Those who don't know, I'm a USC fan, and uh, Sorry, yeah.
Some of that doesn't feel genuine right there.
Some of those things feel, uh, like you're more poking fun than
you're actually mourning with me.
Uh, it has been a terrible season, uh, as far as expectations go.
But, anyhow, we're gonna get through this, amen?
And so my name is Marcel Hall and, uh, grateful to be able
to speak God's word here today.
Let's go ahead and, uh, we already, I think we thank the worship team, right?
Can we go ahead and thank all the people behind the scenes doing so much.
We appreciate all that you are doing.
We got Thanksgiving this week.
Are you excited about Thanksgiving?
Ready to get your grub on?
What's your favorite part about Thanksgiving?
Let's go.
I know some people it's food, some it's not.
Well, what's your favorite part about Thanksgiving?
Okay, someone said my family.
Okay, that's good.
All right.
Yes, Jason You said deviled eggs.
Wow, okay It's so cool to talk about Thanksgiving food and
see the different cultures.
You know what I'm saying?
I don't think we've ever had that at my family.
So that's that's really good.
Okay.
Yes Taking a nap.
Is that pre food or post food?
Post food, okay.
You're looking forward to that good Thanksgiving nap there.
Yes.
The Macy's Day Parade.
I like parades.
You like parades, okay.
You're one of the few on the West Coast that probably watches that.
Amen, that's awesome.
Alright, yes sir.
The 49ers Seahawks are playing back.
The 49ers Seahawks game, so, so football and the 49ers,
okay, come on, appreciate that.
Yes.
Yes, Corey.
Um, being able to help somebody.
So
being able to help somebody out who needs some, come on, give it up for
Corey, the only spiritual one up in here.
We're talking about naps and deviled eggs.
He's over here serving.
I'm just playing.
Everybody, it's all good.
That's good stuff.
Yes, as we can see, Thanksgiving, there's a, there's a lot more to Thanksgiving
than just some food, isn't there?
And, uh, we know there's football, there's, uh, there's time with
family, sometimes we're playing football, whatever the case may be.
Um, you know, it's funny, um, that when it comes to Thanksgiving, obviously I'm
American and I'm very familiar with the pastime and the tradition, but the actual
word Thanksgiving, it really didn't, like, it didn't really sink in until I was in
college where the idea is you give thanks.
I know that's in the word Thanksgiving, but it didn't hit me.
We're praying one time and the brother says something like, God, you
know, it's Thanksgiving or whatever.
And I really do want to give you thanks and I go, Oh, that's right.
Thanksgiving is about giving thanks, hence the name.
I, you know, obviously I understood the gratitude of the season.
And, uh, but it hit me.
And in fact, I looked it up yesterday or the other day.
And Thanksgiving, the term, the actual, not the celebration,
but just the definition.
The expression of gratitude, especially to God.
To God.
So even as we think through Thanksgiving, as we think of the
act of Thanksgiving, we know this, is that there's more than turkey.
Thanksgiving, especially giving thanks, there's more to it than just some turkey.
Even our celebrations that we mentioned, nobody in fact even mentioned turkey.
We had some deviled eggs in here.
Okay, alright.
And so we know even our celebration, but the act of Thanksgiving.
There's more to it than just a feeling, than just an appreciation.
And so, in fact, we're going to do a little two part series here, today and
next week, in which we're going to dive more into this idea of giving thanks.
Let's go to the Father in prayer.
Father, I thank you so much, so, so much.
For this opportunity to dig into your scriptures God you have encouraged my
soul I'm excited about the material that we're covering God I pray that
you allow us to connect with you in a profound way right now father that we
can come away transformed whether it be our thinking in our hearts or in
some type of way in our decision making Father, we want you to be glorified.
We want to commune with you, God.
We want your will to be done, and I pray that it's done right now.
God, you are a God who is worthy of our praise, and we don't have enough time
or even the energy, uh, uh, Father, to be able to give you thanks for all that
you have, are, and will do, not only in our lives, but in those around us.
We pray in Jesus name, amen.
We're going to go ahead and look, you know, there actually is a
Thanksgiving meal in the Bible.
It's actually the, the first Thanksgiving meal, if you will.
