God is the FOCUS of Our Thanks

Good morning. My name is Trent. I want to welcome you to Twin Lakes Church this morning. We're gonna get things kicked off here. I'm one of the pastors. It's good to see you. And I think most of you know that I grew up in Alaska and I grew up going to a little tiny church. There are about 50 or 60 of us. And when we did our worship time in that church, we sang out of books, out of hymnals that were in the pubic in front of us. You know, we'd pull them out and somebody would call out the name of the hymn and we'd sing it together. And that's kind of how I cut my teeth learning to sing.

There was a song that we used to sing that's a really old song. And I'm just curious if any of you have heard it before. It was called "Count Your Blessings." Any of you? Okay, I see some hands out there. Carol's nodding. I know you know that song, Carol. I don't know how many times I sang that song, ironically, since it's about counting. But the words of the song encourage the person singing it. It actually says, "Count your many blessings. Name them one by one. And it may surprise you what the Lord has done." Like I said, I don't know how many times I sang that. But it's really only been more recently in my life that I've actually started doing that.

And I think it's a really good idea, I'm finding out, to actually name your blessings and to count them starting at zero. Because if you're anything like me, for some reason, when I experience God's grace, his sustained grace, and a sustained blessing over a period of time, I start to take that thing for granted. Or I start to feel like I deserve that thing. That's just my normal. Like I have this level of blessing, right? And that becomes my normal. And then I only notice the blessings that are above and beyond that for some reason.

So I wanted it, that's just kind of where my mind is, my heart has been lately. For some reason lately, I have just found myself almost overcome with a profound sense of God's blessing. And I've found in my own life that the less I feel like I deserve all the things in my life, the good things, the grace of God, the happier I am, when I just have very little expectation. It's like I'm going around in with this sense of perpetual surprise and delight at the blessings in my life.

So as we come into this Thanksgiving week together, and as you stand as we get ready to worship, I would like for us to focus on that this morning and to start naming and counting our blessings together. So I stand amazed in the presence of Jesus the Nazarene. And I wonder how He could love me, a sinner condemned unclean. How marvelous, how wonderful and my song shall ever be. How marvelous, how wonderful is my Savior's love for me.

Would you pray with me church? Lord Jesus, we are so grateful for this time together and we pray, Lord, by your spirit as we take these moments to focus in on you to worship you, that you would deepen our capacity for gratitude. Lord, would you open the eyes of our heart as that song says to once again to the wonder of you and your love? Because the truth is that we are all in this room, that we are all filthy rich in your blessing to be called your sons and daughters, to be called co-heirs with Christ. It doesn't matter what kind of car we drive or what kind of house we live in or how much our paycheck is of God, we are all filthy rich.

So I pray, Lord, that you would just help us to be overwhelmed once again with that truth as we look into your word. And we just give you this time thanking you for it, thanking you for one another, that we can be here together when we pray these things in the name of Jesus. And everyone said, amen, amen. Thank you, worship team, for leading us at such a beautiful time. And please be seated, everyone.

Hello and good morning. Thank you. My name is Mark, one of the pastors here. I want to share a couple of things about what's going on in the life of our church. But first of all, we're so glad that you were able to be here today and to gather, whether it's here in person or you're joining us on the live stream. We are so glad that you are with us.

And if you would like to maybe relatively new to Twin Lakes Church and you'd like to connect on a little, little extra level, you can do that today by filling out one of those welcome cards. It's located in the seat back in front of you or in some cases underneath your seat. Fill out as much as you like and bring it with you to what we call the after party. Right after this service, a number of us pastors will be right next to the information desk by the main entrance. And we would love to both say hello, welcome you, and we will trade you that card for a special gift bag that has, among other things, information about our ministries and a gift card to loft coffee and some other things. And so that's, again, right after the service today.

Last weekend, we had a young family's park day here on our campus. There were 240 moms, dads and kids. It was an amazing turnout. So exciting. We're going to need a bigger playground. No, we've got a great one. But I just want to celebrate what God is doing. He's doing something special in terms of just the amount of your families that are coming into the church. And we're excited to see that.

