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Guest (Female): Welcome to PowerPoint with Jack Graham.

Jack Graham: The Scripture says, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Jesus Christ concerning you. Why? Not because all things are good, but because God is always good. God is always good.

Guest (Female): On today's PowerPoint, Dr. Graham brings a message about what it looks like to lead a life of Thanksgiving. Now, here's Dr. Graham with his message, Living a Grateful Life.

Jack Graham: Take God's Word and turn to Psalm 107. The 107th Psalm. Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever. Let the redeemed of the Lord, say so. Whom He has redeemed from trouble.

And then scroll down to verse eight. Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of men. For He satisfies the longing soul, and the hungry soul He fills with good things.

And then look at verses 21 and 22, which comprise our primary theme and text for today, a grateful life. Let them thank the Lord for His steadfast love, for His wondrous works to the children of men. And let them offer, watch this, sacrifices of Thanksgiving, sacrifices of Thanksgiving, and tell of His deeds in songs of joy.

Our worship includes exuberant, joyful, voluntary praise to God. We magnify the Lord with our mouths and with songs of praise and adoration. We say so, let the redeemed of the Lord say so, and we sing it so as well.

As we worship with God, gratitude is the mark, or a mark of the Christian. In Romans chapter one, we are told that the mark of an unbeliever is ingratitude. It says, for although they knew God, they did not honor Him as God or give thanks to Him.

The mark of a believer is Thanksgiving and gratitude. We have grateful hearts because of what Christ has done for us. The mark of an unbeliever does not honor God and does not give thanks. We enter into the presence of God with Thanksgiving and praise.

Psalm 100 is another great Psalm of Thanksgiving, song of Thanksgiving. It's that Psalm in which it says we enter His courts with Thanksgiving and with shouts of praise to God. We enter His courts with Thanksgiving. It's called the Jubilate in Latin, the 100th Psalm. If you are from the Anglican tradition, perhaps you grew up learning the 100th Psalm as the Jubilate. It is the, it is the song of the Jubilate. It is the song of joyful praise and adoration and Thanksgiving to God. So we enter His courts with Thanksgiving. He inhabits the praises of His people.

In the Old Testament, there were two kinds of sacrifices. Propitiatory sacrifices, meaning sacrifices for salvation, those blood sacrifices, bringing the animals and the blood of animals for the sacrifices, for the redemption of sin, for the covering of sin, propitiation.

Those sacrifices of the Old Testament, those bloody sacrifices are finally and fully fulfilled in the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. When Christ laid His life down on the cross, He bled and He died. He became the sacrifice for our sins once and for all upon the cross. So there is now no longer a need for those kinds of sacrifices, those bloody sacrifices of propitiation. That Christ is our Passover. He is our propitiation.

But the second kind of sacrifices that we see in the Bible are sacrifices of celebration, and the people of Israel would often bring sacrifices to celebrate great events, in particular, to celebrate their redemption, whether it be crossing the Red Sea or their trip through the desert to the land of promise. They would celebrate with these massive festivals, much like the American tradition of Thanksgiving at least in some way, in which we celebrate Thanksgiving as a nation. The nation of Israel would celebrate with these feast and these festivals, and they would bring sacrifices offered to God, sacrifices of celebration, sacrifices of Thanksgiving.

That's what I want to talk to you about today. These sacrifices. First, why we give sacrifices of Thanksgiving. Look again in your Bibles at Psalm 107. Verse one says, Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good.

Because God is God and God is good, and His steadfast love lasts, endures forever. That is why we say so, the redeemed of the Lord say so. He has redeemed us, which means He has set us free from the power of sin and death, from the shackles of sin and judgment. We have been redeemed. In His goodness, in His grace, He has become our savior and our God.

When we read verses eight and nine, it speaks of God satisfying the deepest longings of our soul. I am satisfied with Jesus, and He satisfies the longing of the soul, the hungry soul. If you are hungry for God, if you want your soul satisfied, then God and God alone can do that for you. In verse 10, it says that some of us sat in darkness and in the shadow of death, and we were prisoners in affliction and in irons. We had rebelled against the words of God.

