========================================================================
  DEPTHS OF GRATITUDE AND BEING THANKFUL
  by Roy Daniel
========================================================================

Summary: This sermon emphasizes the importance of true gratitude from a
biblical perspective. It delves into the concept of being thankful not
just for material blessings or compared to others, but as a response to
the gift of salvation through Jesus Christ. The message challenges
listeners to rekindle a heart of gratitude rooted in the cross and to
remember the depth of God's grace in their lives.

Topics: "True Gratitude", "The Gift of Salvation"
Scripture References: 2 Timothy 3:1, Luke 7:47, 1 Corinthians 11:25, Ecclesiastes 3:30, James 1:17

------------------------------------------------------------------------
DESCRIPTION
------------------------------------------------------------------------

This sermon emphasizes the importance of true gratitude from a biblical
perspective. It delves into the concept of being thankful not just for
material blessings or compared to others, but as a response to the gift
of salvation through Jesus Christ. The message challenges listeners to
rekindle a heart of gratitude rooted in the cross and to remember the
depth of God's grace in their lives.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
CONTENT
------------------------------------------------------------------------

I'd like us to open up our Bibles to 2 Timothy 3 verse 1 and 2. 2
Timothy 3 verse 1 and 2. Another thing that's very interesting is I'm
not going to preach a sermon I preached before you, don't worry about
that, but there was a guy in South Africa, he died of cancer, his name
was Bill Mimac. I don't know if you've ever heard of him, he was a
godly, godly man. He woke up early in the morning to pray every morning
for hours at about 3 o'clock and he was an amazingly humble man.

Started this little church many years back and he came to a meeting
years back when my dad was preaching and my dad preached a sermon on
calling and he got very cross because he felt God was leading him to
full-time ministry. I don't know if you've ever felt that in your life.
But what is very interesting is that after getting extremely angry that
someone could preach a sermon like that, he was not going to come to the
next message but then he thought to himself, well, Brother Keith has
preached on calling, he's not going to preach on calling again so I
might as well go to the second message because he's already preached on
that topic.

So he came and he sat down and my dad said, and I know this guy very
well, it really did happen, my dad said for some strange reason he felt
to preach exactly the same sermon a second time. And so he stood up and
preached to the same people exactly the same sermon from start to finish
and there was about four people who got called to full-time service.
Nobody responded in the first message and in the second message that man
was called and he became one of the most wonderfully used preachers in a
certain part of South Africa.

And the stories were endless to prove that the God that we serve is real
behind this word, even if I have a comb in my Bible. He uses weak
vessels. So we've opened up our Bibles to 2 Timothy 3 verse 1 and we're
going to look today at a little topic, a little Bible topic and we look
in depth at it called gratitude and being thankful, something that many
people even sitting in church do not understand, what it means from
God's perspective to be thankful.

So with that, let's go over to prayer and then we'll read those verses.
Dear Father, thank you so much from the bottom of my heart that we can
be here together and we can read out of the word of God. Thank you for
every single person sitting here and that you love every single one of
them and that that love does not make them Christians in and of itself,
but it's precious to know that someone cares who's great.

Thank you for every person sitting here who is born again and thank you
that you want them to know you gave 66 books for us to know your will
and who you are concerning every single part of our lives. I pray this
in Jesus Christ's name, amen. Now we're going to read 2 Timothy 3 verse
1 and 2, talking about the end times, but the topic today is the depths
of gratitude or being thankful.

When I talk about being thankful, if I was just off the hat, it would be
quite fun, unless I was Amish, to go up to someone like Micah and give
him a big smack in the face. I don't know if you've ever tried that. But
when we talk about thankfulness, there's many people, when they talk
about thankfulness, what they mean is they say thank you, but then with
their life, they are not thankful, they're not showing gratitude.

If I was to go up to Micah and say thank you Micah for allowing me in
your father's house, thank you for the food that you've given me, thank
you for driving me out here, thank you for the fact that you're my
friend, that I can email you at times with a prayer request once a year,
and I do sometimes answer your emails. If I say thank you for all those
things and I smack him in the face, with my words I'm showing gratitude,
but with my life I'm not showing gratitude. There's many people, and
that's not what we're talking about today when we talk about
thankfulness.

We're talking about a life that shows gratitude, not just words that
show gratitude, just off the bat. So let us read there in 2 Timothy 3
verse 1 and 2 concerning the end times. We talk a lot about the end
times today.

We know that we are obviously living in the end times, but 2 Timothy 3
verse 1 and 2 says, this know also, that in the last days, perilous
times, that's very dangerous times spiritually, not just around us that
we can die and things like that, shall come. For men shall be lovers of
their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemous, disobedient to
parents, and lastly, and then it says also, sorry, unthankful and
unholy. The Bible says in the end times a long string of things, there's
even more, that we will see around us more than ever before.

It's not that these things have never been before, but in the end times
it will be everywhere in a very dangerous way that can affect you as
Christians and unsaved people. And one of the things that will be in the
end times as never before across the world is that people will be
unthankful. They will not have gratitude for that which they should have
gratitude for.

In Romans chapter 1, it talks of the progression of sin of a nation
until God brings His judgment on that nation. And one of the things we
read in verse 21 is because of that, when they knew not God, they
glorified Him not as God being unthankful. Neither were thankful, but
became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart, which was
dark.

And we find in Luke chapter 17 that thankfulness, or thanking God,
glorifies God. We'll get to that a little later. But yeah, they did not
glorify God, neither were they thankful.

And when we look at this topic today, and I'd like to go a bit deeper,
like I said, than just the average understanding of thankfulness and
gratitude that most people have, but look at the Bible and what it says.
If we had 1 to 6, 6 is the Antichrist, 666, and you had the lowest form
of thankfulness up to the highest form of thankfulness outside of what
God intends us to understand concerning thankfulness, then the lowest
form of thankfulness out there across the whole world is the
thankfulness that we find in Luke chapter 18 verse 11 where we read of a
Pharisee and a publican, and we're not going to read the whole portion,
but just verse 11, the Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, not
with God, God I thank Thee that I am not as other men are. And then he
listed them, extortionists, unjust, adulterers, or even as this
publican.

This is the lowest form of thankfulness that there can be out there when
you are thankful in a proud way compared to other people's morality.
Self-righteous thankfulness. Thank you God that I'm so special.

I can imagine Micah one day, if he doesn't lose all his hair, going to
the mirror, looking at himself and saying, oh thank you that I'm not as
other men are with my beautiful hair and my beautiful nose and my
beautiful teeth. You can do this in so many different ways of morality,
comparing yourself to others and saying, look, not just less fortunate
people, but I am special because of who I am and being proud of it. This
is the lowest form of thankfulness.

