This is the Truth Network. Welcome to If Not Forgot. Stories of Hopelessness That Turn to Hope Here is your host, Mike Zwick. All right, this is If Not For God with Mike Zwick. I've got my friend Dr.
Dwayne Carson, date the word who is in the house. Gosh, thanksgiving is coming up. Can you believe it? Oh my gosh, this year has gone by so fast, so fast, but it always does. Time flies when you're having a good time.
And I heard somebody say, even if you're not having a good time, he's still flying. But I've got Psalm 100, verses 4 and 5, Dwayne Carson, and it says, Enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise. Be thankful unto him and bless his name. For the Lord is good, his mercy is everlasting, and his truth is ever. endureth to all Generations and one of the signs of a Christian.
is a thankful Christian, a Christian filled with gratitude. Because we love Jesus Christ. We love him. Because he first loved us. When you think about the life before Christ, we're very selfish, self-centered.
But when you get saved, one of the changes of the heart is you look at life differently and gratitude begins to grow as you realize all the different things that you have really gifts from God. Every good gift comes from the Father above, James 1:17. And we take time as a nation. to say thank you to the Lord As a national thing, but it's got to be really a moment-by-moment thing. Because Philippians 4:6 says, Be anxious for nothing but in everything with prayer and supplication.
With thanksgiving, let your request be made known unto God. And I've always taught and tried to practice the understanding of Scripture that the right way to approach a holy God is with thanksgiving. Thanksgiving. Come into his presence with thanksgiving. That means you can't come into his present grumbling and groaning and moaning and angry.
There is this component of thankfulness that places God at his rightful place. Because the Christians should be understanding, whatever is happening in their lives, we have a God that's at work like a master chef who's taking ingredients and putting them together to make a masterpiece meal. Uh, like the chocolate chip cookie, yeah. I remember I was in Asheville years ago, and I had this older client of mine, and she said it, and I've heard it many times since, but I don't ever remember hearing it before this. And she said, Mike, she said, I got to tell you something.
She said, When praises go up, blessings come down. Yes. And I remember, oh gosh, this was 15 years ago, but I was actually, I barely had any energy, but I felt the Lord was telling me to go to church. And so I ended up going to church this night. And I walked in there, and I just felt the Lord tell me, praise me.
Praise me as loud as you can. Praise me with all that you've got. And I'm telling you, Dr. Carson, people may believe it, they may not. But when I started to praise the Lord, I felt completely better.
You know, we think that we can do all of these works for the Lord. Uh, but really, what he's looking for is a heart that's grateful. Yeah, um, you know, the Bible says that our best of works are like filthy rags to the Lord, but he, he, he gets pray, he gets praise and he gets joy when Christians truly give him praise.
Now, not a fake praise, no, no, no, not a false, you know, hey, look at me, look at me in front of everybody else of what I'm doing. But Jesus actually put it this way: he says that when you go to pray, he said, Go do it in your room by yourself, so your father who sees what is done in secret. Will reward you openly. And he talks about the Pharisees who, when they pray or they go out on the street corners and they want everybody to see what they're doing. He says, but when you pray, And when you fast, he says you do it secretly.
And he says, What your father sees, what is done in secret, he will reward you openly.
Well, we think about Our God and His feelings I don't know if your listeners have thought about this, but God has feelings. And Jesus, one day, is just on a walk. And he comes across 10 lepers. Luke 17 has the story if you want to look it up. 10 lepers who are in the most dire circumstances, life is miserable.
Anytime someone even starts coming close to them, they're supposed to yell out, unclean, unclean, stay away from us.
Well, here's Jesus walking along with his disciples and They see him. And they've heard about him. And they cry out, Clean us. They don't cry out unclean. They call to Jesus.
They believe he can do the miracle. Clean us. Have mercy on us. And so Jesus does. Ten lepers are told, go to the priest, which is what Leviticus said.
So they turn, they make the turn, they start going to the priest, and as they're doing so, their flesh becomes whole again. One One. One out of ten. Turned around and came back. And said, Lord, I just want to say thank you.
I paraphrase, thank you. Thank you. I, through the years, have been stunned. By the response of Jesus. You could tell he was grieved, Mike.
You could tell he was heartbroken as he says, Was there not ten? Where are the other nine? Is there only this one who has come? to sh say thank you, When we're ungrateful, it breaks the heart. Yeah.
And we need to understand that. Uh we do not Need to be known to our Heavenly Father as spoiled, rotten children. Give me, give me, give me, give me. Uh that should not be our mindset. Uh, when I got saved, I'd already learned a song from my childhood.
