Welcome to Healing Scars with Pastor Burton. Here you'll find practical, relevant, biblical information.
The Bible will be broken down verse by verse so that you get the full context of the scripture to better grow in your relationship with Jesus.
Welcome morning church. Welcome to the sanctuary. Welcome everybody streaming online.
I know right now it's just our YouTube that's working. We'll get the Facebook working later on. I'm not sure what's going on with that.
But we'll get that fixed if the stream is back up there as well. So definitely for those of you who are streaming and those of you who are online, make sure that you're sharing this so people can see it.
It helps us to get out there and it also helps to get the word out there. Right? That's the most important part right there is getting the word out.
So of course this week we're well aware. We're already talking about our potluck coming up. We are well on the road to Thanksgiving.
That's going to be kind of our theme for the next couple weeks. Right?
You know it's Thanksgiving. It's times of food, friends, family, stretchy pants. I know I've got mine already sitting out, ready to be put on on the chair in front of my desk.
Bad jokes, sports. There's a lot of sports that go on during the holidays. Right?
You know as my wife said, we do have our potluck coming up. You know everybody's invited. Invite your friends, invite your family, bring your favorite dish.
I would recommend, you know, bring a side dish or a dessert, something like that. It does not need to be Thanksgiving themed. We're going to have plenty of that coming up. Right?
We're going to be up to our ears in turkey and yams and all that good stuff. So I'd actually recommend doing something different.
Not to say anti-Thanksgiving because it sounds horrible, but anti-Thanksgiving is probably the appropriate way to put it. Right?
But you know I would definitely encourage everybody to do that. You know.
Now to start our message. I'm sure everybody's familiar with the old nursery rhyme. Mary had a little lamb. Right?
Mary had a little lamb, little lamb. You know, we all grew up with that. That poem is older than anybody in this room, believe it or not.
It actually goes back quite a ways.
You know this, this of course, the way we know it is a very modernized version. It deviates a bit from the original poem.
That's because later it was put to a little tune, a little ditty. Right? That's okay. And it shows its longevity and how it applies.
You know it's cute, right? And we're going to come back to this poem later on.
So as we get started, I'm going to have everybody go ahead, you know, pull out your Bibles, pull out your apps, and I'm going to have you open up to John chapter 10.
So John chapter 10 verse 11.
The Bible says, I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.
Much like the girl in the poem, right? She loved her, she loved her sheep and went everywhere with her.
And much like her, you know, she was a shepherd of a sort. Right? Shepherds don't just watch their flock, right?
They love them. They truly do. They love them. They're there for everything to guard them, to protect them, up to the point that it could even very well cost their life. Right?
It's something that they look forward to though, regardless of the dangers, regardless of the stress and the pain that's involved.
You know, making decisions that they may not even want to, but for the betterment of the flock. Right?
You know, and just like any shepherd, just like the girl in the poem, we all have a flock of our own.
The modern day vernacular might change it a little bit and say, you know, it's your tribe, your posse, your homies, right? Your family, your clique, whatever.
But still, that's your flock. That's your group. Right? We all have one of these.
You know, some are bigger than others. Some are pretty small. You know, sometimes we move away from them or, you know, go and distance ourselves for whatever reason, but they're still there.
They're still there. You know, and these are people that are under our charge, whether we want to accept it or not.
They're still our people. And like I said, sometimes we have to make decisions that we'd rather not.
Now, with that said, of course, you know, I'm a little bit of a history guy. I like my history. I like to throw things out.
And we're going to take a little look at this here. You know, most of us, we grew up in school hearing about the first Thanksgiving and how the pilgrims came.
And, you know, they made friends with the local natives and they had a feast to celebrate their friendship and all that. Right.
That's a little harvest. You know, they're celebrating a new friendship.
Of course, years go on and we learn, yeah, that's not quite exactly how it worked, is it?
You know, there was a feast of sorts. But the fact is there's no recording of this event.
There's no date given. There's no documents. Right.
In fact, there's actually evidence that here in the U.S., the first actual like Thanksgiving, if we want to look at it in this frame, took place a little over a decade prior.
And they're much grimmer circumstances.