And also next weekend, speaking of welcome, we're going to have a welcome lunch right after this service starts about 12:15 across the parking lot in the room, the big room right next to loft. You've got a free lunch. And if you're just interested in like, what is this church about? This is a great place to come about 45 minutes. We do kind of a flyover of the ministries of Twin Lakes. You can get more information by going to TLC.org/welcome. But again, that's next weekend after this service.

And we are now in the home stretch of our annual food drive. And here to talk about that a little bit more, our good friend René, watch the screen. Well, I'm over here at our People's Pantry, which by the way, starting next year, we're building the brand new Hope Center as the new home for the People's Pantry on our campus. But right now from this old portable, every Wednesday afternoon, we give out free groceries. Why? Well, right now, 22 percent of families here in Santa Cruz County indicate that they have problems putting healthy food on their family tables. Most of this food we get from the Second Harvest Food Bank. And that's why we want to contribute to the Food Bank holiday food and fund drive. You can bring in non-perishable food to the church lobby until the final weekend in November, or you can donate at TLC.org/food.

Here's why that's a good idea. Second Harvest takes each dollar and can get enough food to provide three healthy meals. That's an amazing deal. So I appreciate you all prayerfully considering your donation to TLC.org/food for the food drive. Remember, we have until the end of this month. And just to underscore the current need, this last Wednesday at our People's Pantry, we had close to 250 clients come to our pantry. And in most cases, that represents a household. So you can do the math on that. But the need is real and the opportunity to reach out and love is as well.

And so, like René said, if you'd like to donate, go to TLC.org/food. And again, this wraps up next weekend on November 30th. That would then bring us into the holiday season and a couple of opportunities to both, again, extend the love of Christ or also be a part of some things. First of all, if you would like to adopt a family, a family that's struggling to provide gifts for their children, you can do that by emailing robin@tlc.org. And she will guide you through that process.

And then next weekend when you arrive, our lobby will be filled with our Giving Grove, all the trees that are festooned with ornaments. You like that? They're festooned. And on each one of those ornaments, there is the Christmas wish of someone in our community. You can be a part of fulfilling that. And then also, in two weeks, we have a women's advent program. It's going to be a really cool opportunity, December 6th at 7 p.m., because in addition to all the holiday treats and goodies and warm beverages, our very own Elizabeth Summers, who preached last weekend but is often leading worship, she is going to be performing live the songs on her fantastic Christmas album. One of the best Christmas albums I've ever heard. And you will love it. So, ladies, if you want to go to that, it's free, but we do need you to sign up. Go to tlc.org/women for details and to sign up for that.

Okay, thank you for being so polite. Listening to these announcements, I'm going to ask you to stand. And as we go to greet each other and with an eye towards Thanksgiving, here's the thing I'd like you to discuss with the people around you in addition to saying hello. What's your favorite Thanksgiving dessert? Is it pumpkin pie with whipped cream? Is it apple pie with ice cream? Or is it just good old shepherd's pie? Stand up, talk, say hello, and work it all out.

Shout for joy to the Lord all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness. Come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It's he who made us and we are his. We are his people, the sheep of his pasture. So enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise, giving thanks to him and praising his name for the Lord is good. And his love endures forever and his faithfulness continues throughout all generations.

Will you pray with me? God, thank you for being good, for being God. God, I pray that this morning, whether we already know that about you or not, God, that we would be refreshed and reminded of the beauty of that and that we would respond with thanks and praise to a God who is worthy. In Jesus' name, amen.

