reason Roman Catholicism is like bulimia
is because that's what they do.
They go out and binge on sin on Fat Tuesday, Mardi Gras.
And then Wednesday is like, forgive me, Father.
It's been, you know, seven days since my last confession.
And they're basically just like puking their guts out to a priest.
Am I right?
They're just regurgitating all this filth like, oh, man.
And then you know what they're planning on doing?
Another binge.
And then they go back to the confessional booth.
It's the barf booth.
Seriously, I mean, it's like a spiritual version of binging and purging.
Binging on sin and then, oh, I'm gonna go get purged of my sin down at the priest.
Well, here's the problem with that.
That priest has no power to forgive your sins at all.
And when he prescribes chanting, he's basically telling you to sin more
because the Bible commands us not to chant.
He says, when you pray, use not vain repetitions as the heathen do.
So he's like, oh, you sinned?
Tell me about all your sins.
Because he just likes to hear about sin.
He just gets a kick out of it.
He listens to all your sins.
And he says, okay, now go sin more by chanting hail Mary's.
Because that's a sin.
Because worshiping Mary's a sin.
And then go chant our Father which art in heaven.
That's a sin because you're chanting prayers to God as a vain repetition when he told you not to.
Anything that God tells you not to do is a sin if you do it.
Even if it's a good thing.
Even if it's something good that you do, but God said don't do it, then it's sin.
I mean, look, is praying for someone good?
Is it good to pray for people?
But what about when God told Jeremiah, don't pray for this people?
What if he went and prayed for them anyway?
It's a sin.
Okay, if God, look, was entering the promised land and defeating the Canaanites a good thing?
Yeah, God said, yeah, go in and do it.
But then there came a time when they disobeyed and they listened to the 10 evil spies.
And he said, no, you guys have to wander in the wilderness for 40 years now.
And they're like, no, no, no, we're sorry, we're going to go to the promised land.
Now going in the promised land is a bad thing because he told them don't do it.
And then he punished them for doing it.
So anytime God, so yeah, is reciting the Lord's prayer a good thing?
Yeah.
Is quoting scripture a good thing?
Yeah, and the Lord's prayer is scripture, right?
But when God tells you, when you pray, don't use vain repetitions.
And then you chant the Lord's prayer 20 times.
Now you're sinning because you're doing exactly what he told you not to do.
You're chanting vain prayers.
Okay.
And you know what?
If you chant it, you say, well, it's not vain.
Well, chanting it, it just became vain because it's in vain.
You will not be heard for your much speaking and you're doing exactly what he told you not to do.
In fact, when Jesus gave the Lord's prayer, he said,
after this manner, therefore pray ye.
He's not telling you chant this exact, he's saying, pray like this.
Pray in this manner.
It's a pattern prayer would be the best way to describe it.
It's like an outline for prayer.
It's the type of elements that you should include in your prayer.
You know, our father, which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name.
So you're starting out praying to the father.
You're giving him praise.
You're thanking him.
Give us this day our daily bread.
You're asking for your needs to be met.
I mean, you go down the list.
Okay.
But this binge and purge Christianity is wrong.
Okay.
God wants us every day.
Serving him, loving him.
He doesn't ever want us to binge on sins and then we won't need to purge them in some confessional
booth.
The only way to get forgiveness for us is to go straight to the Lord and say that we're
sorry.
Okay.
Now, first of all, when it comes to salvation, we're already forgiven of all of our sins,
past, present, and future, because we're eternally safe.
But there is an element of day-to-day forgiveness with the Lord as well.
Sort of like if I do wrong by my parents and then I say to my parents, hey, I'm sorry,
I did that.
And then they say, hey, we forgive you, son.
I was never in danger of not being their son anymore.
And on some level, they're always going to forgive because they're parents.
Okay.
But there's a restoration of fellowship there of confessing our sins and being forgiven
as far as just a short-term relationship walk with God type thing.
Okay.
But we don't go to the confessional booth for that.
We go straight to the Lord in prayer because we boldly enter the throne of grace through
our mediator, Jesus Christ, through our high priest, Jesus Christ.
We don't need, there's only one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus.
And so we need to get off this Black Friday stupidity because of the fact that it's teaching
our children the wrong thing about this holiday, about both holidays.
It's really corrupting both Thanksgiving and Christmas all in one shot is the way I see
it because it's like, okay, Thanksgiving, we're supposed to be thankful for whatever
we have and all we're going to do is just be conspiring all day Thursday, drawing up
our battle plan for Black Friday.
You know what I'm saying?
Like, oh, we're going to go out there and we're going to have brass knuckles and we're
going to be ready to get in there and get that deal.
And look, I'm not saying, hey, you can't participate.
I'm just telling you, I refuse to participate in it, okay?
You do whatever you want.
