NOV 26 2023 | Thanksgiving: More Than a Holiday

Sea Change Church · NOV 26 2023 | Thanksgiving: More Than a Holiday
Psalm 100:1-5
Automated transcript. Not reviewed for accuracy.

I once was lost But now I'm found Was mine But now I see When we've been there 10,000 years When we've been there 10,000 years Bright shining eyes The sun In endless days To sing God's praise Than when We first begun We've no less days We've no less days To sing God's praise Than when We first Be God's Amen Psalm 100 Verses 1-5 Shout for joy to the Lord All the earth Worship the Lord With gladness Come before him With joyful songs Know that the Lord Is God It is he who made us And we are his We are his people The sheep of his pasture Enter his gates With thanksgiving And his courts With praise Give thanks to him And praise his name For the Lord is good And his love Endures forever His faithfulness Continues Through all generations This is the word Of the Lord Soprall Soprall Soprall �� Soprall �� �� �� Right on.

Well, if you have your Bibles, open up to Psalm 100. It's also in your notes this morning. And I like that video because it talks about something that's easy to do. It's easy to lose our thankfulness. It's easy to misplace our thankfulness in a culture that currently seems hell-bent, if I can use that term, and I mean hell-bent, on criticism. Hell-bent on being derogatory, on inciting things that cause emotions that don't lead us to life.

And I realized this as I was preparing this message, how I'd kind of lost some of the ability that I had created in the past to be thankful to God. And I guess the first question I want to ask you is, if you were to do a thankfulness check, how's your thankfulness? How's your thankfulness for the good things in your life? How's the thankfulness for the difficult things in your life?

We know Paul talks about that in Philippians. And how is your verbal thankfulness to others? As I prepared this week, I began to dive into thankfulness. I've got to say, by Wednesday, my worldview and life started to change. By Saturday, I had some mojo going because I was diving into thankfulness. And I realized it just can change your perspectives.

It can change your relationships. It can change your marriage. It can change your business. Thankfulness, thankfulness, thankfulness. I sat with my wife yesterday, and we were, dude, I got a lot done. I get more done on the day after Thanksgiving than anyone in the world every year. It's just, it's a go day for me. And so I'm cleaning garage, putting up shelves, and we're doing, making food, and prepping all kinds of stuff.

And I realized, you know, I haven't told my wife verbally for a long time how thankful I am for her. And I just stopped her, and I just, I began, I thought about it first, and I began to tell her how thankful. And as I expressed it, I could just feel my heart open to her in such powerful ways. So I want to, I want to challenge you to this. This is a powerful passage, and to dive into this.

And really, this is one of our theme messages. We don't do many theme messages. We preach through the Word of God chapter by chapter usually, but a few times a year, we stop for just something that's thematic. And this is it. I'm going to read this from the beginning. Shout to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness. Come before Him with joyful songs.

Know that the Lord is God. It is a result there. It is He who made us, and we are His. We are His people, the sheep of His pasture. It's important, circle sheep. The reason why we're sheep when we praise. Why does it all of a sudden make a left turn and call a sheep? We'll have to look at that in a second. Enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise.

You see there's a procession we'll talk about in just a second. Give thanks to Him and praise His name, for the Lord is good. His love endures forever. His faithfulness continues through all generations. I love that if you're going to become a thankful person, it starts with God. Thanksgiving is meant to be for God. And Thanksgiving, the reason it's an important holiday, is because it points to something beyond ourself.

We're giving thanks to who is the one who is giving to us. One of the things I realize in this passage is that there's a procession in this passage, and you can miss it. I'm going to walk you through it real quick. First thing is, as we're talking about Thanksgiving, it starts out talking about all of creation. So it starts real wide. It drops down to the individual, which is you, calls you a sheep, and then backs it out to say that there will be a result of that thanksgiving and bringing blessing, which is generational blessing for you.

Let me say that again. It starts with creation, okay? You see this. All creation is singing out. As an individual, we're shrinking it down from creation to you. You join into the course of that creation. From that place, you enter as a sheep into the courtyards of praise. From that place, God takes over. And God boomerangs it back out to bring generational blessing to you because his love, his faithfulness is generational.