Well, good morning, church. It's good to be with you all as always. I always love being here on the weekend, but especially coming into this weekend with the passage that we're going to kind of dig into this morning, I was really just looking forward to being together to worship, to give God the glory and the praise for who he is. And so I hope you're excited to be here as well this morning. My name is Kyle. I'm one of the pastors here. I have the opportunity to work with our college and young adult ministry. We call the hub. Thank you. Yes, it's amazing. I'm so grateful to get to be a part of that community. And if you are here and you're not a part of the hub and you're 18 to 29 years old, we would love for you to get connected to what God's doing through that ministry. We meet on Thursday nights at 8 p.m. across the parking lot, but this Thursday we're not meeting. It's Thanksgiving, but we do have a QR code. If you are 18 to 29, I want to scan that. It'll take you to a link tree and get you connected in different ways. Or you can download our app, TLC, the hub on the app store. We would, again, love for you to join us and become a part of the community. And so that's who I am.

And this is also, I want to introduce my family because who am I without them? Come on. This is my wife, Jessica. She is my best friend. I love her dearly amazing. This is our daughter, Lucy, who's now nine years old. I can't believe she's already nine. And Owen, who just turned seven. And I just love them. This is my crew, my people. I love getting to do life. I'm really grateful for them. So I like to show them off when I have the opportunity because who wouldn't? So that's my family. And I am really, really grateful to the Lord for them.

Well, last week we jumped into a two week study we're calling with Thanksgiving. And if you missed it, Elizabeth Summers spoke last week and did an incredible job at talking about how can, yeah, we can give Elizabeth. It was amazing. Just so good to be reminded that we can seek the Lord in times of chaos to find peace and to give thanks. And again, I think it was very timely and fitting going into the holidays because it's no secret that the holiday season, there is, there's kind of relational turmoil at times. There's financial stress at times. There's grief that gets stirred up and so many more things. And so again, if you missed last week, you can go to the tlc.org and listen back. I would highly recommend it.

And this morning, what I want to do is I just want to pick up where Elizabeth kind of left off because Elizabeth at the end of her sermon last week, she gave us this simple prayer of a few phrases. And one of those phrases was thank you. And she talked about how this thank you can simply be for who God is. And this morning, as we jump into Psalm 100, which is the Psalm I recited a few moments ago, that's exactly what the intention is to just say thank you God for who you are.

Now, I'll have you know, I did not memorize Psalm 100 leading up to this message for the sake of performing it in front of you or something. I actually was forced to learn Psalm 100 when I was in college over 10 years ago in an Old Testament class. And I shared this because the way I actually learned it was I had a professor that kind of had this cadence and kind of rhythm in which he would recite it within every morning, he would come into class with a stack of books wearing a sport coat and some dockers, and he would set the books down. And he would look up at us. And he would say, "Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord of Godness." And I always remember like this is so like classic this is hilarious, but it actually helped it stick in my brain so much that I actually had to force myself this morning when I was reciting it to not say, "Show for joy." But it really helped it to stick in my brain because songs do that right melodies do that tempo does that. And that's fitting because if you know much about the Psalms, the Psalms, the genre of book is it's a collection of songs and poems, Hebrew poetry that have been gathered and put into our scriptures into the Bible in order to be a source of comfort and a source of encouragement for God's people so that we can respond and praise.

And so it makes sense that it's stuck in my brain with this little kind of melody just like we do the ABC song to kids in a song in the books of the Bible, all those things. But another thing that I'm as I spent time this week looking at Psalm 100 that's important about the genre is a lot like songs and poetry. A lot of times, there's a lot kind of put into or underneath the surface of just the words being shared right. And so this morning, what my hope is is just to invite you into some of the truths that surfaced as I spent time studying Psalm 100 the past few weeks. And also, I want to start by looking though at the kind of artists intentionality with the main idea of this Psalm. I kind of want to start with the big idea, which we normally do at the end of a message is kind of like, well, what's the big idea? But today I want to start with the big idea because I believe the author of Psalm 100 wanted us to hang on to this throughout our time reading through the Psalm. And the big idea is this God is the focus of our things. God is the focus of our things. Will you say that with me? God is the focus of our things.