And so it's God's Thanksgiving meal.
And so we're going to go ahead and look at this right now and we're going to
see something really important here is that giving thanks is important to God.
Giving thanks is important to God.
And so we're going to go on over to the book of Leviticus.
When's the last time you had a sermon out of the book of Leviticus?
It's been a long time.
Some of you are like, how are we going to get a sermon out of Leviticus?
Okay.
All right.
So we're going Leviticus here.
And my friend Chad Hoffman told me it's good to put some timelines up here.
And so I want us to understand at what point in, in, as far as our faith
goes, that this was written down.
It takes.
Place and so during the time of exile the prince of egypt the movie there, right?
They move and they're going over to the promised land And so god is establishing
his people a culture of government an understanding of how to relate to him and
how to be the light To the surrounding nations and we're going over in leviticus
chapter, uh seven we're going to go to and it's important here that we
understand in the book of leviticus god establishes a sacrificial system A
system in which they would have offerings and give sacrifices and really, this
was to communicate spiritual truths.
So these were physical manifestations of spiritual realities.
And this side of the cross, we understand that a lot of these offerings that
were prescribed for God's people were foreshadowing of Jesus and
what He is, does, and would fulfill.
And so there was five main sacrifices or offerings when it came to
the book of Leviticus and for God's people before Jesus's time.
And if one was the burnt offering, the grain offering, the fellowship
offering, the sin offering and the trespass offering, that
fellowship offering can also be, uh, considered the peace offering.
And I want us to look at this fellowship offering today over in Leviticus
chapter seven, because within this.
Fellowship offering there is something that's called the thank offering
which again is really the God's first and Established Thanksgiving meal.
So we're gonna go over ahead and go over there to Leviticus chapter 7
and study this out and again Have some application for our lives.
So brothers sisters.
Are you ready?
Let's go ahead.
Let's get into a Leviticus chapter 7 in verse 11.
It says These are the regulations for the fellowship offering Anyone
may present to the Lord If they offer it as an expression of thankfulness.
Then along with this think offering, they're to offer thick loaves made
without yeast and with olive oil mixed in thin loaves made without yeast,
and brushed with oil and thick loaves of the finest flour well needed, and
with oil mixed in along with their fellowship offering of Thanksgiving.
They're to present an offering with thick loaves of bread made with yeast.
They're to bring one of each kind as an offering.
A contribution to the Lord.
It belongs to the priest who splashes the blood of the fellowship
offering against the altar.
The meat of their fellowship offering of thanksgiving must be
eaten on the day it is offered.
They must leave none of it till morning.
Boy, oh boy, did that make a lot of sense to you.
You're like, what, what was all that about?
And we're going to get, not get into all the specifics of this offering, but we
will look at some of these things here.
But there's a couple things here that we have to understand and that we can grasp.
From this text here is that again number one giving thanks the act of
thanksgiving is important to God There's an offerings and he says hey look there.
I want to have something for you.
That's going to be called the thank offering and what is God doing with
this God is training the Israelites on how to Express their gratitude
to him He's training them Why?
Because you and I, today, and anyone who lives, we need training on
how to express thanks, don't we?
I know with my kids, I have to train them on how to express thanks.
If Dominique receives something, hey, hey, what do you say?
You say, well thank you, you say thank you, yes.
Parents did a good job of training, there you go, alright.
But we express thanks, right, because he wouldn't naturally do that on his own.
He might feel something, he might be excited about it, but yet he needs
training on how to express his thanks.
And so God is helping his people here learn how to express their thanks to him.
And so we know that giving thanks is right and proper, isn't it?
As human beings, we know it is proper, it is the right thing to do
to express thanks when you've been blessed with something by someone.
But it's more than just being good or doing the right thing and we're
going to look some more into this But this is interesting that God
did not command his people How often they should have this thank offering?
He didn't tell him what time of the year they should do this And so God
Expected gratitude, but he didn't command his people to be grateful
His goal and his aim is, out of their gratitude, they would want to
spontaneously, on their own, initiate a time in which they can, in a special
and profound way, express gratitude.
And so he allows them this opportunity.
He's training them to go ahead and have a special time to express their thanks.