I'm just saying I don't like it.
I feel like this year, this time of year should be about Christ, should be about being thankful
to the Lord, it should be about the Lord Jesus Christ.
It should be a time of quiet and reflection, not trampling over each other to get a new
virtual reality video game or something like that.
Because our lives are just that bad that we just need to strap a machine to our head and
just live a totally different life, you know, but we're real thankful for what we have,
right?
Really looking forward to celebrating the birth of Christ, you know, by strapping on
a virtual reality and, you know, doing battle with Darth Vader or something.
You know what I mean?
Something's not adding up here, okay?
So I don't like the commercialism of it.
It's a new thing in our society.
I don't know, maybe it would have been thought of as a little too disrespectful in the past.
I don't know.
Maybe it's only now that they could roll this out in the last 20 years.
And by the way, the love of money is the root of all evil.
And I'm all for business, I'm all for businesses making money, but you know what, though, just
this putting it on this Black Friday and tying it in with Christmas and Thanksgiving, I'm
not a fan of it.
But let me get off that because, you know, you guys have already made your plans and
I'm, no, I'm just kidding.
I'm ruining your whole week.
But anyway, he said in verse six, I'll wash my hands in innocency, so will I compass thine
altar, O Lord, that I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving, and I will make the
O Lord, that I may publish with the voice of thanksgiving, and tell of all thy wondrous
work.
Notice the word publish.
Does it sound like he's just kind of thankful in his heart?
He's publishing with the voice of thanksgiving, meaning he's vocal about thanking God for
the things that he's done.
Lord, I have loved the habitation of thy house and the place where thine honor dwell.
There it is again.
I love church.
I love God's house.
Gather not my soul with sinners, nor my life with bloody men, dripping with blood from
the Battle of Walmart parking lot, in whose hands is the latest Xbox or whatever.
No, I'm just kidding.
In whose hands is mischief, and their right hand is full of bribes.
But as for me, I will walk in mine integrity, redeem me, and be merciful unto me.
My foot standeth in an even place.
Watch this, in the congregations will I bless the Lord.
In the congregations will I bless the Lord.
So part of thanksgiving is what?
It's joy, number one.
Number two is being vocal, opening your mouth, and praising God, and thanking God verbally.
And number three, going to church is a way that we show our thanks to God.
You know, either tonight, check, done, everybody who's here.
And then also this Sunday, you know what I mean?
Just back in church, being faithful.
Go through it to Psalm 69.
Psalm 69, we've looked at Psalm 100, we looked at Psalm 26.
Let's look at Psalm 69.
There's so much great stuff in the Book of Psalms about thanksgiving.
Psalm 69.
And you know, unfortunately, I kind of know what it's like for people that are bulimic,
because not that I've ever had an eating disorder.
But, you know, I have a problem with my throat, where I have trouble swallowing.
Who's ever been with me when I have a choking fit?
Whatever have you.
Thankfully, it's only been a few people that have seen me in that embarrassment.
But I've had, you know, I get I get choking fits a lot.
I choke on my food a lot, because I have something wrong with my throat.
And sometimes I'll get something stuck in my throat.
And I'll just be like, throw, I'll be vomiting for hours, just as my body's trying to get
it out of my throat.
It's never life threatening, because it never blocks my airway.
But it just, it blocks my esophagus.
And I'll be just throwing up bile and throwing up stomach acid.
And it just, and every time I do, I always think to myself, I feel so bad for my wife
when she's pregnant and gets morning sickness, because this is what she does, just throwing
up like this.
Because throwing up is not fun.
It's painful.
Especially just throwing up for hours.
So don't ever imagine that you should ever do that to yourself.
Just so that you can fit into that dress or something.
You're crazy.
It's so unhealthy.
It's so bad for you.
And by the way, the biggest reason not to be overweight is because it's unhealthy.
So if you're going to like do something unhealthy, in order to lose weight, you're kind of missing
the whole point of why you need to lose weight.
It's not just about vanity, okay?
But man, vomiting is one of the most unpleasant things that you could ever do.
So you say, I don't know what to be thankful for Thanksgiving.
Be thankful that you can swallow your food without throwing up and choking, all right?
I'm thankful every time that I can get through a meal without choking, because talk about
praying for your food, sometimes I have to pray with every bite not to choke because
I have this throat issue.
So it's a horrible thing.
Psalm 69 verse 29, it says, but I'm poor and sorrowful.
Let thy salvation, O God, set me up on high.
I will praise the name of God with a song and will magnify him with Thanksgiving.
This also shall please the Lord better than an ox or bullock that hath horns and hoofs.
Now, when he says he's going to magnify the Lord with Thanksgiving, what does it mean
to magnify something?
To magnify something is to make it larger, right?
