(indistinct)
- Pray for me.
Since we have our service times right there on the left,
we have our soul-winning time on Sunday at 2 p.m.
Is that your daughter laughing?
- I don't know.
- That's the cutest laugh, I was just like, that's great.
And then I think we got, so brother Raymond,
you didn't count brother Dan in your group, right?
So there's five, and then you guys had one.
I had two, so that's eight.
Sister Sylvia, two.
And then do we know if Cynthia and them?
Okay, five, six, seven, eight, nine, 10.
She said she had two, so that's 10, right?
Yeah, so we had 10 Salvations out this afternoon.
I really appreciate those from First Work
and Faithful Work contributing to that.
We're really trying to make a huge push
towards the end of the year.
So this weekend, we've had 39 souls won, so that's awesome.
We're at 264 for the year.
And then Philippians 1, verse 11 is the memory chapter verse,
being filled with the fruits of unrighteousness.
I mean, with righteousness, sorry,
which are by Jesus Christ unto the glory and praise of God.
By the way, for those of you that are visiting,
my congregation knows I get stuff mixed up all the time.
They show me a lot of grace.
So maybe too much, right?
But just so we know that we have all the birthdays coming up.
And then thank you for brother Raymond taking brother Jayden.
He's trying to learn his soul win.
His birthday, he's going to be 15 on the 28th.
So when he comes back in, we'll try to get him on there.
And then we have all the information there
for the soul winning, we already talked about that.
And then on the back, we do have the prayer request.
And then of course, everybody's getting it.
Pastor Cobb, I'll fix your texting.
I can't believe you're not getting it.
Who, if you're not getting the text from the church
with the prayer list and updates,
just let me know and I'll add you to that.
'Cause that's the way I was able to coordinate
like the Thanksgiving potluck.
And I, for some, I mean, you should be on like,
you kind of delete this thing pastor,
like as far as like you've been the pastor before me.
So we need to fix that.
But I'll take care of you.
I'll make sure that you have those texts coming through.
Okay?
So I apologize that that hasn't been the case.
But other than that,
let's turn our hymnals over to page 471.
471, count your blessings.
And by the way, before we, you know what?
I just do want to say,
say a special prayer for this group.
I think there's other people from Steadfast
also joining you guys, right?
How big is the group that's going out there?
- Seven. - Seven.
So there's going to be seven soul winners
that are going to be on a cruise for 10 days.
And they're going to go soul winning in Belize
and Roatan and Cozumel and Jamaica.
And so just pray for their efforts.
They're going to be both in Spanish and English.
Mainly, I mean, I think Belize for sure is English-Spanish.
I don't know about Roatan.
I think it was a mix.
Roatan, but it was in English also?
Yeah, English and then Cozumel you'll get,
my people will try to speak English to you.
I don't know if they're going to succeed.
And then, you know, Jamaicans, of course,
just be careful.
They're going to try to sell you a lot of weed.
It's all I remember from that experience,
but do pray for them.
And then that's something they're going to continue.
You know, that's something that I would like to also
implement, but if not, we don't get it.
If you guys see an event like that, just let me know.
And we definitely would want you to join them
and go soul winning with them.
I think that's a great initiative.
And it was started by brother Kevin Rose.
So we really appreciate him doing that
just leading the charge and his wife is here today.
And she was telling me how much traveling she's gonna be.
She's like, it's too much.
She's like, it's a lot.
So just pray for her because she's gonna be come back
and then she's going to Europe
and then she's going to her mother.
I mean, she's like soul winning through the end of the year.
But you know, the great thing is that she's just doing
what I was talking about.
She's like in that 1% of those people
that are just willing to put in the work.
You know, most people are lazy and they just, you know,
I don't care if you complain if you're doing the work.
Most people just complain and then never do anything.
So, you know, I really appreciate you guys' effort
and that's awesome.
Other than that, let's turn our handles over to page 471.
Count your blessings.
Count your, Enrique, come here, son.
Enrique, sweet hour of prayer, quickly.
Go outside, your sister's outside.
You and Jayden, and then mama goes out there.
Okay, send you back in.
304, yes.
Sweet hour of prayer.
Outside, I mean, like in the air.
Yes, I didn't even know I had to be so specific.
So, sweet hour of prayer, I'm sorry.
[piano music]
There's four, read.
The scripture four, thank you for the minute.
Chapter four, yes sir.
Philippians chapter four, Philippians chapter,
Philippians chapter four.
Chapter four, verse one, the Bible reads,
therefore, my brethren dearly beloved and longed for,
toy and crown, so stand fast in the Lord,
my dearly beloved.
I beseech Theodias, and beseech Sintichi,
that they be of the same mind.
Lord, I entreat thee also, true yoke fellow,
help those women which labored with me in the gospel,
with Clement also, and with other my fellow laborers,
whose names are in the book of life.
Rejoice in the Lord always.
And again, I say, rejoice.
Let your moderation be known unto all men.
Lord is at hand.
Be careful for nothing, but in everything by prayer
and supplication with thanksgiving,
let your requests be made known unto God.
And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding,
shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.
Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true,
whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are just,
whatsoever things are pure,
whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are of good report.
If there be any virtue and if there be any praise,
think on these things.
Those things which ye have both learned
and received and heard and seen in me do.
God of peace shall be with you.
But I rejoiced in the Lord greatly,
that now at the last your care of me hath flourished again,
wherein ye were also careful,
but ye lacked opportunity.
Not that I speak in respect of want,
for I have learned in whatsoever state I am,
therewith to be content.
I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound.
Everywhere and in all things I instructed both to be full
and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.
I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me,
notwithstanding ye have well done.
Ye did communicate with my affliction.
Now ye Philippians know also
that in the beginning of the gospel,
when I departed from Macedonia,
no church communicated with me
as concerning giving and receiving,
but ye only, for even in Thessalonica,
ye sent once and again unto my necessity.
Not because I desire a gift,
but I desire fruit that may abound to your account.
But I have all and abound.
I am full, having received of aphroditus
the things which were sent from you,
an odor of sweet smell,
a sacrifice acceptable, well pleasing to God.
But my God shall supply all your need
according to his riches and glory by Christ Jesus.
Now unto God and our Father be glory forever and ever.
Amen.
Salute every saint in Christ Jesus.
The brethren which are with me, greet you.
All the saints salute you, chiefly they
that are of Caesar's household.
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you all.
Amen.
Let's bow our heads and have a word of prayer.
Father, God, we thank you once again
for gathering us here into your house.
We thank you again for your word.
Lord, we thank you also for the souls saved today.
Lord, please give us ears to hear
and hearts to understand your word
as we hear preaching from your word.
Please fill Pastor Reyes with your Holy Spirit
and allow him to preach with fullness and clarity.
It's in Jesus' name we pray, amen.
- Amen.
We're now in Philippians four.
Thank you, Brother Joshua.
That actually helped my throat a lot, so I appreciate it.
For those of you that don't know,
Brother Joshua's a coffee connoisseur.
We compete to know who knows more about coffee.
I'm older, so I think I know more, but I'll leave it at that.
But yeah, we're there in Philippians four,
and the title of the sermon is actually really simple.
It's just praying with thanksgiving,
praying with thanksgiving.
I didn't leave this part of the sermon,
this section of prayer,
the study that we're doing on prayer over this last year
for thanksgiving, but I was like,
well, I haven't preached it, might as well.
Thanksgiving's coming around
and I need to start finishing this up.
So for those that are visiting
and haven't been here in a while
over the last couple of months,
I didn't wanna do it all continuously
'cause you're just talking about the same subject.
I don't wanna lose you or bore you with that,
especially when you're talking about prayer
'cause a lot of it overlaps
and you're talking about the same thing.
But we've covered in the last couple of months,
we've covered about like literally how to pray,
the Lord teaching us to pray.
We've discussed imprecatory prayers.
We've done prayers on personal petition versus supplication.
And now we're gonna look at Thanksgiving.
