Good evening everybody. How are you all doing tonight?
Thankful. You know that is a great way to start the night.
Yes. If you're joining us here for the first time tonight or if you're watching online,
we're just so grateful that you're here to worship with us this evening here at Hosanna.
I am Pastor Nathan and obviously we are gathered here tonight on Thanksgiving Eve
to focus on thankfulness. Right? We're going to be talking about thankfulness tonight.
Really an opportunity to remember what Jesus did for us as we celebrate communion together.
You know tomorrow all of us are going to be gathering at various places with various family
to celebrate this holiday we call Thanksgiving. And it's just a really wonderful time of year
where we get to take a moment to stop and appreciate all that we have one day before we trample each other
at all the Black Friday sales to get the latest gadget or doodad.
And so you know some would say in our modern culture that we have a tendency towards narcissism.
And there's a lot that would support those thoughts. We have an epidemic of thanklessness
I believe in our world and our nation today. And knowing man's propensity towards a self-focused,
self-prioritized, self-aggrandized attitude, God gave us plenty of exhortation in His word
to counter those tendencies, to counter those parts of our fallen sinful nature
that would want to put the focus on us. If you study through scripture you'll find the phrase
give thanks 96 times from Genesis to Revelation. In all but two of those times, so 94 of those times
they say specifically give thanks to God is the phrase. And it'll say give thanks to the Lord,
give thanks to the Lord God, give thanks to Jesus, all the different iterations and names of God.
But in 94 times the phrase give thanks is attached to give thanks to God. And 56 of those times
are in the book of Psalms. So we also see phrases in scripture where we're taught to give thanks
in a personal attitude. We see people like David and others writing I will give thanks as they're
commanding their own soul to be thankful. We see phrases like enter His gates with thanksgiving
and so on and so on. Paul in his writings example the life of thanksgiving for us and we see that
in much of what Paul wrote in his letters in 1 Corinthians 1 4. He says I always thank my God for you
because of the grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus. In Ephesians chapter 1 verse 16 he says
I never stop giving thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers. Philippians 1 3 I give thanks
to my God for every remembrance of you. 2 Thessalonians 1 3 Paul says we ought to thank God
always for you brothers and sisters and rightly so since your faith is flourishing and the love
each one of you has for one another is increasing. And then 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 18
give thanks in everything for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Now why is there such an emphasis
in scripture on being thankful? Why is there such an emphasis on believers having a heart of thanksgiving?
Well I think the answer to that question is found in Romans chapter 1 verse 21. It says this
for though they knew God they did not glorify him as God or show gratitude. Instead their thinking
became worthless and their senseless hearts were darkened. Thanklessness is a sign of unbelief.
Thanklessness is a sign of unbelief. But on the opposite side of that coin thankfulness is a sign of faith.
It's a sign of trust. It's evidence that we see and believe in God's grace. It's evidence that we're feeling
the effects of God's grace. Thankfulness is a sign of our contented dependence on him.
Because thankfulness is that picture that no matter what we have, what we don't have, where we're at,
what we're going through, God is in control. And I know God will never give me more than I can handle.
And I know God's going to carry me through. And I know with the temptation he's always going to provide
the way of escape and so on and so on and so on. And God wants us to live in the peace of his care
and his provision and that's why he has so much to say in his word about his people being thankful.
And specifically who we're to be thankful to. So as we open this night I want you to think about
what do you have to be thankful for today? What do you have to be thankful for today?
Has God's great love and faithfulness been seen in your own life over the past year?
I'm sure many of us, right as I asked that question, the first thing we thought about was all the bad stuff.
Well this wasn't great and this wasn't fun and this wasn't good. And the devil is so quick to do that, right?
We start saying, wait, hold on, take a moment to thank God. What has God done for me?
And the devil wants to bring up all the things that you feel he hasn't done for you that you think you deserved.
How are we encouraged by God's word to express thankfulness and to build a habit of expressing our thankfulness
for all that he has done? That's what we're going to be looking at tonight in Psalm chapter 100,
which is a short Psalm I believe answers that exact question. But first we're going to start with worship.
Because in Psalm chapter 140 verse 13 it says this,
surely the righteous will praise your name and the upright will live in your presence.
That word praise there in the CSB is also translated in other translations to give thanks.
You see praising God is one of the most amazing ways that we give thanks to God.
The word there, and I don't have time to go into a full study, but the word there is a word
that means to throw out your hands in thankfulness. To throw out your arms,
open yourself up and say, God, I'm so grateful to who you are and what you've done in my life.
And that's what I encourage you to do as we open tonight with songs of worship and songs of praise.
Let's pray. Father, we love you so much. And God, we truly are so thankful for who you are and what you've done.
Lord, we your people are gathered here tonight, both here in our building and many of us offsite,
Lord, watching remotely God, to remember you. To think about what you did for us.
How you died for us. How you saved us and set us free from the power of sin.
You set us free from the penalty of sin. You set us free from the sin of selfishness, God.
You set us free from so much. And Lord, many of us here, despite the challenges we may be going through,
despite the challenges we have in our life, God, we all have more than others.
And we're thankful for that, God. We're thankful for your provision.