There is a there's actually a group of settlers that had come. They'd settled. They did this. They were doing their thing.
They started to they started to to populate their own little town.
And unfortunately, this is a time of what was referred to as a great starvation.
And they went from a settlement of nearly 500 people down to 60 because of starvation.
Starvation.
It's hard. Right.
And the Thanksgiving came because another ship finally came carrying much needed supplies and food.
So people were very thankful because a very grim and dire situation was turned around.
Now, of course, you know, you want to go back even further than that, even across the pond and everything.
You know, there's there's feast going all the way back to the very beginning, isn't there?
It's biblical. We look at we look at how many feast we see in the Bible alone.
There's a lot celebrating a lot of different things.
But regardless of how we here in the U.S. look at the beginning and the origins of our Thanksgiving feast and our celebration, you know, it can be as we don't even though we don't have the exact documentation or anything.
We can assume it was in the fall time because this is when the harvest was right.
That nothing's changed with that. So this day, certain crops, you harvest them at a certain time.
That's just the way it works.
And, you know, it could be also assumed because there were certain festivals and celebrations that were had that people brought with them from Europe.
Just because someone moves doesn't mean that they give up everything that they know, right?
It just doesn't happen that way.
So there, you know, there there's various legalistic traditions, very legalistic things are brought over from old countries, various settlers, some things that clash, some things that mesh together very well, very much a small export.
So we're, you know, to say that we're a little misled to believe that Thanksgiving was a holiday that's been celebrated ever since then, I'd be putting it mildly.
Because when we actually look at the history and the history of books, we don't find anything that actually supports that.
A feast here and there, right? Celebration and a settlement here and there, but not Thanksgiving as we know it.
There are some roots there that are to be had there.
There are definitely some things that were learned and some things that have carried over into modern times.
On that note, we flash forward a couple hundred years to the Civil War.
I should say a couple of years. Yeah, we flash forward quite a bit pretty far though to the actual proclamation of Thanksgiving.
Here's the fun part.
So during the Civil War, there was a woman, her name was Sarah Josepha Hale.
Now she petitioned the president, President Lincoln, saying that a holiday like this, a holiday at Thanksgiving, could actually serve to heal the nation.
That's a very novel idea, right?
I think we'd all agree that's a good thing because holidays very much have that power.
They have that ability to do this kind of thing.
At that time, there were a lot of wounds from the war.
When she went, she petitioned and she went and stated her argument and everything.
She struck a chord. She said, hey, yeah, that's a great idea. I like it.
And so Lincoln, President Lincoln, made a proclamation in October of 1863 that Thanksgiving would be had the following month.
And it's been celebrated every year since.
I'm going to read to you part of this proclamation.
The human counsel hath devised, nor hath any mortal hand worked out these great things.
They are gracious gifts of the most high God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our sins,
hath nevertheless remembered mercy. It has seemed to me fit and proper that they should be solemnly, reverently, and gratefully acknowledged,
as with one heart and one voice by the whole American people.
I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States and also those who are at sea and those who are so joining to foreign lands
to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father
who dwelleth in the heavens. And I recommend to them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to him
for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience.
And to his tender care, all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife
in which we are unavoidably engaged and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty Hand to heal the wounds of the nation
and to restore it as soon as may be consistent with the divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union.
So to say Sarah Josepha Hale had some influence, would be pretty safe to say, wouldn't it?
And not only then, but her influence is actually carried forward into today. She was an activist. She was a poet. She was an author.
You're probably very familiar with her work because she's also the author of Mary Had a Little Lamb.
So while President Lincoln himself didn't write the proclamation, he, like the author who wrote it for him,
did recognize where God stood in the lives of everyone in our nation. We were at war with ourselves.
The country was being torn apart. And when I say it's being torn apart, like all the way down to the family level
because when we look at it, we look at the history, it literally says brother versus brother because people did pick differing sides and they went to battle.
And unfortunately, they were they were killing each other for these beliefs.
So healing is exactly what the nation needed. And Ms. Hale was 100 percent correct in that.
A hundred percent. Not only that, but God. God is exactly who we needed it from.
