Sermon Tone Analysis

OPEN WITH VIDEO, “Thank You God”

Before I go into today’s sermon, I wanted to start by reminding all of us about something on my heart.

As we are approaching this coming Thursday, Thanksgiving Day, I wanted to revisit something that I have said somewhere over the past few years, and that is, that we shouldn’t just let this day come and go and treat it is as “ordinary”, but rather that we should actually stop and reflect and give thanks to God for something, or “somethings” in our lives that we are actually thankful for.

I believe that we all too often, regard each and every day the same way, “Oh well, I will do ‘this’, or ‘that’ another day”, or “Sometime later, I will get around to doing ‘this’, or ‘that”!

And we never stop and give thanks for all of the blessings that each day affords us!

My point is that each and every day is a gift from the Lord and we should treat each day as such.

Not take it for granted and look upon it as if we can predict or control the number of days that we have ahead of us!

In fact, the Bible warns of frivolous thinking like this, as tells us, “Look here, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we are going to a certain town and will stay there a year.

We will do business there and make a profit.”

How do you know what your life will be like tomorrow?

Your life is like the morning fog—it’s here a little while, then it’s gone.

What you ought to say is, “If the Lord wants us to, we will live and do this or that.”

We are told within the Bible, to neither worry about next day and what it will bring, nor assume that there WILL BE a next day and then plan our lives according to that assumption.

Don’t PLAN on what tomorrow will bring, but also, don’t WORRY about what tomorrow will bring!

Jesus, Himself, told us this, “So don't worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries.

Today's trouble is enough for today.”

And it was the great and wise Solomon, later in his life, who reminds us that each and every day is a gift from God; a gift that God wants us to enjoy, but also to appreciate and be thankful for.

An appreciation that is to be shown by our making the most of that day.

I don’t usually use or read from the Message translation of the Bible, but for the purpose of what I am saying to you right now and the emphasis upon the “DAYS” that God has given to each one of us, I will read this passage from the Message translation.

It is from and it says, “Seize life!

Eat bread with gusto,

Drink wine with a robust heart.

Oh yes—God takes pleasure in your pleasure!

Dress festively every morning.

Don’t skimp on colors and scarves.

Relish life with the spouse you love

Each and every day of your precarious life.

Each day is God’s gift.

It’s all you get in exchange

For the hard work of staying alive.

Make the most of each day!

Whatever turns up, grab it and do it.

And heartily!

This is your last and only chance at it,

For there’s neither work to do nor thoughts to think

In the company of the dead, where you’re most certainly headed.”

You see, Solomon is saying to us, that each day is God’s gift and whatever we do during that day, we should do with zeal and to the best of our abilities, as a way of saying thank you to God for that day, by glorifying His name with that day!

Paul said about the same thing in , where he said, “So whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.”

My point is this, IF we are all here and able to participate in this coming Thanksgiving Day, then we should be embracing that day for what it is and what has been designated and set aside for, “GIVING THANKS”!

But even more importantly, let’s don’t relegate our thankfulness to this one day of the year and celebrate it only then!

Make this the desire of your heart each and every day of your life!

Listen to what the Bible tells us about this very subject!

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And finally ,

STOP AND GIVE THANKS TO GOD WITH A PRAYER!

This morning I want to start off by reading with you, a a very well known passage from the Bible.

And in doing so, we will be looking at one of the very things that should be at the top of each of our lists that we thank God for each and every day of our lives!

If you have your Bibles here with you this morning, would you please turn with me to the Gospel of .

Is everyone familiar with this passage already?

It is a fairly common account that is taught from the Word.

So, right out of the gait, the one thing that should just jump out to all of us, is that of the FAITH of this woman.........RIGHT?!

I mean, if you have never read this passage before and this is your first time, or if you are a Biblical scholar and this is your 300th time of reading this passage, in either case, the issue of FAITH stands out to the reader!

And it is FAITH, that we are dealing with this morning.

FAITH is one thing that every believer in Jesus Christ should be thanking God for, each and every day of their lives!

Faith, comes from the Greek word, “pistis”, means, what can be believed, a state of certainty with regard to belief.

It is to believe to a complete trust.

When Jesus said to His disciples, “Have FAITH in God”, He wasn’t telling them to have some incremental, partial belief in God.

He wasn’t telling them to have a slight hope in who God is.

No, rather Jesus was saying to have a COMPLETE and TOTAL and UNWAVERING belief in God and who He is!

Yahweh is the great and absolute, “I AM”, not the paltry and mediocre “I MIGHT”, “I’LL TRY”, or “I’M NOT SURE”!

And too many people approach God with their wants and needs, much like people used to approach the toy from years ago, the “Magic 8 Ball”.

(Do you guys remember those things?)

ACT LIKE YOU ARE HOLDING THE EIGHT BALL AND ASKING IT QUESTIONS AS A CHRISTIANS TALKING TO GOD!

The Bible tells us that God is a rewarder of those who diligently search for, seek out and look for the favor of Him in their lives.

And yet, those who are the diligent seekers of the favor and blessings of God, do not gain His favor just because they say, “I’m coming after you God”.

The same passage in where we find the rewarding favor of God on those who seek him, tells us that the prerequisite for going after God and gaining His unlimited favor and blessings and power, is as follows.

God rewards those who have FAITH and believe that He is, the great “I AM”, Yahweh, El Shadai and that He is able to do exceedingly and abundantly above all that we can ask or think, according to His mighty power at work within us!

And in order for His mighty power to be at work within us, we must have FAITH and believe in Him!

ONE: God moves on our behalf, in accordance to His mighty power at work within us

In order for each and every person who has, or ever will come to salvation through Jesus the Christ, it could only happen through the gift of FAITH that comes by the immeasurable GRACE of God to each one of us, as His Holy Spirit draws and convicts the heart of the individual!

So, you and I start our walk with the Lord through FAITH.

Not our own faith, but a FAITH that was gifted to us, by God.

We have natural faith that we operate in every day of our lives.

Faith in the laws of physics that hold and sustain the universe.

We live in natural faith and operate in it without much thought.

For instance, we have faith in the cars that we drive to get us safely to where we are going.

We have faith in the airplanes that we fly in.

We step onto the elevators of high rise buildings that go up 300 feet and have faith in their design and their safety.

We put out faith into certain political figures to act on our behalf and do what is best for this nation.

The point is, we act out of and live in natural faith each and every day of our lives.

And yet, this faith that I mention, is only natural faith (carnal faith) and not spiritual faith.

Our natural faith is not able to save us eternally.

Natural faith is limited by what we can see and understand.

Supernatural (spiritual) faith is not bound by what we see.

The African impala antelope can jump to a height of over 10 feet and cover a distance of greater than 33 feet.

Yet these magnificent creatures can be kept in an enclosure in any zoo with a 3-foot wall.

The animals will not jump if they cannot see where their feet will fall.

Spiritual faith, according to the Bible is as follows, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen"

The faith that is given to each and every believer through the grace of God for their salvation, is found in only one source.

As tells us, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.”

A DAUGHTER'S FAITH

A young Colombian Girl who received a New Testament in her school.

She read the New Testament until one day her father caught her reading it...and told her not to read it anymore because it was full of lies and fantasy.

But the girl kept on reading until one day her father came home unexpectedly found her with the NT grabbed it from her hands and put it in his pocket.

The father went off to work where he was a mining engineer.

Several hours later sirens went off in the community there had been a cave in at the mine.

The father was trapped in the mine.

The rescue workers took 5 days to finally reach the men, but it was too late.

All 31 men died, including the father of this little girl.

Curiously, workers found the man clutching the NT between his praying hands.