And one of the reasons that I didn't cover it all at once
is 'cause I actually went through
and early in the year went through
every single mention of prayer
and put it on a document and then split up
the different categories.
And so it was like, if I was a little bit like,
oh, this is a lot of prayer,
just pray, pray, pray, and prayer, prayer,
I can only imagine if you preach it.
But the Bible does speak of praying with Thanksgiving.
And that's what we're gonna focus on today.
And I wanted to build on it.
Also, I really was gonna leave it till next week,
but I just thought it was a good addition
to the morning's prayer because I don't know.
And sometimes, you know, as preachers,
we kind of beat up ourselves.
I don't know if I did justice to what I want to get across,
but maybe I can re-emphasize.
You know, the idea is not just to have this mentality
of like the 1%, the spiritual war,
but the idea also is to have the mentality
that we should be grateful
that we get to engage in this battle, right?
And it really is, from a biblical standpoint,
this is a biblical tenet.
This is a biblical belief that you should have.
The Lord wants us to be grateful
that we've come to the conclusion
that we've been enlightened
and we understand things
that the world does not understand.
You know, when we walk out into the world
and you go to, let's say, the mall
where you're gonna see a lot of people,
you know, those people are just lost.
You know, they're just living life to live life.
If you were to really press them,
you say, "What is the purpose of your life?"
They don't know.
That's why Joel Osteen has a book,
you know, "The Purpose-Driven Life."
And I think even the other guy,
I forget, you know, all these false prophets,
but the reason they write these books
is because the reality is people don't know the answer,
don't know how to seek the answer,
and then they just get lost in the weeds, right?
I mean, when people say, "What is the meaning of life?"
You know, there's books like that.
What is the meaning of life?
What does it all mean?
And everybody gives you these long convoluted answers,
and you get all these weird ideas.
Where really the meaning of life
is just to praise the Lord, right?
It's to be grateful that you get to live
a small snippet of life in the eternal gift
that He's given you.
I mean, 'cause once it's over,
we don't even have to worry about this anymore.
It's over, it's done with, you know,
we're just gonna have this grand eternal life
that we can't even begin to fathom.
It's actually kind of daunting,
and it's kind of overpowering
when you think of eternity, right?
Like, you know, my mother-in-law suddenly passed away
in 2022 or 2023, whatever, however old my daughter is,
because we were pregnant with Daniella.
And so we thought a lot about that,
because my mother-in-law was saved.
When people showed up to the funeral, it was in the droves.
I mean, she had impacted so many people
with the gospel of Christ.
I mean, she left a great legacy,
but the greatest legacy is, you know what?
She's in a way better place.
She's dealing with way better things.
So when you look back at the life and you're like,
what do we focus on?
What is the things that, you know,
'cause we wish that Mimi was here for things.
But you know what?
The reality is we don't know what we're speaking of
when we say things like that.
'Cause really what we wish is to be with Mimi in heaven.
Right?
I mean, our kids, you know, when we dealt with it,
we're like, hey, this is a better thing
for you to finish your course here.
'Cause when you get over there,
you're gonna get greeted and open arms.
And it's just gonna be this like the greatest experience.
The Bible doesn't even give us an inkling.
It just gives us some snippet of what heaven will be like.
And it's just gonna be so great, right?
And so once we have that kind of not wrapped
around our brains, but we have that idea,
then it's easy to transition to,
okay, what do we need to do with our lives, right?
And it helps us to overcome
the frustrations of life as well, right?
Because like, for example,
I was talking about earlier today
that I wanted to be this huge business mogul
and I still own a business and I still work.
But I get frustrated often because I only work
maybe for sometimes five days a week on my business
because the other rest of the time
I'm working on the church.
And I am kind of pulled between the world and the church.
And my prayer is that, hey, Lord,
wherever you need me, I'll be there.
But my goal is that eventually
I'll just be in the church full time.
But even if that never happened, you know what?
The things that help me overcome those frustrations
when I finally just hit a wall
and I just wanna punch something.
You know, I'm a guy, like sometimes I'll just get mad.
Is that I'll just look back
and if you do your Bible reading regularly,
the Bible just tells you, "Hey, be grateful, be thankful."
Whether you're looking at Solomon
who had a really rough life at the end,
he says the conclusion of the whole matter is God, right?
You look at David and David praised the Lord
and you look at all the saints in the Old Testament,
you look at the saints in the New Testament.
I mean, this is a pattern of Paul, right?
He starts out all these letters,
always greeting his fellow laborers,
always just encouraging them.
And you know what he's always?
He's always thankful for them.
And you know, one of the things that I want us to have
is a thankful attitude.
Like, I'm grateful for everybody that's here, right?
And especially now that we've grown a little bit,
because when we were smaller,
I was always grateful for who was here.
I mean, I'm just being honest,
even through the frustrations, but I'm a preacher.
I would prefer to preach to more people
than less people, right?
Like, that's just the nature of that beast.
But let's focus there.
Let's go to verse six, Philippians 4, the Bible says,
"Be careful for nothing."
And I love the King James, the way it words it, right?
'Cause right here, it's like, be careful for nothing.
Like, nothing in this world, nothing at all.
Don't put any care into it.
Don't stress out about it.
Don't, you know, that doesn't mean
that you're not diligent and you're not focused,
but don't just lose sleep.
You know, one of the things about digital marketing,
I'm sorry, I'm jumping around a lot,
but this just came to mind,
is when you're learning digital marketing,
'cause that's a little bit of what I do in my business,
is the one thing they tell you is,
hey, learn your customer.
And this is the way they tell you to learn your customer.
They're like, do an IPC,
which is the ideal personable customer,
or person customer, or profile customer, I'm sorry,
the ideal profile of your customer, IPC.
And then one of the questions
that you have to ask yourself is,
how do you appeal to them online, right?
What kind of wording are you gonna use?
And what they say is, you want to appeal to them
by addressing the problem, not just any problem,
but the problem that keeps them up at night.
Like, what are they thinking about
at two, three o'clock in the morning
when they were suddenly woken up out of their sleep
and they're in full anxiety and they're just like,
they've lost it, right?
They're like, how am I gonna pay my bills?
How am I gonna do this?
I'm in my mid forties, I'm having a midlife crisis.
I've not attained what I wanna attain.
And then that's how you get them to spend emotionally
on the things that you do.
But the Bible says, hey, be careful for nothing.
You know, we shouldn't even be like moved
by any of that advertisement
because that advertisement shouldn't happen to us
'cause we should be sound asleep at two o'clock
in the morning, right?
We should be sleeping like a baby
because the Lord's taking care of it all.
It doesn't really matter what's going on in our world.
You know, God's gonna take care of us.
Be careful for nothing.
But in everything, by prayer and supplication,
but not only that, it says with thanksgiving,
let your requests be made known unto God.
So it's a formula, right?
Prayer, supplication, but with thanksgiving.
Because oftentimes when we learn to pray,
especially when you're a little kid,
what do you pray?
You pray for everything that you want.
You're not really grateful.
And even if you're grateful,
usually you're grateful for the things that you were given,
not necessarily the things you have, right?
Who's ever been with a little kid and they pray?
You know, "Dear Heavenly Father,
thank you for all my toys and all my games.
Oh, thank you for mommy and daddy,
but thank you that they also are going to take me
to this place and that place."
And you're like, "Okay, that's really cute,
but let's kind of fix that, right?
Let's get that thing organized."
And it says right there, "With thanksgiving,
let your requests be made known unto God.
And the peace of God, which passeth all understanding,
shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus."
And then finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true,
whatsoever things are honest,
whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure,
whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are of good report,
if there be any virtue, if there be any praise,
think on these things.
In other words, focus your mind on the things of God.
Those things which you have both learned and received
and heard and seen in me do,
and the God of peace shall be with you.
So man, it's like a big formula.
It's not just like you're gonna wake up one day,
you're saved, you show up to church
and everything's honky-dory.
No, this is a work, right?
First of all, you've gotta do it with prayer
and supplication and thanksgiving.