We can see it as we read through that the Psalmist urges us by word to aim our praise, our adoration, our thanksgiving towards God. But it actually is much more than just the words urging us towards this. We can also see beyond just the focal substance of the text, we see a structuring of the poem that also lends itself to this idea. And the first thing we notice is there's repetition with the name Yahweh. Now in our Bibles, it says Lord in all capital letters. That's in the original language. That's where it said Yahweh, which is the name of God. And in literature, a literary tool, especially in Jewish literature, is to have repetition to draw our attention on the thing that keeps getting repeated. And so again and again in verse one, in verse two, in verse three, and then right at the start of verse five, kind of as a link between verse four and five, we see the name Yahweh or in our Bibles, the Lord. The author's intention is to say aim your worship and praise towards the Lord, but it's also trying to direct our focus to the name Yahweh, to our God.

And then to top it off, in the Hebrew, if this chapter was written out in the Hebrew, the name Yahweh falls almost dead center of every sentence structure that it is in. And so the idea being there's this word, words that are urging you to aim your attention and focus on God. And then the repetition draws our focus to God. And then even aesthetically, as it's written out, we see Yahweh is center. He's the focus. And that's why I think it's so important that we hang on to this truth, that He is the focus of our praise, the focus. It's so important for us. You can see in the English translation, even you can still kind of see that the Lord is kind of central on all those sentence structures and lines. It's so, so powerful. I was talking with Mark Spurlock about it this past week. He gave me great insight on the chapter and a lot of help. So thank you, Mark. But he said something to me that it was so good that I was like, I can't say that better than you. So can I quote you? And he said graciously, yes, you can quote me. And so I want to read what Mark shared with me this week. This is what he said.

This is a carefully composed poem. The writer who knows all about the evil and chaos of the world creates order and beauty where he can, like here in Psalm 100. So without ignoring what is wrong in the world, he wants us to take time to celebrate what's right, namely who God is and what He has done for us. That's the big idea, to celebrate who God is and what He's done for us to make Him the focus of our praise. But then the natural question that comes up for me is, well, OK, so why? Like, why is He the focus of our praise? Right. And this is where we get into kind of what I believe surfaced for me as I spent time studying it, because right here, right at the beginning, I believe that we can see one of the kind of the richness of the why is that He knows. He knows.

What do I mean by that? Well, in verse three, the first half of verse three, it says, "Know that the Lord is God and it's He who made us." I want to stop here because that's a very simple line, but it is like overflowing with theological implications and meaning. This claim, the psalmist here is saying Yahweh is the creator God. Now, I don't know about you, but in my brain, when I hear creator God, my mind instantly goes to this theological term omnipotent. It means all powerful. I think of a God who speaks things into existence that creates something out of nothing. And I'm like, that's praiseworthy. That's crazy. It's crazy when I look around. That's crazy that God made all of this. He's all powerful. But then it also makes my mind go to not just His omnipotence, but His omnipresence. Another theological word that means He's all present. He's a God who's not bound by time and space like I am and like you are. He's with us. He's present.

But what really stood out to me with this claim about Yahweh being the creator God is omniscience. It means He's all knowing. And I want to kind of look at this for just a moment because my mind goes a few different places with God being all knowing. First is Isaiah 55:8-9. It says, "For your thoughts are not my thoughts. Neither are your ways, my ways, declares the Lord. As high as the heavens are above the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts." This means that we have a God who He knows what you're going through. He knows. Like when we have tunnel vision and we can see 50 yards out, He's got the bird's eye view. 30,000 feet. He knows what's coming. That means we have a God who knows what you've been through. We have a God who knows what you're currently going through. And we have a God who knows what is to come. He knows.

And if He's all knowing, sadly, that means He knows better than me. That He knows best. That's why the verse Proverbs 3:5, that many of us know well, is so true and sticks with us. It says, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding." Because the reality is my understanding is not as good as His understanding. He knows. But here's the beauty of it. He doesn't just know our circumstances. He actually knows what we're made for. He knows our purpose. Like what we're here to do. Ephesians 2:10, one of my favorite all-time verses says, "For we are God's handiwork." Some versions say, "Masterpiece." But we are God's handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works which He has prepared in advance for us to do. Meaning, if you have breath in your lungs, God has purpose for your life. If you have breath in your lungs, God has purpose for your life. And He, as Creator, knows that purpose.