And I pray, God, we would be people, Lord, that would leave here tonight not just remembering what you did for us,
but reminded to hold on to that. Because your death on the cross, your blood shed for us to purchase our salvation
is a guarantee of our inheritance. A guarantee that we are your people.
And that as your children, Lord, we have a future to look forward to.
Where you will come for us and bring us to yourself.
And God, we so look forward to what you're going to do based on the great confidence of what you've already done.
So Lord, we want to praise your name. We want to worship you. We want to say thank you.
It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.
If you have a Bible or an app or whatnot, open it up to Psalm 100.
We are going to be looking at five habits of giving thanks taught to us here in Psalm 100.
And all of them are a great encouragement to us on how to be thankful.
Now there's five phrases here that I've coined. One is thanks praising.
The second one is thanks serving. The third one is thanks depending.
The fourth one is thanks giving. And the last one is thanks remembering.
Those are the five habits we're going to talk about.
So if you'll join me in Psalm 100 verse 1, we're going to see thanks praising.
It says, let the whole earth shout triumphantly to the Lord.
Let the whole earth shout triumphantly to the Lord.
Now obviously as every single living being that has ever lived and will live on this earth,
they are all God's creation created by God.
And so all the people of the world are called to worship and praise God because as the creator,
he is due all praise. He is the Almighty One, unlimited in every capacity.
And it's one of the best ways for us to show our thankfulness to God is simply to shout it out.
Is simply to shout it out. Now he uses this phrase there, shout triumphantly to the Lord.
In other translations, this shout triumphantly is make a joyful noise to the Lord.
And I've always loved that particular scripture because I have a very eclectic taste in music.
And much of what I like to listen to, some people have called noise.
And I think it's music and it's wonderful. And yeah, it can be loud and aggressive.
But as a fan of metalcore and hardcore music, I just love the Christian bands that are in that genre of music
because they sing such wonderful thanksgiving and praise to God in a manner in which I just love it.
And so I'm like, yeah, let's make a joyful noise. If you want to call it noise, we will do that.
But the idea of this phrase is to utter a sudden loud cry.
It's to utter a sudden loud cry or a rejoicing or a shout of victory.
It's that idea that I think we've all seen it maybe in movies or sports.
You know, you're outside a stadium and then suddenly you hear this roar of celebration come from the stadium, right?
You guys have all heard it. You've either heard it physically or seen it in the movies or something.
And that's what happens. Something good happens. The team scores. The home run is hit, whatever it may be.
And everybody just shouts triumphantly in victory.
Now, you know, when we hear something like that, that loud shout of triumph, do you hear that and you go, oh, no, something bad must have happened.
No, it's very evident from hearing this shout of triumph that something good has taken place, right?
Something to celebrate has happened. And really, that's how we should respond to God's faithfulness, to God's blessings, to God's promises.
That's how we should respond. You know, the idea here of this, let the whole earth shout triumphantly to the Lord,
is the idea where you first sit down and you think about all the ways that God has blessed you.
And we can all do that and we can all come up with a long list.
Because although some of us have difficulties in life, it's not as bad as some other people.
It's not as bad as other situations. And I don't mean to diminish your own situation.
But when you stop for a second, you say, God, what do I have to be thankful for? We all have stuff to be thankful for.
We all have reason to thank God. And so then you put that stuff into words, what God has done,
and you put what he's stirring in your heart and you shout it out. You shout it out. You declare it loudly.
That's what we do in our praise and worship. That's why we open our services with praise and worship.
And we close our services with praise and worship. Because we want to bookend the study of God's word with just praise,
just throwing out our arms and saying, God, thank you for who you are and what you've done.
Thank you for the word we've received. Thank you for the word you're about to give us. We want to praise him.
And you know, this triumphant shouting to the Lord, incidentally, isn't something you have to wait to come to church to do.
You can do it wherever. You can do it in your car. People might look at you weird, but so what? You can do it at home.
You know, you can praise God with this triumphant shout wherever you are.
And it's something that's meant to be an expression of our life on a regular basis, not just on Sunday, not just at church,
not just at a worship service, but all the time. And I thank God he's given us radios in our cars and things like Spotify
and Bluetooth and earbuds and all these ways we could get the music to us so that we could sing along and praise God.
But sometimes you don't even need the music. Have you ever experienced that?
Where there's just kind of this, some might call it a primal, just, ah, I'm so excited! Because God is doing something in your life.
Well, that's the place God intends us to be. And sometimes we have to stop and go, what has God done in my life?
What is he doing in my life? What am I looking forward to?
That our hearts would be brought to that place of shouting triumphantly and giving him the praise that he is doing.
So we praise the Lord triumphantly, mainly because, well, he's won a victory for us, hasn't he?
He won a victory for us that we could never win on our own. He saved us from the penalty of sin.
He saved us from the judgment to come for breaking God's law. And that's something to celebrate.
That's something to shout for and that's something to remember when the devil's whispering into our ears,
oh, your life is terrible. God is letting you down. God is turning his back on you.
God's never going to answer your prayers. God's never going to listen to you.
Hold up. I'm saved. I'm saved and that is worth praising God for.
So verse two, it says, serve the Lord with gladness and come before him with joyful songs.
So this is the thanks serving, right? Another way we show our thanks to God for what he's done in our life is by serving him.
By serving him. Other translations, which is interesting, will translate the word serve as worship.