Then you gotta realize
that it's gonna pass all understanding.
Like you're not gonna understand why you're at peace,
even though your body, your flesh,
and the lust of your flesh are saying,
"Hey, I need to be stressed out about this.
It's two o'clock in the morning.
Why am I sound asleep?
Why shouldn't I just be awake,
worrying about this stuff, right?"
And then it says, "You shall keep your hearts
and minds through Christ Jesus."
But then he says all these things
that we need to keep our minds on.
But then at the end, he ends with,
"Those things which you have both learned
and received and heard and seen in me do."
Meaning two things.
Number one, we need leaders and we need followers.
But we also need followers who are willing to lead, right?
It's an important thing.
Like yesterday, when we went to the soul winning marathon,
Brother John was the one that put all the effort into it.
And he's like, "Hey, what do you want to do?"
And I was like, "Look, I've been really busy.
I'm driving with a cat.
I'm just kind of not happy about this whole situation.
Why don't you just lead?"
And he's like, "That's fine."
And then what happened later was he kept asking my opinion.
And I said, "Look, John, you're the leader.
Just tell us where to go, tell us what to do,
and I'll just follow, right?"
But that comes with the fact that I realized,
hey, sometimes we just need to step back and follow.
And sometimes we need to lead, right?
Today, Brother Matt took the initiative to do the pet maps.
Thank you, 'cause I just didn't even think about maps
and just tell me where to go, I'll show up.
I'm more than happy to follow, 'cause you know what?
When you lead a lot, you're like, "You know what?
I'm gonna take a step back, I wanna follow."
Maybe that's the thing.
But the thing that we need to do, though,
is you've learned it, you've received it,
you've heard it, and you've seen it in others, right?
And maybe the reason that other people are leading
is because at one point, maybe I did it or I did a good job.
I don't know, I don't wanna talk about myself like that.
That's your decision, if you think that's worth it,
great, if not, you know what?
I'm still gonna show up and do what I need to do.
Like at the end of the day,
that's the thing that we need to focus on.
But the one thing I wanna leave you with
is that when we pray,
we always need to have a thankful heart.
Right, I mean, you look at Paul,
and Paul really focused on being grateful.
He said, "I've learned to be content
"in whatsoever state I am in."
You know, these are difficult statements by Paul.
I don't know if you realize like,
sometimes we gloss over our Bible reading,
and I'm not saying you do that all the time,
but hey, we're human.
Sometimes you read your Bible and you're like on it.
You wrote notes and you're like,
"Man, I didn't see this, that was great."
Other times you read your Bible and you're like,
"What did I just read?"
Maybe I need to go back and read it again,
'cause it just depends, right?
And I have a feeling that the majority of Christians
will gloss over this and not think through,
you know, what he's saying.
Hey, to learn to be content in whatever state you're in
is a difficult thing, because life is tough.
Life happens, things happen, and the Bible says,
"Hey, God's not saying when all things are just going good."
Hey, you need to be content no matter what's happening.
Right?
And sometimes things are going good,
sometimes things are going bad.
You know, my wife loves to call it the ebb and flow of life.
You know, you have feast and you have famine.
She's like, sometimes we're in feast mode,
and sometimes we're in famine mode.
I mean, it's just the part of life that we gotta deal with.
So let's go there, let's go to the first point.
Go over to Daniel 6, and we're gonna focus on these,
but the first point I have for you today is
that Thanksgiving is the gateway to the petition.
You know how they say that there's gateway drugs,
but this is the gateway edification, right?
It's actually better to come at the Lord
through the avenue of Thanksgiving
than just always from a selfish standpoint,
'cause number one, Jesus was the most unselfish person
that ever lived.
Like, he literally died for our sins.
He made himself of no reputation.
He manifested himself in the flesh.
So you and I wouldn't have to suffer eternity at hell
for all eternity, right?
And so we need to learn that Thanksgiving is an attitude
and it's a choice, much like love.
You know why the world is not loving
and the world is not grateful?
Because they don't understand, they think these are feelings.
People think that they just need to walk around
feeling really good.
I don't know whether what's popular or not,
but remember a couple of years ago,
there's like the song, "I'm So Happy."
You know, the only reason I know it's 'cause like,
it was everywhere, like anywhere you walked into,
it was like, I'm so happy, da-da-da-da-da,
like it was one of these popular songs.
And you think about it, it's like,
all people wanna do is give you a bunch of feelings.
You know what, I'm not always happy, but I am joyful.
Now, because I'm joyful, I have the ability to be happy,
but joy requires me to just choose,
to just have joy in Jesus Christ, joy in life.
That doesn't necessarily mean that that's always
what I want to do.
You know, I've said this before,
you don't always want to be in church.
You don't always want to go soul-winding.
The reason you do that is because you're making that choice.
You love the lost, right?
You love your family.
You know, I love my wife.
That's why I choose to do the things that I do,
like drive with a cat in my car.
This will be a theme, I really do not like cats.
So it's just, I love my wife, I don't like cats,
but we have one anyways.
But in Daniel 6, verse 10, the Bible says,
and remember in Daniel 6, what's going on?
They're attacking Daniel, you know,
you got a bunch of princes who were jealous
or envious of Daniel.
And so they indirectly come at him
by going to the leadership and saying,
"Hey, let's enact this law
where people can't praise the Lord for 30 days.
And if they do, we're gonna throw them in the lions then."
You know, that means just giving you like the 101, right?
And in verse 10, it says that when Daniel found out,
it says that when Daniel knew that the writing was signed,
he went into his house and his windows being opened
in his chamber towards Jerusalem,
he kneeled down upon his knees three times a day
and prayed and gave thanks before his God
as he did aforetime.
Then these men assembled and found Daniel praying
and making supplication before his God.
So notice he was first thankful
and then they noticed he was making requests unto the Lord.
But I love the little word there
that most people would probably miss
unless you read it a lot.
It says before a foretime, meaning he's done it before.
This is not a new thing, right?
A lot of people would take this the wrong way,
especially in the snowflake society we live in today,
be like, oh, you shouldn't just be picking a fight.
Daniel's not picking a fight.
He's been praying like this for a long time.
This is Daniel's routine.
This is the way Daniel lives his life.
This is just exactly what he does.
And when the going gets tough,
it doesn't even make a difference anymore.
You know, he's just comfortable with the fact that,
"Hey, you can pass a law, I'm still gonna pray."
You know, and that's really the greatest weapon we hold
against the oppression of the world,
is that they can tell you not to do a lot of things,
but you know what they can't ever control?
Is your mind, right?
That's why communism will never work,
because communism can't go into your brain.
You know, they think they will.
Elon Musk thinks he's gonna put a chip inside of everybody
and control them all,
but the Lord will come back way before all that.
You know, maybe some people will take it,
but it'll never be a total control of everybody.
It's just not gonna happen.
Go over to 1 Timothy,
but I'll read for you really quick in Colossians.
You know, so Daniel was giving thanks
before he was thrown in the lion's den.
I mean, that's a tough thing.
I know we like those stories,
but thinking through those stories,
like put yourself in those shoes,
you know, you better be praying consistently,
'cause one day it could happen.
Look, we don't know what's gonna happen in America
in the next 10, 15, 20 years.
I know for a fact, even though I'm not a,
like I'm not Nostradamus,
I just read the Bible that it's gonna get worse,
not better, right?
So eventually at some point,
whether it's in my lifetime or my kid's lifetime,
or maybe even their kid's lifetime,
some generation will face intense persecution, right?
It's called tribulation, it is the end time.
That's not the sermon I'm preaching,
but we know these things are gonna happen.
And what's the tool we need to give them?
We need to give them the word of God.
And it's not just always the flash
and the sensational sermons, the ones that we like,
and we're gonna be like, "Amen," you know,
and let's go to the battleground.
Sometimes we need this one,
because character is built when nobody's looking, right?
What are your children doing
when nobody's paying attention?
You know, I can force my kids to pray with me every night.
