Two Friends: Gratefulness and Joy

e e praise God brothers and sisters I'd like to read today from chapter 9 verse 6 of of Isaiah Isaiah chapter 9: 6 For unto us a child is born unto us a son is given and the government will be upon his shoulder and his name will be called wonderful counselor Mighty God Everlasting father Prince of Peace you know and and Jesus Christ he's so valuable to us like sometimes we just we don't really realize how valuable Christ is you know like let's say for example somebody gave you an unlimited spending credit card and you can spend on anything you want in the whole world you know and then you have the best education in the world you have the best teachers right by your side you have uh the best Gym trainer you know you have everything you could ever want in this world I guarantee you those people you would thank every single day or every single year but Jesus Christ he has done more for us than that you know he has given us eternal life he has given us something so much more valuable than this Earth that wastes away that slowly degrades into nothing and one day we will be nothing as well on this Earth You know so we have something much more valuable through Christ and with that being said I would just like to stand let's all stand up and let's pray for the service and give God thanks Lord God we thank you for this morning you've given us Lord and we ask you Lord bless the service God we ask you fill this place of the Holy Spirit God help us to understand what is being said to us today Lord help us to listen to your word Lord to your sermons God to the singing God we ask you bless the service in Jesus name we pray amen all to all together now we will be singing o Victory in Jesus [Music] I heard an old old Story how a savior came from Glory how he gave his life on Calvary to save a Wretch like Me I heard about his groaning of his Precious Blood atoning then I repented of my my S and won the victory oh Victory in Jesus my Savior forever he sought me and B me with his redeeming blood he loved me a I knew him and all my love is to him he plunged me to Victory beneath the cleansing flood I heard about his healing of his cleansing power revealing how he made the Lan to walk again and caus the blind to see and then I CED dear Jesus come and heal my broken spirit and some how Jesus came and brought to me the victory oh Victory in Jesus my Savior forever he sought me and bought me with his ring redeeming blood he walk the air I knew him and all my love is to him he plunged me to Victory beneath the cleansing flood I heard about a mansion He has de for me in glory and I heard about the streets of gold beyond the crystal sea about the angels singing and the old Redemption story and some sweet day I'll sing up there the song of Victory oh Victory in Jesus my savior forever he sought me and bought me with his redeeming blood he walk the air are you him and all my love is to him he pled me to Victory beath the cleansing FL [Music] me not all gentle saor here my humble cry well on others thou are [Music] calling do not pass me by saor saor here my humble cry while on others thou are calling do not pass me by let me at thy Throne of Mercy find a sweet heing there in deep Contra help my unb saor saor here my humble God [Music] while on others thou are call do not pass [Music] me trusting only in thy Merit what I see by fith heal my wounded broken spir Save Me by thy Grace saor [Music] saor here my humble cry while on others thou are [Music] calling do not pass [Music] me S the scen of all my comfort more than life to me whom have i h Earth beside thee whom in heaven but meior savior here my humble cry while on others thou are calling do not pass me [Music] byor saor here my humble cry [Music] while on others thou are calling do not pass me by praise God praise the Lord brothers and sisters for this beautiful morning you know I woke up today went to my car and I looked around I'm like man you know it actually does look like December so I'm going to read a Bible verse in uh Romans 8 38-39 and it says here for I am con convinced that neither death nor life neither angels nor demons neither the present nor the future nor any power neither height nor depth nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our lord praise God and I also want to announce our program for this morning uh we'll have uh Peter saying a word for us and God bless I guess all the pressure is on me I have to be the singer the poet yeah and the preacher all right well um thank you uh brother Tim he has invited me to preach and um it's kind of uh sometimes when you have the least amount to prepare the sermons tend to be the longest and I was thinking well I hopefully I'll have enough time to um to say the sermon but I guess since I'm the only speaker then seems like there's plenty of time um we're Thanksgiving just passed by Christmas is just uh not quite here we're kind of like in the midst of these two uh holidays and so today I wanted to talk talk about a topic and I would call it our two friends and um Thanksgiving teaches us about uh gratefulness and Christmas teaches us about joy and so that's what I wanted to talk uh to us about today and I would say we all could use a few good friends I I think all of you would agree a few new good friends yes if a friend is good we say uh I I need some of those good friends and why do we need these good friends is because friends are important to us right we can come we can talk to them about something they can sometimes give us advice we have um in their presence uh they make us feel important or make us uh or tell us what we're doing wrong right and so it's important to have good friends and so today I wanted to talk about these two new friends that should should be part of all of our lives and we've all heard a quote that says tell me who your friends are and I'll tell you who you are yes we've all heard that and but I like this other quote also it says show me your friends and I'll show you your future uh that's that's kind of interesting