Thanksgiving, and you don't think about it this way because it seems more of a demure characteristic. It isn't like anger or something like that. It is a weapon. Thanksgiving is a weapon that will push the devil out of your life, will push his schemes out of your life, that will change your mind, that will change your relationship. And it is meant to be used also in spiritual warfare.

We don't think about that often because it's Thanksgiving. You don't go to war in Thanksgiving. But Thanksgiving, and if you can become a person at Thanksgiving, let me just take you to the end result here, it's going to bring generational blessing to your life. Generational. That's grandkids, grandkids, grandkids. That's a legacy life. You can leave that life in the heavens.

And some of you are sitting here today that have those generational blessings that were brought upon you by someone you never met that you don't even know generations back because God works in the generations. And we see that. I've got a quote from John Milton. I like a good John Milton quote. Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies.

Those transcendent moments of awe that change forever how we experience life in the world. Let me just say that again because I want to repeat that. It's such a good quote. Because when we stop for a moment, even on this corner, just driving to church, you can see that little ocean there. Just that peekaboo view from the ocean can change my day.

And I've been working really hard to stop in those moments. Whether it be the smile of someone who comes into the church or somebody I meet new or the heavens declaring his glory and the stars or the moon that came up with the star beside it last night. And stopping in those moments transcends us into the courtyards of God. We'll see that in just a moment.

Gratitude bestows reverence, allowing us to encounter everyday epiphanies, those transcendent moments of awe that change forever in how we experience the world. If our focus is on our phone, if our focus is on the headlines, you might be getting to the dopamine hits you want, but you're not going to have transcendent moments most of the time.

And so what thanksgiving does is it pulls us away from those things to look at the larger picture of what's happening in life and begin to give praise to one who is worthy. And then from that, begin to praise and be thankful for other things that he has given. Two points today we're going to look at. Thanksgiving is a passport. I use that word intentionally.

It transports you. It is a passport into God's presence. Thanksgiving is a passport. It allows entry. It will thrust you into God's presence. I believe it's impossible to be intentionally thankful for a period of time without beginning to feel yourself open up to the presence of God. And it takes some intentional time to do that. And I've reestablished this week something I hadn't been doing was reestablishing a time of thanksgiving in my time with God in the morning.

Reestablishing what that looks like. And it actually will change your time with God. To find a certain amount of your time with God to say, hey, these many minutes, these many things I'm going to be thankful for, it's a passport into God's presence. Number two, thanksgiving sets the table for God's blessing. Just like we set a table the other night.

When you set a table for thanksgiving, it sets the table for God's blessing. Think about how your table was set this week and what happened after that. There was a bounty that was put onto those plates. Thanksgiving sets the table for God's blessing. You'll see in the final verse there, we'll look at it in a second. It says, verse 5, And so we see that he will bring love and faithfulness.

And as we enter into that, that will pass down through generations. And you can see that generational blessing there. Let's go to the first one. First one is thanksgiving is a passport into God's presence. Look at verse 1. Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Now this is interesting. I said that there's a progression here. And this thanksgiving begins with creation.

There is different ways we can know God. And the primary, the first way that we know God is through, it's called creative revelation. It means we look at the creation and know that God exists. If you were to get into Paul's writings in the book of Romans, it would tell you that one day people will stand before God on the day of judgment. And they won't have an excuse.

Because God will say to them, didn't you see the creation? It showed my invisible qualities. It showed my divine nature. It says in scripture, in Romans, you have no excuse. Why is that? Because the creation is praising all the time. Everything has a meaning that God has created. And the creation has a meaning. Every time a wave crashes, it is praising God.

It is giving praise to its creator. Every time the wind blows through the trees, there is praise happening. The scripture says that. And we miss, especially when we're in the concrete jungle, we miss that the earth is constantly praising God. It was meant to emanate God's presence. And this is why the pagans oftentimes miss the creator for the creation and begin to worship creation.

You see a lot of creation worship happening now. As people are missing the creator, but they're seeing the emanation, taking something that is indistinguishable and making it relevant. That is what emanate means. The creation emanates God's glory, but they miss the creator in the midst of that. When we are called to thanksgiving, the first place that we can often start is with creation.