And we have what's called,
my son appropriately named it when he was a child.
He went through the stage where he was scared to go to sleep.
And I would pray for him.
And I would say, hey, Lord, put a hedge of protection
around his thoughts and his mind,
and eventually became brain prayer.
So every night before we go to bed,
my kids come and jump in the bed and they're like,
hey, daddy, it's time for brain prayer.
I don't know how we named that,
but that's just what we came about.
But that's the thing that they do with me.
But what I want them to do is,
what do they do when daddy's not around?
That's what matters.
You know, what are you doing when you're not in church?
'Cause let's say you only come once a week,
but when you're in church,
at least you're in the spirit, God willing.
But what are you doing when you're not in church?
You know, how are you taking these things
and applying them in your life?
Right, let's go there to 1 Timothy 2,
but I'll go to Colossians 4 and the Bible says,
"Masters, give unto your servants
that which is just and equal,
knowing that ye also have a master in heaven.
Continue in prayer and watch in the same with thanksgiving,
with all praying also for us,
that God would open unto us a door of utterance
to speak the mystery of Christ for which I am also in bonds,
that I may make it manifest as I ought to speak.
And that word manifest, you know,
that I may make it obvious, right?
He says, hey, continue in prayer.
So the assumption is that, hey, even when I'm preaching this,
I should be assuming that, hey, you're praying consistently.
If you notice, there's only a couple of things
that I text generally.
I'm reminding you of the service times,
if I need to communicate of an event.
But the one thing that I consistently send you
on Monday is the prayer request.
Like that's a serious thing.
We are a church, we are members,
and we should love and esteem each other
better than ourselves.
We need to pray for each other.
Like it's not just like this cool thing
so we can feel better.
Hey, pray for Sister Millie.
No, pray for her.
We don't know what she's going through.
Pray for the Bosticks
and pray for whoever's on this list.
I'm not gonna go through it all
so I don't leave anybody out.
But you know, that's what we need to do.
Now, go to 1 Timothy 2, verse one,
the Bible says, "I exhort you therefore
that first of all, supplication,
supplication, sorry, prayers, intercessions
and giving of thanks be made for all men,
for kings and for all that are in authority
that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life
and all godliness and honesty.
For this is good and acceptable in the sight
of God our savior, who will have all men to be saved
and come unto the knowledge of the truth.
For there is one God and one mediator between God and man,
the man Christ Jesus, who gave himself a ransom for all
to be testified in due time,
whereunto I am ordained a preacher and an apostle.
I speak the truth in Christ and lie not,
a teacher of the Gentiles in faith and verity.
I will therefore that men pray everywhere,
lifting up holy hands without wrath and doubting.
Sorry about that.
But I like this in verse one, it says, "I exhort therefore."
Now, first of all, and we've covered these.
Then I've literally preached on the prayers of supplication.
He says, "Hey," and with the prayers of what?
Intercessions.
I haven't finished the whole series,
but the next one coming up is intercessions, right?
Intercessory prayer, sorry about that.
And the giving of thanks be made for all men.
So God doesn't just want us to just pray for stuff.
And I mean, that should be evident.
But that's usually the first way we learn to pray.
But he also doesn't just want us to supplicate also.
He doesn't just want us to intercede.
But he also wants us to be grateful.
As a matter of fact, probably one of the greatest attributes
you can learn in the Christian life is to just be grateful.
Because nothing that we have in this life is without Christ.
You know, Pastor Cobb preached a sermon
that a lot of people love on our YouTube channel.
And it's, you know, what does man owe God?
And I'll give you the answer in case
you don't want to watch the sermon 'cause it's a good sermon,
but he gives you the answer right away.
What does man owe God?
Everything.
We owe him everything 'cause he paid it all for us.
You know, so it's a good reminder
because we can also get a little haughty
or a little high-minded in our lives
and think that we know it all.
And that's not the case at all, right?
So we need to have gratitude in our hearts
with the faith, right?
And then the point number two that I have for you,
and go to Psalm 66, go to Psalm 66 is
that Thanksgiving just acknowledges God, right?
It acknowledges His character,
who He is, what He is, what He's done for us,
to the best of our knowledge.
'Cause obviously in the last couple of weeks,
I've already preached that, I'm not gonna touch on it,
but people want to attack the Trinity,
or number, you know, it's funny,
the attack on the Trinity that we had recently
at the church was people who try to like,
give me this finite absolute answer
that they knew who God was.
And I was like, bro, I'm just giving you verses.
This is about all I understand about God.
Like, I'm not going to go beyond that
because it's just too infinite.
It's just too much.
You know why you should be grateful?
Because you're dumb in the eyes of God.
Let me just, let me bring you down a few notches.
You know, I don't care how smart you think you are
in this world, in God's eyes,
we're basically a bunch of babies,
babbling babies who can barely put two sentences together,
let alone a congruent thought that would even make sense
to the Lord Jesus Christ.
Like, stop thinking you know so much when honestly,
I mean, I love that verse, and I might misquote it,
but I love when in Revelation, either one or two,
where John is literally before the Lord,
it's like he falls on his ground as one that died.
Because when you get to the presence of God,
you realize, whoa, I'm not what I thought I was.
So maybe just be thankful
that the Lord actually lets you think you're somebody.
You know, that'd be a good thing.
But go to Psalm 66, right there in verse 16.
The Bible says, "Come and hear ye that fear God,
and I will declare what he hath done for my soul.
I cried unto him with my mouth and was exalted with my tongue.
If I regard iniquity in my heart, the Lord will not hear me.
But verily, God hath heard me.
He hath attended to the voice of my prayer.
Blessed be God, which hath not turned away my prayer,
nor his mercy from me."
And some of these verses don't necessarily
give you the word thanksgiving or thanks,
but it's implied, right?
I mean, if you're coming to the Lord in such a humble spirit,
what are you basically saying?
I'm really grateful that I'm even allowed to do this.
Isn't that the attitude here?
You know, they're acknowledging that the Lord,
thank you, Lord, that you hear my prayer.
Thank you that, you know, I'm allowed to just even serve you.
And it is a privilege,
'cause most people don't even know
what it means to serve God.
And then when you actually realize
that you have some idea of how to serve God,
then you really realize you don't know how to serve God.
Right, I mean, we just don't know.
I mean, we know what the Bible tells us.
Let me not actually make a statement of complete ignorance.
I don't want you to think I'm living in ignorance,
but I do want to make the overemphasis
that we should never have this attitude
that we know everything about how to praise the Lord.
Right, I mean, this is a big book.
I think I was talking to Matt.
I love the statement he made a couple of weeks ago.
Matt and I talk a lot,
'cause he's my half white, half black brother.
So we, because I'm a Mexican
and I have half white, half Mexican kids,
maybe that's why I relate to him.
I don't know.
We go back and forth and we make a lot of jokes.
But the one thing he said, he said,
it's interesting when people try to attack
a doctor like the Trinity.
He said, this is a big book.
He's like, and it's interesting that most people
won't spend the time just reading through this
before they even try to tackle some other literature
that might support or be against the Bible.
I mean, there is a lot to cover.
It's been a lifetime for me, at least, you know,
since I was 25 when I got saved,
and I still see stuff in here and I'm still learning.
And you know what?
I can't speak for Pastor Cobb
'cause him and I have those conversations.
He still reads his Bible at 89,
and you can go up to him after the services and be like,
do you feel like you're learning something new every day?
And he'll tell you, yes.
He's like, this is the never-ending knowledge book, right?
Like, it's just amazing the things that you,
so we should be grateful that
we just have a lifetime of learning, right?
We have a lifetime to figure out God's character.
Go to Psalm 65, just went back,
in Proverbs 15 verse eight, the Bible says,
"The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord,
but the prayer of the upright is his delight."
And so we need to have the proper prayer, right?
These are the elements.
We need to know when to come in time of supplication.
We need to know when to pray for other people.
We need to know when to ask for Thanksgiving.
We need to have this formula.
