Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / November 21, 2021 | Thanksgiving Service of Praise

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November 21, 2021 | Thanksgiving Service of Praise · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: Well, good morning, Tobeka Bible Church.
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thankful for you this morning and uh so thankful that you are here for our Thanksgiving service of praise.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_00: Our our team has been working quite a bit to uh try and create a service that would help us to focus on this season of Thanksgiving and to help develop these attitudes of Thanksgiving that we should be having at all times.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: And as you might have noticed, Jeremiah and Amanda are up here with me because we're gonna be sort of working together this morning.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and you're also gonna be a part of the service too, uh, as we sort of join together um in this Thanksgiving service of prayers.
• 0:40
  SPEAKER_00: Jeremiah Jeremiah, you want to kind of give us some uh helpful hints for what might be coming this morning?
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, we just designed a service together um that we hope will be really easy for you guys to engage with.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: And so what we've intentionally designed is some times of worship, some times of uh reflection, some times of prayer together.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: Um Connor's got a couple great message points this morning, and then we're gonna intersperse some some worship songs throughout that.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_01: And so we just invite you to um to pray with us, to reflect with us, to engage with us through song this morning.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 1:12
  SPEAKER_00: And and the reason why we want to focus so much on this, it's not just because Thanksgiving's on Thursday, but it provides a great opportunity for us to sort of dive deep into these attitudes.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, a lot of times the way that we think about thankfulness is it just comes to us when we're happy with something that the Lord has done.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's a responsive measure to a way in which we feel like we have been blessed by God.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so it can oftentimes flow out of that naturally.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: But a biblical attitude of thankfulness runs runs much deeper than that.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: You see people throughout the Bible thanking God for their lives, thanking God for the things that he has done, for his faithfulness, thanking God for just being there for them, even during the midst of some really difficult and dark circumstances.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so this morning we've got two psalms that we're going to be looking at together, and as an entire church, we're going to be uh reading them together, and then I'll share uh a few thoughts on each one of these psalms.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: The first psalm that we're going to be looking at together is Psalm 34.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I'll I'll have the verses up here so you guys don't have to look it up if you don't want to, but this psalm is sort of the example of thankfulness in the hardest moments.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_00: It's David, and he writes this psalm when he is fleeing from Saul, right, who is trying to kill him, and he is fleeing into an enemy's territory.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_00: And by this point in time, David is no longer just this shepherd boy, right?
• 2:44
  SPEAKER_00: David is the one who has been told he's going to be the next king of Israel.
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: He has songs that have been written about him, about his military might, and in order to save his own life, which is being threatened, he has to flee, like I said, into enemy territory and gath.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: And so, in the midst of this, sort of stuck between two impossibly difficult circumstances, fearing for his life, struggling to know how God is going to complete the promises that he had given to David, he writes this psalm.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so as we read it together, what's going to happen is up on the screen you'll see there will be italicized parts, and I will read those.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: And then the other components, uh, you guys will all read with Jeremiah and Amanda.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: So uh let's go ahead and turn to Psalm 34.
• 3:32
  SPEAKER_00: I will bless the Lord at all times.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: His praise will always be on my lips.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: I will boast in the Lord, but the humble will hear and be glad.
• 3:42
  SPEAKER_00: Proclaim the Lord's greatness with me.
• 3:44
  SPEAKER_00: Let us exalt his name together.
• 3:47
  SPEAKER_01: I sought the Lord and he answered me and rescued me from all my fears.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Those who look to him are radiant with joy, their faces will never be ashamed.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_01: This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him and saved him from all his troubles.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: The angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and rescues them.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: David continues, Taste and see that the Lord is good.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: How happy is the person who takes refuge in him.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: You who are his holy ones, fear the Lord, for those who fear him lack nothing.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Young lions lack food and go hungry, but those who seek the Lord will not lack any good thing.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_00: Come, children, listen to me.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: I will teach you to fear of the Lord.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: Who is someone who desires life, loving a long life to enjoy what is good?