So if you read this in another translation, it might say, worship the Lord with gladness.
You go, well, how is the same Hebrew word translated serve and translated worship?
Well, because the root word that's underneath this means to do what another requires of you. To obey.
It's the concept of being like a bond slave.
Like you did the person who deserves my effort and my duties is requiring something of me and I'm going to do that.
So this word that is translated serve is also translated worship because worship and serving are hand in hand.
And serving is worship. It means more than just saying how much we are thankful for.
It's more than just vocalizing thanks to God. The idea is, is we submit ourselves to him as our king.
That we recognize that he's the king of kings and lord of lords and we're his subjects and we yield our lives to him.
And in yielding our lives to him that says, God, what do you want me to do as your subject?
And he says, go here and we're to go there and do this and we're to do that and plug in here and we're to plug in there and give this and we're to give that.
That's the idea of this serving the lord here. It's living, acting, behaving, doing.
Exampling in the way you live your thankfulness for what he has done.
And so what does that tell us in the big picture?
Well, when we obey God, when we do what he's telling us to do, when we live how he's telling us to live, when we serve in the way he's calling us to serve, it's worship.
It's praise. It's giving thanks to God.
That's what obedience is and obedience to the lord is instantly another great act of worship.
Too many will come to church sometimes and they'll sing the songs about how great God is and they'll sing along and lift up these words about how he's our king and how he's our lord.
And then they'll walk right out of the service and go back to living disobedient lives.
They'll go back to serving themselves and say, no, God, I'm not going to do what you want.
I'm not going to get involved there and I'm not going to give here and I'm not going to do this.
I'm not going to do that. And then they come back on Sunday and they're like, oh, God, you're God.
I'm going to do everything you want. And then they just go through the same cycle.
And when we do that, when we end up having this hypocritical life, we end up serving God out of fear instead of gladness.
Right. It says serve the Lord with gladness.
Serve the Lord with gladness. But when we're living in disobedience, we end up serving out of fear.
We end up with some idea that, gosh, if I don't do these things, God is going to smite me.
I did five bad deeds this week. I have to serve in five capacities to make that make up the difference.
You know, I said three bad things today. I got to hand out three tracks and then we'll balance the scales and God will be pleased with me.
And that's simply not true. That fear, that fearful living leads to guilt.
And the Bible tells us guilt leads to condemnation and condemnation is what results in a joyless faith.
Right. Serve the Lord with gladness. Come before him with joyful songs.
But when we're afraid of what God's going to do because we're living in disobedience and we're not serving,
obeying the way he calls us to in our lives, we end up in this fearful state, this miserable state without joy.
And really the idea here is when you fully grasp what he has done for you,
when you think about what he has done for you and dwell on those things and think about,
gosh, God has blessed me in this way or that way and come to that place of saying,
I have something to joyfully sing about.
When you think about just the wonderful, amazing things he's done, starting with your salvation,
the fact that he died in your place for your wrongdoing while you were still his enemy, the Bible says.
Like he didn't wait for you to say, hey, can we be friends? Please die for me.
No, no. It's like while you were still fighting against him, while you were still raging against him,
while we were still in rebellion against him, the Bible says that's when he died for us.
He paid our price. And when we get all that, we receive the forgiveness that he offers us,
wow, you can't help but to find joy in submitting your life to him.
You can't help but to find joy in submitting to him in his ways because then it's not about trying to earn his favor.
It's not about trying to make sure he's not mad at you.
It's knowing that you already have his favor and you simply want to show gratitude to him for it.
And that's the serving with gladness.
And it's one of the ways we show God our thanks.
Psalm chapter 100 verse 3, we get the thanks depending.
He says, acknowledge that the Lord is God.
He made us and we are his, his people, the sheep of his pasture.
That word acknowledge there, it means to know, to understand, to realize.
The official definition in the biblical dictionary says a mental awareness of something,
usually by means of personal experience.
Or to put it in other ways, stop living as if you don't know that he is who he says he is.
Does that make sense?
When he says acknowledge that the Lord is God, he's saying, Christian, stop living your life as if you don't know he's God Almighty.
Stop living your life as if you know he doesn't see everything you're doing.
Stop living your life in disobedience.
Stop, stop it.
When we're thankless, we worry.
We get anxious.
We stress out about things and we find ourselves thinking, well, we know better for our own lives.
We know better than God what we need.
We don't need to trust him.
We find ourselves thinking that we can take better care of ourselves than God can.
This is what thanklessness leads to.
This fear, this worry, this not acknowledging, it's not saying, God, you're God Almighty.
Your word said, look at the Louise of the field.
Don't you think I'm going to take care of you more than I take care of them?
And we start going, maybe not.
The lilies are beautiful.
My clothes are pretty raggedy.
I'm praying to just, you know, my car won't start.
I don't even have a car and I don't know what I'm going to do.
And the devil starts, right, he doesn't care about you.
He's not really God.
He can't answer your prayers.
And it leads to a thanklessness that leads to this anxiety and it leads to the sour, joyless, distrustful, weak faith walk.
And what he's saying here is stop that.
Stop.
Think.
He's God.
He is God.
We talked about on Sunday where he asked Abraham's wife, Sarah, is anything too hard for the Lord?
And he asked her that question rhetorically, right?