You know, this is the thing that,
'cause the Bible says,
but the prayer of the upright is his delight.
Hey, you want to delight the Lord,
have the right prayer, right?
And you say, is there a right prayer?
Well, the Bible, you know,
we've touched on that in the past,
but hey, if you're at odds with your wife,
you know, clean that thing up
before you even come to the Lord in prayer.
You know, there's other verses that we've addressed.
I'm not going to go into that today,
but in Psalm 65, go to verse one,
the Bible says, "Praise, waiteth for thee, O God, in Sion,
and unto thee shall the vow be performed.
O thou that hearest prayer, unto thee shall all flesh come.
Iniquities prevail against me, as for our transgressions,
thou shall purge them away.
Blessed is the man whom thou choosest
and causes to approach unto thee,
that he may dwell in thy courts,
which shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house,
even in thy holy temple."
Hey, I mean, I mean, I got scripture to back it up.
It's a privilege to serve the Lord.
It says blessed is the man whom thou choosest
and causes to approach unto thee, right?
Because we know that he'll hear our prayer, right?
I'm not just asking you to pray for the soul winners
that are going there, but pray for our church,
pray for whoever, like, but I mean it, like do it.
Don't just be a hearer of the word, do it.
And please don't do like the Bible says,
I don't wanna hear your prayers
or give me these long prayers.
You know what I'm talking about.
Just go pray in your closet.
I mean, we have congregational prayer,
but even then I will say we do have one church member
who's now moved on to be with the Lord.
And I did enjoy it because at the time
he was going senile.
So remember, oh man, Brother Harold, but Rudolph.
And, but I did love it 'cause at the end of his life,
I mean, this guy was like on fire.
He's like a short little guy.
He was like 83 years old, but he was fiery.
I mean, Brother Harold is just like kind of in your face
all the time.
And Pastor Cobb would ask him to close in prayer.
And by that time, some of that had hit him.
And so you would give these big, like powerful prayers.
But also he was kind of fired up
because of the Christian life he had led.
One time I preached against a false religion.
I think it was like a satanic church that was in the area.
And he walked out and he was like gonna get in his car
to go fight these guys.
We had to bring him back.
We're like, "Brother Harold, it's not that serious.
We got it."
So, you know, every once in a while we do enjoy those prayers.
But for the most part, I'll obviously stay within the realm
of what the Lord's asked.
But yeah, his wife was really worried
because he was really mad.
He was like, he was gonna throw down.
Like, I was just like, "No, we don't, we don't."
We've had way too many members like that, you know?
Brother Bobby was ready to throw down.
I mean, just a bunch of guys like that.
But let's go to point number three
and go to 1 Chronicles 17.
But point number three for tonight
is that we need to have a moment of thanksgiving
for the things he's done for us,
not only presently and in the future, but in our past.
And really brings us, that also helps us
to look forward towards the mark and not be,
you know, earlier today I was talking about
how sometimes we can be frustrated
about the things that have happened in life
or the things that we should have, could have,
or should have done.
But we need to also just be grateful
for the things that he's already done.
You know, when I first started the ministry,
it's really hard sometimes
when you're an extrovert
to actually be in a position of a pastor.
Because I really think the position of a pastor
is much better suited for the introvert.
Because the introvert is not so much concerned
with what other people think.
You know, they just do things because they do them.
You know, my daughter, my three-year-old,
is an introvert.
The room could be full of people,
and she will not have FOMO.
She does not care about you.
She does not want to engage with you.
She doesn't want you to entertain her.
She just wants to be left alone.
On the other hand, feed off of your energy.
I care what you think.
I want to be around you.
I enjoy people.
Like, this has been an exhausting weekend.
My wife is an introvert.
I'm an extrovert.
You know who's actually having a hard time
making it through the day right now?
My wife is.
It's just difficult for her.
That's just the nature.
You know who's actually more energized
and is going to have to wind down tonight?
That's literally what I do every Sunday.
Sundays are really hard for me.
Not during the day.
After the preaching,
it takes me like four hours to wind down
because I'm just so amped up from all the energy, right?
But the bad thing about it
is that I care about what people think.
You know, I'm thinking about these things
and I overanalyze things and I'm thinking.
And so one of the things that I really struggled with
in my early ministry was like,
I look at other pastors or other ministries
and I'm like, man, they just, you know,
they spent all this,
I wish I could have, you know,
started preaching when I was a young man
and I wish I would have started soul-winning when I,
and then eventually just dawn on me like,
thank you Lord that I've been soul-winning
since the day I've been soul-winning.
How would I have started soul-winning before
if nobody ever taught me to soul-win before?
So I'm regretting something that wasn't even possible.
You know what I'm saying?
Or like, oh, I wish I would have had 20, 25 years
in the ministry.
I didn't get saved till I was 25.
I didn't even really start to clean things up
till I was 31, you know, that thank God,
I didn't have to clean it up to be saved.
So then it makes you really grateful for the way
that the Lord just maneuvers your life, right?
The way He weaves you to the position you are today.
You are here because of what the Lord has done in your life.
And if you're not, well then clean it up
so that you know why you're here
and why the Lord's done the things that you've done, right?
So you really need to think about those things.
Go to 1 Chronicles, but I'll read again.
We saw this verse, but in Psalm 66, just verse 19,
the Bible says, "But verily God hath heard me
and he hath attended to the voice of my prayer."
You know, we should be grateful
that he listens to our prayer.
In 1 Chronicles 17, verse 25 says,
"For thou, O my God, has told thy servants
that thou wilt build them a house.
Therefore thy servant hath found in his heart
to pray before thee."
And this is when David wants to build a house for the Lord.
This is, "And now the Lord, thou art God
and hast promised this goodness unto thy servant.
Now therefore, let it please thee
to bless the house of thy servant,
that it may be before thee forever.
For thou blessest, O Lord,
and this shall be blessed forever."
You know, David always had what?
A great attitude towards the things
that God had done for him.
You know, maybe that's why David was spared so much
'cause the Lord really knew.
I mean, he says he was a man after God's own heart.
David was really sincere just about how grateful he was
for where the Lord had spared him and watched him.
And not just from battles, but even from punishment.
I mean, you think about he deserved
some pretty harsh punishment
and the Lord showed him grace for the reasons that he did.
Go to Philemon 1, let me take a sip here.
Go to Philemon and right there in verse 1,
I love how Paul starts this.
He says, "Paul, a prisoner of Jesus Christ,
and Timothy our brother unto Philemon,
our dearly beloved and fellow laborer,
and to our beloved of Piphah and our Kippus, our fellow soldiers,
and to the church in thy house, grace to you and peace
from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ,
I thank my God, making mention of thee always in my prayer."
I mean, this is like a consistent pattern.
If you read any of the epistles,
I mean, like Paul just does this consistently.
As a matter of fact, you know who's writing it
because he's constantly saying,
"Hey, I thank my God upon every remembrance of you."
It's Philippians 1.
I mean, it's just constantly reminding everybody,
"I'm thankful."
We need to have that attitude, right?
And you know where he's doing it though?
He's not just saying that, "Hey, Matt,
I'm thankful that you're in the church.
Hey, Pastor Cobb."
No, it's more like, "Lord, I'm thankful for Matt,
and I'm thankful for Pastor Cobb,
or I'm thankful for the visitors,
or I'm thankful for my children, or my wife,
or everybody here.
If I missed you, don't worry.
I'm thankful for you too.
I cover everybody at some point.
Just give me some time, we'll get it done."
Let's go to point number four, go to 2 Timothy 1,
go to 2 Timothy 1.
Thanksgiving also helps you guard your heart, right?
From not only trials, or during trials,
but also from envy, and from bitterness,
and from just pride.
You know, if you are thankful,
you know what you are is humble.
And going back to kids again, what do kids hate?
When you say, "Hey, say I'm sorry."
Well, you know what kids hate even more?
Say, "You forgive them."
Right, because it's the selfishness in us, right?
I don't want to forgive somebody.
I don't want to ask for forgiveness.