• 4:40
  SPEAKER_00: Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from deceitful speech.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_00: Turn away from evil and do what is good.
• 4:47
  SPEAKER_00: Seek peace and pursue it.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_02: The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry for help.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_02: To remove all memory of them from the earth.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_02: The Lord is near the brokenhearted, he saves those crushed in spirit.
• 5:14
  SPEAKER_02: One who is righteous has many adversities.
• 5:17
  SPEAKER_01: But the Lord rescues him from them all.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_01: He protects all his bones, not one of them is broken.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: Eagle brings death to the wicked, and those who hate the righteous will be punished.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_01: The Lord redeems the life of his servants, and all who take refuge in him will not be punished.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: Now imagine for a second someone's trying to kill you.
• 5:42
  SPEAKER_00: And then you go into a location which is supposedly safer, and everybody there wants to kill you also.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is not an easy circumstance here that we're talking about.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_00: And yet, if we did not have this sort of superscript above the psalm that tells us when David wrote this and what his situation was, which is found in 1 Samuel, then we would have almost no idea.
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_00: David talks continually, the language that he uses is about God as his refuge, God as his security.
• 6:13
  SPEAKER_00: He knows that the Lord is going to continue to rescue him from these enemies, but yet he doesn't know how, and he doesn't know when, and he doesn't know what that's going to look like.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: And David invites us in, he in verse 8, he uses the phrase taste and see.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know, in your littles, are they any of them picky eaters at all?
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: Now I I've got a sweet, sweet niece who is about the pickiest eater that I've met.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And uh we were at a family get together a couple years ago, and we had made like, I mean, just classic sort of picnic or you know, cookout food.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: It was like burgers, hot dogs, chips and dip, you know, this kind of thing.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: And there was guacamole sitting on the table.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't know about you guys, I love guacamole.
• 6:58
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm trying to get her.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm like, hey, this is fantastic.
• 7:01
  SPEAKER_00: You should really, you know, get some of this.
• 7:03
  SPEAKER_00: And she's like, no, I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna do that.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: And why?
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Because I mean, guacamole sort of looks kind of uh, but it's fantastic.
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_00: And my whole thing with her is I was like, if you just do it once, like one dip, here, I will give it to you.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: I know you're going to love this.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_00: Well, the David here is talking about the same kind of thing.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: Literally, his phrase taste and see, it references like literally putting something in your mouth and then understanding that it is good to eat.
• 7:34
  SPEAKER_00: Now, God is, it's not like guacamole.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: God is much better than that.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: God is righteous and good, and we know all of his good ways, but sometimes when we are in the depths of despair, and I I I want to be careful here this morning as we are talking about Thanksgiving, that you don't think that I'm just sort of running roughshod over the troubles of the past year or the anxieties or fears that you have.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: What it really looks like is if you've ever watched The Wizard of Oz in that moment where it transitions from black to white into color.
• 8:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you we stop thinking of Thanksgiving so much as just flowing out of our attitudes at one moment, but rather that if we engage with God, that we seek him out, that we make him our refuge during these hard times, then we will understand what it means to trust in the Lord and have faith in him.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: And so David gives us this invitation as one who is running for his life and certainly is experiencing a lot of stress and anxiety from him, he says, Listen, taste and see.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: See that the Lord is good.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: If you haven't done it yet, see what it might look like to place your trust in him during your hardest moments, and you will see that he brings you out of them.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 15 says, The eyes of the Lord are on the righteous, and his ears are open to their cry for help.
• 8:58
  SPEAKER_00: Now, again, there are a lot of things that have happened to all of us in the past year.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_00: There are some shared experiences, there are some things that are individual and heartbreak and turmoil and difficulties.
• 9:12
  SPEAKER_00: And what David says here is important to remember.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: When he says that the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are open to their cry for help.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: God has not shut you out.
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_00: When you pray to him, he is listening to you.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: When you seek him out to try and make him your refuge, he is there for you.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so these are the things that David develops in his attitude of thankfulness is that God has not left the ones who are experiencing difficulty, but rather his ears are always open.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: And how does he prove this?