Of course not.
He's God.
But sometimes God will put things in front of us, challenges that he's expecting us to walk through because he wants us to grow and mature and all this different stuff.
And we start thinking God's losing his mind.
He doesn't know what he's doing.
And it's hard to be thankful when we think God is doing a poor job and messing it all up.
And so this thanks depending is this idea of that I know you're God.
And then he says, he made us and we are his, his people.
The idea here is dwell on and think about like we we show appreciation and thanks to God when we when we actively and intentionally depend on him.
That shows God honor.
God loves that.
The worst thing we could do in situations is God, I don't need you.
The worst thing we could do is saying, God, I don't have to depend on you.
I don't I don't I don't need to pray.
But God is honored and we express our gratitude to him when we depend on him for life, for the power to live, for guidance, for wisdom, for everything.
And then he closes this one.
He goes, acknowledge that the Lord is God.
He made us.
He made you.
Don't you think he knows what you need?
We're his people.
He purchased us with his blood.
But then it adds this wonderfully beautiful thing where the sheep of his pasture.
Let's be honest.
And I've said this many times, you know, like sheep, we can all be pretty dumb at times.
I don't know if you've seen that video.
It's not actually new, but it was going around tick tock and everything for a while.
There's a sheep that fell into a crevice.
And these guys were trying to rescue it out of the crevice and they pulled it out of the crevice and it went, yeah, bounce bounce right back into the crevice.
I was like, wow, that's a picture of us.
We're like, God, help me.
And he's like, all right, let me pull you out.
We're like, thanks. Head first right back into the stuff.
I just laughed at that video because I'm like, it was such a great picture.
I mean, we we are the farthest thing from God Almighty.
The all knowing God.
And yet we often try to be the God of our own lives.
We try and live and make decisions without his counsel.
We don't go to his word.
We don't pray.
We don't do it as word says and say, hey, look, go talk to a lot of people.
There's safety in a multitude of counselors.
We ignore all of that and then we wonder why we end up lost.
We wonder why we're back in the same ditch.
He just pulled us out of.
But if we would just stay close to the shepherd, he will keep us safe.
If we stay close to our shepherd, he will keep us safe.
And so acknowledge him as your shepherd.
Acknowledge him.
Make this this mental assent, this decision that he is my shepherd.
And you make this mental set because I've experienced it.
It's personal experience.
He's he's taking care of me.
He's provided for me.
Sure. Right.
This moment, I might not be in a situation that is my ideal situation, but but God is taking care of me, is taking care of me.
Acknowledge him.
Acknowledge that he is God.
Acknowledge that you are not God.
Acknowledge that he is Lord and knows all and that we know nothing.
Let him lead and guide.
Follow him.
Lean on him.
Depend on him.
And in doing so, show him thanks and gratitude for who he is.
Verse four, thanksgiving.
Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.
Give thanks to him and bless his name.
Now, this one is kind of obvious, but but we show God thanks in our expression of gratitude, right?
That expression sometimes is this triumphant shout as we talked about this praise, this this throwing up our arms, this giving of everything to him.
We show him thanks and our serving and our dependence on him.
But just in our daily moment by moment expression of gratitude, when something happens in your life and you just have a habit of going, thanks God.
Like when's the last time you got the close parking spot at summer you went and you went, wow, Lord, thanks for that.
Or fill in the blank of whatever small little thing it could be.
It's just neat when God does cool stuff.
And when it says enter his gates with thanksgiving and his court was praised, you know, the picture here, you know, God, God invites each one of his kids into his presence.
That's the invitation.
He invites us into his presence and he showers us with blessings.
And yes, he also disciplines us when we're being dom and and and and challenges us to grow.
But all of that is a part of his blessing.
And yet, despite the fact that he invites us into his presence and blesses us and we get to call him dad and and and we could trust him, the all knowing, almighty creator, despite all that, we have a knack for finding the one tiniest thing in life to complain about.
Instead of drawing near to him, sometimes we struggle, right?
Instead of appreciating the love and the mercy that is shown us, sometimes we we take it for granted.
We forget about it or or we hold him at arm's length.
And find ourselves struggling with being ungrateful about stuff.
You know, sometimes in the face of the miracles that God has done in our lives and the blessing he is in our lives, we will just find a way to be ungrateful.
Some of us are going to sit at a table or many tables tomorrow that are loaded with food.
And we're going to look at the food and the piles and piles of stuff and maybe a family has brought it.
We're going to complain that the brand of pumpkin pie isn't the kind we like.
And I think sometimes God will be like, Are you serious?
All that I've given you. And it's like, well, eh, eh, eh.
Well, there's others in the world today, some even in our church, in our communities that are living on the streets.
Simply trying to find a way to stay out of the bad weather and to keep warm, let alone fight about what brand of pumpkin pie they get to eat.
And that brings us to that idea that I mentioned earlier, all of us have more than someone else.
And so just think about that when you're tempted to to be ungrateful and to rail against God for what you don't have.
You know, if you don't have something, your father in heaven has deemed in his own infinite wisdom that it's not good for you right now.
You don't need it.
I'm talking about things and stuff.
It gets a little more complicated when we get into relationships and stuff and we might have a spouse or somebody and we're like, God, I'm praying for this.
These things that I know you want me to pray about.