But isn't it our tendency to look for meaning and purpose everywhere else? Just me? Who knows best, who knows better than our Creator? I think of it this way. My dear friend who passed away, Ben Kelly, he was a surfboard shaper. And I can't tell you, Ben would nerd out over shaping surfboards. He loved it. It was so fun for him, creative. Any surfers in here? Okay, good. You guys know what I'm talking about here. Yeah, tell me more. I'm right there with you. But Ben would nerd out on shapes and he would make me boards and I'm bigger than Ben was. So the boards were too big for him. They weren't his size. He never rode my boards. But I could tell you, because he designed the surfboard, because he was the one shaping the board with his hands, he understood the way the board worked better than I could explain even after writing it. Because he was the Creator. God is our Creator, a crin-som-one-hundred. And he knows our purpose. He knows what you were made for.

But even better than him knowing our circumstances and even better than him understanding and knowing our purpose, we have a God who simply knows you. He knows you. He knows me. Like personally knows us. God knows me better than I know me. That's scary. Look at what Luke 12:7 says. "The very hairs on your head are all numbered." Psalm 139:13 says, "For you created my inmost being, you knit me together in my mother's womb." God knows us. And I don't know about you guys, but that's scary and that's intimidating because the reality is, I know me. And there's parts of me I don't want you to know. Right? Isn't that our tendency? That we feel like if someone really knows all of me, they're going to run for the hills. Like I'm a little weird. I can't show everything. But God doesn't go running. The one who knows you, every bit of you, the number of hairs on your head, saw your face before your parents ever saw your face. That God. He doesn't go running for the hills. Instead, even when we sin against him, he draws close because he knows.

And this is why he's the focus of our things because he knows. And not just he knows, but he cares. He cares. Look at what it says in the second part of verse 3 of Psalm 100. It says, "For we are his, we are his people, the sheep of his pasture." Boom! Mic drop moment, except for most of us don't really get the reference. Any shepherds in the house? When I read about sheep and shepherds, I get the tie because I've spent some time looking. But it doesn't hit the same, I don't think, as it maybe did in biblical times where a lot of people were shepherds and did this. So where my mind goes is over to Psalm 23. And the reason I go to Psalm 23 is Psalm 23 is known as the shepherd psalm. And it's written by David, and David was a shepherd. So it's cool. It's like we have this expert look on like, "Well, what's a shepherd all about?" Since Psalm 100, verse 3 is telling me you're the sheep of his pasture, what does that really mean?

Well, let's look at Psalm 23. And let's just look at the first three verses. It says, "The Lord is my shepherd. I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside quiet waters. He refreshes my soul. He guides me along paths of righteousness for his namesake." In those three verses, David explains that a good shepherd, that the Lord is our shepherd, provides for us. That he guides us, right? He leads us. That means he's close to us. He's with us. And it says that he refreshes and restores us. And that means that if we are the sheep of his pasture, we are blessed. Thank you, God, for provision and guidance. And it's in the day-to-day stuff, but it's also bigger than that.

Because look at what it says in verse 4 of Psalm 23. It says, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me, your rod and your staff, they comfort me." This goes on to tell us that not only does God provide for us and guide us and refresh us and restore us, but it also tells us that he protects us, he comforts us, and that he sacrifices for us. And I know you're like, "Well, where in there does it say he sacrifices for me? I don't see it." Well, a couple places. One, notice it says, "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death." As if our good shepherd is not leading us to the valley as a destination. He's leading us through the valley. And notice it's the valley of the shadow of death. I spent some time studying this a few months back for another teaching. And a commentator said this, I thought it was so profound for me to hear. It said, notice David says, "The shadow of death," meaning death without substance. The shadow of death can kill you no more than the shadow of a knife can cut you. And when I read that and I think about that it's just the shadow of death that I face, that's because of the gospel truth that the good shepherd who knows me and cares for me gave everything for me. He died on a cross for me to take my payment of my sin debt that I accrued on my own. And not because I earned it, not because I deserve it, but because he loved me and cares for me. He said, "I'm going to die for you. I'm going to sacrifice everything." He cares for us.