But when you're thankful, it's really easy.
You know, I love my wife.
I'd rather ask her for forgiveness
because I just want to spend some good time with my wife
than be so prideful that I'm not going to say, "I'm sorry."
You know, don't be so prideful
that you're not willing to apologize.
And I know it has nothing to do with maybe the sermon.
But you know, apologizing is easy
and asking for forgiveness and forgiving others is easy
when you have a grateful heart.
And if you don't believe me, just give it a couple of days.
It's not as bad as it used to be
because we're in a digital world.
But for those that are younger, that are closer to my generation,
you remember Black Friday was never about being grateful.
It was about who could we trample at, you know, Academy or Best Buy.
Open, open, oh, you know, like, I mean, you guys remember the videos.
I don't think it's that bad anymore, right?
I may be dating myself, but you know, people are like,
eating their, their turkey and their mashed potatoes.
And then they're like, I'm going to stay up till 12.
And then they go to the store and then they open the store and two people are
fighting over the one TV, you know, if he would die and stabbing, you know,
why, because you're not grateful.
You think that you need to have that to make you satisfied.
You know how many times I've been a black Friday, like once in my life.
And it wasn't by my choice.
Like I, I ended up going to somebody else.
Like I hate stuff like that because I don't need it.
I'm grateful for what the Lord's provided.
Would it be nice to get a nicer TV?
I don't know, maybe.
I never really noticed until I go to somebody else's house.
I'm like, oh, wow, technology's really come along.
That TV's really nice.
My parents got a new phone while I was down in the valley.
So we went to Best Buy to buy like a case for their phone.
And while they were getting all that taken care of, Lucy was with me.
She's like, daddy, let's walk around.
I didn't know she was taking me to the little play, play, whatever,
Nintendo station.
That's where we're headed.
But we passed through the TVs and I was like really impressed.
I was like, wow, the TVs are really nice nowadays.
Like it feels like you could like walk in there and touch them.
But I don't need it because I'm just grateful for whatever the Lord's provided.
I'd rather spend my money and my time doing what we did today
than worrying about whatever they're doing at Walmart for the week.
Because it's already out there, right?
If you've been to the store today or in the last couple of days, what do they have?
Isles and aisles of boxes of all the stuff that are people.
If you will show up and you ever seen it.
I mean, I've literally witnessed that, you know, people be like this all night.
And we're like, what are you doing?
Well, I just as soon as they let me buy this, this is my TV.
And so then they like and then they have people and they'll like market and all.
It's ridiculous.
Just be grateful for what you have.
You know, we're so ungrateful as a as a generation, as a country.
That's why we're headed the way we're headed, right?
We go there to Second Timothy.
That's where I had to turn Second Timothy.
But in Acts 16, verse 25, you know, these verses.
They said, "And at midnight, Paul and Silas prayed."
And what did they do?
"And sang praises unto God, and the prisoners heard them."
You know why the Lord made mention of that there?
Because the prisoners were like, what the heck's going on here?
These guys are the only ones that are in prison
and they're singing and they're thanking the Lord.
Like, that's weird, right?
We need to be a peculiar people.
Daniel 6, verse 11, the Bible says, "Then these men assembled."
We saw that, right?
And said, "and found Daniel praying and making supplication before his God."
Again, why does it mention it like that?
Because I'm pretty sure they were pretty shocked that they wrote a law
and everybody fears the king, except when you fear,
you don't fear the earthly king when you fear the king of kings, right?
I mean, that's the attitude we need to have.
Look, you think it's not coming down, you just, you got something else.
I mean, I think the Trump dynasty is going to be around for a long time.
And one of the Trumps is the one that's going to just like bring it, bring down the hammer.
I'm not saying he's the Antichrist, but he might be helpful in the endeavor.
Ivanka might be up there somewhere.
But I don't want to conspiracy theory anybody or anything like that.
Go to 2nd Timothy 1, the Bible says there in verse 1, it says,
"Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God,
according to the promise of life, which is in Christ Jesus, to Timothy,
'My dearly beloved Son, grace, mercy and peace from God the Father in Christ Jesus Lord.'"
And there it is again, "I thank God, whom I serve,
from my forefathers with pure conscience, that without ceasing,
I have remembrance of Thee in my prayers night and day."
I love this, "Greatly desiring to see Thee,
being mindful of Thy tears, that I may be filled with joy,
when I call to remembrance the unfamed faith that is in Thee,
which fell first with a grandmother, Louis, and thy mother, Eunice,
and I am persuaded that in Thee also."
But I mean, he's just grateful.
He's like, "Timothy, I'm grateful for you.
I'm grateful that you had a great grandma and a great mom,
and now you carry the gene, the spiritual gene.
Like, I'm just so grateful for..."
You know, my prayer is just, I'm so grateful that my kids are saved.
I really am.
And, you know, we're working on the little one because she's three, of course.
But that's what I'm grateful for, because I tell my wife all the time,
even before all the drama that happened in the U.F.B.
I've told her this from day one, you can ask her.
I was like, never live under delusion
that our kids are going to want to hang out with us and love us
the way we think when they get older, because I grew up worldly and I saw it.
I saw kids just, you know, get mad at their parents for the dumbest things.
I have family members who were like, my dad was abusive or this and that.
And it's like always over the dumbest things.
You know, I mean, I literally have direct family members who are like,
you know, oh, you know, you don't understand it was over.
I'm like, I was there with you.
Like, I don't have any trauma.
Like, what are you talking about?
I don't understand what this trauma is because we just keep fomenting it, right?
We keep pushing it every time you you turn on the television
or you go to the store, you go.
What is it called? Mental health.
Oh, you know, I need my I literally had employees who are like, oh, you know,
I have to leave because you're just such a hard taskmaster
and it's affecting my mental health.
It's like, what are you talking about?
I'm like me asking you to do what you're being paid to do is mental.
Like it's messing up your mentality.
You know what it is? They're ungrateful, right?
They're not thankful for what they have.
You need to have a thankful heart. Right.
And but the only way that you do that is that when you're in the trials,
when you're looking back at your life, you instead of instead of, you know,
moaning about it, murmuring and complaining about it, you're grateful.
You know, if you look at the book of Jude and the parallel in first Peter two,
is it first Peter two or second Peter two? I don't remember which one is,
but the parallel to the book of Jude,
one of the overlying themes is that there's murmurs and there's complainers and
they defile the flesh and they despise dominion and they speak evil of
dignities. You know, what is, what's that call? Is this the, these complain?
Everything, everything makes them angry. You know,
there's nothing that makes me more mad than when my kids start to complain.
I'm like, you don't understand how great you have it. Stop complaining.
Now I understand why my parents hate it when we complain, right?
Like we didn't grow up like they did. I'm like,
you guys literally have everything at your fingertips. You know, we were,
we were driving and we allow them to, you know,
watch the tablet for a little bit. If the tablet, God forbid that the battery,
go out, right? Cause you know, Oh, I'm like, you know,
you know what was our tablet?
Counting the beads of water as they went past us and the car was going fast.
Remember that? Who remembers doing that? And you'd make up races.
You're like, these two beads are going to race each other and you're sitting
there like a moron for hours at end. And you're like, are we almost there yet?
And you know, you're, if your dad was big enough, like my dad, you know,
you reach over and slap you cause you weren't allowed to ask questions.
You know what I mean? That literally, I know it's funny,
but that was our life. And my kids are like, Oh no, I'm like, just chill out.
But you know what it is, is you got to show them how to be grateful.
You know, it's a spirit of Thanksgiving, but it shouldn't just be all the time.
Prayer is important to be thankful in your prayer time with the Lord.
Did I have you turn a second, Timothy? We read it. Let's go to point number five.
You know what Thanksgiving does also is that it shifts you from
selfish to unselfish. Look, it's not about you. It's not about me.
You're not that important as my wife so succinctly likes to remind me.
And I love that about her.
She's constantly reminded me, honey, you're not that important because I like,
I'll stress out about things and you know, I have like moments of just like,
where I'm, you know, someone like me that's just wired all the time.