And so I started to think, okay, So why is this so important to God?
We get it as, as regular human beings.
Yes, this would be something that, that we should do.
It's proper.
It's the right thing to do with the appropriate response.
But as I started to think more to it, I believe the Spirit started to give
me a list of things, of why this is important to God and vital even for us.
And so this isn't an exhaustive list, but this is a list of things
for our time that we have here.
And so a number of things, reasons why giving thanks is important to God.
I believe one, in no particular order, it helps us to be grateful versus ungrateful.
When you are given and provided something, hopefully we feel
a little bit of appreciation.
But when we decide to express that, it helps our appreciation even more.
It's on the forefront of our mind, and we're doing something that is
good and is right, but allows us to be grateful for what we have.
As opposed to the opposite of being ungrateful.
How many like being around ungrateful people?
None of us do, right?
We've seen the spoiled child or maybe we were the spoiled child at some point.
And so we know being around those who are ungrateful, nobody likes that.
Why?
Because it will lead to complaining, arguing, bitterness
and a lack of appreciation.
And the worst thing that can happen when we are not grateful is we become entitled.
Expecting people to give us things or expecting even when we do it
with God, God, you owe me this.
He owes you that.
And so what we can get entitled that puts us in a really bad spot, not only in our
thinking and our choices, but also in our relationship to our Heavenly Father.
But expressing, giving thanks helps us to be grateful and not be ungrateful.
Let's look at another one here.
It strengthens our souls, our very being, our faith.
When we express gratitude, not just feel it, that's a good starting point,
but when we actually decide to act upon the gratitude that we have.
It helps us during trials, tribulations, testing.
We can have a sense of peace and joy, encouragement, strength
to persevere and overcome.
Look at this scripture that most of us are very familiar with.
It says, do not be anxious about anything.
Wow, that's a tough call.
I get anxious about a lot of things.
It says, do not be anxious.
Well, how can we do that, Lord?
We says, here's what, here's a step.
But in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving,
Present your request to God and the peace of God which transcends all
understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.
This stood out to me a couple years ago and it hit me recently.
As we are praying about things that we are tempted or we're struggling with,
we're feeling anxious, we're nervous about the future, we're battling
fear, whatever the case may be.
God says pray to me about this.
Bring every prayer, every petition to me.
But when you do this, you need to have some thanksgiving in there.
You go, wow, that's interesting.
I'm praying to God, help me out, help me out.
But when I incorporate thanksgiving into that same prayer, it now puts
me in a position and a posture in which the divine supernatural peace
of God can come into my life which transcends all my understanding.
Because what happens, I start to get perspective about things.
I start to view how I'm actually very blessed in spite of the situation or
even in the midst of this situation.
Brothers and sisters, you get what I'm saying here.
When we're praying, God, help me, help me.
But then we say, but God, thank you so much for what you are doing.
Thank you that I have you to pray to.
Thank you that you're with me as I go through this and thank you in
advance for getting me over this.
I might be a little different in my attitude after the
prayer is over, won't I?
You see, God is so cool.
And so as we express this thanksgiving, it strengthens our souls.
You know, another thing is, it helps us remain faithful to God.
When we keep thanking God, when we're mindful, we're being thankful,
and we're deciding to act upon that gratitude, it helps us remain faithful.
Look at this scripture.
It hit me the other day in Romans chapter one in verse 21.
He's talking about the fall of mankind and he says something really profound.
It says for although they knew God, they neither glorified in
this God nor gave thanks to him.
But their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
Think about that for a second.
The fall of mankind, the fall of us, the fall of you and me, those who
came before us, those who are present with us, those who will come after us.
It says, hey, they knew about God, but they decided they
weren't going to glorify God.
And they decided they weren't going to give thanks to God.
And it led to what?
Their thinking became futile.
Start having some stinking thinking.
And then it says their hearts were darkened.
And now what does that do?
That disconnects us from our relationship with God.
But where did it start?
Well, it started with just temptation.
Yes, all that came through.
But I decided at some point I wasn't going to glorify God and I wasn't going to
thank God for what he's done in my life.
And now what has it led to?
My heart being darkened, my thinking off, and what will I do?
Walk away from my relationship with God.