And yet I'm not seeing it happen in my wife or my husband or in and I'm not going to say God's like, I don't want them to be healed.
The idea there is that God is working on them and God is doing a work in their life.
And we're to be patient as we're asking and waiting for God to come through on his prayers.
But we're never to be given into the temptation of, well, God, you don't care and find ourselves ungrateful.
You know, I don't like my spouse.
There are some people in this world dying, dying to get married.
And they, for whatever reason, aren't.
And you might find yourself going, oh, wow, at least I have a spouse.
Maybe it's kids.
There are couples in this world that would give anything to have children.
And yet someone might be like, I hate my kids.
They're just such a nuisance.
That couple would be like, I would give everything to have a bad kid because I can't even have any.
And it's this perspective shift that that thankfulness helps us get into.
God, what have you done for me?
What have you given me despite the challenges?
Lord, I want to be thankful.
I want to be grateful.
And I want to be in that place where instead of having the thanklessness that is unbelief, I want to have the thankfulness that is belief.
God, I trust you.
I trust you with the future.
I trust you with the outcome.
I trust you with how you're going to figure this out.
I trust you with the situation that I can't do anything about.
I depend on you, it says.
And this is thanksgiving.
Verse five, we get to thanks remembering.
For the Lord is good and his faithfulness and his faithful love endures forever.
His faithfulness through all generations.
So after thanks praising and thanks serving and thanks depending and thanksgiving, we come to thanks remembering.
Now, what is it that motivated the psalmist here to in verse four?
Was it verse four?
Yeah, it was verse four.
What was it that motivated him to enter into the gates with thanksgiving and praise?
It was God's character, it says here.
It was God's character in God's conduct, his love and faithfulness through the years.
That's what encouraged him to enter into those gates with thanksgiving and just want to praise God.
I want to show God gratitude because he's already done so much.
Then the devil wants us to get hung up on what he hasn't done yet and stop there.
Well, he hasn't done this yet, therefore he doesn't deserve your praise.
And that's not what thanksgiving is.
Thanksgiving is about remembering what he has done.
Thankfulness involves a lot of remembering, a lot of remembering.
And as I was studying for this and getting ready for thanksgiving service, I learned something that I didn't know before.
Every year at Passover, Jewish people all over the world, they are part of the Passover service as they stop to consider their blessings.
And what they do in this moment is they run through the list of all that God has done in their history, one thing after the other.
And after each one, they have a word that they then sing out in response.
And this word is dayenu.
All right, everybody say that after me, dayenu.
Okay, remember that.
Okay, hold on to that.
What that word means in Hebrew is it would have been enough.
It would have been enough.
And so this is kind of how they go through this.
They said they do this kind of like in a song, sing songy kind of way.
At least that's my understanding of it.
And they say, if he had brought us out of Egypt but had not carried out judgments against them, dayenu.
It would have been enough.
If he had carried out judgments against Egypt and not against their idols and didn't destroy their gods, dayenu.
It would have been enough.
If he had destroyed their idols and their gods but he had not smitten their firstborn, dayenu.
Dayenu.
It would have been enough.
And on and on all the way through the Red Sea and the wilderness and the manna and the giving of the law,
all the way to getting into the promised land, one thing after the other.
If he did this and not the next thing, it would have been enough.
But he did do the next thing.
Well, if he did that and not the thing after that, it would have been enough.
But he did do the thing after that.
That is this idea.
And essentially they're singing after every single refrain in this song.
That if whatever we just sang was all God ever did for us,
it alone would have been enough reason to praise him and to give him thanks forever.
And as Christians, we should be able to say, with all joy in our heart,
with a triumphant shout, that if God just sent his son to die for me,
and did nothing else, dayenu, it would have been enough reason for me to praise him
and to give him thanks forever.
But of course, God didn't stop there.
He does so much more and continues to do me more.
Salvation was just the first step.
Right?
Romans 8.32 says, He did not even spare His own son, but gave him up for us all.
How will He not also with him grant us everything?
Now, I'm not up here trying to establish any type of prosperity heresy.
God knows what we need and He gives us what we need and He takes care of us.
And of course, we have a future hope of heaven, which is just going to be paradise.
But tonight I want to do something similar to what the Jewish people do in the Passover.
I want to go through a list of promises that God has made to us, His children.
And I want us together after each one to say, dayenu, it would have been enough.
Thank you, Jesus.
Okay?
Let's practice.
Dayenu, it would have been enough.
Thank you, Jesus.
All right.
John 3.16.
For God so loved the world in this way, He gave His one and only Son
so that everyone who believes in Him would not perish but have eternal life.
Dayenu, it would have been enough.
Thank you, Jesus.
Ephesians 2.8.
For you are saved by grace through faith, and this is not from yourselves.
It is God's gift.
Dayenu, it would have been enough.
Thank you, Jesus.
1 John 1.9.
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins
and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
Dayenu, it would have been enough.
Thank you, Jesus.
Psalm 103.12.
As far as the east is from the west, so far He has removed our transgressions from us.
Dayenu, it would have been enough.
Thank you, Jesus.
Ephesians 2.13.
But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away have been brought near by the blood of Christ.
Dayenu, it would have been enough.
Thank you, Jesus.
Psalm 32.8.