And one of the best ways, if you're going to become a person of thanksgiving, is to begin to recognize what is around you and begin to give God thanks for it. God, thank you for those stars. Thank you for that breeze. Thank you for the sun on my face. It is so, God has made it so easy to enter in to thanksgiving if we can just stop for a moment and see what is around us.

And so that is why it starts here. Shout for joy to the Lord, who all the earth, because the earth will cry out. I have a few verses that I want to show you. And what I want to say is when you enter into the song of thanksgiving, you're never singing a solo. You are singing in a creative choir that you are surrounded by. Whether you go on that beach walk or you can see it in people, we are the ultimate creation.

I know the pagan world right now is trying to say that we're no different than rocks. Everything is the same. It's not true. We are the height of creation, created in God's image. Trees are not created in God's image. The devil is not created in God's image. Mountains are not created in God's image. We are created in God's image. But we enter into that as the highest form of creation that God has created, created in his likeness.

And so when you sing, you are entering, though, into a larger chorus every time. And realize that whenever you give thanks, when you give thanks, you give thanks for God for something, you give thanks to your husband, you give thanks to your kids, to someone who helps you across the street when you're bringing your grandchild home from elementary school.

Every time you do that, you jump in to the choir that is constantly singing. Think of the roar of the oceans. If you could hear the entire roar of the oceans right now, they all roar God's praise constantly. The wind blowing through every tree roars constantly over and over again. Let's look at a few verses to back that up. Isaiah 55, 12, good verse.

You guys might maybe know this one. You will go out in joy. You will be led forth in peace. The mountains and the hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will what? Clap their hands. Love that. I love that. I'm going to go on a hike. My wife and I are going on a hike tomorrow. We're going to go see this. We're going to take a day and just get out, put everything aside, and begin to go out and praise and stop and see for a minute.

If you've ever hiked with me, one of the things I've developed, and it's probably annoying, I know Phil is here, he's hiked with me, is I will constantly stop in the middle of a conversation and say, oh, did you see the light coming through those dogwood leaves right there? It's annoying if you're with me, but I get overwhelmed because I spent time with mentors of mine who would stop me regularly and see the goodness of God.

And over and over again, I'm blown away when I see God's goodness and entering into that. This is what Isaiah sees. Isaiah couldn't walk around without seeing that. The creation is thanking and giving praise to God on a regular basis, and we enter into that. Let me give you another one. Psalm 19, 1 through 4. The heavens declare the glory of God.

The skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day, they pour forth speech. Night after night, they reveal knowledge. They have no speech. They use no words. No sound is heard from them. Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. You see, praise is in the nature of God. And the things that he creates praise him.

God is the only entity, if I can use that word to describe God, kind of a hard word, that can actually praise himself. God can praise himself because he's worthy of praise. This is why one of the scriptures says, don't praise yourself. Let another person's mouth praise you. But God actually can praise himself. Why? Because it's not a lie when he praises himself, because he is the ultimate of all things, and all things go back to him.

When you step out into thanksgiving, when you step out into praise, you are stepping into this massive chorus. Let me give you one more. Luke 19, 40, Jesus said this. He says, I tell you, he replied, if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out. It says the very stones will cry out. There's a picture of stones I'm going to show you right here. What are they going to cry?

Well, if you go a couple verses earlier, this is actually, I believe, in the footnotes we see. They're going to cry this. Luke 19, 38. Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord. Peace in heaven and glory in the highest. That is what the people were crying out. And as they cried out, they said, why are you letting them cry that? And what did Jesus say?

He said, if they don't cry out, these very stones will cry out. You see, all of nature is crying out. And so the verse before that speaks of that, of what it would be. Next thing is this idea of a threshold. You enter in now. We talked about the creative element, right? We're out there, the world's creating. We're moving from the creative into a building in this scripture.

We're crossing a threshold into the courtyard of the temple. Now, in the Revelation series, we looked at the temple of God. We looked at the different courtyards. In this passage, the psalmist understood this. David understood this, that you cross a threshold. And thanksgiving allows you to cross a threshold. Thresholds are incredibly important in our lives.