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: In verse 20, he has this phrase which you might recognize.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: He protects all his bones, not one of them is broken.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: In the Gospel of John, uh, chapter 19, verses 36.
• 9:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is the verse that he uses to describe the care that God provided to Christ on the cross.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: That even though he was crucified, his bones were not broken, and that he remained whole.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the attitude of thankfulness during difficult times that we have to try and adopt is that God preserves those whom he has called into his family, those who are the children of his kingdom.
• 10:25
  SPEAKER_00: He preserves them, but that does not always look like what we might think preserving looks like.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, if you take this example and you talk about Jesus on the cross, there is not a better example of difficulty that brought about God's will.
• 10:41
  SPEAKER_00: But yet he was with him through it all and provided for him and protected him.
• 10:47
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't ultimately result in his physical comfort.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: It cost him his life, as we know.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: But yet, this verse of David, when people were trying to break his bones, was brought to the writer, was brought to John's mind as he was describing how God had protected Christ.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: So as we reflect on this psalm, we're going to go into a time of sort of corporate prayer.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not a business term, just that as a body of Christ, we're going to be praying to God.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_00: And so what I would love is for you to sort of uh bow your heads and close your eyes.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_00: And what I'm going to do is give you basically some prompts brought forth directly from this psalm of ways in which we can pray to God and thank him even during times of difficulty.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: And if it's been a while since you've prayed to God, that's okay.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: That's okay.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: Just try and think about some of these things as they give them to you.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: So would you all bow your heads with me as we pray to the Lord?
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: As we reflect on Psalm 34, verse 3 says, proclaim the Lord's greatness with me.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Let us exalt his name together.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_00: Despite the difficulties, tell God all the ways you've seen his greatness in the past year.
• 12:22
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my God.
• 12:23
  SPEAKER_00: It is so worthy of our praise.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_00: Share your fears with the Lord, both the things you're struggling with now, and what you fear about the future.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_00: Think of the ways that you can draw closer to the Lord to taste and see him, and ask God to help you see that he is good, even when it is difficult.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, take time to think once more of your worries and your troubles.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Thank the Lord for being a safe refuge during these moments, for carrying you through those difficulties.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_00: Father, you you know this world has fallen, and it is not always easy to be thankful for everything around us.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_00: But God, yet you have given us example after example of what it looks like to be thankful even when life is hard.
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_00: Father, please help us to reflect on these moments and most of all to lift them up to you in prayer and in thanksgiving, to see how you are drawing us through our difficult circumstances.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, you have not allowed our bones to be broken, but you have sustained us and you have protected your righteous ones.
• 15:01
  SPEAKER_00: God, please help us.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_00: And whatever is in our hearts right now, the fears and anxieties that we have, God, please help us to see you in the midst of them and to develop this heart of gratitude.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
• 15:16
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_05: I sought the Lord, and he answered me.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_01: And how it reminds us that even in our times of trouble, even when we're so desperate to hear from God and we're pleading with him, he's meeting us right where we are.
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_01: And I love the the chorus and how it's a call to glorify, magnify the Lord, but the key word together, togetherness there.
• 20:11
  SPEAKER_01: And so it's just a great, great way to exalt his name and to praise him.
• 20:16
  unknown: Amen.
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Psalm 34 was a good example of what it looks like to be thankful to the Lord even in the midst of our trials and circumstances.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_00: And as we move now to our second Psalm of the morning and our final psalm of the morning, it's quite a bit shorter.
• 20:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's much more direct.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: It actually has a specific name attached to it.
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_00: Psalm 100, it is referred to as the jubilate.
• 20:42
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason why is because, again, in sort of the superscript that you would see in your Bibles, it is referred to as a psalm of praise and thanksgiving.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_00: The entire thing is dedicated to praise and thanksgiving.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's only five verses long.