yes so and and so we can examine ourselves and and see uh who are our friends and maybe sometimes we need to reexamine some of our friends and get some new good ones right so so our future uh would be blessed and so today I'm going to talk about these two good friends that should be part of our life uh these friends are good friends they're true they're honest they will not mislead you and um if you will make him part of your your life your future will be brighter guaranteed your future will be brighter it will be good and so um as I started my sermon the names of these friends are the first one is uh grateful and the second one is joyful right so and uh and I'll read uh from Proverbs 17 verse 22 it's this really uh good verse that a lot of times when wew Drive in a car we listen to one of those kids CDs and and um this is the verse that they sing it says a joyful heart is good medicine but a broken Spirit dries up the bones right and so and none of us want to have dry bones I would imagine um and so but this broken Spirit it dries up the bones so it would be good to find out what is this uh broken Spirit if we think about this broken spirit it's kind of like this a prolonged sadness within a person it could be a prolonged state of guilt within a person you know that dries up the bones um and when we have dry bones then it takes life out of our body right it takes life out of our physical body it takes life out of our spiritual body and it and if we have dry bones we're really going to become ineffective in our life right so we're going to start suffering from different kind of things in our life because we're not very effective we're not going to be very effective at home we're not going to be very effective at work uh we're not going to be very effective at church right because our bones are dry we have no energy and so and if we think about like do I have a broken Spirit um so what are the signs if I have a broken Spirit some of the signs are for example uh this constant worry maybe it's about a certain situation in my life so I may think if I'm always in a state of worry that tends to start drying up my bones you know um this prolonged state of guilt over something a lot of times it's over some kind of a sinful thing that that uh a person has done and so this prolonged state of guilt it begins to dry out the energy within a person begins to dry up their bones it could be a fear uh over something that may happen to you and if a person is always in that state of fear right that tends to drive dry out the bones takes out the life within us um and so this broken Spirit it brings a lot of pain in into our life and sometimes we think like how can I break out of the state I'm trying but I can't um is just is just there and is just killing killing me inside I have no joy I have no happiness because this pressure is always on me and so what do we need to do to break out of this well I would say the first thing that each one of us has to do is to put this goal within ourself to live a righteous life um and so and I'm not just talking about accepting Jesus a lot of people say well I accepted Jesus and they know the exact day that they accepted Jesus and that's that's all good that's important but I'm talking about this commitment that you know no matter what I commit myself to living a holy life and when we commit ourselves to doing that it drives within us um actions um that we commit to uh to start doing in our life because our commitment is to this righteous living and so if I commit to holy living then the first thing it does within me is it gives me this courage to confess my sins a lot of people a lot of uh they're afraid to confess their sin because they think what will happen I can't do that that's just that's um um people will find out and things like this uh but when I commit myself that you know I commit myself to holy living well I'm going to make that step anyways I'm going to overcome my fears and so look at what David there was a time in his life when he uh made horrible choices right and he has sinned and and he was afraid he was afraid to confess what he did and and he lived with this guilt for a period of time in secret and look what it says in Psalm 32 from verse three when I kept silent about my sin my body wasted away that sounds to me like dry bones right my body wasted away through my groaning all day long now I don't think people saw him necessarily walking around and groaning all the time maybe sometimes they did but I would imagine a lot of times this was in within his Spirit uh people may just have saw that you know what he may not be very happy he doesn't really have a smile on his face but within his Spirit the reason why is because he was in pain he was groaning so he couldn't put that smile in his face and then says for day and night your hand was Heavy upon me my Vitality was drained away as with the fever heat of the summer I acknowledge my sin to you and my iniquity I did not hide I said I will confess my transgressions to the Lord and you forgave the guilt of my sin see that's that is where the freedom comes is that finally there was um enough courage and we know the story of David uh but he could have refused to confess his sin and to say no that didn't happen like this but we see that he did confess his sin with his whole heart and that's why God loved him that he would make mistakes and I guarantee you you're going to make mistakes too and you've probably already made mistakes and I've made mistakes in my life each person um the thing is is that guilt is not always negative um God he uses guilt with because he gave us the feelings and so God he created all these feelings and he gave us a feeling of guilt and within a righteous person the feeling of guilt it will drive him to certain actions like repentance right if we never felt guilt we would just never repent we'd always just feel just fine um and we would never confess but but God he uses guilt to drive us to a positive action to get to get rid of guilt within our heart it's um