Thank you, Lord, for saving my soul. Thank you, Lord, for making me whole. Thank you, Lord, for giving to me thy great salvation so rich and free. And the last show that we were talking about, we were talking about turning away from our sin and. Living our lives for the Lord and doing the right thing, and living a life that's pleasing to the Lord.
And I was just thinking about it now. Dwayne, and one of the things that came to me was this: that When we live a life where we turn away from sin, what we're really saying is, Lord, I'm grateful for what you've done for me, and I don't want to just live for myself. Yeah, the changed life. Um He has done everything I need. to have a relationship with my Heavenly Father.
And I don't want to do something that grieves him. And I don't know about you, but when I wake up in the morning, I want to kind of walk through the Lord's Prayer. It kind of gets my mind set on him right off the bat, our Father who is in heaven. Yeah, holy is his name, but I can't get past the fact that I just called him Father. Yes.
Yeah, what right do I have to call God Father? Yeah. How did that happen that I could have this intimate, close relationship? I'm his son. That's right.
Well, I'm his adopted son. And why would you adopt me? And he did. And so immediately there's that gratitude that just has to pour out of the heart. Lord, thank you for saving my soul.
Yeah, and it thank you for saving my soul. And so. It changes you. I mean, when you're grateful to God for what you've done, for what He's done for you, it makes it easier to forgive somebody else who's done you wrong. There's a story in the Bible where there was a man who owed this guy a ton of money.
I mean, a bunch, and you probably know where it is, but he. He goes to the man and he begs him for forgiveness. And the guy was so moved by this man who asked for forgiveness. He said, I'm going to go ahead, I'm going to forgive you of everything that you owe me of. But then that man went out into the street and he saw a guy who owed him five bucks.
And he said, I'm going to throw you into jail. I'm going to make, you're going to pay for what you've done. And I'm not going to let you go until you've paid every last penny. Do you remember what Jesus said to that man? Um He he rebuked him severely.
And here you've got a guy that had experienced The forgiveness, let's say it was $1,000 for the analogy that you just used. $1,000. Gone. He didn't have to pay it back. And now he goes and jumps down the throat of a guy that owes him $5 and he's going to have him thrown in jail.
He's a wicked man. And what it did was it revealed his heart that he really wasn't genuine when he asked this man to forgive him. Because if he was genuine in asking, he would have realized: since I've been forgiven much, I should forgive those who don't owe me much. But he had a wicked heart. Jesus called him a wicked man.
Wow. That's not a term you want Jesus using on you. You know, and when you're grateful to God, it makes you want to help the poor. It makes you want to pray for the lost. It makes you want to share the gospel because sometimes it can be a little uncomfortable going out and handing out a track, or like our friend Fred Hagee does from Wednesday in the Word, to go out to the bus station and share the gospel at the bus station.
But I'm sure, and I know Fred pretty well, the reason that he does this is because he knows what he's been saved of from a literal hell. And by the way, people don't want to talk about hell, it is there. And you talked about it this morning. But if we've been given the grace of God. And we've repented from our sins and we've surrendered our life to Jesus, we don't have to go to a devil's house.
Nope. Because it wasn't created for man. Nope. It was created for the devil and his angels.
So, but when I'm grateful for that, it just makes it easier for me to serve him. I mean, you know what I found? You could always find something to be grateful for. You could always praise God for something. I mean, there's a lot.
You woke up today. You know, I wake up and I say, hey, this is the day that the Lord has made. I'm going to rejoice and be glad in it. That's what we do when we wake up in the morning. And I'm telling you what, it changes the atmosphere in the house.
But I can also tell you something else. You could always find something to complain about as well. Yep. You can get up in the morning. This is the day the Lord has made.
I'm going to grumble and complain. This is the day the Lord has made. I'm going to rejoice and be glad in it. I heard about a preacher in London. They get a lot of rain over there.
And. He was just bound in the term and every Sunday morning he would begin by giving God thanks, and he wanted his people to be grateful, let's enter into his presence with gratefulness, with praise, with thanksgiving. And one Sunday morning, It was pouring down cold rain.
So the people are coming to church and they're soaking wet. And this lady leans over and says to her friend, I wonder what he can be grateful for today.
Well, the pastor walked into the pulpit and he said, I want to thank God that not every day is like today. That's it. That's it. You know, I heard, and you've heard about what's going on in Nigeria, I'm sure. I mean, they're killing Christians.
And I'm grateful that President Trump stood up and he said, Hey, we're going to come in there. We're not going to let this happen anymore. And there have been many presidents who have been around since this happened. And he's the first one to really do this. Thank God.