I will instruct you and show you the way to go.
With my eye on you, I will give counsel.
Dayenu, it would have been enough.
Thank you, Jesus.
John 16.13.
When the Spirit of truth comes, and He did, He will guide you into all truth.
Dayenu, it would have been enough.
Thank you, Jesus.
Psalm 12.5.
I will provide safety for the one who longs for it.
Dayenu, it would have been enough.
Thank you, Jesus.
Psalm 50.15.
Call on me in a day of trouble.
I will rescue you, and you will honor me.
Dayenu, it would have been enough.
Thank you, Jesus.
Psalm 89.34.
I will not violate my covenant or change what my lips have said.
Dayenu, it would have been enough.
Thank you, Jesus.
Malachi 3.10.
Bring the full tenth into the storehouse so that there may be food in my house.
Test me in this way, says the Lord of armies.
See if I will not open the floodgates of heaven and pour out a blessing for you without measure.
Dayenu, it would have been enough.
Thank you, Jesus.
Matthew 10.32.
Therefore, everyone who would acknowledge me before others, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven.
Dayenu, it would have been enough.
Thank you, Jesus.
Matthew 11.28.
Come to me, all of you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.
Dayenu, it would have been enough.
Thank you, Jesus.
Mark 1.17.
Follow me, Jesus told them, and I will make you fishers of men.
Dayenu, it would have been enough.
Thank you, Jesus.
John 6.37.
Everyone the Father gives me will come to me, and the one who comes to me I will never cast out.
Dayenu, it would have been enough.
Thank you, Jesus.
John 14.13.
Whatever you ask in my name, I will do it so that the Father may be glorified in the Son.
Dayenu, it would have been enough.
Thank you, Jesus.
2 Thessalonians 3.3. But the Lord is faithful, and He will strengthen you and guard you from the evil one.
Dayenu, it would have been enough.
Thank you, Jesus.
1 Corinthians 10.13.
No temptation has come upon you except what is common to humanity, but God is faithful.
He will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation,
He will also provide the way out so that you may be able to bear it.
Dayenu, it would have been enough.
Thank you, Jesus.
And the last one, Revelation 2.7.
Let anyone who has ears to hear listen to what the Spirit says to the churches.
To the one who conquers, I will give the right to eat from the tree of life, which is in the paradise of God.
Dayenu, it would have been enough.
Thank you, Jesus.
Some estimates say that there's some 33 to 35 hundred direct promises in the Scriptures.
Some argue that number and say there's infinitely more.
It depends on how you read some of them, but all of God's Word is a promise of God, is a covenant, is a vow, is whatever you want to call it.
It's a promise made to us about who He is, who we are, how He's going to save us, and the salvation that He's going to give us, what that means for our future.
We can trust in all of it.
In our last message, in Sunday, Revelation 19, we looked at the marriage feast of the Lamb, and we saw how God is praised in heaven, right, with this loud, expressive, passionate praise for our salvation and for His judgment,
and ultimately for the eternal communion, the union that He's going to have with us forever after that, at that marriage feast and after.
You know, I've said this before, and I'll say it again. If God never did anything past saving your soul, you still owe Him thanks for eternity.
But He has done, is doing, and will do so much more.
And we're to give Him thanks for all of it.
But that feast, that marriage feast we looked at celebrating the full consummation of our union and our communion with Him, that's in the future.
That's to come. We're not there yet.
And so what I want to do tonight before we all go to go to sleep and then go to celebrate our Thanksgiving feasts tomorrow, if we're doing so, we're going to end tonight looking forward to that marriage feast and that celebration by looking back at what He did for us on the cross.
That we're going to take the step to exercise thanks remembering that the Lord our God is good and His faithful love endures forever, His faithfulness through all generations.
And we're going to remember that through communion.
You know, this is what we do in celebrating communion together as God's people.
We remember the faithful love of God that went to the cross in our place.
We remember Jesus who shed His blood to purchase our salvation.
It's the most important thing that has happened for any of us, and it's something we could never stop expressing our gratitude and our thankfulness for through our praise, through our dependence, through our service, through our just expressions of gratitude, and through remembering what He has done.
And maybe sometimes we might find ourselves forgetting the significance of communion or maybe communion just becomes something routine that we go through, you know, and I think the why behind why we do things is what keeps us in a place of constant thankfulness, right?
When we think of why we do communion, when we stay in that place where our worship and our praise, or when we remember the why, when the focus, we stay in that place where our worship and our praise is.
That place where our worship and our praise remain vibrant and fresh and joyful.
That place where our serving remains motivated by gladness and joy, where our dependence on God just flourishes and grows, where our expressing of gratitude is consistent, and ultimately where our memory of what God has done for us impacts us deeply every moment of every day.
And so the elements of communion, you guys are familiar with them if you've been here, there's the juice and the cracker, right? And there's a whole story in scripture of what Jesus taught about that, but they mean nothing without the why behind them.
It's a symbolism that we partake of, that we participate in with communion. And so I want to read to you out of Luke 22, starting in verse 14, it says,
When the hour came, he reclined at the table and the apostles with him. And then he said to them, I have fervently desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer. For I tell you, I will not eat it again until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.
Then he took a cup and after giving thanks, he said, Take this and share it amongst yourselves. For I tell you, from now on, I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.