And we need it from him just the same just today.
You look at the division and the strife in our country on so many levels, so many levels, people have gone to war over lesser things.
So we're on a brink. We don't even realize it. So we need God's intervention and we need God's hand over our country.
But it comes from a point of us needing to come to him. You look at the contrast of the times.
Here's the president, the highest seat of our nation, calling on our nation to come to God.
Flash forward to today, and many of our leaders are doing everything they can to kick God out,
out of our courts, out of our houses, out of our schools.
Like, oh, you want to worship? That's fine. Go over there to your little house of worship. Keep it there.
How sad is that? When looking even at the documentation, looking even at our money, one nation under God.
But they still want to kick him out. How sad is that?
We need God back in all these places. It's all his. People need to remember that.
Thanksgiving, this is a time to come together and to give thanks. Yes, absolutely. But to whom?
It's a simple question that's never asked. Oh, go and give thanks. All your stuff. Cool.
But who are we giving thanks to? That's the part that's left out.
It's part of the problem with the holiday now. Like so many other holidays, it's become commercialized.
It's all about the money and the TV shows and the different programs.
When really it should be a time that we're recognizing God, we're recognizing the things that he's done in our lives,
the blessings that he's bestowed on us. And we're praising him for it.
The way we should be looking at this holiday is different than the way that it's currently being looked at.
You look at what's going to be coming up. We have Thanksgiving. What comes the day after Thanksgiving?
That's right. Black Friday. Sadly, it's a very appropriate name, isn't it? We go from a day of giving thanks.
Some people won't even be giving thanks that day. They'll be standing in line outside of stores.
Right? Looking to get that best deal. And then when they go inside, hooking and jabbing, fighting and biting with each other,
making hockey look like a childish wannabe combat sport. All to save a buck.
Where's the light of Christ in that? I don't see it, do you?
But we should. And unfortunately, it doesn't end there because then it carries over. Small business Saturday.
Oh, and the deal's just going to keep on rolling right into Cyber Monday.
And of course, the stores, they'll honor the stuff that's online. So you go in, hey, look, there's this.
So the rumble continues. Unfortunately, at that point, it hasn't died down.
So it's looking like just a couple days ago with the Tyson-Paul fight. Right? It's still ugly. It's still real ugly.
You know, the most important place any of us can be together should be in a house of worship. It should be.
Houses of worship. Not just here, but all of our houses of worship, the body of Christ, wherever it could come together,
should be coming together. But it won't. Even looking around now and seeing how few people are here.
This is the norm coming into this holiday. Everywhere. Every house of worship.
Even mega churches. Even the cameras don't show it. Right? Because there's still so many people there.
But even they suffer because even their numbers come down. People have other priorities. As sad as that is.
Some are virtually empty. I remember going to a church years ago. There were three of us.
The pastor, me and my buddy who had driven down from Camp Hansen. That was it.
Turned into more of a time of fellowship. We went to his house, had a Bible study. His wife cooked us up something to eat.
That was that. How sad is that?
Let's turn to Proverbs. Chapter three and maybe it'll go. There it goes. All right. Proverbs three, verse six.
The Bible says, in all your ways acknowledge him and he shall direct your paths.
Instead though, worshiping idols, sports and entertainment.
I said hooking and jabbing in the stores, yelling and screaming, berating each other, fighting over a parking spot.
Not exactly doing the things that we should be doing as Christians.
Because as Christians, it's not just saying, oh, I follow Christ. It's doing our best to live like Christ.
But people aren't. And it's when these things come before God, they're an issue. They become idols.
Fortunately, we see so much idol worship this time of year.
You know, if you look on even on social media right now, there's list upon list. Netflix and who and all these things.
Oh, look, here's your Christmas movies. Here's your Thanksgiving movies.
And they're capitalizing on it.
You know, people already getting excited. Oh, I got my Grinch outfit. I'm going to wear to work.
You know, all this time and energy for the things of the world. But people are drained when it comes time to spend time with the Lord, with the Father.
Not only that, even if they're not drained, that's it. Their priorities aren't in line.