But going from this lowest form of thankfulness which we find in the
Bible up to the highest form of thankfulness that you can have outside
of Christianity. And the reason I say that is because this type of
thankfulness that I'm going to tell you now, which all of you know
about, you don't have to be a Christian to be thankful in this way. It's
not a wrong type of thankfulness, it's a good type of thankfulness, but
you do not have to be a Christian to have this type of thankfulness.

The highest form of thankfulness that we have outside of Christianity,
in Christianity too, but you don't have to be a Christian to have it,
and there is a growing, far deeper understanding of thankfulness in the
Bible, we'll get to soon, is that of which we are thankful compared to
those that are less fortunate. Not just thankful because I'm not morally
as bad as that guy in my own eyes. But I'm thankful, you all know the
saying, I was, I didn't like the fact that I didn't have shoes on until
I saw someone with, no, feet.

And this is the thankfulness your year many preachers preach about.
They'll stand up and they'll say we should be very thankful because
there's a guy in India and he's dying and you're not dying and he
doesn't have food and you have food and so on. And it is the
thankfulness your year of the most.

But the world preaches this thankfulness too. We should be thankful
compared to those that are less fortunate than us. It's not something
you need the bible to have.

It's not something you need to be a Christian to practice in truth. And
I'd just like to look at this for a while before we dig a little deeper.
And I'd just like to look at a few examples where you could say in
Christianity we should be thankful compared to other people.

For instance, for having a Christian family. I don't know how many of
you realize what a privilege it is just to have a father and mother.
They might get irritated at times but they even try, or even friends,
even if you don't have a father and mother that are saved, that you have
a church family that try to reach out to you in any sort of love.

I don't know, I've been, some of you might have been to India. I
remember going to India and going up in the mountains there and even in
England sometimes in about 20 times that I went there. You meet people
in the street and the only thing they know about Jesus Christ is that
he's a swear word.

Up in the mountains in some places in India you'll find people who have
never heard the name of Jesus Christ as you will in South America and
some other places. And then you realize, I grew up, I went to a church.
I went to Christian camps.

I had people that at times I could go out with and witness with them and
you realize what a precious, wonderful thing it was that your parents
gave you those bankings from a Christian perspective, in love. It was so
wonderful to have a Christian family. In South Africa about 30 years
back there was a 38 year old woman and this 38 year old woman was, her
husband left her, she turned to heroin and drugs and a social worker
came and I don't like social workers but in this case a social worker
took away her 9 year old child.

And this 9 year old child, though taken away from her, was allowed to
see her. She could come in and see the child and they left her alone
with this child for a little while and she brought in a syringe and this
syringe had in it ant poison and heroin and she put it under the cushion
of this 9 year old child and said to that child who was broken hearted
to lose its mother, I'm going to go home and I'm going to take a syringe
and I'm going to stab myself and I'm going to die and I'm going to go to
heaven. And if you want to be with mommy in heaven then take that
syringe and after I'm gone stab yourself and you will be with mommy in
heaven.

And that little 9 year old child believed its mother, so long to be with
its mother, that after its mother left it took that syringe, stabbed
itself with that syringe and it died a horrible death. Mother in
hospital survived so we know the story. I didn't have a mother like
that.

I had a mother who was my tooth mouse. I had a mother that read me the
bible. How precious compared to those less fortunate that we have
anything with a church or family that is like that.

In South Africa I sometimes go to preach or minister at special homes
and the one place I went to a lot apart from the other places, the one
place I really focus on in Utrecht South Africa was a place where they
had the worst children's child criminals of the whole of South Africa.
And these little kids in this school were terrifying. But some of these
children who were the worst child criminals in South Africa from the age
of 2 months old were sold as prostitutes and that's how they landed up
in the school.

From 2 months old they would be paid, money would be paid for adult
women to french kiss them at 2 months old before they got older and did
worse stuff. Compared to people like that we say thank you God for a
Christian family or anything like it or anything better than that. There
are multiple places in South Africa, not just one where I've gone to
orphanages and I find a little child and the child's body is rubber.

Literally you can at 5 years old hold that child's hands up here, feet
up here and it will hang like this. It has no almost muscles to move or
strengthen itself, be able to stand up upright. It can say only about 5
words.

And I've asked the people of that place what is wrong with this child?
Does it have a genetic disorder or is there some disease that did this?
And they will tell me that there is nothing wrong with this child. The
only thing that is wrong with this child was nothing genetic, no disease
that hit it, but that the parents were so emotionally abusive that it's
body started to eat itself. And compared to people like this I say a
little less fortunate than us, thank you God for a Christian family.

One thing we can be thankful for is just to be alive. And again we can
compare ourselves to other people less fortunate. Some people think well
if there's a purpose in life for you to be alive, then you'll be alive.

In South Africa there was a preacher, his name was Benny. He was in our
mission. And Benny was an amazing preacher.

He was married to a young woman and they called him an Israelite in whom
is no guile. He would go out and preach and God would use him mightily
unto the salvation of souls. And he was going around preaching and God
was using him as a young man with a lovely wife.

And someone was let out of jail. And when this person was let out of
jail, after about 20 years in jail, the people who let him out of jail
said to him, we hope never to see you again. And he said well you won't
see me alive.

And what that person decided at that moment is I'm going to drive and
I'm going to find someone to kill. And I'm going to drive at high speed
and kill that person that I find. And he drove literally about 240 miles
away from that prison in a country of over 60 million people nowadays.

And out of the 45 million people back in those days or whatever it was,
he found Benny. And at high speed he smashed into him and killed him. He
had a wonderful ministry.

Souls were getting saved. He had a family. And the question is, if we
come to the point where we think well I have the right to live because I
have a family, because I have children, because I have a ministry,
because God can use me, then why was he not alive? And therefore we can
say compared to him, compared to him that is less fortunate than us, we
should be grateful that we are alive.

I knew a person, a friend of mine, many of my friends die. In fact when
I was preaching at a young people's camp, a young person came up to me
and said, I don't want to be your friend. I said, why? He said, because
all your friends are dead.

I just happen to have a lot that I can preach about that died. My one
friend there, I remember he was an amazing man, but he couldn't have
children. And eventually after many years of praying for God to give him
a child, he got a little child.

And he was amazed that God, you know, the wife's stomach would get big
and he was amazed he was going to have a little child for the first time
ever. And the child was born and it had Down syndrome. And when this
child was born, I remember him coming up to me and he was crying, he was
weeping.