But I heard a story about how there were all of these Nigerian Christians. Who were over there, and at that time they didn't have much, they hardly had anything to eat. They only ate maybe three times a week. They didn't really have a great place to stay, they didn't have clean drinking water, but they would say, I'm grateful, I'm grateful, thank God, thank God. And there was an American who went over there and he said, I'm sorry to burst your bubble here, but you don't really look like you have a whole lot to be thankful for.
You know what they said? They said, We're grateful. That we don't have to die and go to hell. We're grateful that Jesus Christ took our hell for us and that we're saved by the blood of Jesus Christ. And we're grateful that when we die, we're going to go to heaven.
It doesn't matter what else is going on. If you've got Jesus. You've got everything that you need. You know, there was a verse in the Bible, and it talks about a pearl.
Somebody's trying to find a pearl of great price. And it says that when this person, when they sold everything that they had and they went after that pearl, and they bought this pearl of great price, Jesus put it like this: when somebody finds the gospel, when somebody finds Jesus, when somebody finds the good news. They neglect everything else that they've got and they go after that. You were talking about this morning. our friend Greg Hinnett.
Is actually over in India right now. I'm sure there's stuff that he could be doing over here. He could be recording a show, he could be, you know, there's a lot of stuff that he could be writing his next book. But he said no. He said, I'm grateful to Jesus for what he's done for me, and I'm going to go overseas and I'm going to serve him there.
And to be over in India, having been there numerous times, it is a toll on the human body as an American.
So I think about him putting himself through that because he wants to help people get to know the Lord better. And. That is part of making those decisions. We've got to take the gospel to every person. That's right.
Uh when we think about Thanksgiving coming up, I encourage people, Mike, to start preparing. Not just for the meal, but preparing for how they want to give thanks. How will a father lead his family, his maybe in-laws, outlaws, different ones who will be at the table? How do you lead them? I challenge people to think about using the word thankful.
That's right.
T-H-A-N-K. F-U-L. Each one of those letters can be something that a person can say. Using the letter F. How many different words can you bring out to say thank you using the word F, the letter F from freedom and food.
And I mean, the list can go right on. I think I've come up with 50 different words that start with the letter F. Find these stories. We're talking about these stories, the one in Nigeria. Corey Timboon is going to find herself in a concentration camp.
And she said to the ladies in that concentration camp, every night we're going to give thanks. And we're going to give thanks. And we're going to give thanks and her sister Betsy. Said, I'm not going to live out 1 Thessalonians 5:18. I know it says I'm supposed to give thanks and everything, but I am not going to give thanks for the lice.
And Cory Timboon said, We're going to give thanks to God for the lice. Hmm. How do you give thanks to God for the lives those horrible Bugs. And one day They started realizing The soldiers never came into their cabin. And it's like, why didn't the soldiers come into their cabin?
Well, it turned out the soldiers would not go into their cabin Because of the lice. God used lies to protect their lives.
Well, and and that's a beautiful story because You know, I wonder if God was going to use the lice, whether they were grateful or not. I don't know. Or I wonder if he used the lice because they were grateful, because they showed him gratitude, he turned it into something good. You know, the Bible says in Romans 8:28, it says that we know that all things work together for good to those who love God. And for them who were called according to his purpose.
Now, I don't know about you, but when I'm giving. Go ahead. No, no. I don't know about you, but when I'm giving thanks to God. One of the best ways when we feel the Lord the most is when we start to sing praises.
It's good when we wake up and we say, This is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. But I can tell you, I remember one time I was on a mission trip with a group. A church from Raleigh. It was Raleigh First Assembly at the time.
They're now Cross Assembly. And we had gotten into a bad accident. And it was like everybody was just shocked. There was a lady who, I mean, she broke her back. I mean, it was pelvis.
She broke her pelvis. There were people who were bleeding, all this stuff. And at that moment, I just started to sing amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. And I don't know how to explain it without being there. But when I started singing that song to God and the people were with me and they started singing it as well, it's like all of a sudden the atmosphere changed and we started saying, okay, we're going to do this.
We can do this. And we called somebody and we got and we even got on our flight. Everything was okay. But it started with praise.
Now, when the praise goes up, blessings come down. I do think one of the most challenging verses, it's the blessing verse, Philippians 4:6. Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, let your request be made known unto God, and the peace of God that passes all understanding will guard your hearts and minds. Verse 7: That's what I want. I want peace.
I don't want that anxiety. But in that verse, as wonderful as that verse is, the invitation. Yes. Two words. With Thanksgiving.
That's right.