So they want to do other things anyway. Like, hey, church will still be there. Maybe I'll see you after the New Year.
Or Christmas. Christmas is coming up. That's a good day. Right.
We go to First Thessalonians, Chapter five.
Verse eighteen. First Thessalonians, Chapter five.
Verse eighteen. And everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
I said those who claim to be as children can't even make time to spend with them.
As a country, as a society, as a culture, and it's not just us, but since we're looking at a U.S. holiday, let's stay focused on it.
We've become ungrateful. The holiday of gratitude and we are unthankful.
We sin regularly. We forget or even refuse to acknowledge God.
And in general, we're just very selfish. Very, very selfish.
It's all about me and not thee.
Now, guilty pleasure of mine for a long time has always been pro wrestling. I love pro wrestling.
I know it's fake. I know it's made up. It's just entertaining. Right.
It goes away and every once in a while it just comes right back. But needless to say, there's a wrestler. He still wrestles today.
He's been wrestling for decades. Always been a favorite of mine. His name is Chris Jericho.
This is a guy, he's constantly reinventing himself. He likes to create new characters every so often.
He starts to get bored so he just creates a whole new character, a whole new persona.
And for a while, the character that he had, it's one of his most popular ones.
He would carry around a clipboard. And if you said something or did something,
and it didn't matter if you're another wrestler, didn't matter if you were a commentator, you could be somebody in the crowd.
He'd be walking by the barrier and hear what they said. Oh, you're going on the list.
And he's writing your name down or comments or whatever it is that he's doing, but you're on the list all of a sudden.
So he had a list of names, a list of events, dates, times, whatever, you know, it was there.
And it didn't matter how minor it was. Sounds familiar though, doesn't it?
Because people are doing this right now. We are doing this in our lives right now.
We're making mental notes. Some people might be writing it down in a journal or a diary or whatever, but we're still making notes.
We're keeping tabs, right? Some of us are getting an argument with your significant other.
On this month, this year, this day, and this time down to the second, right? It happens.
We're always keeping notes though. All the ways that we've been wronged or perceive that we've been wronged.
Unfortunately, a lot of us are carrying grudges and we don't even realize it.
Most of the time we do realize it and just don't care, right? No, it's my job. I'm entitled to be mad.
If we go to Genesis, though, chapter 50, verse 20, Genesis 50, verse 20.
But as for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good in order to bring it about as it is this day to save many people alive.
So these lists have been made and they sound like a naughty list, right? They are. They're actually a tribute of sorts though.
You look at the list that you've made in your own life and you go back on it.
You actually think about it and you think about where you are now because of these different things, these different people, these different events and how they've impacted you and who you are.
And then realize that these hardships, these pains were all tools being used by the Lord to shape your character and to develop you into the person you are now.
And the things that are coming to you still are the things that are going to continue to shape you into the person you're going to be the person that the Lord wants you to be and needs you to be the person you were born to become.
All these hardships.
These moments of strife. They're clearing the path to Him.
They're bringing you to that narrow gate.
Whereas everybody else is over here on the highway to hell.
He's showing you where the exit is so you can get to him.
Romans chapter eight, verse 28.
Romans 8, 28.
The word says, and we know that all things work together for good to those who love God.
To those who are the called according to His purpose.
Since this is a holiday that goes all in on food, well let's take a look at that too, shall we?
Let's turn to Numbers chapter 11. I'm going to spend a little bit of time here for the rest of this message.
Numbers 11, we're going to start with verses one through nine.
The Bible says, Now, when the people complained it displeased the Lord, for the Lord heard it.
His anger was roused, so the fire of the Lord burned among them and consumed some in the outskirts of the camp.
Then the people cried out to Moses.
And when Moses prayed to the Lord, the fire was quenched.
So he called the name of the place Taberah, because the fire of the Lord had burned among them.
Now, the mixed multitude who were among them yielded to intense craving.
So the children of Israel also wept again and said, Who will give us meat to eat?
We remember the fish which we ate freely in Egypt, the cucumbers, the melons, the leeks, the onions, and the garlic.
But now our whole being is dried up.
There's nothing at all except this manna before our eyes.