And he said, I prayed and waited so long for God to give me a baby and
then he gave me this. He was angry at this little child. But then
something wonderful happened.

He prayed. And when he prayed and sought God, God gave him love for that
little child. And I remember seeing him at Christian camps and so on.

And that little child was his pride and joy in the year after that. He
literally loved that little baby. And his wife got pregnant again with a
normal child.

And before that baby was born, he was in an accident and he went into a
coma and he died 9th of April, 2060, two years back. I just asked myself
the question, why would God give him a child after all those years? He
has hatred for the child. God gives him love.

And after God giving him love for that little child that is his pride
and joy, God kills him. And I have a little thought in my heart. Just
because I've got a family and I've got children, does that mean I
automatically have a right to live? Compared to him, I should be
grateful that I'm alive compared to those who are less fortunate than
me.

But remember I said there's the lowest form of thankfulness in the Bible
and there's the highest form of thankfulness that man can attain. But
you don't have to be a Christian to have this form of thankfulness. Many
people talk of thankfulness like this and they've never been saved.

And so I'd like to bring, the first type of thankfulness is sinful. The
second type of thankfulness is just the highest form of man's
thankfulness outside of God. And so I'd like to bring three weaknesses,
three weaknesses in the highest form of man's thankfulness.

Number one, if we are only supposed to be thankful compared to those
less fortunate than ourselves, then somewhere out there in the world, I
don't know where it is, is the person who is least fortunate. Maybe he's
in Cardboard City in India where they grow up and literally are born in
the mud. I don't know where he is, but there's somebody out there in the
world, it has to be, that is the least fortunate person on earth.

And there's nobody less than him that is less fortunate that he can
compare himself to and so he doesn't have to be thankful. Number two, if
we are only to be thankful compared to those that are less fortunate
than ourselves, this type of thankfulness is by degrees. So if I am more
fortunate compared to someone less fortunate and someone is a little
less fortunate than me, then I should be more grateful than the person
who is a little less fortunate compared to those less fortunate than
him.

So you'll have different people who should be less and more thankful in
life. And number three, if we have this type of thankfulness, the more
we achieve in a certain instance or occurrence or part of life, and the
less obvious it is that God intervened, the less thankful we will be in
that particular area of life. And this I see Christians everywhere, in
conservative churches, liberal churches, you name it, they have this
thing.

And I'd like to give you an example. If a little child, your little
child that you love, got a disease and started to die, and the doctors
give it absolutely no hope of living, and you go down on your knees and
you cry, and maybe it dies, maybe it doesn't, but at that moment, as
you're crying out to God, God intervenes and that little child is
healed, and as obvious it was God, then the inclination will be for a
little bit of thankfulness to be there towards God, because it was
obvious God did something for you from the outside. But when it's less
likely that you'll be thankful, and God explains this in scripture,
we'll come to this very soon, I'm not just taking my time of my own
thoughts, it's in the Bible, I will show you right through scripture, is
when for instance, you don't have a baby that's dying and you call out
to God and a miracle happens, but you put some effort into it.

For instance, you buy a field, and after buying this field in Africa or
India or some other place, you find that there's lots of stones in the
ground, and so you want to plant some crops, and oh dear, what do you
have to do? You have to take out the stones, and so you take your pick
and your spades and whatever else you have, your wheelbarrows, and you
come there and you start to get the stones out of the ground, and it
takes days and days, perhaps months and months, and eventually you've
got all those stones out of the ground as best you could so that you can
plant nice crops. And after all that work, and seeds in the ground, and
water, and fertilizer, and whatever you have in the ground, you see this
crop growing up. And the inclination is there to think, well, I did most
of the work, so it's not like a little baby dying, and now I know that
God intervened.

I am a little less obviously thankful to God for what I did myself. And
we find this in the Bible. We find this right through the Bible, but I'd
like to start with Deuteronomy 8, verse 12 to 14, 17.

Yeah, we find that Moses, God knew that when the Israelites came into
Canaan and they started actually putting their own effort into building
houses, taking over houses that were given to them, yes, but plowing
fields, and farming, and doing things like that, that they would become
proud. Deuteronomy 8, verse 12 says, Lest when thou hast eaten a nut
full, and hast built goodly houses, and dwelt therein, and when thy
herds and thy flocks multiply, and thy silver and thy gold is
multiplied, and all that thou hast is multiplied, then thine heart be
lifted up, and thou forget the Lord thy God, which brought thee forth
out of the land of Egypt, and from the house of bondage. And then verse
17, And thou sayest in my heart, My power and the might of my hand hath
given me, gotten me this wealth.

This attitude I was telling you about is right through Scripture. People
were so thankful to God when miracles happened, but in everyday life
when they put effort in, they took the glory to themselves. That's what
the Bible warns against, that's what the Bible says.

And so you find in Psalm 69, verse 30, that there is a verse there, and
it says, I will praise the name of God with a song, and then it says,
And I will magnify him with thanksgiving. How do you make God, you know
magnifying God, how do you make God bigger by thanking him? It's when
you make yourself smaller in what you take credit for. God, I might have
taken these stones off the ground, I might have done all the work to
make this field right, I might have built that house with the sweat of
my hands, but I'm not going to make myself big so I don't thank you, I'm
going to make myself small, and I'm going to magnify God by thanking him
even for that house that he gave me, even though I had to put an effort
in.

We magnify God with thanksgiving. David understood this. In 1 Samuel 30,
verse 23, we find there he had come back to Ziglag, and he found that
his wife and the 600 or more men that were with him, their wives and
stuff was taken away, and so he followed them, and 200 people stood,
were too tired to go with, and so they stayed at the brook of Bezor.

And the 400 that went on, they came there, and I'd like you to note
something, they took their own swords and their shields, and they did
work. When you fight it actually takes effort, you have to use your arms
and your legs and stuff. And they were fighting, and God gave them a
wonderful victory, but they fought.

And some of them, they were called children of Belial, said we deserve
all the credit, we should get all the gold and all the wonderful stuff
that came with this. And the 200 people who were too tired to go with,
they get nothing. But David said, not so.

And he said these words in 1 Samuel 30, verse 23, you shall not do so my
brethren, listen to these words, with that which the Lord has given unto
us. In spite of the fact that they took their swords, their shields, and
fought with people, it was still God that gave them the victory, not
them themselves. And David said we're going to give to those 200 people
who were too tired to come with, because God gave it to us, and we're
going to give it to every single place that we ever had a house to stay
in basically, and to the leaders of Judah, and we're going to send stuff
to them all.

