Welcome to church this morning. It's a beautiful hot summer day,
but it is a beautiful day to worship the Lord.
I have a few announcements. If you would turn on the back of
your bulletin you will see most of them.
I'm not going to announce all of them, but remember after the
service we do have the board meeting and I don't believe we
will be having disciple women this Wednesday.
So we've either got somebody in the hospital so we won't be
having disciple women. OK, thank you women, ladies.
Regina, yes, anybody that wants to help with food boxes on
Wednesday will be party at 10 AM the party.
Anybody that wants to help with food boxes they will be here
Wednesday and they will leave at 10 AM so you better leave here.
I know Chuck usually gets up at 7:00 so but they will be leaving
at 10 if you want to help. All right, So what she just
said. I know most of y'all did not
hear that. Vegetable cans.
If you open a can of vegetables, don't throw it in the garbage.
Put it in a bag. A Walmart bag.
Save them up for the rest of this week.
We need a bunch. Yeah, you can wash that, make
sure they're clean. Well, we need.
A bunch of vegetable cans. No like coke cans or whatever.
Soda cans, right? Got to be something.
We've opened the can that's correct.
Is. That correct?
OK, did y'all hear that? Please stand with me.
Turn in your worship handles to number 603.
When we all get to heaven, we'll do the first and fourth verse.
You may be seated. First of all, I want to say
welcome to some of the visitors that we have today.
It looks good to see some more young people out here today.
All right for our word of worship today or word of
encouragement. We live in a busy life, busy
lifestyle, even in the South sometimes.
But in Psalms 4610 through 11, it says be still and know that I
am God. I will be exalted among all
nations. I will be exalted in the earth.
The Lord Almighty is with us. The Lord of Jacob is our
fortress. Now we as Christians experience
seasons not like fall, summer, winter, but we have spiritual
seasons in our lives. At some point during these
seasons, God is telling us in songs to be still.
It's hard for many of us to be still.
We're not used to that. But sometimes when we pray, just
be quiet and listen. Be still and know that I am God.
Let us pray. Father, help us to see your
mighty things that you do for us every day and the things that
you do for us throughout our lives and throughout our church
lives. Lord, we come to you praying as
Jesus taught us to pray. Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name, Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day Our Daily Bread
and forgives our death as we forgive our debtors and lead us
not to temptation, but deliver us from evil.
For thine is the Kingdom, the power, and the glory forever.
We won't have the children. I know she's not still.
OK, please stand with me again. Open your worship handle to
number 554 as the deer first and third verse.
Hey man, you may be seated. Now I have a serious question
for y'all. Can y'all hear me singing?
I can't hear y'all so I need y'all to sing out.
I know you. You don't.
Y'all don't like it sometimes or you're scared.
I I don't know. I don't know what it is, but I
I'm getting older and my hearing is not what it used to be.
So you're going to have to sing out.
Speak up so I can hear you. OK.
Anyone going to sing louder on the next hymn?
Just raise your hand if you're going to OK yeah, two people
since I'm beginning to see what I think the problem is.
At least y'all aren't telling stories in church.
I will commend you on that this morning as we're looking to go
the Lord in prayer. I do want to tell you that I had
a request from someone that when we get to the time of the
message today that I put in about a good hour and a half.
So I'm just letting you know I'm going to start the timer when I
get up there, hour and a half. We'll see how that goes over as
we do go. Lord in prayer, in all
seriousness, morning. I do want you to continue to
remember Miss Patricia Curry. She is still in the hospital at
Baptist, but she is doing better, improving.
I saw her Friday and in a regular room and sitting up in a
chair and and beginning to regain some strength she has she
had gotten up out of the bed and she walked down the hall.
So she is in making some some progress, but do continue to
remember her. Also remember Dan, he had
another of one of his radiation treatments and he is in
quarantine at his house right now.
So just be in prayer for them. Also continue to remember those
within our church family who have lost loved ones recently
that we just continue to remember them and know not only
are they hurting, are they mourning, but they're simply
missing a loved one. And what we can do to encourage
them. We, we certainly want to do
that. So let's go.