what's unhealthy is this prolonged guilt uh when there's fear that that's when the devil he uses this guilt to scare us and to say don't take this action if people will find out oh my goodness you know your life is over and and he scares us like that and so then because when God gives you guilt he wants you to get rid of that sin in your life but the devil he uses that for to hold you within that state and people go into depression people can start uh abusing different things different substances because they may have this guilt within their heart that they just have not gotten rid of and God but God when he gives us this guilt he is asking us he's saying get rid of it quickly go and confess if you confess this guilt then I will free you and so because you cannot find joy and you can't really be that grateful and thankful with guilt in your heart like it's just you will not be able to have a heart that has uh Unforgiven sin can't really be joyful right so you have to get rid of that guilt uh and then Joy will substitute that guilt Joy will come into your heart and it will replace that sorrow and so the important thing um for us to remember is this this is kind of like that important quote you know is that um a grateful and joyful heart is free from sin so if you um and we just need to remember that like if I if I have sin then no matter how I will try to look happy and joyful is just is going to uh flee away because it's not real it it's really not in my heart it's just I'm trying to show that maybe to my friends um but um that commitment to righteous living it'll give you courage to step over your feet fear to overcome your fear and to confess before the Lord and you know sometimes a person may feel if I confess I've confessed to the Lord and the guilt is still kind of is still there then we should overcome our fear and come and talk to someone else it could be to our parents um if I feel kind of afraid maybe to talk to my it might be to a brother in the church that you trust a pastor you know and so and and then someday you will think why did I wait so long right I I should have done it sooner because because it's okay it's okay to confess your sin and then to commit to leing uh living that righteous life um and so once you've confessed that um let's say that sin that then you can start developing even closer relationship with your two new friends it's the the joyfulness and gratefulness and I've like my wife she's the one that's really grateful all the time she has a grateful Journal she likes to write in there and she so she's been teaching me a lot about being grateful and and one of the things like naturally I uh I would say typically I try to work hard uh in life and and to achieve things and sometimes um I would get into the mentality like well I have this because maybe I because I worked hard and like and so she would say say three things you're grateful for today and it be like you know it would be hard to overcome yourself to start naming this like do I really need to say that um but what I've noticed a lot of times it's natural for us to be ungrateful to be demanding give me this I need that so so we have no no problem to be like demanding and and sometimes even rude we have no problem we we're not really ashamed to do that but to be grateful oh that's that's kind of you know um um I don't have the courage to say these words but I would say we need to flip that around we should be afraid uh to be ungrateful right but to have courage to start expressing our gratefulness and so and sometimes and we practice this within our family and I think it's it's a good thing and um and I would suggest that you can even adopt it it's just three things that I'm grateful for today and they just list them out um and and so God he loves that um so how do we uh if we think about okay so how do I start practicing um or developing this closer relationship with these two friends first one let's talk about gratefulness or we we say thankfulness right so we had Thanksgiving thankfulness and um and so how do we start practicing this uh thankfulness well one of the things that I've already said is is to start listing every day the things that you're thankful for but the Bible also talks about this proactive thankfulness like it shouldn't be something that uh just randomly pops up into our life but we should start practicing thankfulness like proactively every day and and we find that in the Bible look Nehemiah 11:1 17 it says it talks about some people but it talks about this specific person also and says and mathania was the leader in the beginning that Thanksgiving at prayer was the leader in the the beginning the thanksgiv at prayer so so what it is is that um he was like the leader I would imagine of this prayers and he would begin this prayer and he wouldn't just begin prayer normally by but but he would begin this Prayer by thanking and so he was like this leader in the service within the the temple is that he would begin the prayer with thankfulness right and so and it's interesting that he had this posted this this position uh within that is to begin prayer with thanking the lord and so this had obviously a positive effect uh probably on him but also on all the listeners to kind of focus our minds on how amazing God is and so I would say that's a great thing for us to practice like when we today are praying and if you are going to go and pray today at home or with your parents with your family yes is to begin your prayer also with thankfulness Lord I want to thank you today that I know you that's number one that's that's it's it's amazing that you have chosen us to reveal yourself to us yes and so that's that's that's a huge blessing and we begin to notice these blessings in our life and this thankfulness today A lot of times I notice um is like people they do these silent prayers like you you go into a group and everybody just stays there silently and then just one person who is just praying but I I don't think that should be a prayer like that and we should practice a prayer