Now the manna was like coriander seed and its color like the color of, I'm probably going to butch this word, delium.
I struggle with that one. Please look that one up.
The people went about and gathered it, ground it on millstones or beat it in the mortar, cooked it in pans and made cakes of it.
And its taste was like the taste of pastry prepared with oil.
And when the dew fell on the camp of the night, the manna fell on it.
So the people had been taken care of. God had provided.
Every night they'd go to bed. Every day they'd wake up and there's fresh manna.
I kind of, you know, day after day, I kind of had this picture in my head like Forrest Gump.
You know, manna sausage, manna cake, manna burgers, manna with green chili, manna with red chili, Christmas manna, you know, going on and on and on.
Manna this and manna that.
So they had plenty to eat.
You know, it is a very bountiful thing for them. But God had blessed them.
He provided as he promised he would.
Now the thing that the word does not say here is that we're going to get exactly what we want when we order it, right?
God, I want a green chili burger from Water Burger.
Maybe a chocolate milkshake. No, it doesn't say that.
God's not room service, right?
It's not Burger King. It's not your way right away.
It just says he will provide.
And what he provides will meet our needs.
And that's what he was doing here.
You know, just like, you know, when they when they first entered the wilderness to the promised land, you know, they were grateful for it at first.
Like, OK, cool.
You know, here they are.
And they're going through life day after day.
Eventually, they stopped seeing it this way.
I started to complain, right?
And I really just moaning and groaning all the way through.
It's a lot like our culture today, isn't it?
You know what? Why?
You know what? Wasn't it good enough?
No, it wasn't.
That's because they weren't seeing God in it.
They were taking it for granted.
They weren't continuing to pray to the father.
And instead, they started to develop a strong desire for things that they didn't have.
You know, it's.
They weren't they weren't praying at all.
They weren't looking at it from the perspective of, hey, I don't have to hunt.
I don't have to farm.
I don't have to gather.
It's just provided. I go to bed and it's provided for me.
It's just there.
How wonderful is that?
Who else was getting treated like this?
Nobody.
Absolutely nobody.
But we take the things that we're blessed with for granted.
We're constantly looking for the next best thing because we have that hole where the Holy Spirit should be.
But we don't let him in or we push him out.
Our heart gets hardened.
And we start to turn on each other.
Things aren't good enough at that point.
You know, it goes to show people don't appreciate what they don't earn.
It was given to him. They didn't work for it.
They didn't strive for it.
They didn't pay him for it.
They didn't pay for it.
It was just a gift.
So they took it for granted.
God took notice though.
Let's get forward a little bit to verses 18 through 20.
We're still in Numbers 11, but verses 18 through 20.
The Bible says, then you shall say to the people, consecrate yourselves tomorrow.
You shall eat meat for you have wept in the hearing of the Lord saying, who will give us meat?
For it was well with us in Egypt.
Therefore the Lord will give you meat and you shall eat.
And you shall eat not one day, not two days, nor five, nor ten, not even 20 days, but for a whole month until it comes out of your nostrils and becomes lonesome to you.
Because you have despised the Lord who is among you and have wept before him saying, why didn't we ever come out in Egypt?
You see what happened here is that people weren't looking to God.
They were sitting back moaning and groaning and they were looking to their leadership to take care of everything, right?
They're looking to Moses.
Hey, we got a problem.
Take care of it.
Let us know when you're done.
It's not the way it's supposed to work though.
Kind of like our society.
Hey, we got an issue.
You go fix it.
Tell us when you're done.
Don't care how you do it.
There's no accountability.
Just go do it.
Tell us when it's done.
Tell us when you've fixed our problem.
And then sit back and groan some more.
Sounds familiar, right?
What they should have been doing is praying.
What all of us should be doing today, pray.
Take it to the Father.
And then recognize he's given us work to do.
They had work to do, right?
They were traveling.
They were going through the land.
They had to get from here to there.
He's given us work to do too.
He's looking to meet us part way there.
But we have to start too.
It's not on him just to do it.
It's on us to actually talk to him.
That's why we need to have a relationship with him.
So even though getting up every day and getting this manna,
yeah, you know, certain things get old after a while.