And he took the bread, gave thanks, broke it and gave it to them and said, This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.
And the same way he also took the cup after supper and said, This cup is the new covenant in my blood which is poured out for you.
This Passover meal that they were celebrating here was a Passover meal that had originated all the way back with Moses and the Israelites back in Egypt.
The stories back there is during the first Passover, they were instructed to slaughter a lamb and they were to take the blood of this lamb and they were to put it on the doorposts of the house.
And I just see the sign of the cross in that. And so they would slaughter this innocent lamb that shed its blood to cover them from what was to come because the angel of death was going to come through Egypt and it was going to pass over.
And any house that wasn't covered by the blood, the firstborn in that house would perish.
And that night, the angel of death did indeed come and every firstborn child was killed even of the livestock in every household that wasn't covered by the blood.
And this incidentally was the final straw that that allowed or convinced Pharaoh to finally let Israel leave Egypt.
And it's an interesting picture because symbolically Egypt is a picture of the world, the fallen world we are in.
And it wants to keep us here and it doesn't want to let us go and it wants to enslave us and bind us.
And what sets us free from the control, what sets us free from the temptation, what sets us free from the slavery to sin and death that the world is, it's the blood of Jesus Christ.
It's the blood of the lamb. And so that lamb was slaughtered for each household, that lamb that was slaughtered whose blood was put on the doorpost.
It was a foreshadow of what Jesus was going to do for all of mankind on the cross.
And so here in Luke we see the disciples here celebrating this Passover together and Jesus was about to become the lamb who was be slaughtered to save all people from their sin.
And Jesus gives thanks for it. Jesus gave thanks. Knowing what he was about to go through, he still gave thanks. Why?
Because a restored relationship between him and you was what was before him. And the Bible says that it was the joy that was set before him.
He endured the cross and despised the shame. Communion is so much more than just some religious celebration.
When he said, do this in remembrance of me, that's not just some slogan or simply a command like, okay, don't forget about Jesus.
It's the Lord Jesus himself reminding us that when we take communion, we're acknowledging and remembering that we are no longer slaves to sin and death,
that we have been set free forever, saved and forgiven because of his sacrifice and dayenu. If that was all he ever did for us, it would have been enough.
It would have been enough. Thank you, Jesus.
All of you in the room should have gotten one of these cups as you came in. These are communion cups.
If you're at home, hopefully you got your communion emblems already, but if you haven't, this would be a good time to get them.
But if you're in the room with us, this cup, I just want to give you some quick instructions in case you've never seen it before.
There's these tabs, these plastic tabs on the front, and there's a very thin tab and a thicker tab underneath it.
If you will pull back the very thin tab, what that'll do is reveal the cracker that's here as a part of the communion cup.
When Jesus was talking to his disciples, it says he took the bread and he gave thanks, and he broke it and he gave it to them.
He said, this is my body, which is given for you.
In communion, we use bread that has no leaven in it because leaven puffs up.
That's the stuff that makes the bread big and fluffy.
Biblically, though, leaven represents sin. That which puffs us up makes us proud, makes us think we don't need God, makes us thankless people.
And so in the communion here, it comes with bread that has no leaven in it. It's not puffed up because Jesus had no sin in his life.
He was without sin, without blemish, perfect.
And yet, as his body was brutalized and just destroyed in the scourging and the torture and the whipping and then being nailed to the cross,
he was going there as a perfect lamb to be the atonement for our sin.
But he was perfect. He was without sin.
How can we not say thanks for that?
Where when we found ourselves in a position and we all find ourselves in a position before Almighty God,
and God goes, you've broken my law. I'm just. I'm a God of justice.
I have justice has to be meted out.
And then we say, well, well, I did a good thing last week.
And the Bible says it doesn't matter how many good things you do.
Well, God, I only broke one law.
And the Bible said, if you've broken one, you're guilty breaking all of them.
And you go, well, fine. What's the penalty?
The wages of sin is death.
And it's not just physical death. It's an eternal death, internal separation from God.
And Jesus said, you know what? I love you so much that I'll come and pay that price.
I'll die on the cross.
I never did anything wrong, but I'll die on the cross for you.
And that's what Jesus was saying when he said, this is my body given for you.
Do this in remembrance of me.
And as we take that moment to to exercise a thanks remembering,
we remember that the Lord our God, he is good and his faithful love endures forever.
And those of you that have put your faith in Jesus Christ, your price has been paid.
The penalty is gone.
There are no crimes on your ledger.
When when when God Almighty looks at you, he looks into your life.
He sees no spot, no blemish.
And he says there's nothing to to judge.
Thank you, God. Let's pray. Father.
Lord. You gave your body for us.
Lord, you willingly went to the cross.
You submitted yourself to the plan of the father, Lord.
You showed your thanks to the father by by being obedient to him in your service.
You taught us how to be thankful, Lord, that even in the moment where where you were about to go and suffer such great horror.
You gave thanks.
You gave thanks because even in a moment, Lord, where in the garden, you would say, if there's any other way, God, please take this cup from me.
But nonetheless, not my will, your will be done.
Lord, you set the example for us to trust you.
To show our thanks and our dependence upon you for all things.
Because, God, although we know we are sinners through our faith in you and what you did on the cross, Lord, we know that our price has been paid.