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_00: And uh it's our best there's a little bit of discussion about this, but our best understanding of when this would have been used, uh, right, because the psalms were not just something to talk about, they were poetry and oftentimes music uh that the Israelites would sing back to God.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: And it was a part of their worship.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: And as far as we know, Psalm 100 was used when the pilgrims who were going to Jerusalem for the yearly sacrifices, when they were ascending the hill, right, because the temple was on top of this mountain, sort of this mount, that when they were going up that hill, when they were walking that path, that they would be singing this psalm together, focused on God as they walk through his gates.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_00: So, if you will, uh following the same sort of convention, I'll be reading the italicized parts.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_00: You all can read with Jeremiah and Amanda.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: Let us read Psalm 100 together.
• 21:52
  SPEAKER_00: Let the whole earth shout triumphantly to the Lord.
• 21:55
  SPEAKER_00: Serve the Lord with gladness, come before him with joyful songs.
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_02: He made us, and we are his, his people, the sheep of his power.
• 22:10
  SPEAKER_01: Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise.
• 22:14
  SPEAKER_01: Give thanks to him and bless his name, for the Lord is good, and his faithful love endures forever.
• 22:22
  SPEAKER_01: His faithfulness through all generations.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_00: That refrain is something at the very end that you've heard probably heard before, that his faithfulness over and over again, his faithfulness which is shown to the generations.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we've got this entire history of Christianity, and and and our faith in God goes far deeper and further back in history than Jesus.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um and as we look back on God's faithfulness during the times of the Israelites and the exile, the intertestamental period, and now the new covenant time, we have seen his faithfulness shown to his people over and over and over and over again.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_00: And there's this beautiful imagery that's presented in verse 3 where it says that we are to acknowledge that the Lord is God.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: It's one of the best images in the New Testament of the way that God cares for and loves us, is that Jesus is described as the good shepherd.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: And this is the same kind of imagery.
• 23:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, David was a shepherd.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_00: There were a lot of shepherds.
• 23:30
  SPEAKER_00: If you were back in biblical times and wanted to be in the Bible, being a shepherd was a great, like, sort of fast path to being included.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: No, I'm just kidding.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_00: But this imagery of shepherding was something that every Israelite would have been familiar with.
• 23:46
  SPEAKER_00: As they're walking these paths to Jerusalem, there would have been sheep everywhere.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_00: And so being able to see the shepherd caring for his flock.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: And just so you know, the fact that we are his sheep, it is beautiful, but sheep are not that intelligent, okay?
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: And it is one of the images and frequent parts about being a sheep in God's kingdom is that we often go astray and we need God to bring us back.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, when we talk about Psalm 100 here, it is just asking us to be reminded of God as our shepherd.
• 24:21
  SPEAKER_00: That throughout our circumstances in life, throughout the highs and the lows, that he is guiding us and protecting us.
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: And he has done it for those that have come before, he is doing it for us, and he will do it to the generations to come until Jesus returns.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 4 says that we are to enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.
• 24:42
  SPEAKER_00: Give thanks to him and bless his name.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's really easy during this time of thanksgiving, and probably on Thursday, somebody from your family is going to ask you to maybe go around the table and say something that you're thankful for.
• 24:56
  SPEAKER_00: And in that moment, as some of you go, Oh, I gotta think of something here, it's important that we recognize that thanksgiving and praise when it comes to our relationship with God is supposed to be deeper than just the words that come out of our mouths.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: That thanksgiving and praise is supposed to be a condition of the heart.
• 25:14
  SPEAKER_00: It is supposed to be that something that we focus on, again, even in times of difficulty.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_00: During times of praise, it's really easy to make your prayers long with all the great things that God has done for you.
• 25:25
  SPEAKER_00: But it is a condition of the heart as these individuals were going up to the temple that they were supposed to remember in all of their walks of life, as they traveled from sort of everywhere in Israel and the diaspora, that God was their shepherd and that he was good to them.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_00: Finally, the last thing I want to share about Psalm 100 is you might have noticed a word in our last song or in this psalm saying that we are to bless the Lord.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_00: And you're like, I don't, I don't know how I'm supposed to bless the Lord.