So in light of this, in light of the fact that there are weaknesses in
the highest form of man's thankfulness, and the fact that we ought to be
thankful in spite of our own effort, I'd like to dig a little deeper.
This is not the depths of thankfulness yet, this is just a little
deeper. And I'd like to bring up what some preachers do, which is the
fact that every single one of us deserve hell, compared to a holy God
without Jesus Christ.

And thus we should be thinking as people who are born sinners, going our
own way, doing our own thing, born with a heart that does not love God,
does not know God, lives outside of His life and outside of His
authority. But we have done sin by breaking God's law, and compared to
other people we might look good, but compared to God, we deserve hell
for every moment of eternity. And therefore the fact that we are sitting
in chairs right now, and the fact that we are breathing, every breath is
a gift of God.

We should right now, outside of Jesus Christ, be in hell right now for
eternity. Therefore everything we have in life is a gift, and we should
be thankful for it. Whether we can eat and not be burning in hell, be
thankful for that.

Whether we are drinking a drop of water and we're not in hell longing
for a drop of water, we should be thankful for that, because that is
what we deserve outside of Jesus Christ. Nothing in us can change the
fact that we deserve hell for eternity. Therefore we should be thankful
because everything is a gift.

But I would like to take this a little deeper. In fact I'd like to take
it very deep right now, because I'd like to ask a question. Satan and
Adam, before the fall of man, and before the fall of Satan, they were
both ungrateful.

Why did they have to be grateful? Well, number one, the reason I ask
that is, there was not anybody extremely less fortunate than them. There
might have been people who were less glorious than the angel that Satan
was. There might have been animals that didn't look as amazing as Adam
and Eve looked.

But there was nobody with no shoes, no feet, to say, well, I've got no
shoes but that person has got no feet. There was no sin, there was no
disease, there was no suffering. So Adam could not look around him and
say, well, compared to that person who's filled with sores all over
their body and hasn't eaten for 50 days, I must be grateful.

Adam at the same time was not deserving of hell, so he could not say,
well, outside of Jesus Christ I deserve hell, therefore everything in
life is a gift because I should be burning in hell right now. Why did
Adam have to be thankful? Why did Satan have to be thankful before sin,
disease, suffering, or even people deserved hell? And this is where we
get a little deeper than man's concept of thankfulness. In Ezekiel 28
verse 13 and so on we read, number one, that thou hast been in Eden,
number two, every precious stone was thy covering, talking of Satan,
tablets in thy pipe was prepared in thee in the day that thou wast
created, thou art the anointed sheriff that covers.

Satan was beautiful. But in spite of this we read in Isaiah 14 verse 14,
I shall ascend above the hearts of the clouds, I will be like the Most
High. Instead of being grateful for what God gave him, he was ungrateful
for what he did not have.

The same thing we find in Adam. Instead of being grateful for this
beautiful garden with all these amazing fruits that he could have and
the amazing paradise he was in, he was ungrateful for the one thing that
God didn't give him, either the one tree or the knowledge of good and
evil. But why were they supposed to be grateful? Well before sin, before
suffering, before there were people that were usually less fortunate
than others, there's one concept that reaches out throughout eternity
and that we need to understand and that many of the prophets in the
Bible understood and that the New Testament was understood by Paul and
others.

And that is because God is creator, because he spoke and trees were
created and fish were created and men were created and everything on
earth was created. Everything in life and in the universe is God's
property. And because it's God's property, he made it, he created it, he
can do with it as he wishes.

He can send it to a lake of fire tomorrow and he would be righteous to
do so because he owns it. And this God who owns everything, and because
he owns everything, it is a gift and we should be grateful even before
we have someone less fortunate than us to make us thankful for our
fortitude and before we deserved hell. The fact that God owns us makes
everything a gift and therefore we are to be grateful.

And we'll find this in Scripture. I will show you the Bible preaches
this clearly. God actually owns us twice.

How many of you have heard of the Whippoorwill song? Well, it's a sweet
little song and one of the verses goes, I don't know if I'm pronouncing
Whippoorwill wrong, but perhaps Americans say it differently. I could
demand your love, I own you twice, but only winning love is worth the
price. Beautiful little song.

God owns us twice. That we read through the Bible. He owns us by right
of creator.

As creator of the universe, you don't have to be slave for him to own
you. He can send you to hell and judge you. He has that right as
creator.

He owns you and owns every blade of grass on the ground, every tree on
the mountain, every river that flows, and every bird in the sky. He owns
every star in the heavens. He owns the moon.

He owns everything. And therefore, he owns us the first time, but the
second time he owns us, we find this in the Old Testament, he owns us by
right of redemption. Because the Passover did not mean that you are now
free from Egypt to be your own master.

No, the firstborn are mine. And in the New Testament, in 2 Corinthians,
we read, you are bought with a price, therefore glorify God in your body
and your spirit, which are God's. God owns it because you're bought with
a price.

And that is the beauty of redemption. One of the things that happened to
Abraham in the Bible, in Genesis chapter 14, is for the first time, I
might be wrong, but it seems like the first time after Genesis 12 and
13, we had four different altars, twice at Bethel, one at Hebron. Then
this guy called Malchizedek comes and he blesses Abraham and he uses a
term that we've never heard of before.

Remember God was revealing himself, first as the Almighty One, then as
Jehovah later to Moses. But this time with Abraham, he reveals himself
through the words that are said by Malchizedek when he says that God is
the possessor of heaven and earth. He owns everything.

And Abraham seems so shocked. For the first time we hear Abraham in his
own prayer saying to the king of Sodom, and no, I'm not going to take
any of your gold and your silver. In the previous verse he says, because
I serve the God who is possessor of heaven and earth.

He copies Malchizedek. He realizes this great concept, therefore I can't
take your gold because you're going to say, I made Abraham rich and I'm
actually serving the God who owns everything. Every last little blade of
grass he owns and that's the one I serve.

The beautiful thing is he can do with his creation as he wishes.
Jeremiah 18 verse 6, talking of Israel, he said, am I not the potter and
basically you're the clay, you're in my hand. But I've got some
questions now for normal people.

Now this would not be me because I'm not normal. But in some churches
you have people who have nice voices. I'm not saying you don't have a
nice voice.

I'm sure there are some very beautiful voices here. But if you do and
you're born with that and you spend a lot of effort to get that voice
nice after you're born with a nice voice. And because of that effort,
you know one of the biggest problems with thankfulness is just we
compare ourselves not only to people less fortunate, we compare
ourselves to lazy people.