like this I remember when we were kids our parents would tell us like pray louder we would have these family prayers in a morning and in the evening and if I was standing there and you know looking around pray and so that that was a a good thing to teach us to actually to pray during prayer not to be thinking about something else and so this is one of the things that we should be careful and to learn is actually during prayer to pray sounds kind of obvious yes to pray during prayer but but uh nowadays we really need to learn that to pray during pray prayer um and and a lot of people Christians they really don't pray in the morning or when they're going to bed and that I I think that's not a good practice you should be praying every day uh in the morning and in the evening we see that Jesus he would get up early in the morning to pray he would pray late at night but I think a great example is also the Book of Daniel when it talks about Daniel who who would pray three times a day and I know that some of us may be working in the middle of the day and that prayer sometimes can be just by yourself but at least two prayers a day and uh for us that have kids already uh to do with with all of your kids but some of you that may you know you're still young a lot of you and you don't have kids but you're within the family is to pray with your parents uh not to run away into your room and and get into bed or things like this but but to have these family prayers and and it's really important and within that prayer that's the thing the practice is to be thinking God right so that that's one of the things that we can do um then another thing uh it's written for example in Colossians uh 4:2 this is already Paul he write devote yourself to prayer keeping Alert in it with an attitude of Thanksgiving and that's the thing that I was talking about like staying in prayer and not really praying but he says like when you pray stay really alert because what happens a lot of time in the prayer is actually there's a spiritual attack and we don't even notice that there's a spiritual attack going on uh against us in a prayer to try to take our mind off into different directions so supposedly I prayed but in reality I didn't say anything to the Lord I didn't really think him or I I I didn't even pray with a conscious mind it was kind of like the subconscious maybe a few words and then I get up and then I go and the devil is happy because you didn't really pray and so when we pray we actually have to stay really alert and when we find ourselves start thinking about other things we should know okay this is a spiritual attack and you know get away from me devil you know I'm praying um and really stay focused in that prayer and and so an apostle Paul he says with Thanksgiving so that that's really important for us to pray with this uh thankful heart um and the reason why we pray with a thankful heart even though we have problems like let's say I have a lot of problems and you may think what is there really to thank to be thankful for uh I just need to tell my problems to the Lord but the thing is God is all powerful he's already Sol your issue just you just have to wait for it right there's no problem that's too big for him we a lot of times are not thankful because we don't see the end and we only see right now and the problem is not yet solved so we may feel uh like discouraged worried we may have fear but and those are real feelings you may still have some of those but break through them and start thanking the Lord that he knows about your issue that he's listening and has a has a way out and so when we understand this we can start thanking the Lord because he has the situation under control and and we can move forward with that um and so another thing that we should uh should do is sing in practically in our life let's say today or tomorrow is sing songs of thanks to the Lord so and how do we do that for example you could some of you may have experienced when you wake up in the morning there's a song in your mind right and you're singing that's that's a good habit to develop or you get up in the morning and I remember even my dad which he was a tough guy uh but you would hear him humming a tune walking around and uh and what is that so what is that humming this tune on your own like in church we can all get up and and sing and we may not even really focus on a words but if I'm humming the tune at home that's because it's in my heart uh I'm not trying to impress nobody it's just that the joyful tune or song is with is within my heart and I can be thanking the lord and so that's one of the the way for me to practice and then when I come to church I also should be paying attention to the songs that we're singing and actually what are those words you know what what are those words really and how are they impacting my life and when we start singing the songs like this they there's a whole new meaning to them we realize wow this song is actually really deep um and it's affecting my heart and so uh besides prayer we should be saying the songs and and obviously singing thankfulness songs at church and we also find this practice in the scripture once again and it says the Levites and mathania which is the same person that did the prayer it seems like like he was a really thankful person it says who was in charge of the songs of Thanksgiving he and his brothers so here was this whole service and they what they um what they did was they sung songs of Thanksgiving so I bet they wrote the songs and and they sung them in front of the congregations and people sung them back but it was like this really important practice of practicing being thankful before God and so it's it's really important for us to choose also proactively in our life to be thankful and to choose start putting activities into our lives where we are going to be thankful to the Lord and um another thing that we uh should be doing obviously is to be thankful to the Lord for the work that we do in church sometimes uh sometimes we have this um