So if I'm looking at a PDF and I hit the plus sign, I'm magnifying the image, everything
gets larger.
If I use a magnifying glass, things look larger.
Now, obviously the size hasn't changed, but they appear larger.
So what we're doing is we're basically making something seem bigger, okay?
So obviously God can't get any bigger, but people's view of God can get bigger.
So some people have a small view of who God is.
They don't understand his greatness.
They don't understand his majesty.
They don't understand his power.
And so when we magnify the Lord, we're basically zooming in for people like, hey, look at how
great the Lord is.
Look what God has done.
Look at what God has said.
We're basically making it larger to the eyes of the people around us so that they can see
God, so they can see the Lord through what we preach and what we say to them.
So that's what it means to praise the name of God with a song and magnify him with thanksgiving.
And then it says, this also shall please the Lord better than an ox or bullock that hath
horns and hoofs.
Now, making a sacrifice of an ox or a bullock is a pretty major sacrifice because that is
an extremely large animal and it's not a cheap animal, okay?
These kinds of animals could cost, you know, what, $1,000, right?
I'm not an expert on cattle ranching or anything like that.
But I would assume that a cow probably cost about $1,000, am I right?
$2,000.
Okay, $2,000 to the gentleman.
I'm actually selling a cow tonight.
Do I hear $3,000?
No, I'm sorry.
So yeah, it could be $2,000 or $3,000.
So I was, see how conservative I was when I said $1,000?
In your dreams, pal.
It's $2,000, $3,000.
So it's an expensive animal.
And you say, well, that's in today's money.
But things have always been worth the same.
It's just that the currency is being deflated.
1913, Federal Reserve, another sermon.
But anyway, the point is, you know, he's saying, look, you could make a great offering
under the Lord.
You could put a huge amount of money in the plate.
You could give wealth because that's what this is.
Like taking a cow down or an ox and giving that under the Levites or giving that under
the priest at the temple and making a sacrifice of that, that would be like putting a fat
check in the offering plate.
And you know, obviously, yeah, that's a good thing to do.
But you know what's even better than that?
The Bible even says here that God's more pleased when we actually love the Lord in our
heart and are thankful to Him in our heart and we actually open our mouth and praise
God from the heart.
The sacrifice of praise, you know, that's a greater sacrifice, the Bible is even saying,
than these wealthy gifts of oxen or bullocks or cattle.
Praising the Lord, you may not have much to give.
Maybe you're poor, but you know what?
You can praise God.
And don't downplay this.
If you're a person who's not praising God, you're missing.
You're missing what God is commanding you to do here.
Okay, so we should be on a daily basis singing to the Lord, thanking God verbally in our
own private prayers and also publicly in front of other people saying, hey, here's a
let me tell you what God has done here and sharing that with other people.
This is what Thanksgiving should be all about.
You know, the food is a big thing for me.
Okay, I love the food.
But it's not just all about the food.
If you're not saved, if you don't believe in Christ, this becomes kind of a meaningless
holiday.
Turkey day.
Another thing I don't like.
I don't like Black Friday and I don't like calling it Turkey Day.
Because it just sounds like you don't want to say Thanksgiving.
You don't want to say Thanksgiving, so you just say Turkey Day.
I guess because the atheists, they don't have anybody to thank.
Who do they thank?
Chance, lady luck, fate.
You know, what do they thank?
The physical laws of the universe.
Oh, law of gravity.
Oh, thank you.
Oh, Isaac Newton's first law of thermodynamics.
You know, oh, theory of relativity.
You know, like just, oh, thank you for holding the universe together.
We praise you, oh, cosmic forces.
It makes no sense, right?
But you know what?
We know that God made us.
We know that it's the Lord who gave us everything.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above and cometh down from the father
of lights with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
That's what the Bible says.
And you know what?
Expressing that, feeling that, singing that, praying that, that'll please the Lord better
than an ox.
Now, it's not saying God doesn't like the ox or the bullock, but you know what pleases
him more than that is heartfelt praise coming out of your mouth.
Go to Psalm 95.
Psalm 95.
While you're turning there, I'll read Jeremiah chapter 30, verse 19.
Out of them shall proceed thanksgiving and the voice of them that make merry.
And I will multiply them and they shall not be few.
I will also glorify them and they shall not be small.
Look at Psalm 95, verse 1.
Oh, come, let us sing unto the Lord.
Let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation.
Let us come before his presence with thanksgiving and make a joyful noise unto him with psalms.
And what do we see?
All the same elements.
We see the joy because we've been kind of hammering on three elements, haven't we?
What are the three elements we've been hammering?
We've talked about the joy.
We've talked about expressing it verbally, actually speaking these things and not just
feeling them in our heart.
And then we've talked about the actual trip to give thanks.