And the more effort we put in the less thankful we are because we say
well this is the American conservative way, hard work equals you deserve
your pay, which is fine. And lazy people should not get paid, which is
fine. But the problem is the lazy person doesn't deserve it and you also
don't deserve it, it's a gift of God.

He just deserves, he less deserves it less. If you want to use very
weird terminology. But do you have a nice voice? Well Psalm 12 verse 4
says these words, We have said with our tongue will we prevail, not
talking about singing, but still the concept is there, our lips are our
own.

Who is Lord of us? I own my lips. That's what some people say. And God
says no, I own your lips.

Do you have a business? Well in Habakkuk 1 verse 16 we read of people
who were thankful for what? They were thankful for their business, not
to God. Therefore they sacrifice unto their net, because by them their
portion is fat, and their meat plenteous. In other words, what God is
saying here is there's people who instead of looking to God who gave the
fish in the sea that went into the nets, they literally worship their
nets and are thankful to their nets.

Like many people worship their business as if that thing is something
they did and they can be worshipped as a God later. The work of their
own hands. You might have built the Suez Canal.

What's the canal between America and South America? Panama. Panama, you
guys are brilliant, you have brains. Sometimes you use them.

But someone might have spent many years building the Suez Canal, the
Panama Canal that many people died, thousands of engineers I think died
down there, or at least over a thousand I think died people building
that from America. They weren't used to the diseases. And you might
after all that work that you put in think that well it wasn't a miracle
that it happened, it was work that went into this.

And therefore I deserve some of the credit and there's less credit to
God Almighty. But in Ezekiel 29 verse 3 we read of a king, a pharaoh,
sorry, king of Egypt. And Pharaoh king of Egypt said something very
interesting that God condemned.

He talked to the river Nile and he said these words, my river is mine
own. I own this river. God said no, no, no, no.

I own this river. You can't take credit for owning this river. I own it.

I own your lips. I own your business. I own your rivers.

If you get promoted at work, Psalm 75 verse 6 and 7 we know these words
for promotion neither comes from the east nor from the west nor from the
south. But God is the judge. He put it down one and set it up another.

No matter how much work and effort you put in while the other guy was
lazy you studied and eventually you came to the point after a few years
that they promote you and you get a little more pay and there's a little
bit of you know I did it therefore I don't have to be extremely thankful
to God because he didn't do a miracle. I did a lot of the effort. God
said no, no, no.

I promoted you. Hezekiah, when they presented gifts to Hezekiah in 2
Chronicles 32 he was magnified in the sight of all the nations and his
heart was lifted up. Basically Hezekiah became a little bit proud of
what he had done and forgot that God was the giver of everything that he
had in life.

We know in Daniel 4 verse 30 that Nebuchadnezzar then he took credit for
the kingdoms that he had. He said is not this great Babylon that I have
built by the might of my power. I love Cyrus.

I have no idea where Cyrus stood with God but I do know that he said
some good stuff. One thing I love about him in contrast to
Nebuchadnezzar was the words he used in 2 Chronicles 36 verse 23 because
he said that the God of heaven gave me all these kingdoms. That every
single one of the kingdoms that I have is because God gave it.

It doesn't matter if I send out armies to win other nations. It doesn't
matter if I put effort and money and resources and people and hours into
running this whole kingdom. It's God that gave it.

He understood this basic concept. I would like us to open up the Bible
to 1 Chronicles 29 verse 11 and 14. Sorry.

1 Chronicles 29. By the way that is in the Old Testament. I say that
because D.L. Moody the first time he went to try and join a church he
was looking for revelation in Genesis.

God still used him later. 1 Chronicles 29 verse 11. David and the people
had brought together gold and precious things and material to build the
temple.

Obviously how did they get these things? They had to fight for it in
some cases. They had to work for it for years to earn these things. But
there's a wonderful thing we see in the heart of David.

He understood what I'm talking about to a great degree because we read
here in verse 11 and 14. Thine O Lord is the greatness and the power and
the glory and the victory and the majesty. For all that is in the heaven
and that is in the earth is thine.

God owns everything. Thine is the kingdom O Lord and thou art exalted
head above all. But then we read in verse 14.

But who am I and what is my people that we should be able to offer so
willingly after this sort? For all things come of thee. And listen to
these words. If you forget everything else from the sermon remember
this.

Of thine own have we given thee. Of thine own have we given thee. He
didn't say look of mine own that I worked for I gave you.

It's your own that I'm giving you. No credit to me. And he said the same
basically in verse 16 of the same chapter.

Job understood this in Job 1 verse 21. He was the richest man, the
greatest man in the east with all his riches. And when God took it away
he said the Lord hath given, the Lord hath taken away.

Blessed be the name of the Lord. He understood if you take the first
part of that verse before you take the hardships of Job. That God, in
spite of the effort he put into his businesses and the people he sent
out to run certain things.

There was a lot of effort he had to put into all those different sheep
and cattle and whatever. No matter how much effort he put into his
businesses he realized God gave it. It's a gift of God and he has the
right to take it away.

Job said in Job 31 verse 27 a very interesting thing. He said these
words. And my heart, if my heart has been secretly enticed basically, or
my mouth hath kissed my hand.

How many of you kiss your hand? French people do that to other people.
Do you know what Job was saying here? He was basically saying this. If I
look at my hand and say you're wonderful.

You're the one who built up that business. You're wonderful. You're the
one who gave so much to both of you.

You're wonderful. You're the one who did all the different things that
he accomplished in life. That's when you kiss your hand.

That's an expression among the Jewish people. To kiss your hand. So many
people before they thank God they're kissing their hand.

Look what I've done. And go to church. You kiss your hand.

1 Corinthians 4 verse 7. This is right through the Bible. We read
concerning spiritual gifts and abilities these words. What hast thou
that thou didst not receive? Why are you proud? And why are you causing
divisions? And I'm a better Christian than you because of these gifts
that I have.

What do you have that you have not received? Now probably the most
important chapter in the whole Bible on this topic you'll find is a
psalm. Psalm 104. You can turn your Bibles to it.

It brings us out probably clearer than any other portion of scripture in
a wonderful beautiful way that we perfectly understand what God is
saying. In Psalm 104 we read of a God who not only created everything
but he sustains everything. We read in Psalm 104 verse 10 that he
sendeth the springs into the valley.

That he gives drink to every beast of the field. Verse 11. That he
causeth the grass to grow.

In other words when there's a river flowing down a hill it's not just
because rain randomly came there. God is sending that water down there.
When there's grass growing opposite yes it's nice to know that we
watered it but it's God that's making it grow.