They represent entryways and exits. They enter into new things. In Revelation, it says that God is a God who opens doors that no one, no man can open. And he closes doors that no one can close. I am fascinated by thresholds. I love thresholds. There's some rooms that you want to get out of. And God wants you out of those places. And he wants you to cross the threshold into hope.

You see a threshold being crossed here. And God, through thanksgiving, you are getting closer to his presence. You are stepping out as we see that. Let me just look at this. It says in verse four. Verse four says, Now what's interesting, all of a sudden, there's this kind of left turn. Verse three turns us into sheep. Why is that? It's so out of pocket, right?

Why is that even there in verse three? It says verse three, We know that the Lord is good. Okay, I'm going to know that he's good by praising and giving thanksgiving. It's going to give knowledge to me. It's going to show me the reality. Thanksgiving gives reality to you. When you thank God for his goodness, all of a sudden, you will be confronted with the reality of his goodness.

It says, It is he who made us. And we are his. It lets you know who you were created by, that you have a father. We are his. We are the people. We are his people. And then what? The sheep of his pasture. Why sheep? That's weird. Because what happens in the courtyards of the temple? It's a sacrifice, right? And what gets sacrificed? The sheep get sacrificed.

And we are the sheep. We are his sheep. We are his people. And we become the sacrifice. And the Bible talks about that when it says that there should be a sacrifice of praise. If you were to go to Hebrews 13.15, write that down. Hebrews 13.15 says, Through Jesus, therefore, let us continually offer to God, what? A sacrifice of praise. The fruit of the lips that openly profess his name.

You see, sometimes it's hard to give thanks, right? Sometimes it's hard. And whenever we give thanks, what are we doing? We're humbling ourselves before God. And saying, God, I give thanks to you because I can't do this on my own. And so when you do that, it takes you from that outside creative revelation. You are joining him with all the earth. And then you are crossing a threshold into the temple courts of God as his child because it says his people, but the sheep of his pasture going in as a sacrifice and giving yourself as a sacrifice of praise.

And that's powerful because it enters us into his presence. Because after the sacrifice, the high priest would then go where? Into the inner sanctuary and into the tabernacle to communion with God. It is a weapon. Satan does not want you to be thankful. Why? Because it'll keep you further away from the presence of God. It's gonna be difficult to be a thankful person when you're thanking God, not just thanking the universe, but thanking God for who he is and not experience his goodness.

Harry Ironside said this, we would worry less if we praised more. Thanksgiving is the enemy of discontent and dissatisfaction. That's powerful. We would worry less if we praised more. Thanksgiving is the enemy of discontent and dissatisfaction. I was driving down Mount Soledad Road from the top of the cross yesterday and there was somebody who thought they should have their brakes on the entire time and go 25 miles an hour.

And I wanna pass there because there's a big wide lane if you've driven it. A big wide lane, right? And you can pass. But I got pulled over for speeding on Mount Soledad Drive two days earlier. He let me go with a warning. Boom, prayed it out. Thank you. Thank you, sir. Appreciate it, sir. You're a good man, sir. Yes, sir, no problem. Oh, do you mind if I reach over here, sir?

Thank you, sir. So I got the warning. So I was driving and I thought, ugh, and I thought, what if I just give Thanksgiving? And I just began to say, you know, God, thank you. This is a beautiful stretch of coastline. I'm gonna see the ocean here in a second. Thank you for the ocean. God, thank you. Maybe you're protecting me. Thank you for how you've protected me in my life.

And I began to thank God. And it began to change my entire perspective. I've done that for three days now. I got a little thing of 50 beads. And I just put some beads. I went and got them. I put beads on a string. And I use them for prayer. And sometimes I'll just pray for 50 people. I'm ADD, so it keeps me focused. And that's what I got. So I thought, I'm gonna do 50 prayers of Thanksgiving.

And I did that twice yesterday and once the day before. I gotta say, that just changes your entire perspective. When you're not just focusing on every bad thing. There's a lot of bad things to focus on. I wanna say, when we focus on those things, on the anger and all the things going on in the world and the hurt and the murder and all the other things, all of a sudden, that can just take us in a completely opposite direction of what we see happening here.