And Jesus himself claimed to be the good shepherd. In John 10, that's another place my brain goes when I hear about shepherds is I think of John 10 because Jesus says things like, "I am the good shepherd. I know my sheep and they know my voice." But look at what he says in verse 9. I love this. In John 10:9, he says, "I am the gate for the sheep. Whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and they will go out and they will find pasture." Jesus is making a claim here about salvation in him. I want you to see this photo of a sheep's fold. A sheep fold here is this stone wall that the sheep were kind of ushered into for protection, right? At night and different things so that wolves and predators couldn't get in. But notice there's no gate or door on this. Well, isn't that problematic? Like how are they going to be protected if there's a wide open doorway? Well, the shepherd, the good shepherd, sits in the entranceway and waits, welcoming in the sheep. He is the way to enter into the sheep fold to become part of the flock. But he's also a God who protects and sacrifices on behalf of his flock. And this is the good news of Jesus.

That's why 1 John 1:9 says, "If we confess our sins, he's faithful and just and will forgive us of our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness." Saying, "You don't have to earn it. You don't have to do anything. He already did the work. He gave his very life for you because he knows you and he cares for you." This is why he's the focus of our thanks. Because he cares. He knows, he cares, and the other truth is that he's reliable. He's reliable. Like meaning I can count on him. We can trust him. I think about the times in my life that God has shown up. I don't know what's happening. Is that me? Is this on? All right. I don't know what happened there, but we heard it. All right. He's reliable. And this is why it's so important. I talk about and think about a lot of keeping like a prayer journal. Because how many times in my life does God show up? Does God meet me where I need him to meet me? He shows up. He sticks to his word. He proves that he is a good and faithful God. And I go on like Trent was talking about earlier. Like, I just deserve it. It's like, oh, yeah, yeah. But if I write down those prayers and I can go back and I can look, I can see that God has shown up. And it's a reminder to me to say, thank you, God. Thank you, God. He's shown up time and time again in my life and I know in many of your lives as well.

And not just with like a prayer journal, but even our testimony. This is why testimony matters. We share our testimony of what God's doing in our life and his faithfulness to us. Yes, to share the love of Christ with other people so they can hear about God's goodness and faithfulness, but also to give credit where credit's due to say, thank you, God. You are so worthy of my praise. You are so good to me. Verse five of Psalm 100 says, for the Lord is good and his love endures forever. His faithfulness continues through all generations. I love this because I think the psalmist is making the point that, yeah, God will show up. God will be who he says he is. He'll meet your needs. He'll be there for you. He'll be consistent, reliable, dependable, faithful, trustworthy in the day to day, but also in the grand scheme of things that we have a God that resurrected from the dead. After sacrificing himself on the cross, he resurrected, proving he was the God he claimed to be, the one true God so we can trust him. And we can trust his promises that one day Jesus will return to right all the wrongs, right? To make everything restored, to bring in and usher in a new heaven and a new earth.

I was reminded this week of the Samwise Ganji quote from Lord of the Rings where he runs into Gandalf and he thought Gandalf was dead and he's like, "Wait, I thought you were dead. Now I think I might be dead. Wait, I'm not?" And he's like, "Does this mean that one day everything sad will become untrue?" And the answer is yes, it will. If you put your faith and trust in Jesus as Lord, we know the end of the story. He's victorious. This is why Isaiah 26:4 says, "Trust in the Lord, Yahweh forever. The Lord, the Lord himself is rock eternal." Without end, eternal. We know the end of the story and we should be excited about that. We can give thanks and praise because of that.