Right?
Who wants to eat a salad every day for every meal?
Nobody.
Right?
You can love salad, but it gets tiresome at some point.
It doesn't matter what you do to it.
It's the same thing with manna.
But the thing is they didn't recognize it as, hey,
this is a temporary measure to take care of us until we get to the promised land.
There is an end date over here where we're no longer going to have to swallow down this manna.
We're going to be able to go out and farm and hunt and gather,
and we're going to have our own stuff, and it's going to be delicious.
Oh, I'm going to have a turducken, a pie-caken.
I'm going to put on my stretchy pants.
They didn't see it that way.
Instead, they felt that they were entitled to be given more.
And we see that.
We recognize it because our society, our nation's living out the same thing.
Other nations living out the same thing.
Gimmie, gimmie, gimmie.
It's not what I can do for you.
It's what you will do for me.
It's not the way it's supposed to work, though.
So we're going to skip forward a little bit more here to verses 33 and 34, still in Numbers 11,
verses 33 through 34.
The Bible says,
But while the meat was still between their teeth before it was chewed,
the wrath of the Lord was aroused against the people,
and the Lord struck the people with a very great plague.
So he called the name of that place Kibroth-Hatava,
because they were there, they buried the people who had yielded to craving.
So people, they had a hole in themselves, a space that needed filling,
and they didn't pray.
They didn't go to the Father about it.
And that's where they went wrong.
And they started falling into sin and distancing themselves from God.
They craved more and more stuff,
and then they'd compare it to the good old days,
something that we're really not supposed to do, but we do anyway, right?
We're all guilty of that.
They became greedy.
They became gluttonous.
They obsessed over every little thing that they didn't have.
Instead of being happy with what they did have,
instead of being happy with the good that's in their lives,
they were like the wrestling character in making a list of all the stuff that they disapproved of.
All the stuff that they felt was wronging them,
when really they should have been focused on the Father,
instead of the world around them and themselves.
They became selfish.
And what do we see today?
People doing the same thing, wallowing away in a bottle of booze,
doing drugs, popping pills, sleeping around, gambling.
A lot of things out there.
Trying to fill themselves with relationships and then get angry, getting depressed,
because all the stuff that they're trying just isn't working for them.
They don't recognize the fact that it's not going to.
It's never going to work for them, because that's not what's supposed to fill that hole.
The Holy Spirit is supposed to be in there.
The very thing that they're pushing away, the very person that they're pushing away.
Instead, you also get some of these others.
They go out and they try to find other ways.
There's adrenaline rushes, right?
Just the other day we saw some kid, he'd been stopped by the cops previously.
And what ended up happening?
He rear-ended a guy on a scooter and killed him, all because he wanted to gun it.
We've all been there, a kid with a new license and a new car, you know, hot rodding around.
There's a little bit of an adrenaline rush there.
You know, we get these kids out there and they're doing wheelies and stupid stuff on motorcycles.
Same thing, just for the same reason, the same cause.
I did a lot of stupid stuff on a bike when I was little.
My mom over here will attest to that.
I've got a few scars from it to show.
Luckily, nothing that stupid, but pretty stupid nonetheless.
You know, we've all done things, but we need to be mindful.
And when we know of God, that's when it becomes worse, because we're no longer following God.
We're following ourselves and our own lusts and our own desires.
You know, other people, they're like, oh, I tried the church thing. I tried.
I prayed. I did the things, but I couldn't hear God.
I never heard nothing from him. He didn't talk to me. He didn't say a word.
And they never stop to think about their own actions.
You know, it's always someone or something else that's delaying them from getting what's theirs.
Right. Oh, it's mine. It's mine. I'm waiting. It's mine.
Sometimes we have to go to God for things more than once.
Right. We're supposed to be persistent.
Answers are often there, but we don't hear them and we don't see them
because we're too busy looking around at other things and not listening.
We're trying to hear, but we're not actually listening.
When we go headstrong into jobs or relationships, things that we know weren't a good fit for us to begin with.
But I don't know what's there. This is the one.
We go right into it. And yet when we're there and things start falling apart
and things are breaking and they're not working out, then we get frustrated.