And we're so grateful.
And, Lord, we live today.
We're not trying to earn your favor because you gave it to us in Jesus Christ.
But, Lord, to show gratitude for the love you have bestowed upon us.
We remember and we say thank you.
Let us partake together.
If you're in the room with us, the thicker plastic tab on the cup, if you just kind of very carefully pull that back, it will expose the juice in the cup here.
As we read just moments ago in Luke 22, it says in the same way he also took the cup after supper.
And he said, this cup is the new covenant in my blood.
You see, going all the way back to Passover where that lamb was slaughtered and the blood was put on the doorpost, it was part of setting up a whole system.
That after they got out of Egypt, they were in the wilderness and they built the tabernacle.
And in that tabernacle was this place where the priests would go and bring the offering of the people to God.
And inside that Holy of Holies, there was this place called the mercy seat where inside this ark of the covenant was the testimony against God's people, right?
The broken Ten Commandments, it was in there.
Rod's butted staff, it was in there because they say, we don't like the leadership you're giving us, God.
The manna that God provided in the wilderness, it was in there and it was a testimony that, man, you guys just grumble and complain against God constantly.
But covering all of that was this lid called the mercy seat.
And once a year as this high priest would go into this room, he would take the blood of the offering and it had to be spotless, pure animals, right?
These lambs that had no blemish, it had to represent all that Jesus would be.
And then he would go in and he would sprinkle that blood on the mercy seat, signifying that because of that shed blood, God's mercy covered all those sins.
But that was the old covenant. They were just covered.
They weren't washed away.
Their hearts weren't changed permanently.
They were just temporarily like, okay, that stuff you did, it's good.
But they had to come back and they had to keep coming back year after year after year after year in fulfillment of the covenant to remind themselves constantly, we're broken people with wicked hearts and God, please forgive us.
But Jesus came and he said, I'm going to shed my blood and it's going to be a once and for all sacrifice.
That it's not just going to cover your sin, it's going to wash you clean of sin.
Now, I will admit, I don't fully comprehend what that means here in this life because I know me.
And if we're all honest, we're like, I still got a little sin in there.
But the picture is as we are covered in the blood of Christ and God looks at our life from the moment we put our faith and our trust in Jesus Christ, God says, what sin?
I don't see any sin.
I see perfection.
I see spotlessness.
I see blamelessness.
I see everything that my son was because he imputed his righteousness to us.
We don't deserve that.
How could we not thank God every day for the standing we have before him after salvation because of what Jesus did?
When that blood flowed, we were washed clean forever.
And knowing he was going to shed his blood, it tells us the same thing.
He gave thanks.
He gave thanks because he got to do that for you and me.
Wow.
And if he never did anything else, we owe him everything.
But praise be to God, hallelujah, he does a whole lot more.
He does a whole lot more.
And we're called to be people who just say, thank you.
Thank you, God.
And I'm going to express that thanks in my praise.
And I'm going to express that thanks in my service.
And I'm going to express that thanks in my dependence.
And I'm going to express my thanks in even the big things and the little things.
And I'm going to express that praise by never forgetting what you have done for me.
Let's pray.
Father, Lord, we so don't deserve what you've done for us, God.
We are so grateful for it.
You shed your blood.
You paid the price for our sins, Lord, to set us free from the penalty of sin.
You shed your blood and gave yourself on the cross to set us free from the power of sin.
And God, we look forward to the day when we will be free from the very presence of sin.
But Lord, today, here in this life where we still wrestle with what Paul wrestled with,
you know, the good I want to do I don't do and the bad I don't want to do,
I find myself doing that and my spirit is alive but my flesh is still here, what's going on?
And Lord, Paul, the apostle, one of the greatest minds of all time, his answer was,
thank God for Jesus Christ.
And so, Lord, we say thank you and remember that your blood washed us clean.
And Lord, any time the enemy comes speaking in our minds and tries to remind us that we're sinners
and that we don't deserve anything and that you're not going to listen to us and that you don't love us,
God, may we remember what you did.
Rebuke the devil.
Get up and move forward in our walk with you in love and in power and in joy.
May we be people who regularly and continually enter into your gates with thanksgiving,
bringing songs of joy for who you are and what you've done for us.
And God, we're so grateful that although you paying the penalty for our sins was enough,
you do so much more.
Thank you, Lord, for loving us so much.
Let's partake together.
Well, Father, we're so grateful and we want to end tonight, God, by praising your holy name.
God, you are just amazing.
And Lord, we know that we can come to the altar and just lay our burdens down and you will hear us
to come to you with our problems.
And God, we know you listen and we know you're working things out.
We know you're answering.
And God, I pray you'd give us patience in waiting sometimes for these answers to take a long time to come.
But God, regardless, we say thank you, Jesus.
Because, Lord, every single thing you do is dayenu.
If that was all you did, it would have been enough.
But then you do something else.
And if that was it, it would have been enough.
And you do something else.
And Lord, we're just grateful.
Help us to be grateful people, Lord.
God, if any of us are carrying a spirit of ingratitude, thanklessness, Lord, God, break that.
Remind us of what you've done, that we would be people who give thanks.
We love you so much and we thank you, God.
In Jesus' name we pray.
Amen.
Let's worship, guys.