We overthink things all the time. I think you guys picked that up.
But my wife's like, honey, you're not that important. You know,
you're, and nobody really cares about you. And I'm like, thank you.
Thank you for reminding me.
It's a good reminder that we should just be thankful that we're here on this
earth and we can impact, you know, and it's, it is a hard balance.
Because when you think of greatness in America, it's always the spotlight on you.
Right? I mean, isn't it, we talked about business leaders.
If you look at celebrities, if you look at anybody who does great,
it's always the accolade for that person.
But really when you think about God's work, the only,
the only accolade we want is the one from God. And you know what?
Sometimes it's not even going to be in public. Now he says he'll reward the openly,
but that doesn't mean that's why you do it. You just do it. Right?
We need to remove that selfish, lustful, just greedy mindset.
It's all about me. Me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me, me.
It really is a problem. Right?
You know why people don't listen to us at the door a lot of the time?
Cause I'm cooking something. Hey, am I lying? Oh, hey,
you don't have five minutes to not go to hell. Oh, well, you know,
I'm just busy. Oh, well, you know, what are you busy doing?
Am I going to interrupt you? And I knew those lights were going to go out.
Don't worry about it. We forgot to charge them. You know, they're like,
you're too busy doing what? Oh, I'm just busy, too busy.
And you know what it is? It's selfishness. Nobody likes to be interrupted.
Their lives are too comfortable, right? I mean, what you guys did today,
what we did today is too uncomfortable. It is.
Everybody's getting ready for the holidays. You guys are here in church.
I guarantee you already have family members and friends who are getting together.
They're already preparing the turkey and the football game and,
and I'm not against any of it. I'm just saying, where's the balance? You know,
I respect and I love when you're here more than the people that aren't here.
Hey, if you didn't take time out of your busy schedule,
cause it was too difficult for you to, you know,
God forbid that you had to miss out on a football game to show up to church and
praise the Lord, you're too selfish. And you know why?
Because you don't have a, a thankful spirit in your prayer life.
Go to 1 Samuel 2, go to 1 Samuel 2. When we speak of Hannah, she,
she's thankful. I mean, she doesn't necessarily always say it,
but it's evident in her response to the Lord, right?
1 Samuel 2 is actually one of my favorite prayers when people say, Oh, you know,
Baptists are oppressive and misogynistic to women or blah, blah, blah, blah.
I'm like, I guess you've never read, you know, 1 Samuel 2.
I'm going to bring a whole other prayer for that.
Like that's one of the greatest prayers in the Bible in my opinion.
But it starts out, I'm not going to read it all.
I'm just going to read a couple of verses, but it says there,
"And Hannah prayed and said, 'My heart rejoiceth in the Lord.
Mine horn is exalted in the Lord.
My mouth is enlarged over mine enemies because I rejoice in thy salvation.
There is none holy as the Lord, for there is none beside thee.
Neither is there any rock like our God.
Talk no more so exceedingly proud.
Let not arrogance come out of your mouth, for the Lord is God of knowledge
and by Him actions are weighted."
If we were to continue that prayer, you know what it's not focused on?
It's not focused on, Lord, thank you for giving me Samuel
and thank you for all the things that you've given me
and thank you for my nice house and my nice car and my husband.
No, it's the Lord and the Lord did this
and the Lord is great and the Lord and the Lord and the Lord.
Hey, I'm not saying don't thank the Lord for your nice car or whatever.
But really, I'm just thankful that I get to praise the Lord.
I'm thankful that He is who He is and that I am part of the family.
You know, we all want to belong to something.
When you're part of the Christian family,
that's the greatest gang, clique, whatever you want to call it, that ever existed.
Why are gangs so successful?
Because what gangs do is that they give you a sense of belonging, right?
It's a family. They call it mi familia, right?
Like orale, you know, you're part of us.
But the other thing that they do initially,
the ones that are really smart is that they thank the younger members at first
for the crimes that they're committing.
They actually like they're appreciative of them.
And so people continue to come back because but how do they show that thankfulness?
It's always in the worldly way, right?
Like they give them more money or titles.
I don't know if you know anything about gangs.
I preached the whole story on narco culture.
To me, it's kind of like close to home because I grew up on the border.
I saw it. Right.
But gangs like lure you.
They have a whole psychological plan and they lure you in with money and with
accolades and with applause and they build you up.
They thank you for all the things that you're doing.
And so then you just think it's your mind just says, oh, well, criminal equals
thankfulness, criminal equals money, criminal equals belonging,
criminal equals love, criminal equals family.
Then I'm a criminal.
You know why? Because Christianity has done a horrible job of being grateful.
They really have. You say, how do you know that?
I'm not trying to pick on anybody,
but have you seen the size of the buildings in America?
Like, is that really the best way to show your gratefulness to the parishioners?
I mean, I'm not against a nice building.
I'm just saying, where's your money going?
What are you doing for the Lord?
And then the way you thank your congregation is like, hey,
we asked you for all this money for all these nice things.
And guess what? We kind of overdid it.
So now, in order for you guys to feel
thankful, we need more of your money to get out of the debt that we got into when
we asked you for money in the first place, no wonder no everybody leaves.
And then they're bitter and they're angry and they're envious.
And you know what they're not? Thankful.
Nobody wants to pray about that stuff.
Now, I'm not saying don't give to the
church, but give it with the right attitude, right?
Give it with the right ability, but go to Luke 18.
I'll read for you really quick. Psalm 72, Psalm 72, verse 15.
The Bible says, "And he shall live,
and to him shall be given of the gold of Sheba.
Prayer also shall be made for him continually,
and daily shall he be praised."
You say, "What does this have to do with being thankful?"
Hey, if you're praying daily, you know what you are, you're thankful.
If you're reading your Bible daily, you know what you are,
you're being thankful that the Lord said, "Hey, do this and I want to serve you."
It really is correlated.
People that are grateful are also much better human beings, just period.
Christians that are grateful are better Christians, brothers and sisters.
You know who are the worst Christian members?
The ones that don't show up to church
regularly, and the minute you make a change, they're the first ones to complain.
Right.
You know, the guys that attacked me on the Trinity, they hadn't been here in months,
but none of them have read their Bible more than three times.
But all of a sudden I have to give them
an ear to listen to all their grievances about how I don't know doctrine.
I'm like, bro, I don't even know what's going on.
You know what it is? It's because they're ungrateful.
That's really all it is. They're just selfish and ungrateful.
Go to Luke 18, verse 10, the Bible says,
"Two men went up into the temple to pray,
the one a Pharisee and the other a publican."
And it's interesting, this is the only one that's a negative, right?
It says, "Of all the ones I'm giving you today."
It says, "The Pharisee stood and prayed, thus within himself,
'God, I thank thee that I'm not as other men,
or extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican.
I fast twice in a week and I give tithe of all that I possess.
And the publican standing afar off would not lift up
so much as his eyes unto heaven, but most in his breast saying,
God, be merciful unto me a sinner.
I tell you, this man went down to his house, justified rather than the other,
for everyone that exalted himself should be abased.
And he that humbledeth himself shall be exalted.
You know, Hannah was like, thank you, Lord, that you're Lord.
You know, you're my rock.
You're my salvation.
And but the most of the world is like that.
Hey, thank you that we have this nice church building.
Thank you that we don't have a six year old building like Spring Crest.
You know, we don't have a hodgepodge of church members from all walks of life.
You know, our people.
And you think that doesn't exist?
One of the selling points of the Seventh Day Adventist Church.
This is what got my parents to be Seventh Day Adventist.
My mom drilled it into us.
She's like, well, the Seventh Day Adventist Church must be the church
because it's full of educated people.
It's got doctors and nurses and engineers,
you know, and just people that are professors and college graduates.
They're just, you know, educated.
You know where she got that from?
From the Seventh Day Adventist Church, because that's what they believe.
They believe that you need to be educated
and have money and culture to be part of the church.