understanding that because I serve the Lord in the church and I'm taking away from my time here and there it's like I'm doing favor to God you know I'm very talented person and I'm doing favor to the Lord that I am serving him at church and uh maybe I'm not doing something else but that's not true that that's not a that's a favor to you that God has given the fact that you're able to serve him that's a huge favor uh to you that God has given and and you should be thankful for that opportunity and the reason why is that you will not always uh be there to do that service for example right now a lot of you are in the youth and you will not always be in the youth time will pass and that's it this period of your life will be over and even though you may later on want to be in the youth but if you're like 50 and you finally want want to be in the youth uh that door is closed so or for example if you're 50 and you want to start singing in a youth choir uh you're probably not going to be accepted right so so that's what I'm saying is that a lot of times we can take these services for granted um but I say be thankful for them like if you have youth choir be thankful this is a short period of time in your life that God has allowed you to have and so thank the Lord for this opportunity right now in your life because it will not last forever and um and in Psalm 50:23 says he who offers a sacrifice of thanksg honors me so the sacrifice of Thanksgiving not just a sacrifice you know I I sang on stage or i s sung uh in choir or I preached that's a sacrifice sure but it has to be a sacrifice of Thanksgiving thank you Lord for giving me this opportunity to sing now that's and then I come out and sing now that's already a sacrifice of Thanksgiving just a sacrifice not not so pleasing to the Lord because the heart is not there but our heart needs to be there with the sacrifice that we're doing and so we should understand that it's privilege to serve the Lord uh and so next time that we do something let's examine our hearts and say Lord thank you for this privilege to serve you and so when we devote ourselves to this righteous living then Joy it begins to fill our heart and if we really think about well what is joy is it is it happiness is it um there are certain things that Joy is really is not right and so Joy is not me seeking uh self-centered pleasure that that's not Joy um for example it's not uh for me to go and eat every day at a very expensive restaurant you know the finest date that that's not Joy even if I can do that or uh maybe I bought an expensive piece of clothing that's that's not Joy um it's not maybe it's not buying anything at all joy is is not not me getting something for myself even though we need certain things in our life but that's not where Joy is and so actually in 2 Timothy verse 3 uh chapter 3:4 it says these words um say lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God hold into a form of godliness although they have denied its power so the bible really speaks about these things and and we really need to focus because we can fall into distress and sometimes we do fall into them where we start seeking Pleasures for ourselves as though it makes us happy and as though there's joy within it and so we could be doing things that actually are is wasting our time uh we could be doing a lot of things the God is not in it at all they're just for ourselves and we think and we make our schedules really busy with that and and God says over here no that God doesn't want us he doesn't want us to um to be lovers of pleasure um rather than lovers of God so even our activities that we're doing we we should examine them uh is there a focus within them on God and and if I really don't find like God or or somehow it moves the uh godliness forward in my life uh then I need to reexamine them now um and so uh of course certain things I would say for example trying to stay healthy that's good that's good because it gives you energy uh to serve the Lord it gives you energy to be active within your family um I'm not saying that everything is like you would think because I'm not praying during during that activity then I should not be doing it but I believe everyone of us understands when we cross that boundary right and we start just focusing things upon ourselves and it can actually become sometimes very addictive where we can spend a lot of time researching things and stuff like this that there there's uh there's no purpose bigger purpose for it but just our pleasure and so Bible it warns us about pleasure seeking because it not it does not lead to True joy and one of the greatest examples is King Solomon right he tells us he here was the wisest man and he got whatever he wanted so whatever your dreams are uh maybe to have the richest to be powerful to be the president or to be the CEO of a big company or Solomon he got all of that and he tells us already that all of that is a waste of time he tells us all was vanity and striving after the wind him building his name he built beautiful buildings Gardens was amazing scientist Ju Just for the sake of that um and he said without God because there was no God in it it was all vanity and where is it right now can you find me one of the buildings or one of the gardens no um so it's all gone and so sometimes we have to be careful not to fall into the same trap and we should focus on things of joy not pleasure and so is there a Godly purpose in that and um many young people they're kind of afraid to give their life to God because they they think God he kills Joy like I don't really want to serve God all the fun things he tells me I cannot do and all the boring things I have to do right but I'll tell you that's absolutely not true because God he developed all the feelings he developed the feelings of joy and and gladness and thankfulness so he knows where he wants to draw you to and he wants to draw you to the true joy and fulfillment and he's saying just trust me it may not seem like this at the moment but if you trust me then I will