That's what my Bible says. Psalm 104 verse 21. This becomes very
interesting.

The young lions roar after their prey and seek their meat from God. Yes.
It talks of lions that are looking for prey.

And then it says in verse 23 very important words. Man goeth forth unto
his work. How many of you wake up in the morning and go work somewhere?
Sometimes it's a lot of effort.

You could get food stamps. Be like all those socialists. And those
Africans.

I'm talking about people like me. I'm from Africa. That are lazy.

But then we read in verse 27. These all wait upon thee. But then these
amazing words in verse 28 which explains everything.

It says that thou givest them they gather. That thou givest them they
gather. In other words that lion.

I don't know if you've ever studied a lion. I've seen a documentary on a
lion. A lion sometimes has to spend days working, toiling, creeping up
on animals that get away.

And eventually after days of work it will get one prey that it can eat
for many days. A man going to work has to wake up in the morning, pack
his hands, take his legs, go to work. Maybe at a computer you're
ticking.

Maybe you've got a spade. Maybe you're building up houses. And all these
things you are doing.

And God says these words. It's part of all the effort that you put in.
That lion put in.

That you put in. It's still me that gave it. And this is a concept that
so many Christians don't understand.

And it's the reason why they are only thankful when their baby is dying
and they call out to God. And the baby gets healed. But they're not
thankful for the little things.

Because they think that they did it. There's a little bit of a glory in
my work and my effort. And God says no, no, no.

You've got to work and you work very hard. It's still me that gave it.
Psalm 104.

Very clearly said. This year we've got to get a spousal permit again. I
can't take my wife back to South Africa unless I have a visa.

So if I don't get the visa in Chicago now with all the paperwork that I
have to do. I have to get doctors, clearances, TB tests. I've got to go
to notaries to say that I still love my wife.

I've got to get FBI clearances. I've got to get South African police
clearances. I've got to get a whole lot of stuff.

And I have to give that in. And after all that effort, I have to drive
up 10 hours to Chicago. Not a lot of posts in.

I have to go see the people. I have to hand it off and I have to smile.
Now that might sound like a lot of effort.

I've done that quite a few times in my life. They have rejected me
before and thrown me out of the country. They have said to my wife, you
are a criminal in front of my face.

They have said to me with a baby in my hands, this baby was not born.
I'm like, are you certain? And they sent me off after seven hours in a
long hot queue line and I had to go to lawyers and many people to get
the baby born again after three weeks later. And eventually, you've got
all these things happening.

My wife on their computers was not in the country when the baby was
born. But there is the piece of paper to prove it was born without the
wife in the country. I don't know how they work in South Africa
sometimes.

But one thing I know, though I could say, well, I am part of the reason
why I sometimes get this visa to go back to South Africa and bring my
wife with me. Because of all the effort I put in. I know it's a gift of
God.

Whenever it ever happens that I can even have my wife. There's times in
my life where I have failed emotionally. I remember things happened and
things happened and for months things were happening and people came
against us and things were going wrong.

And I came to my wife and I wasn't crossing my wife but I said to my
wife, I am so down, so irritated, so frustrated and I just have to be
like a Catholic for once and confess it to somebody and I'm going to
tell you. And I go before God and say, God, I'm failing in my heart. I'm
sorry.

By the way, preachers aren't supposed to fail. But you know what always
amazes me? It's often after I've failed emotionally in my heart, soon
after that God saves a drunken. Or somebody that people have been
praying for for 5, 6, 7, 8 years.

Many people praying for and I am this big failure and I come before this
person and I say some words and GADOOF! And I know it's a gift of God.
And I wonder sometimes if God has to do that to you just to bring you to
the point where you realize everything is a gift. Because when you're
all victorious, you know there's a little bit about me.

Maybe it was because I'm such a wonderful Christian that God used me
like that. I find the same sometimes when I feel such a failure in my
heart and there's financial needs at home and I pray to God and I feel,
why would God hear my prayers? And I just come to God for who He is
anyway. His mercy, His love, His goodness.

And somehow the phone rings. And I say to my wife and I cry and I say,
why would God be so kind to me? Because it's a gift and it always was a
gift. The Bible says in 1 Corinthians 10 verse 31, do all to the glory
of God.

I used to struggle with this as a young Christian. I don't know if you
did. It says here, whether therefore you eat or drink or whatsoever you
do, do all to the glory of God.

Okay, now the reason I struggled with this was I was wondering, how do I
obey this? I love God, I want to obey verses in the Bible. How do you do
all to the glory of God? Well, when you're eating, you have to sing
hymns with a full mouth. I don't know exactly what this means.

That's what I was thinking. Do I have to sing hymns? Hallelujah! I don't
know what I have to do with this verse. And what I didn't understand,
and this is something we find in Luke chapter 17, when you have the 10
lepers, one of them a Samaritan at least, were told to go to the temple,
to the priest, shall we say, to tell them they were healed, and one of
them came back and he knelt down and he thanked Jesus.

What did Jesus say two verses later? Only one has come back to glorify
me. What does thankfulness do? It glorifies God. You see, when you start
to realize that even the glass of water on the table is a gift of God,
and I sometimes forget to pray occasionally, I'm not saying I'm perfect,
but the point of the matter is, God is worthy of thankfulness for the
little things in life, because everything in life we don't deserve.

Because we deserve hell, number one, but number two, our son of Jesus
Christ, because it's a gift. Because he earned everything. He could have
chosen not to give that to us.

We've got to work and we think we deserve it because of our work. Do all
to the glory of God. And of course the Bible says this in Ecclesiastes 3
verse 30, and also that every man should eat and drink and enjoy the
good of his labor.

Why? Because it is the gift of God. Our food, God says in the Old
Testament, is a gift from God. James 1 verse 17, talking of spiritual
things mostly, and everything in life, every good gift and every perfect
gift is from above.

The problem though with us as Christians, and many other people, is we
often can forget what God has done for us. When times are bad and the
baby is dying, and God miraculously does something, for the next few
days we're very grateful to God. But when things go well, and it's our
work that brings the paycheck at the end of the month, whatever happens,
or there's no miracles going on, we forget very easily.

And we find this in the Bible. Genesis 40 verse 13 and 14, and I'll
quickly go through a few of these. We have a man in prison called
Joseph, and the butler is told the interpretation of his dream, and
basically he's going to live.

And Joseph asks a simple question. He says, but think on me when it
shall be well with thee. Just remember me basically.