And so we see that. Thanksgiving then, let's go to point two then is this. Thanksgiving sets the table for God's blessing. We wanna set the table. I wanna set the table so that you can see the blessings of God in your life. Go to verse five. We see a result here. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever. His faithfulness continues, what? Through all generations.

That word for is a transitional word. And when they use it, it's meant to transition or what was happening, cause and effect. So we see the cause that is happening there and now we have the effect. The effect is really, really powerful because it talks about the things that happen. The things that happen when you enter into his courts with praise. The things that you will experience.

Verse five. For the Lord is good. The first thing is he's good. You're gonna see God's goodness. God is good. You're gonna experience that. And you're gonna see a love that is enduring forever. One, you're gonna see love. You're gonna experience love. And it's going to endure forever. Now there's a lot of songs, right? There's a lot of country songs.

A lot of songs about I give you my love and forever and this whole thing. That is a promise that you cannot keep. We are not gonna be married in heaven. It says that. We're gonna be individuals. It's a great thing to say. God can say it and actually mean it because God's actually going to do it. And then the final thing there, the thing I want to focus on is that word faithfulness.

When you look at the word faithfulness in the Greek, the word is emuna. Emuna is this Hebrew, excuse me, not in the Greek, in the Hebrew that means this. It means a firmness, a stability, and a steadiness. Now, if you don't realize that our culture is missing those three things, firmament, firmness, stability, and steadiness. A gal was walking by my house.

I was taking the trash out. I was walking by my house with a dog. She goes, oh no, it's not like, she's like talking on her phone. She's like, no, he doesn't have like the scary bipolar. He's just got the one where he's like super sad and then kind of a little bit manichy. And I was like, when did that become just a normal, like a normal conversation?

Like, you know what I mean? Like, I wouldn't even know what you meant by that when I was 17, when I was 25, when I was 34. I wouldn't even know what you meant by that. But now it's just normal in our conversation. I think some of the cause of what we're seeing has to do with a culture that has gotten away, number one, from knowing who God is and from God.

For number two, being thankful and living in a culture of discontent and being critical. It's constantly critical. One of the core roots of Marxism is to be critical of everything. Marx understood you could destroy the fabric of a culture if you just criticize everything. This is the exact opposite. And if you want to bring a person that brings a kingdom culture into the world, become a person who's thankful.

Begin to be thankful in difficulty and hardness. The word there, emuna, like Greek word, says that this is what it'll bring. When you do these other things, the result, when you enter that threshold, is going to bring a firmness to your life. It's going to bring more steadiness to your life. It's going to bring an anchor to your life. It's going to bring ballast to your life and begin to let you cross over into deeper seas.

I was studying the Vikings. I like studying Vikings and the Anglo-Saxons. I'm reading all these books. And I realized, they said one of the biggest, you know, revolutionary things in regard to warfare was ballast on a ship. They changed ships and then they put like 800 pounds of rocks in the bottom of the ship. And what it allowed them to do was to cross from Scandinavia all the way over to Newfoundland.

They weren't able to do something like that through rough seas. Why? Because there was no ballast. What is Thanksgiving going to do? It's going to let you have ballast, stability, firmness during rough seas. Do you have rough seas right now? Begin to be thankful to God. Do you want to go further out? Do you want to explore new territory? That ballast that you saw on the bottom of these ships that changed shipping, it changed the entire world.

Everything was changed. One of the most important things, besides the longbow, but we don't have to get into the longbow, was ballast. And Thanksgiving is ballast. In verse five, I think the other thing that this says to come in for a landing here is that it implies a generational love and faithfulness. It goes on for generations. On for generations. Psychology Today agrees with this.

What are the practical implications? Well, I could give you more verses. I'll tell you what Psychology Today said. The article was entitled What Mentally Strong People Do and Say. It's in Psychology Today. You can look it up. It's called What Mentally Strong People Do and Say. It says, Gratitude, they said in this survey, improves physical health, psychological health, enhances empathy, reduces aggression, grateful people sleep better, and have greater self-esteem and mental strength.

Well, it's been interesting. I did an experiment last night. I wear a Fitbit. I don't know if you guys wear that. It's really good at letting you know how your sleep is. I have never gotten a 94 sleep score. Ever. I've tried. I hit a 93 once. 92 is like next level. So if you have that, you can watch it. Some of you might not believe in this. You might think it's just, you know, AI witchcraft, but I believe in it.