Those of us who have been around in the faith, we've seen people fall from grace.
We've seen people fall away from God and decide to leave Him.
Think about this for a second.
Has anyone you've ever known who has decided to leave God, did they
do it while they were thanking God?
Of course not.
It's pretty much an oxymoron.
Because if they were, yes, thank you God, thank you for all you've
done for me and I'm gonna leave you.
Wouldn't make any sense, would it?
But it draws us nearer to God when we thank Him.
Brothers and sisters, are you with me here?
And so we can see here how it helps us to remain faithful.
This isn't just a good thing to do.
This allows us to hold on to our father in the midst of temptation and
trial and struggle and tribulation.
Let's go to another one here.
I know many people will appreciate this.
The mental and physical benefits of expressing gratitude.
I saw the Mayo Clinic, they had a little article.
And this article said that the studies have shown that feeling thankful
and expressing it can do this.
Improve sleep, mood, and immunity.
Decrease depression, anxiety, difficulties with the chronic pain and
risk of disease, and release oxytocin.
Does that sound good to you?
Does anybody want to sign up for that afterwards?
That, that pill will be over at the welcome table.
I'm sure it will be stacked over after service.
What does it say here?
Man, just even God knows He loves His creation so much.
He's like, look, if you have a consistency of being thankful, it
will not only help you be faithful to me, it will help you be grateful.
It's going to affect your very being, your livelihood, your
mental and physical health.
So I want to thank all of you.
Thank you.
And I want to thank you some more.
It does something to us.
And even this oxytocin, that's the hormone that helps us connect with people.
Which is interesting.
Which leads to this one.
Is that giving thanks is important to God because it's relational.
And this is to me the one that I want to spend a couple minutes on.
Is that giving thanks is relational.
We tend to not see that on the surface, but as we delve a little
bit into this and we put on our thinking caps and start to analyze
this, we'll see it is so relational.
You know, even when we go back to Leviticus chapter seven, this
thank offering, it was under the category of the fellowship offering.
Now that's interesting.
There were sin offerings, there were all kinds of different offerings.
But the thank offering fell under the category of the fellowship offering.
What does fellowship mean and imply?
Relationship.
So this thank offering is embedded in this idea of relationship.
And it's interesting, even when you look at it in Leviticus chapter 7, it
comes right after the guilt offering.
So after we've had our sins atoned for, we now can express our thanks for our
sweet fellowship that we have with God.
And this thank offering that's prescribed in Leviticus chapter 7.
It's the only of all the offerings that a meal, that there was a
meal that took place in which the person offering participated in.
All the other offerings were here.
We're going to give an offering and then they would not participate in it.
Okay, this is my time of, you know, spiritual reality here.
But there wasn't a time any other than the thank offering in which it was a meal.
And it was a symbolic meal in which the person offering
would be there with the priest.
And symbolically it would also be God present with them.
And so now there's this offering, this Thanksgiving meal in which the person
was celebrating the relationship.
Celebrating the blessings that God had provided in their lives.
Not told when, where, because it was supposed to be prompted when
we recognize our relationship.
And blessings in God, there's some applications for you
and I with this, isn't there?
When we thank God, when we remember God's blessing, we want to spend
time with God and relate to God so that we can draw near to God.
Think about this for a second.
When you give thanks, Or when somebody gives thanks to you, what
does that do in your relationship?
When you've given something to somebody, and they sincerely, not just with empty
words, but they sincerely express their gratitude, how do they make you feel?
You feel good, don't you?
You, you're like, wow, this is awesome.
And then what happens?
Some oxytocin is going out, and you start to feel what with that person?
A closer bond.
What about when you express gratitude?
You're like, man, I'm just so grateful.
You're like, thank you so much.
Some oxytocin is going across.
And now what?
You're building a closer relationship.
You see, this giving thanks, there's all these great reasons, but I believe
maybe the most profound and the biggest reason is that it's relational.
And God is a relational God.
Wanting us to have a relationship with Him and have a relationship with Him.
with the rest of his creation.
And so this idea of giving thanks will allow us to connect with each
other in profound and deep ways but guess what happens when we express
our thanks to God continually?
It produces a greater walk with Him.
So I want to stay faithful.