And we read the next verse, but the butler did not remember Joseph, in
spite of the goodness that was done unto him. The children of Israel,
Judges 8 verse 34, Israel remembered not the Lord who had delivered them
out of the hands of their enemies. Psalm 78 verse 42, also Israel, they
remembered not his hand nor the day when he delivered them from the
enemy.

Then we have the Israelites of the Red Sea, Psalm 106 verse 7, they
remembered not the multitudes of his mercies, but they basically
provoked him at the sea, even the Red Sea. Often through the Old
Testament and the Bible, you read that people forgot what God had done
unto them. And they weren't thankful anymore, but they became
rebellious.

But then we even find people, like with Joseph, who were forgotten.
Where 2 Chronicles 24 verse 22, when the king remembered not the
kindness which Jehoiada his father had done unto him, the king basically
killed the son of the priest that had been so good to him. He forgot the
goodness of his man.

And I don't know if you know in life, but it's so easy to forget, and
not so gratitude, just to people out there. We have in the Bible, in
Mark chapter 7 and other portions of Scripture, where Jesus rebuked
people for not supporting their old parents in their old age. They were
forgetting the good that their parents did unto them, in many cases.

But I know a man in South Africa, he's almost dead now, his name is
Peter Schultz. He's one of the reasons I'm in the ministry. You know,
when you name drop, just remember one thing.

We should not follow a man as God, but we can lift up people only in the
sense of what we lift up what Christ has done to them, and who Christ is
to them. And there are many people like Hebrews chapter 11, great
revivalists of old, that are humble, that don't take the glory, but we
can say, thank you God for giving us that preacher who has meant so much
in so many people's lives, because of what Christ has done through his
humble heart towards other people. And one such man was Peter Schultz in
South Africa.

He was born again in revival in the 1930s or so. His brother came with a
gun, literally, to tell him to have a family altar, and he was a drunk
himself. And God swept through that town, saved them.

He became a preacher across South Africa, and God swept through
different communities, and people were saved in their hundreds across
our country. In his old age, I remember him preaching to teenagers where
they were all weeping, all seeking God, though they were used to
entertainment and a television at school, as he preached simple messages
from the Word of God. He was a powerful, anointed preacher who loved
God, and loved God's Word.

And I remember sitting under him and just being amazed. But this man,
who so many people were saved under his ministry, in his old age, late
80s at that stage, another friend of mine came up to him, had not seen
him for 20 years, got saved under his ministry, got blessed under his
ministry 20 years back, saw him and thought, but that's that old
preacher. He walked up to him and he said, are you Peter Schultz? And he
said, yes.

He said, I want to tell you something. 20 years back, I got saved under
your ministry. You know what happened to that old man who had been so
used to God? He started to weep.

He wept and he wept. And he said, you know, it's so precious that
anybody bothered to come to me and say thank you. That anybody
remembered, enough not to just go on with their life, to come back and
say thank you.

I know a man who brought my great-granny to the Lord, with a squeaky
voice. He started 13 churches at the same time. He had a revival at the
Durban Central Prison in the 1970s or so, that the prisoners were
weeping, and their thousands were weeping down the corridors, and for
two weeks they were bringing each other to the Lord.

God swept through there in revival. More people were radically saved
through him than any other person in that massive prison's history, as
he was the chaplain at that place. And yet I found him in his old age
and I went to him.

I heard tapes of him. I picked up the phone and I phoned him and I said,
can I visit you? And I went there and I stayed at his place and he burnt
eggs. He couldn't see much, and he then afterwards decided to teach me
how to cook eggs.

We prayed together and we sang hymns together. And I didn't know
something. I was an ignorant little kid, but I was just thankful that he
brought my great-granny to the Lord, who I never met.

But he phoned my dad and he was weeping. And after the revival and the
thousands of souls who were saved under this man, a true time, old time
revivalist, he said to my dad, Keith, I'd lost something in my fire, but
just that someone cared to say thank you, I sought God to get it back.
Joseph wasn't the only person who asked us to remember.

Jesus asked us to remember. 1 Corinthians 11 verse 25, Matthew 26 verse
27 talks of the Lord's table that we do at church. And it says, this cup
is the new testament of my blood.

This do you as oft as you drink it in remembrance of me. And he took up
the cup and gave thanks and gave it to them saying, drink ye all. But
there's a lot, it's something that many people don't understand.

This is not a ritual. This is a remembrance. It's not just an ordinance,
it's a remembrance.

It's remembering what God has done for us and a deep thankfulness for
that which he has done. I'd like to ask you a question. Why do you do
projects for the Lord? Some of you might have tried to do something for
God after you got saved.

Why do you stand for truth? Why do you witness? Why did you do that at
some stage in your life or stop? Why did you stop doing it as you used
to do? In some cases, well there's practical reasons, but we wouldn't be
preaching at 5 o'clock in the morning like John Wesley did because
there's no one to preach to, only cars. But in most cases it's because
life has become too busy. True born again Christians, life has become
too busy.

Projects have failed. You started off, oh we're going to win 10,000
souls through this project for God and then you don't have 10,000 souls
and it's not as exciting as it used to be, so we give up. People don't
support it.

At the beginning others were excited and it's always exciting to do
something if you get attention because, oh isn't it wonderful your
little project that you're doing for God. You're writing a tract. You're
doing a website.

You're making videos. You're witnessing on the street. You've got this
thing that you're building.

Well great and everybody's excited. Well that's wonderful. Everybody's
excited.

Motivation! And then they start getting less excited because they don't
see the world rising up in one moment and then you get less excited
because they're less excited. Great men that made you excited about
their projects tells you, oh there were people across America who were
leaders and they had projects for God and they were doing things for God
and now they're caught with a woman. So why should I be excited about
stuff like that? And I meet this across America as you would too.

Young people will say, I'm not excited. You remind me of that guy who
was a leader of millions. And I'd just like to ask a little question of
every single person who once had a fire.

Why were you on fire in the first place? Well if you're truly born
again, I'll tell you why. It was not because you had the primaries. It
was not because there were people that failed you and did not fail you.

You were truly born again. It was because of a little hill where you
came as a sinner deserving, because of who you was and what you've done
compared to God, deserving hell for eternity. You came to that little
hill where there was a cross and you met with God through Jesus Christ
and your sins were forgiven.

And because of meeting God through Jesus Christ at that little hill, you
were thankful! And because you were thankful there was nothing you would
not do for him. And then people lose it because other things become the
reason that we serve God. And those other things can fail us, but God
never fails us.

The despised little hill in history is the reason we're grateful. There
was a man in our mission, or actually in our Bible college years back.
He was drunk a lot of the time, sleeping around a lot of the time.