actually lead you to the best place where you will be so joyful and happy ultimately heaven right well uh but even here on Earth where you will find peace and joy just trust me I know what I'm doing I'm the Creator of these things so don't do these other things because it's the lie I'm telling you just follow me trust me and we say Okay Lord I'll Trust You Even though at the moment those other things may seem funner but I'll trust you and when we devot our life we look back and say wow Lord thank you so much for uh leading me your way and giving me joy and fulfillment and so before uh our sermon ends some of the action steps that that we talked about is first to have joy in our heart uh to befriend these friends and and gratefulness first of all we need to repent from anything that may be preventing us yes um and whatever the difficulty is in your life right now and a lot of us have difficulties uh we have to start thanking God for that for example maybe you have difficulty with your parents say Lord I'm grateful for my parents and actually bless them in your prayer and you will receive Joy maybe you have a job that you don't really like that much it doesn't pay you much pays you $8 an hour you're like man you know that that's not much money uh start thanking God for that Lord thank you for some reason you have given me this job and but I trust you you have some other plans and so Joy is going to start filling your heart maybe maybe you don't have certain things maybe you have an old car or something like this start thanking God for that Joy will start fill in your heart start thanking God for your church start thanking God for the friends within your church um you know um start thanking God for the opportunity that he chose you to serve him in a certain aspect within the church all of these things they will bring joy into your heart and so uh David says serve the Lord with gladness come before him with joyful singing and so I just want to say start thanking God for the pl plan that he has for you already and and uh God already has a plan even especially if you're youth you may be single people and the most important uh we know what's the most important uh kind of like that Pinnacle in a person in a single person's life uh but uh realize that God already has a plan for you and let his peace come upon you just thanking him Lord I'm in this situation right now but I thank you you have a plan and then joy and peace will start feeling your heart um and I would say that gratefulness and joy it it changes your life because when you have those feelings then your bones are not dry anymore they're full of life and you actually start becoming a person of action uh so you're not sitting in church anymore uh not doing anything you actually start becoming a person of action because life is within you um and so your spirit is healthy I would say a lot of time physically you're healthier too uh and so and in within that Joy you begin to serve the Lord and you you actually start fulfilling that purpose that God has for you in your life and as we began our sermon a joyful heart is good medicine and so and what it does for us it strips away those garments that of ungratefulness uh sadness fear worry depression ineffectiveness yeah and makes us grateful and joyful and makes us more effective in our life and so with these words let us pray amen e e and all standing we're going to be singing Come Thou found Come Thou found of every blessing to my heart to sing thy Grace streams of Mercy never ceasing call for songs of loudest praise teach me some Meo and song Some my flaming tongues above praise the M fixed upon it m of th AR chain in love here I raise my eer here by thy help I'm come and I hope by thy good pleasure saf me to arrive at home Jesus s me went a stray wanding from the fold of God to resue me from danger interpose this Precious Blood oh to Grace how great a de daily i' constrain to be let thy goodness like a f by my wondering part to the want to wonder Lord I feel to leave the God I love here's my heart oh take and seal it seal it for for thy courts above Come Thou found of every blessing to my heart to sing thy Grace streams of Mercy never ceasing of wor song of lest graise these res melious s Su by flaming tongues above PR the mountain fixed upon it m of God unchanging love teach me S Su by flaming Tong of praise the mountain fixed upon it m of God's unchanging love prise God praise God my dear friends we heard a very good message today and uh what I got from it is when we learn to be thankful uh in what we have that's when joy and peace comes into our hearts because like we heard it strips us from the I would say uh bonds of unthankfulness it strips us from uh the the shackles of being I would say in pain or constantly thinking about your problem it strips us from all of that when we are thankful for what we have and may we take us this message with us today does anybody have any needs before we end our service with prayer if yes brother Doug okay we'll pray for it okay m okay Lord God we thank you Lord for the message that that was spoken today Lord God may we take that into our life and actually use it Lord God whenever Lord God wherever we are to be thankful for what you give us Lord so that peace and that Joy can come over us Lord God and and you hear these needs Lord God that we uh bring to you Lord with Doug his his leg we ask for full healing Lord God we ask for full healing God you are our doctor Lord God and we know that you can heal Lord God may your healing be upon him and with Mike Lord God you see his situation Lord you see God uh like he needs help Lord God with with the place that he's staying at Lord may you look over him and provide for him may you uh bless him in his life in Jesus name we pray amen Our Father in heaven Hallowed Be Your Name Your Kingdom Come your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us lead us not into temptation but Deliver Us from the evil one for your kingdom your power and Glory forever are yours amen be blessed [Music]