The Lord in prayer, our heavenly Father, this morning we do give
thanks, Lord, for an opportunity to worship, Lord, for an
opportunity to stand before you, the one true and living God, to
be invited here, that you desire to meet with us, that you want
to commune with us. Lord, it's amazing that the
Creator of the heavens and the earth cares about us as
individuals, that you desire a personal relationship with each
of us. As Miss Regina shared.
Lord, we, we, we simply pray that sometimes we will just
pause and sit and be still and allow Your Spirit to move within
us and for us to realize who it is that we serve.
That you are God, that you are all knowing more, that you know
what it is to be in pain. Lord, you know what it is to
hurt. You know what our needs are
before we even ask, but You still desire for us to come to
You and make those requests. We pray today, Lord, as we
worship Lord, that we do so in spirit and truth as we have
opportunities to give of what You have blessed us with.
Lord, we do so willingly as You have told us, Lord, that You
love a cheerful giver. We also ask, Lord, that as we
come to the table to remember the sacrifice made by our Lord
and Savior Jesus Christ, that we approach that place humbly, that
we acknowledge where we have fallen short, but we also always
remember that He died on that cross for us so that we may have
forgiveness of those sins. And Lord, then as we do look
into Your word today, Lord, I just pray that Your word speaks
to us, that Your Holy Spirit moves within us, Lord, and that
we are changed, that we are encouraged, and that we look
forward to going forth and serving You in this next week.
We ask all this in Jesus name, Amen.
We deal with joyful hearts. Thank you for the providing us
with our needs eligible times. And all be used.
For the glory and honor, it's in your name we pray.
Amen. Our Communion hymn is #399 Let
us break bread together, of course, first and second verse.
Christ's advice to this table, all who profess the Christian
faith and who seek the mercy of God.
Jesus broke bread with all sorts of people throughout his life,
with sinners, with a self-righteous, with hungry
crowds, and most often with his disciples.
It was in the breaking of the bread that the travelers to
Emmaus recognized him. When the first Christians
gathered on the on the Lord's Day to share in a meal of
Christ's remembrance, they spoke of it as the breaking of the
bread with all God's faithful. Let us now break bread together
in communion with Christ and with one another.
Let us pray, dear. Lord, we do thank you for this
communion table that we come to you today.
First of all, breaking of the bread.
We know it represents your body broken, that we have been
forgiven. We thank you for Jesus that gave
us that wonderful gift of grace. And as we take this bread today,
Lord, as the song says, have mercy on us.
Father, thank you for the many blessings you've given us.
Thank you for this day and the opportunity we have to come
together to worship and praise. Your name must be sister.
We thank You for this table and the invitation we have and come
and partake of its emblems. Now as we take of this cup,
we're reminded of Jesus blood that was poured out on the cross
for the forgiveness of our sins. I pray that we might partake in
a manner that is pleasing you. Bryce name I pray.
Amen. The Lord Jesus, on the night he
was betrayed, took bread and we had given thanks.
He broke it and said, this is my body given for you.
Do this in remembrance of me. In the same way, after supper he
took the cup, saying this cup is a new covenant in my blood.
Do this whenever you drink it in remembrance of me.
For whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim
the Lord's death until he comes. All right.
This morning as we look into God's Word, I have several
verses that I'm going to share with you.
You can go ahead and turn to Thessalonians chapter 5, 1st
Thessalonians 5, and verse 16. This morning I want to I want to
talk with you for a few moments, few minutes about being thankful
and what that looks like in in our daily lives.
Let let me ask you this question.
If I was to ask you the question yesterday, did you tell others
that you were more often thankful for something or did
you complain about something? What do you think?
What do you think you did yesterday?
What's that? You think you did more
thankfulness than you did complaining?
That's excellent. What'd y'all say?
OK, On average, do you think that you give more thanks when
you were talking to others, or do you do more complaining?
I want you to really think about this.
I want you to think about when you're driving down the road and
you're talking on the phone to someone and don't say that you
don't do it because I know you do, and someone pulls out in
front of you. Do you tell the person on the
other end of the line how crazy the drivers are and how, how
they can't drive, they shouldn't be on the road and da, da, da,
da, do you do that? I do it all the time.