What a picture of a person outside of Christ, outside of a relationship with God, sitting and waiting to die, sitting in the very shadow of death, no future before us, shackled by the power of our own addictions, prisoners in affliction and in irons. The iron of the soul, and rebelling against God. We all have sinned against God and rebelled against a holy God. And yet, and yet, God has loved us. He has saved us. He has brought us into His family, and now we belong to Him. No wonder we say, Thank you, Lord, and bring these sacrifices of praise to God.

When you think about what Christ has done for you, you cannot help but thank Him. In fact, the etymology of the word think and thank are very similar. Think and thank are cousins in the vocabulary. And when you think about what Christ has done for you, when you think of the goodness of God, when you remember and reflect upon it, you cannot help but offer gratitude to God, these sacrifices of Thanksgiving. Not just because of the way you feel, but because of what you know.

What you know. We do not live by our feelings because our feelings, our circumstances, these are not always good. And yet, First Thessalonians 5:18, the Scripture says, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Jesus Christ concerning you. Give thanks in every circumstance. Why? Not because all things are good, but because God is always good. Amen. God is always good. And we are to give this sacrifice of Thanksgiving. The writer of Hebrews, chapter 13, speaks of bringing the sacrifice of praise.

I know we do not always feel like singing. We do not always show up with our hearts tuned to worship. But yet, when we praise God, we enter into His joy. We enter in with Thanksgiving, His very presence. And when we lift Him up, we get lifted up. And even when our voices are choked with tears, even when our hearts are breaking, when we worship God, when we give thanks, we sometimes do it with a broken Hallelujah.

But we do it anyway. Not because of the way we feel, but because of what we know. God is good, and His love, His mercy endures forever. That's the way to be happy. That's the way to live in fullness of joy.

Let me give you a verse. You will love this one. Psalm 63 verses 3 and 4. Because your steadfast love is better than life. Better than life, better than breath, better than anything. Better than life, my lips will praise you. So will I bless you as long as I live, in Your name, I will lift up my hands. Yes, that's there in the Bible. Lifting up holy hands unto the Lord.

We praise Him, we give thanks because He is good and we know that His goodness, His love for us is better than life itself. It surpasses the greatest joys of living. It's better than anything. This is why we can give thanks whenever, wherever, whatever.

Then we can praise God in spite of everything. Did you know that gratitude is the key to happiness in your life? It's true. The key to happiness is gratitude. And there have been many studies, research done on this subject. Psalm 107 verse 22, if you look at it again, it says, Let them sacrifice thank offerings and tell of His works with songs of joy. Songs of joy are connected with bringing these sacrifices of praise to God.

Happiness is in direct proportion to your gratitude. In contrast to that, unhappiness is in direct proportion to your ingratitude. Grateful people are happy people. Ungrateful people are unhappy people. You want to be happy, then be grateful. Because it is in gratitude that we are elevated into the very presence of God and His grace.

Guest (Female): You are listening to PowerPoint with Jack Graham, and the message, Living a Grateful Life. As you are enjoying this week of Thanksgiving, we all know Christmas is right around the corner. During this Advent Christmas season, will you join Dr. Graham in preparing our hearts to celebrate the arrival of King Jesus? If you are up for celebrating the reason for the season with us, just take your phone and text the word Advent to 59789. Again, text Advent to 59789. In a time marked by confusion, anxiety, and spiritual compromise, your support of PowerPoint helps point millions of people to the one source of unshakable hope and truth, God's Word. Through your generosity, you are helping proclaim the gospel across the globe. To thank you for your gift of $10 or more, we want to send you Dr. Jack Graham's booklet, Breaking Free from Stress. This timely resource will help you break the power of stress and anxiety in your life as you learn to rest in God's promises. To request your copy, simply text the word Stress to 59789. That's Stress to 59789. Now, let's get back to today's message, Living a Grateful Life.

Jack Graham: If they're sacrifices, what kind of sacrifices are we to bring? Well, the Bible tells us. First, there's the sacrifice of what I'm going to call surrender. When we bring our self, Romans 12 verse one. I beseech you, therefore, or the word beseech there means I plead with you. This is as though God through the Apostle Paul who wrote these words, is pleading with us. If Jesus got down on His knees and begged you to do something, would you do it? Well, that's what God is saying here.

