Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church

Guest (Male): You are now listening to an inspirational message from Greater Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church where Dr. Michael W. Wesley Sr. is the pastor. Please join the service in progress.

Dr. Michael W. Wesley Sr.: God's praise shall continually be in my mouth. That is the whole idea. If you think Thanksgiving is limited to one day, you have missed the mark. You have misunderstood the whole process and notion of the goodness of God. It is continual. Praise is always there. His love is always there. His mercy is always there. We want to talk about that for a few moments this morning. Let's pray together, then we will give the word as God gives it.

Lord, we thank you for blessing us. Thank you for this awesome season as we enter into it. It marks the beginning of the entire holiday season that gets people excited from the trivial to the major things. I pray now in advance for families this week as they gather, not because they have big birds, but just that they might share in the love of one another.

I pray for those who have experienced difficulty and hurt because of job layoffs, transfers, shutdowns, and lack of resources, but we know that the earth is still the Lord's and it is still full of all kinds of good things. I pray that you would just open our eyes that we will see that we have so much to be grateful for. Thank you even for this time in your presence today in this place.

I thank you for the sound of children and youth, knowing that their lives are being developed and shaped for your namesake and for your glory. We pray that you would keep your hands of mercy on them and guide them throughout life. Now, Lord, as we come to this word, we pray that you would open our hearts and minds. Open our eyes that we may see, our ears that we may hear, and our hearts that we may understand as we are led into the truth.

Speak it, Lord, so clear and so deep that none of us escape. Bless the words in my mouth and the meditations on our hearts that they may be acceptable in your sight. Oh Lord, our strength and our redeemer. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen. I want us to look at the New Testament book of First Thessalonians, chapter five. It is really one verse, but I will read the other two because they are short and they are tied to this one verse.

The one verse is verse 18. That is the text for the morning, but I want to read verses 16, 17, and 18 in your hearing. First Thessalonians, chapter five, verses 16 through 18. The word of God says, "Rejoice evermore. Pray without ceasing. In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.

I want to put a tag on this text, and I want to talk about giving thanks in everything. Giving thanks in everything. It takes a godly mind to be able to do that, to give thanks in everything. Not give thanks for everything, but give thanks in everything. It is directly a principle of scripture. No excuses ought to be made, no exceptions. Nothing is outside of the parameter of giving thanks to God in everything.

In the Greek formation of the sentence structure, it means in connection to everything in life. No matter what, we can give God thanks. We have a theological reason for it. Paul writes in Romans chapter eight, verse 28, "We know," meaning the Christian community, "we know that in all things God works together for good." I remember looking at that one time when we were in the process of building here, expanding the sanctuary.

We had contracted with some people to do the financing of it, and they waited until the day after we had started. We had torn up the sanctuary, and I was getting ready to get on an airplane to go to Chicago for a couple of days for business. The guy called me while I was at the airport and said to me, "Pastor, we cannot do it." I said, "What do you mean you cannot do it? We have already started." He said, "What did you do that for?" I said, "Click."

I got on the plane, went to Chicago, and was on my face for three days in the hotel. "Lord, did I mess up? Did I not hear you well? Did I hear you right?" God brought that verse: "And we know that in all things God works." I said, "In ugly things, God?" God said, "In ugly things." I said, "In embarrassing things, God?" God said, "In embarrassing things." I said, "In hurtful things, God?" God said, "In hurtful things. In disappointing things, God?"

In all things, God works for good to those who love him. What it comes down to is perspective. It is about being able to see it and understand that somehow God will bring good out of it. It might not happen immediately, but God knows how to work good in all things. The command here is a command. It is a basic principle of Christian life. These three things: to rejoice always no matter what, to pray always without ceasing, and to give God thanks in every situation.

You have to understand that this is a definition of who we are as Christians. On the other side, there are people who are unthankful and ungrateful, and it is characteristic of unbelievers to be those kinds of people. Why are they like that? Paul again helps us when he wrote the book of Romans in chapter one. He said when they could have known God or when they knew God, they did not recognize him or worship him as God.

Instead, they took the image of the eternal God and made him in the likeness of crawling things and creeping things and all kinds of other things, and they became unthankful in their hearts. The characteristic of an unbeliever is being unthankful. You know why? Because they do not look at God and recognize God as being God, as being the author, the creator, the maker, the giver of all things.

When you are an unbeliever, you tend to look at life through these lenses, and this is what makes you unthankful. You tend to think that everything is the result of luck. "Oh, I just got lucky today." My brother Bubba Henry used to say when we were children, "Luck is a lazy man's perception of a smart man's accomplishments." Luck is not really real. There are people who go to gaming places, casinos, and other things, and they want luck. Maybe Lady Luck might be there, but most of the time she is not.

There are people who live their whole lives and cannot give God thanks because they are depending on luck. Not God, luck. The blowing of the wind, the spinning of the wheel, the stopping on a certain number. Luck. Chance. Is your life built on chance? Is that all you have? No wonder you are not thankful. No wonder you can sit here and look at me like I am foolish if your life is only a crap game.

There are some people who are unthankful, not only because they build it on luck, but because they think it is some star out there. My lucky stars. Pink hearts, yellow moons, lucky stars, lucky charms. People walk around with rabbit feet. If the rabbit was so lucky, he would not have lost his foot. I am just talking about the basic philosophical principles of why people are unthankful.

If you do not know God and you are not giving him glory or honor for things, and you are thinking that everything comes based upon luck, or stars, or chance, or even worse, based upon my ability, you will find that more in egotistical people.