And so many times as I am pondering the situation I'm in, that I say, I want God to change the with Thanksgiving. causes me sometimes to say, Lord, I don't want you to get me out of the storm. I just want you to get me through the storm. That's it. And it moves me from the asking the why question.
To the how question. Thanksgiving will change me. As we get closer to Thanksgiving Day, and on that Thanksgiving Day, you want to look back and say, God, I want to thank you for what you have done. I want to thank you, God, for what you are doing. But also, God, I'm going to by faith say to you right now, thank you for what you will be doing.
The three ways of giving thanks. And that's sometimes that's what gets you through. the tough times. Because Adrian Rogers used to say, he said, there's storms in your life. He says, there's one of three stages you're in.
He said, you're either going into a storm, you're in the middle of a storm, or you're coming out of a storm.
So it's not a matter of whether you'll have tough times in life. And yes, we have good times as well, especially with the Lord, but there are challenges. I mean, as Christians, it was challenging. It was challenging this past election that happened at the beginning of November. It may not have gone the way that many of us hoped.
And we have challenges. We've been through divorce. I've been through a divorce before. I've been through, my dad passed away. He died before he should have, and it was tough.
But what I do, one of my favorite chapters in the Bible is Psalm 150. Yes. And I read this out loud. It says, Praise ye the Lord. Praise God in his sanctuary.
Praise Him in the firmament of His power. Praise Him for His mighty acts. Praise Him according to His excellent greatness. Praise Him with the sound of the trumpet. Praise Him with the psaltery and the harp.
Praise Him with the timbrel and dance. Praise Him with stringed instruments and organs. Praise Him upon the loud cymbals. Praise Him upon the high-sounding cymbals. Let everything that has breath praise the Lord.
Praise ye the Lord. And I tell you what, when I read that out loud, it's really hard for me to be depressed. Yeah. Well, and that Psalm is the conclusion of the book of Psalms, 150 chapters. And in the book of Psalms, you're going to get all kind of cries Uh rule.
Please, for deliverance. David is so, I call it gut level transparent. He is downcast. He is struggling. He's wondering where God is at times.
But as he goes through his journey with God, he gets to that place. When you read Psalms 150, you can see There's no request. There's no asking. It's just adoration. And you get to the place where you understand.
You know what? I'm his child. That's right.
That's right.
I'm his child. That's it. And he's too good. Tech. Ever do something unkind to us.
And he's too wise to ever make a mistake. And so, as Spurgeon said, when you can't trace this, Hand, trust his heart. That's good. And you're going to trust and say, God, I thank you for who you are, what you're doing in my life. I'm your vessel.
Yes. Keep using me for your glory. That's it. And that's all we can do is praise God. You know, I think sometimes we get out ahead of ourselves, right?
We start to worry about things that could happen in the future. And I love what Mark Twain said. He said, In my life, I've been full of worries, fears, and anxieties of things that were to come. And he said, and most of those things never even happened. You know, Jesus put it like this in Matthew chapter 6.
He says do not worry. He doesn't say sometimes worry. He doesn't say you could worry. He doesn't say any of that stuff. In Matthew 6, verse 24, he says, no man can serve two masters.
He says, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will hold to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money. He says, Therefore I say unto you, take no thought for your life. In other words, do not worry. Don't worry about your life.
Don't worry about what's going to happen tomorrow or next week or next year or anything like that. Because you can't do anything about it. There's nothing that you, no amount of worry that you can do that's going to change anything. He says, Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? He says, Look at the birds of the air.
He said, They neither sow nor reap, nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you, by being anxious, can add a single hour to his life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow, and they neither toil nor spin.
Yet I tell you, even Solomon in all of his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, Will he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith? Therefore do not be anxious, saying, What shall we eat? or what shall we drink or what shall we wear? For the Gentiles seek after all these things.
And your heavenly Father, he knows that you need them. You need them all. He says, But seek ye first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you. Therefore, do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
And I would say the opposite of praise, the opposite of being grateful, is worrying. Yeah. And when you read that Verse 24. is I'm calling you, put me first.
Now we go to verse 33, but he knows. The great teacher knows. To get you to say, I'm going to seek first God, I got to realize worrying is not going to ever work. And you don't have to worry. You have a heavenly father.
He is going to take care of you. I have a bird feeder. I've had a bird feeder for 40 some years. Wherever I've lived, I've had a bird feeder because I needed the visual reminder as I watched those birds come to that bird feeder. God takes care of them.
He takes care of me. And so at Thanksgiving, God, I want to thank you for taking care of me. Happy Thanksgiving. God bless you and thanks for coming on, Dr. Carson.
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