I will enjoy my relationship.
I will have times in which I'm truly grateful.
And even my mental and physical being.
We'll be blessed by this.
Brothers and sisters, this is some cool stuff right here.
Come on, Leviticus!
As we can see here, this idea is so profound.
You know what?
It's this magnetic force that pulls us closer to one another.
You know, I had breakfast, uh, I mentioned Chad.
I had breakfast with Chad the other day.
Uh, maybe this was about two weeks ago.
I don't know what it was.
But Chad, I thought like, you know, Chad calls me like, Hey, wanna get breakfast?
I'm like, Okay, cool, Chad.
Uh oh, Chad got a problem with me, you know what I'm saying?
And I thought that for a quick second but then I, you know, I went away
like, Nah, I don't think he does.
At least I hope not.
And we get together and he's like, Hey, I just wanted to take you out, man.
You and your wife, we did something for my family.
And I just want to say thank you.
I was like, what?
I was like, well man, can we go get some steak?
No, I'm just playing, you know what I mean?
But it was so cool and so here we are, we're talking over
this meal because of what?
Because of thanks.
This meal, we're enjoying each other's company, we're laughing, we're getting a
chance to have depth in our conversation.
This was relational.
Appreciate the Langeleers and, and Sonja and just expressing her gratitude
for certain things and being there for the family with Luke and, and Luke's
parents and, and it was just like, wow, the, the bond that we have just
because of gratitude for one another.
You see, giving thanks, it's relational.
It's not just the right thing.
It's to draw us closer to our creator.
And draw us closer to one another.
Can I get an amen?
So what should our response be?
I think it's pretty, pretty, pretty simple and clear.
We should be giving thanks.
You know, 1 Thessalonians 5 verse 18.
Look at what it says.
It says, Give thanks in all circumstances.
For this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.
Jesus.
It stood out to me.
It didn't say give thanks for all circumstances.
He's like, look, if you're in a bad spot, don't be like,
thank you, God, it's terrible.
I can't do anything.
He didn't say that.
He says, but to be thankful in those circumstances.
Ooh, that's something right there, isn't it?
No matter what the circumstance, I still have something I can thank God for.
He says, because this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.
This is what he designed for you.
Why?
Because that thankfulness will create a closer connection with him.
But there's some things that prevent us from doing this on a daily, right?
On a consistent basis.
I know for me, there's a number of things.
Maybe you can relate to some of these.
The problem is we can't maintain this.
So some things stop us.
I know for me, maybe the biggest one is I can take things for granted.
I get so used to just having so many blessings.
I'm just like, man, this is just life.
I should just expect this.
You know, I took, you know, I should take, uh, take for granted my, my mom.
She used to, you know, I got to brag to my mom.
And this is crazy.
Some of y'all look down on me, but even in high school, my
mom used to make lunch for me.
Yeah.
Come on.
Y'all like, wow, she did that.
I thought every mom did that.
And then one day me and her got into an argument.
She decided I'm not going to do this for you anymore.
And I got mad and I started complaining to the homies at school,
like, Man, my mom, man, she ain't even making me lunch anymore.
They were like, what?
You complaining because your mom don't give you lunch anymore?
I was like, yeah, your mom don't give you lunch.
They were like, no!
I said, oh, I better be quiet then.
You know what I'm saying?
I could take granted for Karina and she just does so much I'd be like, Oh,
that's just what all wives do and then I realize no, that's not what all wives do.
And so it makes me grateful and that's why I need to be grateful.
But I just take things for granted.
Maybe you can relate or maybe you can't.
God, you just do so much for me so I just take it for granted.
Another thing that maybe stops is we focus more on the gift than the giver.
Thank you God for giving us and we just hold this gift, whatever it may
be, and just forget to truly express gratitude, not just with words, but
with our life choices, our actions.
Another area or another way in which we could do this is we, again, going back to
what I said earlier, we can feel entitled, believe that we deserve something.
Another way in which we can.
Stop the stop us from being thankful as we think we've earned it.
I've caused this.
It was my hard work, my determination, my intellect, my skill, my ability,
my talent that got me to this point.
Therefore, we're deceived.
Thinking it was all about us.
You know, no person is self made.