The trip to church, you know, the trip to whether it says the trip to the altar, the
trip into his courts, the trip to his congregations.
It said in Psalm 26, I believe the congregations.
These are all different ways of talking about going to God's house here.
He talks about coming before his presence with thanksgiving.
And obviously, yeah, we can do that in the prayer closet, but also there's this geographic
trip of going to the house of God that comes up over and over again in these passages.
And then last of all, go to Psalm 118.
Psalm 118, verse 1 says, Oh, give thanks unto the Lord for he is good because his mercy
endureth forever.
Let Israel now say that his mercy endureth forever.
Let the house of Aaron now say that his mercy endureth forever.
Let them now that fear the Lord say that his mercy endureth forever.
I called upon the Lord in distress.
The Lord answered me and set me in a large place.
The Lord's on my side.
I will not fear what can man do unto me.
The Lord taketh my part with them that help me.
Therefore shall I see my desire upon them that hate me.
It's better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.
It's better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in princes.
All nations compass me about, but in the name of the Lord, I will destroy them.
They compass me about.
Yay, they compass me about, but in the name of the Lord, I will destroy them.
They compass me about like bees.
They're quenched as the fire of thorns, for in the name of the Lord, I will destroy them.
Thou has thrust sore at me that I might fall, but the Lord help me.
The Lord is my strength and song and has become my salvation.
The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous.
The right hand of the Lord doeth valiantly.
Do you see that?
And this is the verse I want to focus on in closing verse 15.
The voice of rejoicing and salvation is in the tabernacle of the righteous.
So if we are in that, what's the tabernacle?
The tabernacle literally means shelter or a tent, right?
The tabernacle also was God's house.
It was called the tabernacle because it was not an actual building, but it was a tent.
There was something that was just temporary.
They would set up the tent, take it down, move somewhere else, set it up again, and so forth.
And so the tabernacle is basically, yes, talking about the house of God,
but it also is referring to our own dwelling place,
our own tent, if you will, or our own shelter, where we live, right?
And the Bible says the voice of rejoicing and
salvation is in the tabernacles of the righteous.
So therefore, for us to be righteous tomorrow and to have a righteous Thanksgiving, okay?
If we really want to have a righteous Thanksgiving,
what needs to be in our house in order to have a righteous Thanksgiving?
Well, obviously you're going to need the turkey and the mashed potatoes and the corn.
And my personal favorite is the green bean casserole.
Who loves the green bean casserole?
I love it.
Cream of mushroom soup, the crunchy onions on top.
But you know what actually is?
You want to know what actually is necessary to have a righteous Thanksgiving.
We need to have, what does the Bible say?
The voice.
What's the element that has to be there?
The voice of rejoicing and salvation.
What should it sound like in your house tomorrow?
There should be a voice of rejoicing and salvation, right?
So look, good things need to be coming out of your mouth tomorrow,
praising the Lord, thanking the Lord.
I don't care how old you are.
I don't care if you're a little child.
I don't care if you're 100 years old.
Let the voice of Thanksgiving, let the voice of praise, let the voice of rejoicing and
salvation be in our righteous tabernacles tomorrow, right?
That's what we need to hear.
Needs to come out of our mouth, not just enough to kind of, you know,
oh, all right, let's go around the table and, you know, find something we're thankful for.
I don't know.
Folks, do it unprompted.
Before grandma or auntie or mom or whoever has the chance to put you on the spot, say,
hey, mom, let me just beat you to the punch.
And let me tell you how thankful I am right now.
And in fact, let me give thanks to the God of gods because his mercy endures forever,
you know, and let me talk about some of the things that God has blessed me with and talk
about some of the great things that God did in the Bible and talk about salvation, right?
This is what ought to be on our lips as far as that word of prayer.
Father, we thank you so much for everything, Lord.
I mean, we could just go on and on being saved and just giving us our daily bread,
taking care of us, giving us family and friends and giving us the church that you've purchased
with your own blood and Lord, thank you so much that as far as the East is from the West,
you've separated us from our sins.
What a blessing it is to be saved.
What a blessing it is to be forgiven.
What a blessing it is to be accepted in the beloved and to be one of your chosen people,
to be one of the sheep of your pasture, to be kings and priests, Lord.
What a glorious thing it is to be your child.
And so thank you for satisfying us with good things continually,
both now and in the world to come.
Lord bless everyone who's here tonight.
Many people tonight, church is not even on their mind.
They're just all they're thinking about is a party tomorrow, Lord.
Thank you for those that stopped everything on a busy week
and came to your house and entered your courts with Thanksgiving.
Bless every single person who's here, Lord.
I pray that every single person that's in this building tonight would have a happy Thanksgiving
tomorrow and it would be blessed and have a great week.
And in Jesus' name, we pray. Amen.