Ask Randy, ask my wife, ask my children.
When you go and you get, when you go to a restaurant and you
sit down and you're starving and you there's hardly anyone else
in the restaurant and you've got your menu.
You've already been looking at it.
You know what it is that you want and they don't come and
take your order. Do you ever make the comment,
where is our waitresses? Is anyone waiting on our
section? And on and on and on we go.
And then they finally show up and they take our order and
we're like, thank goodness they got our order taken.
And then 10 minutes later you, you don't have your drink, you
finally get your drink. Man, I I hope it doesn't take
our food this long to get here and takes the food a long time.
Then the food gets there and it was not up really up to what you
were hoping that it was. And you're just like, well, this
is a disappointing meal. Do you ever do that?
Honestly, I do. I was talking to my parents the
other day and I've and as I sat down on the couch and they're
always my dad is in his recliner right here.
My mom is on this end of the couch and it's an l-shaped
couch. And then I sit over here on this
end. And as I sat down, they said,
well, how was your day? And I just started laying into
all the things that I didn't like about the day.
And as I did that, as as I was got getting to the end of my
spill, my dad said something along the lines of, well,
hopefully tomorrow will be better.
And it just kind of hit me. And I will tell y'all, this
one's probably more for me than it is for y'all, but I'm
preaching it anyway. But it hit me how often we hear
negative, we speak negative, we think negative, we complain, and
we just go off about the world in general.
Who watches the news in here? How do you?
Would you say that you hear more good news, good feeling stories
or do you hear more negative stories?
Would you say that it's 90% negative and 10% positive would
be about where that would fall, would you say?
Or is it even worse? Because I, I'm beginning to
wonder, it may be worse than 90%.
The world that we live in, I'm telling you, is always looking
at the bad side, the negative side.
It is up to us as Christians to not be pulled into that.
And let me tell you, I I'm guilty.
I am guilty of looking at the negative side.
Let me give you another example. My daughter plays softball.
She may play a fantastic game, but there will be 1 ball that I
mean it was just laid out there and you just suck it up and go
right to first base and it went right between her legs.
I don't talk about the double that she got.
I don't talk about the two that she caught.
They were going foul and one of them almost was going out of the
out of the fence and she snags it.
I don't talk about those. I'm the first thing I say is
what happened on that ball at third?
You were right there and then you just took took her off the
ball and went right between your legs.
What am I saying to my daughter? All the good doesn't really mean
that much to me. But that one bad play, that's
where I want to focus. Why?
Why do not say? Why do I not say look at all the
good things. Don't worry about that ball.
It is so easy for us to focus in on that one negative thing that
happened. Even if it is within a meal, the
the 90% of the meal could be great.
But you were looking forward to this one thing and it wasn't
quite right. And you're that's what you want
to harp on. I got one more for you then I'm
going to let you talk. So be ready.
One more. We were having a funeral here.
Last Saturday was the last Saturday, Lamar last Saturday
and Lamar and Beau, we're out cooking burgers.
And it started to just, I mean, it started flooding in an
instant. I mean, there was no rain.
And then all of a sudden, boom, it's just coming down.
So Lamar pulled the cooker underneath the the portico right
out here and they finished cooking the burgers and they
were able to stay dry and they got all the burgers cooked.
This door doesn't latch all the way and it was open just about
that much while they were out there cooking and cooking and
cooking. And the smoke was just being
pulled in to the sanctuary. And I literally when you were in
here, there was just this ring of smoke in the sanctuary.
Now, instead of me saying to Lamar and to Bo, hey, thank you
all so much for being willing to cook after all that you all have
already done the week before. Thank you all for being willing
to do that. Thank you for cooking burgers,
which we all know is one of my favorite things.
And let me tell you what they did.
They cooked me a triple cheeseburger and had it set
aside specifically for me. That's true.
That's what they did. And do you know what I said the
first time that I saw Bo after that cooking?
I said, Bo, y'all can't cook under that portico anymore?