God saved him. And I remember him weeping, literally tears falling down
his face, dripping on the ground as he told us that he would always be
more thankful than us that came from more conservative houses. Because
he quoted from the Bible, and then Luke 7 verse 47, Her sins which are
many are forgiven, for she loved much, but to whom little is forgiven,
the same loveth little.

You know I disagreed with him that day. I'll tell you why I disagreed
with him. Because when I came to be saved, I had as much sin in my heart
as he had in the outside.

And when God saved me, he forgave much. I'd looked on women like he
slept with women. And according to God, that's evil.

And I was grateful. I remember quite a few times that I prayed to be
saved, and I was basically wanting a ticket to heaven. You know, this is
a little problem I have.

I go from church to church to church to church, and I see Christians
that come to church on Sunday, they come to church on Wednesday, they're
at the prayer meeting, you name it, but there's no intense, it doesn't
have to be emotional, but gratitude to a God who saved them in a little
hill called Calvary. And some of them say they never had that. And many
of them, they only have a ticket to heaven.

Jesus is a ticket to heaven. I don't want to go to hell, so I'm going to
go to heaven. There's no understanding of the fact that we are sinners.

Compared to God and his law, we deserve hell for eternity. And
therefore, at this moment, the fact that I'm alive is a gift from God.
And the greatest gift that God gave his own son to die on a cross, I
could never deserve that.

But that's my only hope. And I come to that, and he actually gave me
righteousness in Jesus. And because of that, I'm grateful.

There's just, I don't want to go to hell, so Jesus, please come into my
life. Oh, now I'm a Christian. What do I do? I go to church.

But you're not saved. If there's no gratitude, you can't be saved. And
then they add to this false foundation of liberalism or conservatism or
experientialism or emotions that there's no fruit according to the
Bible.

What God says must be in your life if you're a Christian. Not to be
perfect. I was not perfect when I got saved.

I went and had some legalism afterwards. I can tell you lots of stuff,
but I'll tell you one thing. He changed my life, and I was grateful.

I'd like to end off with just two little concepts and a little song.
Very importantly, you're not saved by thanking God. There are movements
out there, and I don't want to run video right now, but there's books
out there that are sold in their millions where you have God moments by
thanking God for a tree and thanking God for your clock and thanking God
for everything in life, and basically through that you meet God through
the things you thank God for.

That's called panentheism, meeting God through things. You're not saved
by God. You don't experience God through thankfulness.

You experience God through Jesus Christ and Him in the world and
learning, I am the way, the truth, and the life. No man cometh to the
Father but by me. If you are unsaved and you need to get saved, you need
to go to that little cross, to Jesus, and get saved.

If you don't have that old fire that you used to have, and because of
many of the reasons that I've mentioned or others, then you don't need
to start just saying, thank you God for the tree, thank you God for the
plants, thank you God for my bed, thank you God for my mommy. That's
good stuff, but that's not going to change your heart. You've got to go
back to that little cross and meet with God and be restored like Psalm
23 says, and then because He saved you, because He restored you, you're
thankful.

You are thankful and you will be thankful and you choose to be thankful.
He has a little song I wrote. I'm not going to sing it, else you're
going to be very unthankful for the message.

But I'm just going to read the first verse. My grandfather's name was
Jack Daniel, and he was a drunkard, but he wasn't the Jack Daniel. He
was my grandfather.

And he got wonderfully saved, smashed every bottle. His wife that was
divorcing him, my grandmother, stopped the divorce case when she saw the
new person through Jesus Christ that was in front of her. And I wrote
this little song in memory of him.

I once was a drunkard who thought he was good. I sent my family through
hell on earth. My pride kept me back from the foot of the cross.

But Jesus was seeking his sheep that was lost. How could a king die for
a slave? How can creation deserve what he paid? All of grace, salvation
so free, but offered with pierced hands. It was not cheap, though it's
free.

I'm not going to ask you guys to come and pray or anything like that.
I'd just like to ask something very simple. The main issue before we get
to anything else is just that many people have a very man-centered
understanding of gratitude.

It comes down to either being thankful compared to other people's
morality, or it comes down to you only being thankful compared to those
less fortunate to yourself. And therefore you will find in your life,
and some of you might have been sitting here, and you realize that when
you do a lot of effort and things, you're less thankful towards God for
those things, like Psalm 104 and many other verses preaches against. And
if that is the case, then you have to come before God and you have to
talk to him and say, God, I want to be thankful for everything because
everything is a gift, and realize that I need to magnify God by making
myself less, and your work more, and therefore I should be thankful for
everything.

But secondly, it's possible that you've lost your fire as a Christian,
and the things that excite you don't excite you anymore in any way,
because instead of being motivated by gratitude for what Christ has done
in your life, you're motivated by things that can fail you. People, time
that isn't there anymore, so many different things. And in that case,
you also need to come and pray to Jesus Christ, and he's willing to
restore you.

My grandfather died of cancer two years back. He always used to say one
little thing. He said, listen, if you need a heart operation, I'll tell
you someone who's an expert who's done it many times.

My Jesus. And the same thing he would say, let's pray. And then I give
it over to Brother.

Dear Father, thank you so much that we can, you said that we're supposed
to thank God for food. It's so beautiful to be sanctified by the word of
God in prayer. And I just want to, I want to thank you for the word of
God that is so deep, that is so beautiful.

That the greatest human mind that could bring up the most amazing
concepts of what is morality, and how we're supposed to be thankful, and
how we're supposed to be chaste, and how we're supposed to be
hardworking, how we're supposed to be everything. We can look at the
highest morals of any nation without God and without the Bible, and it
falls far flat from your desires for us as Christians to understand the
depths of any concept in Scripture. And so it is with thankfulness.

Help us to understand it so much deeper than just being thankful
compared to someone less fortunate than ourselves. But that everything
in life, because you are creator and everything is owned by you,
everything is a gift, and therefore we cannot take credit for anything,
no matter how much effort we put in. But for every little thing in life,
even the food on the table, we give glory to God by being thankful.

And help us, dear Father, to have a life where we don't just thank God
and are deeply thankful when the baby gets saved that was dying that we
called out to God, but we're thankful for every little thing in life
because it was a gift from God Almighty. And I pray this in Jesus' name.
Let it not just be that we say it with our lips to you and then we smack
you with our lives, but let it be that we are thankful with our lips and
hearts and we live it out every moment showing gratitude to the God who
died in that little tree so that we might live.

In Jesus Christ's name.

========================================================================
Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/RPz2z9tZW20.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/roy-daniel/depths-of-gratitude-and-being-thankful/
========================================================================