• 25:55
  SPEAKER_00: I thought he did that to me, sort of.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: But this idea of blessing, the Hebrew word literally means to bow down and give thanks to.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so it is certainly true.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_00: There is nothing that we can offer back to God except for our praise.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: But when it says that we are to bless the Lord, enter his gates with thanksgiving in his courts of praise, give thanks to him and bless his name, it is saying that we recognize and fall before him in praise of all that he has done.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: So with this in mind, and maybe this psalm is a little bit easier to grasp, but certainly more simple, because it because it doesn't mention anything about trials or difficulties.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: It is just one who is focused entirely, in this case, on the temple before them, and in our case on the cross of Jesus Christ, as we look to that and say our own prayers of thankfulness.
• 26:48
  SPEAKER_00: So, if you will, let's bow our heads one more time as we pray to the Lord in reflection on Psalm 100.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Verse three says, Acknowledge that the Lord is God.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: He made us, and we are his people, the sheep of our pastor.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_00: Take some time to reflect on your relationship with God.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: Thank the Lord for seeking you out, even when we turn away from him.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 4 says, Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: Give thanks to him and bless his name.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: Let's lift all the ways in which we're thankful for God.
• 28:12
  SPEAKER_00: Focus your heart this morning on praising him.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Commit to living with an attitude of thanksgiving and gratitude to God.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: Ask him to help you focus on your blessings and contentment rather than your troubles.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_00: Verse 5 concludes by saying, For the Lord is good, and his faithful love endures forever, his faithfulness through all generations.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_00: Thank the Lord for showing his faithful love by sending Jesus to die for our sins.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_00: Reflect on your thankfulness for Christ, an undeserved gift of love.
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: Not just this year, but all of them.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: If that's difficult for you, ask the Lord to help you understand and see his love for you, that he truly cares for you, even when you might not feel like he does.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_00: God, your love that never ends and it never flows away from us, God, but it is in a one-way path straight at us.
• 30:14
  SPEAKER_00: God, in order to love us more and more, or for us to love you more and more, God, you you brought the Holy Spirit into us so that we might turn our hearts and our affections towards you.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: People, sheep who had run astray, and God, you brought us back towards you like a good shepherd through Jesus Christ.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_00: Lord, your love endures forever, and I pray that you would help us now and in the future to develop this attitude of thanksgiving to focus on you because Lord, there might be difficulties in our lives, and you care for us, and you want to hear those things.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_00: But when we think about you and all that you have done, Lord, there is not enough time on earth to list all the ways in which you are deserving of praise, and how much we thank you for what you've done for us.
• 31:06
  SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: Before we dismiss, I wanted to leave you with um a benediction.
• 34:06
  SPEAKER_00: This is something that the Lord gave to his people when they were going through the desert to remind them of his faithfulness to them, of his enduring love for them, and all of the things that they should continue to be thankful for.
• 34:19
  SPEAKER_00: This is what the Lord says.
• 34:26
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: This was the message of the Lord for his people, reminding them of his goodness.
• 34:39
  SPEAKER_00: Let's pray once more.
• 34:41
  SPEAKER_00: Father in heaven, we just ask that you would help us to take in this message that you gave to your people and remind us of the peace that you provide.
• 34:50
  SPEAKER_00: Father, there are many things to be thankful for, far more than we often realize.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_00: And Lord, when we dig deep, we recognize this.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: But God, we pray that you might help us to see you in the midst of all of our troubles, that we might find ways in which we should praise you instead of grumbling because of the difficulties here.
• 35:10
  SPEAKER_00: And Father, there are many difficulties, some severe, some deeply painful.
• 35:16
  SPEAKER_00: But God, you have not allowed a bone of ours to be broken, and you will continue to carry us through until the end when we see you in heaven.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name that we pray.
• 35:26
  SPEAKER_00: Amen.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: Have a great week and a great Thanksgiving.