Smoke got in there and it was all in the sanctuary and we
could just smell it and it was all over the place.
That's what I focused on. I didn't say, hey, thank you so
much for that triple cheeseburger.
It was amazing. Thank you for being willing to
do this. You volunteered to do this.
You didn't have to. I focused on the one negative
thing, on the smoke that got in before the door because the door
was unlatched. Folks, we do it and you may be
sitting there thinking, wow, our preacher, he complaints a lot.
But I promise you, if you really start considering what you talk
about, if you really think about what you say in your
conversation, you're going to speak on some negative things.
We have got to move past the 10% and focus on the 90.
Let me read you the Scripture, First Thessalonians chapter 5
and verse 16. Rejoice always, pray continually
give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's
will for you in Christ Jesus. Rejoice always pray continually,
give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's
will for you in Christ Jesus. How often do we rejoice?
How often do we focus on something other than that?
Do we pray continually? Do we give thanks in all
circumstances? Unfortunately, and maybe it's
not for you, maybe it's just for me, but I have been focusing on
the negative instead of the positive.
And that can only tell me one thing.
I'm not in the Word enough, I'm not in prayer enough, and I'm
not hearing what the Lord has for me to do in my life.
Because if we are focused on Him, if we are where He desires
for us to be, we will rejoice always.
No matter the circumstances, we will rejoice.
We will be in a constant state of prayer.
We will give thanks because that is God's will for your life and
for mine. This morning you got up.
Weather was pretty good. No one text and said we don't
have any air conditioning today. No one texted and said we got no
power. No one text and said we have no
water. Everything's good.
You decided to come to church. How often do we wake up in the
morning on Sunday mornings? And we think to ourselves, will
I go to church today? Is there any possible reason why
I should not go today? Or do we wake up and we think it
doesn't matter if we have water, it doesn't matter if we have air
conditioning? I'm going to be in the House of
the Lord because that's where I desire to be.
What if I told you that next Sunday we're going to go back to
everyone will all the men will wear coat and ties, all the
ladies will wear dresses, the choir will be back in robes.
How would you feel about that? Most of us would say, I don't
know if I'm coming back next week or not.
What if I text you next Sunday morning and I said there is no
air conditioning, but we're still having church.
There is no water, but we're still having church.
Do you think that we would have the same number that we have
today when I especially when I tell you, yeah, even though we
have no power, we have no electricity, We got no air
conditioning, Still want you to wear a coat and tie, fellas?
We wouldn't want to do it. When we go back into the Old
Testament and we look at times of worship, there were times
when they would call the people of God together for a solemn
assemble assembly, and they would literally come before the
Lord. And they were out in the middle
of the heat. They didn't have air
conditioning. They didn't even have a building
at the time and they stood for 4-5 and six hours at a time
before the Lord. Now, how many of you would want
to go to do that? How many times do you do?
Does it happen when Phillip says, hey, we're going to stand
for this him and you're like, man, I wish we would just sat
down on this one. It's hard to get up and down.
I'm getting older. Imagine standing for four, 5-6
hours before the Lord. The level of commitment that we
have today. It's gone down.
It has. Whose fault is that?
It's ours. It's the preacher's fault.
It's the organist's fault. It's simply just the world that
we live in. Today's fault.
No, it's our fault. When we choose to place anything
before the Lord, that's on us. I can't blame it on the news.
I can't blame it on all the negativity that I hear.
I can't blame it on the restaurant.
I can't blame it on there was a little bit of smoke in the
building. There's nothing to blame it on
but me. Psalm 103, verses one through 4.
Praise the Lord my soul, all my inmost being.
Praise His holy name. Praise the Lord my soul, and
forget not all His benefits. Who forgives all your sins and
heals all your diseases? Who redeems your life from the
pit and crowns you with love and compassion?
That's the Lord. Colossians chapter 2, verses
6:00 and 7:00. As you therefore have received
Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in
Him, and established in the faith as you have been taught,
abounding in it with Thanksgiving.