I don't care what your walk of life is.
If you're saved, come on in and let's go to work.
You can be, and I don't even care if you're dumb,
because as long as you show up to church, you'll get smart.
Just read your Bible, you'll get real smart.
As a matter of fact, I venture to say that someone who reads their King James
more than any regular publication probably has a better handle on the English
language than most people that are living a life today.
I mean, and as evidenced by the fact
that cognition and reading is on decline, not on the uptick, you know.
So let's go ahead and close this thing out.
I've got two more points for you, but they're really short.
Thanksgiving, it builds your faith.
And then, you know, what it allows you to do is when you do actually come
and have a petition, you come more boldly because you've already
basically remove that selfishness.
And what it does is I don't know if that's happened to you.
But when I sometimes have like a really sincere request and I'm not saying I'm a
great prayer worker, I'm just saying that this is my experience sometimes is
if you come to the Lord with with Thanksgiving, you're kind of going through
like what you're thankful for, you know, and sometimes I try to dumb it down
personally, I'm like, thank you, Lord, for I'll just go to the like dumb it down
to the ridiculous, like thank you for just even the underwear that I have
and the clothes that I have and those toothbrush that I have and just because
we should be thankful, you know, other countries don't have that and by the
time I get to the petitions, I'm like, I realized maybe some of the petitions
that I had weren't that great and then I just don't even ask for those things
and now my focus is only asking for the things that we really need, you know,
that the Lord really that line up with His will because you know, you don't want
to ask for things that don't line up with God's will, number one, He's not
gonna give them to you and number two, you're just going down a selfish path
and it happens to the best of us but we need to try to not do that. Look, time is
limited on life and earth, right? Here on earth we have a very limited time
and then to continuously just go down a selfish road is a great way to waste
your life, so don't do that. But go to go to go to 1st Thessalonians 1 and then
I'll read the last and then we're gonna be in Psalm 84 and we're done. But in
1st Thessalonians 1 the Bible says Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus unto the
Church of the Thessalonians which is in God the Father and in the Lord Jesus
Christ grace be unto you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ
we give thanks to God always for you all making mention of you in our prayers
remembering without seizing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of
hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of God in our Father knowing
brethren beloved your election of God man this is like it almost sounds like
the same one I'm not repeating this just like constantly thanking we love Paul
right everybody talks about Paul just how he was the greatest apostle hey Paul
was thankful he said thrice I asked for this to be removed and I learned to just
deal with it you know why cuz he was grateful and it just gives you such a
great outlook on life right you know I mean honestly most of you just because
you watch stuff but there's gonna come a time when most people will not know
that I broke my collarbone and then I suffered for months and all that stuff
because there's nothing I don't it doesn't really matter you know the only
reason you would want to tell people that all the time is because you're
selfish right you ever meet those people that are always telling you like
something that they you know just to get attention you know what I'm talking
about right like the person who's like oh you know by the way this this this
and that you know oh I'm really sorry and I'm really sorry that happened to
you or this or that what it is is just that that that's them filling that void
right they need that attention but when you have the attention from the Lord
Jesus Christ you don't need that you know having children will make you
unselfish my wife I love that you know we spend time together and you know I
love hanging out with her but sometimes when the kids need her I just rather
her be with the kids and then it just makes life easy I'm just really grateful
that I have a good wife that loves her children the way that she does go to
Psalm 84 and let's close this thing out Thanksgiving it prepares you for more
answers right it prepares you for the Christian walk it prepares you for life
look Thanksgiving prepares you for the battle the reason people don't go out in
the battle the reason people aren't the 1% is because they're not grateful that
they have the ability anytime you make excuses you're ungrateful oh well I'm
just not a good speaker ungrateful you think that's not true I mean literally a
lot of people skip that in the Old Testament God is gonna kill Moses says
that his anger was kindled because he's like I'm gonna send you to speak and
Moses is like I can't speak I can't do it that's a picture of soul winning where
people are like well I just I don't know what God wants you to do it God gets
angry if you don't do the things he's asked you to do I mean I don't know if
maybe you just skipped it because I think it's one of the coolest stories
because then like the his wife comes to the rescue I mean it's like oh it's just
like nuts it just happens like really quick and you're like wait wait a minute
did I just read that is God really angry he's about to kill Moses well why is it
because Moses is like not willing not grateful that he was chosen for the task
I didn't you know I honestly I didn't want to be a preacher that you know that
was the furthest thing from my mind if you ask me in my selfish carnal flesh I
probably would say no being a preacher some one of the hardest things I've
ever done in my life but I'm really grateful for the fruit and the benefits
and the things that it's done in my life and the things that we get to do if
this is where the Lord needs me then this is where the Lord needs me do I
miss out on a lot of the accolades of the world absolutely you know I have a
lot of business acumen I have a lot of business knowledge that just is gonna go
unnoticed from the world because it means nothing and the Lord constantly
reminds me that it means nothing and I'm grateful for that because I don't want
to live in that in that state right but that's what people want to do why
because they're ungrateful don't get don't get sucked into Tony Robbins
telling you to have an attitude of gratitude when he doesn't even know what
gratitude is you know if you had an attitude of gratitude you actually do
the things that the Lord asked you to do let's close in in Psalm 84 right there
in verse 4 the Bible says blessed are they that dwell in thy house they will
be still praising thee Sila blessed is the man whose strength is in thee and
whose heart are the ways of them who passing through the valley of back Baca
make it a well the rain also filleth the pools they go from strength to strength
every one of them in Zion appeareth before God O Lord God of hosts hear my
prayer give ear O God of Jacob Sila and I mean the reason I closed on that is
because that's what we want we want the Lord to hear our prayer and we want the
blessings from God but we need to do the things that God's asked us to do I don't
I didn't go to a lot of old IFB churches but I did go to some Baptist churches I
grew up Seventh-day Adventist you know Seventh-day Adventist preach from the Bible
even though they don't know what they're preaching but in my lifetime I've not
heard a lot of deep sermons on prayer I'm not saying that there isn't out
there I'm just saying personally I just didn't experience them and one of the
things that you do when you go deep into that study prayer is a powerful tool you
know because we're not gonna go out there and physically fight anybody right
this is the way that we that we can engage in the battle besides just the
soul winning and showing up to church hey I'm just giving you another quiver I
mean another arrow in your quiver right I'm just giving you another piece of
ammunition just so that brother Heath you know understand I'm giving him a
hard time he he's carried all his weapons I'm giving you another bullet in
the chamber right for when the enemy comes but he has another one that says
Thanksgiving right you know how people name their bullets one of them says
Thanksgiving the other one says thankful you know all those things but
literally what I just want to leave you with as we go into the week of
Thanksgiving I always try to leave people with this just admonition to be
really grateful right because we say we're celebrating Thanksgiving but
there's little to be thankful for from the world side like nobody's really
thankful for anything but we have a lot to be thankful for because God's given
us everything nothing that we have is without God so we should be so grateful
that literally when Thanksgiving comes be like great we have a day to say thank
you Lord right so let's close in a word of prayer heavenly follow Lord thank you
so much for today Lord thank you for the visitors and just the great time we had
thank you for the ten souls that were won thank you for all the food that we
got to enjoy Lord and just a great time of fellowship bless everybody as they go
about their week bless the soul winners out on the cruise for the next ten days
may they reap and just bring in the harvest thank you for all those that
were here in attendance thank you Lord for Spring Crest Baptist thank you for
all its members and for their willingness to take time out of the
schedules to serve you Lord and we just ask that you would bless us as we go
into this week in Jesus name we pray amen turn your haminals over to page 319
and we'll close out with Jesus saves three three nights yeah and before we do
that we will just my wife thank you baby I'm grateful for my wife Jaden if
you'll stand up Jayden's hitting the big 15 that's a big one you know
especially in the Hispanic world if you'll help me in singing happy birthday
birthday to Jayden he's gonna turn 15 this week all right on the first happy
birthday our hymn 319 and we'll be dismissed 319 Jesus Saves