You know, there's a self made millionaires.
No person is self made.
Because even if you're a self-made millionaire, there was a system in place
in which you were to take advantage of it.
You didn't create the system.
You're, I'm a self-made a musician.
Well, somebody on YouTube showed you how to play.
Somebody made that guitar, you didn't make that guitar.
You get what I'm saying?
And that's no shot at anybody in here.
Okay.
But this idea that we've earned it.
No, there's always been some form of a blessing through somebody
in which we were able to take advantage of and be able to excel in.
And so we should never have a posture of I deserve and I've earned this because we've
all been the beneficiaries of someone, someone, but ultimately of God's blessed
kindness and unmerited favor upon us.
So then what's the remedy to get over this?
I've been, you know, learning a lot of things recently here.
But one of the things I've been learning is this idea of reflection.
And I believe the remedy for us is to have times of reflection and intentionality.
Times where we reflect upon the blessings from God.
We just sit back and we reflect upon it.
And as you go there, you actually start to go, Wow, I need a lot
more time than I had anticipated.
Because I am so richly blessed.
But then we need times of intentionality.
In time in which we're intentionally thanking God for
the blessings in our lives.
And deciding I'm going to act upon my gratitude for all
that you are doing in my life.
So let's get real practical here for this week.
So let's get some action steps here.
All right.
We love lists.
Go ahead and write down a top 10 gratitude list.
Okay.
All right.
And do this by tomorrow.
You can do this tonight or, or, or, or tomorrow, but right now your top 10
gratitude list mean the top 10 things in your life that you are grateful for.
And then thank God, be very intentional and thanking God
for those things in your life.
And then I want you to do here is keep that list for future reference.
Hold on to it.
Be able to use it.
Maybe you edit it as time goes by.
But you'll be able to have an opportunity in which you go over and you're going
to be so filled with appreciation.
It's going to come out in expression.
But it should come out in the way that we live.
And then lastly, another cool tip here I learned here is that
consistent Thanksgiving only prayers.
And what I mean by that is you have a prayer time in which
all you do is you thank God.
You don't ask Him for anything.
Now this is really hard.
He'll be like, well, God, I'm thankful, but if you can
also work in this situation.
But you just want to refrain and God, I'm just going to thank you.
In fact, I was praying yesterday.
I was walking around.
I was like, God, I just want to have a time of Thanksgiving.
And I was like, but can I just squeeze in two requests?
Can I just get those two?
I said, I apologize.
I'm going to squeeze those in and then I'm going to thank you.
You know what I'm saying?
So I'm just being honest with you.
It was tough for me yesterday, but man, those times are good and
I need to incorporate them more.
So I'm grateful for God revealing this to me.
But times in which you just thank God.
But again, this is being intentional.
All I want to do.
I don't want to ask you for anything because you've been so good to me.
I just want to acknowledge and thank you for your presence, for your
relationship with me, for my salvation, for the word, for your spirit.
Thank you for the spiritual people who influence you guys.
See what I'm saying here.
And so at time where you consistently thank God only as we close here, the
act of Thanksgiving is important to God.
It deeply affects our souls.
It affects our faith.
But most of all, I believe giving thanks is relational.
And this thanksgiving should lead to thanks living.
And that'll be next week.
We're going to have Kyle come up and he's going to preach next week on
from thanksgiving to thanks living.
But as we consider the thank offering that was explained in Leviticus chapter
7, I want to give you one more note here.
This thing offering it had to be eaten all that day.
And so as they sacrificed the, the, the animal and they had this offering,
there was too much food, but it had to all be eaten in that day.
So what did that mean?
That the person who offered it had to include others with them to enjoy
and participate in this celebration.
Again, the Thanksgiving meal.
And as we have time this week with friends and family, let's have a Leviticus.
Seven style thank offering meal in which we have time with
friends in which we celebrate.
We acknowledge.
We recognize, and we express our thanks to our heavenly Father who's been good to us.
Let's close out in Colossians chapter three, verse 15.
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts since as members of one body, you
were called to peace and be thankful.
Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and
admonish one another with all wisdom.
Through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God
with gratitude in your hearts.
And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name
of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
Thanksgiving is more than church.