James 117 Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down
from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like
shifting shadows. Hebrews 12/28 Therefore, since
we are receiving a Kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be
thankful and so worship God acceptably, with reverence and
all, for our God is a consuming fire.
Colossians 3, verses 15 through 17.
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of
1 body you were called to peace, and be thankful.
Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach
and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns
and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in
your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in
Word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving
thanks to God the Father through Him.
I want to ask you this morning, I've already asked you once, and
I want you to be honest with yourself and honest with the
Lord. When we were singing those
hymns, were you singing them to the Lord?
Were you singing them to the your Heavenly Father?
Were you thankful for the opportunity to be in worship
today? Or did you hear that the piano
was not there and it sounded a little bit different?
Were you concerned about somebody else was going to hear
you singing? And some of us will say things
like, well, my voice is just not that good.
Y'all don't want to hear me sing.
But I have sometimes seen people who don't sing very loud in
church. They're in their car, they're on
the golf cart, and they're just letting it RIP at the top of
their lungs, singing with gusto. My daughter was riding down the
road the other day on the golf cart.
Katie Grace and my wife were sitting out on the back porch
and there she went down the road, got her music on, singing
at the top of her lungs, which I don't think she even knew.
I think she had had them in her ears and didn't even know.
I was on the phone with Katie Grace and she said you're not
going to believe what just happened.
I said what? She said Anna Claire just rode
by and she was singing so loud we can hear all the way up here.
I said there's no way. Yeah, happened.
What is it about when we're in the car by ourself, when we
think no one else is around and we will sing because it's just
for ourselves? I want to tell you this morning
that when we sing these hymns, it's not for those around you.
It's not even for the preacher. It's not Even so Peggy feels
good. You are singing to the Lord
about how good He is, how thankful we are for all that He
has done for us. Now, I told you that I was going
to give you an opportunity to speak, and it's about to come
right now. I've got a microphone right
here. Scott.
Is it ready? Ready to roll?
If one of you has something that you want to share that you are
thankful for today, raise your hand.
Anything that you were OK, Mr. Gina, go ahead.
I have a picture. Is it on?
Yeah, just hold it up. Close.
I have a picture on my phone that shows what happened
yesterday. I was mowing the yard.
I mowed past a row of trees and then I went somewhere else to
mow and I looked up and one of those trees had fallen.
If I had been under there, Lee, pray you know that I was OK, but
then if I had been under there, it would have hurt me or gotten
rid of me. So I'm thankful that I was able
to mow the rest of the yard. Anyone else?
Something that you are thankful for?
Something that you're thankful for this past week, that you
were thankful for today. Anything Lamar, I'm coming back.
I'm thankful for this church and the people in it, for what they
do. Every time they're called on to
do anything, to come, to provide food, to be here, anything that
happens, they're always here. They don't bitch and fuss and
gripe about it. They're just always there to do
it. And I think we're one of the,
I've always said this, I think we're one of the most blessed
people in the world because of that.
Amen. Thank you.
Anyone else. Thank.
You, Brad. Scott Gitter.
I'm giving the same things as Lamar, you know, he said the
very words that were in my mind. We have this church to come to,
to give our thanks. What more can we ask?
Thank you. Anybody else something that you
were thankful for? I'm I'm also thankful for my
family, which includes. This church.
Family and your Your message hit home today, by the way.
Well, everybody knows the issues I've been having with Abby for
quite a while now. She has been staying down with
the best friend of mine and Bogachetta here in Mississippi,
away from some neighbors and outside influences that were not
very well for her. Not only has she started going
to church down there, my best friend, who I'm not as familiar
with her being in the church, has started going to church with
her and I'm thankful for that. Yeah, Scott, gotcha.
I don't want to embarrass him, but I want to thank God for my
son and daughter that's here this morning.
Amen. Amen.
Anybody else? I know that I'm probably the
only one here that really cares what happens with pups, but I
was worried about the little Pomeranian that was at KKS and I
decided that if I took her home and bathed her up and gave her
to a friend who was having a 79th birthday and asked her if
she'd just keep her until we could find a home for her.
The dog did her chore and behaved beautifully and she has
a home and that for me that's very important because I was
worried. About all the animals.