So this whole weekend, I'm doing this like Thanksgiving thing, right? Thank you. Thank you for this, God. Thank you for that. I'm thanking you for elementary school teachers. I'm just filling the bottom of that ship up with ballast. Just another Thanksgiving, another praise. I woke up this morning. I'm like, man, I feel good. I need to check my Fitbit. 94 went for it.

I was like, oh, let's go. I know. Applause for my sleep. How weak a man are you that you have to get applause for your sleep? No, but it was like, I slept like a baby. And you know what I had to do? Probably 72 hours of just focusing on being thankful. I think you can do that. Psychology Today says you can do it. They're not even the Bible. Here's two takeaways.

Two takeaways. You want to change your life on Thursday. That's what I want to do. That's what I think I do as a preacher. I want to change your life on Thursday, on Wednesday, on Tuesday. First is this. Make a Thanksgiving a habit. Why don't you make a list of 50 things? Make a list of 50 things you're thankful for. Go get 50 marbles in a jar, and just every time you give thanks, just fill it every day.

Fill it. Start it with your prayer time. Empty it out. This is a simple way to pray. God, I want to give you Thanksgiving. Just be thankful. That's the first one. Make Thanksgiving a habit. A list of 50 things. Final thing is this. Go on a criticism fast. Don't criticize. The world will be there to criticize when your criticism fast is over. Try not, just don't criticize anything.

You don't have, I realize you don't have to criticize. Criticism is not necessary. Says this in, in How to Win Friends and Influence People, one of the books we've been handing out to our small group leaders. We just says, he says you never need, you never have to criticize. There's always another solution besides criticism. I was like, even constructive criticism, he says.

There's ways around it. There's ways to encourage and cause changeful movement in people's lives without ever criticizing. Try to stop criticizing. See if you can live your life without being critical. And then, in that, and then instead, express Thanksgiving. Vocally express Thanksgiving. There's a new song out by Blink 182. I think it's called, like, Let's Do It Again or One More Time.

It's called One More Time. I really like it. And it goes, it starts out, it says, strangers, we were strangers, we became brothers, and then back to strangers. One of the guys in the band had cancer. There was also, I think there was a plane crash. And the song goes on to say, I really like the song, it says, you know, did it take a sickness? Did it take someone, planes falling from the sky to have to tell you that I love you?

Or to have to say that I'm thankful? I say, there's only so many days. There's only so many opportunities that we have. There's only so many, you know, I told this as my kids. There's only so many, we call them tuck-tucks when I tuck my kids in. I knew I only had so many tuck-tucks. There's a certain age where tuck-tuck, 21 years old, not that appropriate.

I still do them. I still sneak in there. I do them on occasion. But, you know, there's only so many of those. And if you get a chance, listen to that Blink-182 song. It's on Spotify. It's called One More Time. And it's really powerful. It made me think about it. I thought, I don't want to go without looking my friends in the eye, without telling people on staff, without looking, you know, looking you guys in the eye and telling you how thankful I am.

And I just want to end by saying, I'm so thankful for you. The fact that this many people would come here to be a part of a community that wants to change their world, I want to say, I am so thankful to be a pastor of the church. I love our church. I would go here if I wasn't the pastor. And so, I want to see your lives changed. I would. Unless Harry was preaching, and then I'm not coming.

I'm just praying, let's stand. No criticism. Let's stand. If you want to know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, be baptized into his name and have eternal life, come forward. We're going to have a prayer team. We'll pray for you. We want to pray with you. It'll change your life. If you need to pray to break things off of you, or maybe you don't use thinking, I don't have generational blessings, I have generational curses.

You want to be prayed for? Come forward. I want to pray for you after the service. If you extend your hand, I want to bless you today. Lord Jesus, I want to bless your people and praise your name. We bless them, God, with your goodness. May your face shine upon them this season, and let thankfulness flow. Let thankfulness flow in their lives. Let them see that's the ballast of their lives, and that we might be changed, become a people that are thankful.

We send them out now in the glory and grace of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Have a great week. Hope to see you Tuesday night. Tuesday night. Tuesday night.