We get angry and we expect God to fix something that was never supposed to be for us in the first place.
It wasn't supposed to be for us, but we took it and we claimed it.
Oh, I claim this, the name of God. Why? God didn't want that for you.
Put it back. Put it back.
That's one of the places where the name and claim it doesn't work because they don't recognize that.
Because when it comes to our prayer and it comes to the blessings in our lives and everything,
it's all supposed to be done in God's will. God's will, not ours.
Even Jesus, when he taught us to pray and when he himself would talk to the Father,
what did he say? If it's in your will, even before going to the cross.
Because it's not about us. It's not about you. It's not about me.
It's about him and what he has done for us on the cross.
God needs to be first and foremost.
We turn to Philippians chapter four, verse six. Philippians four, verse six.
I know a lot of us probably already have this one memorized, right?
You'll notice that kind of bolded and highlighted a certain word up here.
Being anxious for nothing but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving,
let your request be known to God. Right there.
When trying to be puny with it, because we are looking at thanksgiving,
but because it's something that we need to have in our hearts.
When we read this, it means we need to go to God with everything in our lives.
The good and the bad. What we have, what we don't have, what we feel we need.
And if it's not in his will for us to have something, that he let that be known to us.
But not only that he makes it known to us, we actually pay attention to recognize when he's telling us this.
When he's putting the signs there and he's raising those red flags.
You know, when something's good, we need to go and we need to praise him.
When something's bad, we still need to go and we need to praise him.
You know, it's the season of thanksgiving.
It's not about, it's not supposed to be a greedy, selfish time.
This is a time where we all need to step back and refocus our lives.
Refocus our relationship with the Father.
We need to put the healing back into thanksgiving and talk to him about what we need healing for.
Because then we can go out with that grateful heart and let his light shine.
To share that testimony for others so that others can heal and come to know God.
So that they can have the Holy Spirit within them as well.
So that they understand why we need to be thankful for the cross and what Jesus did on it for us.
Not just know of it, but to understand it and how its implications actually impact them.
We need to take notice of these things and we need to give thanks.
To count the blessings of all the things that we've overcome.
Right? Thank you.
But take notice of the stuff that we have, the stuff that we've overcome, the obstacles that we've been walked through.
The things that have been moved out of the way for us.
Right? I mean it wasn't God, or I'm sorry, it wasn't Moses who parted the Red Sea.
It was God using the tools, or Moses was just using the tools that he put before him.
But that was God. And that's God in our lives as well with our obstacles and the things that slow us down.
We need to give thanks.
We need to be grateful again for the things that we have and not have to worry about the things that we don't.
We need to look back at people like Miss Hale and take to heart of who the Lamb is.
Jesus, right? It's not what she was singing about in the poem, but still it applies.
Who is the Lamb in our lives?
Everywhere that Mary went the Lamb was sure to go.
Everywhere you go. Everywhere you go.
Everywhere you go and you go and you go and you go and you go and I go.
The Lamb is sure to go.
Always. We're never alone.
There's no better person to go to for our own healing than the great physician.
Let us pray.
Lord, we thank you for reminding us to look outside of the small screen that's in front of us.
Take a more of that big picture.
We have so many things that we've taken for granted and we continue to take for granted.
And we need to recognize all of these things for the blessings that they are, for the gifts that they are from you.
We thank you that you sent your Son to teach us to take on our sin and to die for us that punishment that we truly deserved.
So that we could heal in our relationship with you through him.
We ask that you help us to use this holiday time as a time of healing and a fellowship.
Time to reconnect families.
Let families take care of one another as you've taken care of us.
So that all can see your work in each and every one of us.
And that it all glorifies you.
That it takes the spotlight off of us in this selfish time and the selfish hour and it glorifies you and points the way to you in your kingdom.
We love you and we thank you for the sacrifices that you've made and the pain that you've had trying to take care of us as our Father.
Thank you for all this and so much more that's to come.
And all of these people said, Amen and Amen.
Thank you all for joining us here today at Healing Scars with Pastor Burton.
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We look forward to hearing from you all.
God bless.