Hey, Ben, anyone else? Brad, I'm thankful that the
smoke actually. Smelled good and you know.
It just it worked out. And I do want to say that we
have talked about this before and Denise and I talked about
this, for a Church of our size to have 4 funerals in in the
short time span that we had and to to minister to and feed the
number of people that we did. And I honestly, the only
complaining I heard came from me.
And I'll tell you this, we got the meat from Wilson's down in
Crystal Springs. And Lamar said this meat is good
Brad. So I was expecting it to be just
really good. He said it's pretty much as good
as mine and I was like, wow, I'm looking forward to this.
I got it. I ate 2 bites and I was like,
this tastes nothing like Lamar's meat.
I was disappointed. Lamar, to your committee, to
Miss Denise, to your committee, to everyone who took part in
that, I, I want to say thank you.
Thank you for not complaining about the amount of people, the
amount of food that you had to come up with.
It flowed beautifully. Those families were ministered
to in a mighty way during that time of need.
And I commend you all for those who brought food, who cleaned
up, whatever part that you took in doing that, I thank you.
My prayer for me is that going forward from today, when you see
your preacher, he's got something encouraging for you to
hear, not something that he wants to complain about, not
something that he's frustrated with because he does get
frustrated, but that we focus on that.
First Thessalonians chapter 5, verses 16 through 18.
Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks and all
circumstances. And I promise you all, when we
do that, He gives us the end of this verse.
For this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.
You want to have a better day, spend some time in prayer.
You want to have a better day, Rejoice no matter what's going
on in your life, give thanks to the Lord for the blessings that
you have. You want to have a better day,
Pray continually when you're not feeling good.
Go to the Lord in prayer right at that time and say, Lord, no
matter what happens today, I'm going to keep my focus in my
eyes on you. And I'm not going to let this
world bring me down. I'm not going to let what's
happening in my life bring me to the place where I don't want to
rejoice. I rejoice because I am your
child. I rejoice because Jesus Christ
gave his very life for me. I rejoice and I have confidence
in the fact that when I leave this earth, you have promised
and prepared for me a place in heaven for all of eternity.
Go to school. Well, actually, you're not in
school right now. Go to work tomorrow.
Go with the attitude of whatever happens today, I'm going to
bring glory to God. Good, bad or ugly, I'm going to
give thanks and see if your day doesn't go better.
See if you don't have an opportunity to impact someone
else's life in a positive way instead of in a negative way.
Go to a softball game and even if a mistake is made, instead of
focusing on that, focusing on the good, whatever it may be,
bring glory to God because of who He is and what He has done,
not what we can do. Every good gift comes from Him.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I do give
thanks, Lord, for your love for us, Lord, for Your grace and
Your mercy that you bestow upon us daily that we haven't
deserved, that we don't earn, but You love us anyway.
Your patience, Your kindness, Your goodness that overflows
into our lives. Lord, help us to see it.
Help us to feel it. Lord, help us to understand that
You are right there with us, no matter the circumstance, and
that You will walk us through it.
We may not end up in the destination that we desire, but
You're going to walk with us through it and You will bring us
out on the other side. And because of that, Lord, I
pray that we give you glory and honour, and no matter the
circumstances, we give thanks. Lord, we pray this morning to
our time of invitation, Lord, that you simply move within our
hearts and lives, that we allow your Spirit to mould us and to
shape us and to change us and to bring us to the place that we
can humble ourselves and exalt the name of Jesus.
So in his name I pray. Amen.
Please stand, turn to #465 only trust Him.
We'll do the first, second, and fourth verse.
Thank you for being here this morning.
We'll remind you, those of you who are on the board, we have a
board meeting immediately following our service.
Look, look forward to seeing you there.
And for the rest of you, as you go home and enjoy your
afternoon, give thanks to the Lord because he gave it to you.
Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we are
thankful, Lord, for our time together today.
Lord, we give thanks for our Savior and Lord Jesus Christ.
And Lord, just pray that as we leave this place today, we go
forth ready to share the love of Christ with others.
It's in his name I pray. Amen.