I appeal to you, therefore, based on the mercies of the Lord Jesus Christ. What mercies are we talking about? We just reviewed some of them, did we, in Psalm 107? Forgiveness and grace and healing and restoration and forgiveness and all these mercies of God. Specifically, read the first 11 chapters of Romans and you will see the greatness and the glories and the grace of salvation in Christ. That's the reference here, because of these great mercies, because of what God has done for us. We become living sacrifices. We present our bodies, and the word bodies there means the whole self, body, soul, and spirit. Why? Because we belong to God. We belong to God by creation. He made us, and we belong to God by salvation. He remade us.

So we are twice born. We belong to Him, and therefore we are to bring ourselves to the altar of sacrifice as living sacrifices. We are to bring ourselves because Christ is Lord. The question is, is He your Lord? Are you living under the authority, in submission to the Lordship of Jesus in your life? The Apostle Paul said, do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit? You are bought with a price, purchased by the blood of Christ. You are the temple of the Holy Spirit. We need to take care of the temple, our bodies, and our souls, and our spirits. We bring it all.

And we say, Lord, it's Yours. It's not mine. It belongs to You, bought and paid for in full by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And therefore it affects what I do with my body, how I live my life, what I think about, how I give my life. I am a living sacrifice.

Another sacrifice of Thanksgiving, songs of praise. We are to bring songs of praise. Look in Psalm 69, Psalm 69 and verse 30. I will praise the name of God with a song. I will magnify Him with Thanksgiving. The songs of the people. We praise Him. Let the redeemed of the Lord say so. We say it, we shout it, and we sing it. That's what the Psalms are about. And if you are saved, spirit-filled, you will sing. But we do not always feel it. But here's what I've discovered. When I show up, whether I feel like it or not, with my worship, and I sing, and I celebrate the goodness of God and the grace of God, when we lift Him up, we get lifted up. It's a sacrifice of praise. And sometimes we just have to bring it and sing it, whether we feel it or not.

Supplication is a sacrifice, it's the third thing. That's prayer. Supplication means prayer. Philippians 4:6, be anxious for nothing, but in everything in prayer with what? Thanksgiving, let your requests be made known unto God. And the peace of God which passes understanding will guard, protect your heart and your mind. It's a sacrifice when we pray.

Here's a great verse. You are in Psalm, Psalm 141 and verse two. This is a picture of prayer. It says, Let my prayer be counted as incense before You, and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice. The psalmist is saying like a priest, we offer the incense of prayers in the temple, in the Tabernacle of worship. They would light incense, and you know what incense is, it's like perfume, it burns and there's the scent. And so prayer is like burning incense. It is a sweet and beautiful aroma that wafts its way into the very presence of God. Is not that a beautiful picture of prayer? It's like the burning of incense. It's an act of worship.

And prayer is the lifting of hands as if to receive from the Lord at the evening sacrifice to praise our God at the end of the day. Remember, Thanksgiving is whenever, whatever, wherever. So from morning to evening, 365, 24/7, we are praising our God. And when we pray, we are offering a sacrifice to God.

And then finally, our substance, our stewardship is a sacrifice of Thanksgiving. The Scripture says, bring the sacrifices of Thanksgiving. Psalm 54 and verse six. With a free will offering, I will sacrifice to You. I will give thanks to Your name, O Lord, for it is good. What is good? To bring my tithes, my offerings, to bring my money, to bring my possessions as an act of sacrifice and Thanksgiving sacrifice to the Lord.

Now, here's a spiritual principle. Just as it's true that happy people are grateful people, here's another spiritual principle. Grateful people are generous people. The opposite is true. When I am miserly, I am miserable. I am a Grinch. I hold on to everything I have. I am greedy. I will never be happy, but when I learn to live and to give, bringing my tithes, my testimony, my talents to serve the Lord, when we bring our money to the storehouse, which is the local church, then we are giving to the Lord a sacrifice of Thanksgiving. I know there are many ways in which we can give and many places and people to whom we give. And we affirm that. Do not suppress a generous impulse. But be generous with your church. Jesus said it's more blessed to give than to receive. I believe Jesus on that one.

But here's the deal. I've observed over the years as a pastor now, there are two kinds of people, givers and takers. Are you a giver or a taker? Are you a consumer or a worshiper? That's the question we all have to answer. I cannot tell you how many people have said things or I've heard things over the years like, Well, I am looking for a church that will meet my needs.