Nothing? You know what? I think about it this way. Maybe this will get you guys your excitement up. It's Christmas season and I love Home Alone. Anyone Home Alone fan? I will never forget, this is my favorite Christmas movie of all time, but I'll never forget the first time I saw Home Alone. When I saw Home Alone, I was about Kevin McCallister's age. Kevin McCallister is McCauley Colkin's character in the movie and I was about his same age. I'm going to give a spoiler alert, but this came out in 1990. So if you missed it, kind of your fault. Anyways, or just plug your ears. You're like, "This week, I'm going to watch it, I promise." Kevin McCallister, I was his age and the story goes that his family ends up leaving him at home by mistake. They go on vacation, they realize it when they're halfway to Paris, they're in the air, and he's Home Alone at first. He's like, "This is awesome. I'm a kid and I'm Home Alone. It's rad." And then the wet bandits show up.

And the wet bandits, that's Harry and Marv, they're burglars. And they're trying to break into his house and he knows it. And all of a sudden, I remember watching this movie and being so worried for Kevin McCallister. I was freaked out. I'm on the edge of my seat, like, "What's going to happen? He's about my age. I wouldn't know how to handle this. Are the cops going to get involved? What's going on?" Everyone's freaking out, at least I thought, because I'm freaking out. And then there's that scene where he microwaves a bowl of mac and cheese. And he sits there and he looks at the camera and he says, "This is my house and I have to defend it." And then the music comes in, doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo doo. And he starts booby trapping his house with, like, ornaments they're going to step on and just gnarly stuff. I booby trapped my house for, like, 12 years after this. (Laughter) But he goes crazy. And at the end of the movie, the wet bandits get arrested, the booby traps worked, his family comes home and they make it in time for Christmas celebration. Yeah, credits roll.

I've watched Home Alone every year since that first time. I watched it actually two nights ago. (Laughter) And never once have I been worried for Kevin McCallister ever again. The circumstances were the same. Every time I've watched it, nothing changed. The wet bandits still tried to break in. Kevin was still Home Alone. But I got to sit and just enjoy the goodness of the movie because I knew the end of the story. We know the end of the story. And it doesn't mean there's not going to be hard stuff in our days or things that are stressful or anything like that. But it means that we can count on our dependable, trustworthy, reliable God. And this is why he's the focus of our Thanksgiving. I want to close with a prayer, and it's a simple prayer, kind of like last week, it's there in your notes, but it's just, "Thank you for knowing me. Thank you for caring for me, and thank you for being reliable." And I'll elaborate on that just to pray over you all, but if you want to just put that prayer into practice this week, I would encourage you to do it. But for now, let's close our time before we respond in worship with just a prayer of thanks.

God, thank you. Thank you for knowing me, for knowing us. And not just knowing about us, but actually knowing us personally, deeply, every part of us, and still choosing to care for us. God, thank you for caring for us. Thank you for meeting our needs and being the good shepherd that you are, walking with us, guiding, taking care of us, protecting us, comforting us, and ultimately, God, your sacrifice for us. And God, we just thank you for being a God who's reliable, a God who's trustworthy, that doesn't just say things and then they fall through the cracks, but a God who shows up and is faithful. God, thank you for your resurrection that proved you were who you claim to be. And God, I thank you that we, as your church, the sheep of your pasture, that we have the opportunity daily to give you all the thanks and all the praise. I pray over us as a church that we would be better and better at doing that, to give you all the glory and the praise. Thank you so much for who you are, God, and what you've done. In Jesus' name, Amen.

I'm going to invite you to stand up as we respond in worship and the worship team is going to lead us.

Oh, my words fall short I've got nothing new How could I express Oh, my gratitude I could sing these songs As I often do That every song must end And you never do

So I throw up my hands And praise you again and again Cause all that I have is an hallelujah Hallelujah And I know it's not much But I have nothing else fit for a king Except for a heart singing Hallelujah Hallelujah

I've got one response I've got just one move With my own stretch wide Oh, I will worship you

So I throw up my hands And praise you again and again Cause all that I have is an hallelujah Hallelujah And I know it's not much But I have nothing else fit for a king Except for a heart singing Hallelujah Hallelujah

So come on my soul Don't you get shy on me Lift up your song Cause you've got a lion inside of those lungs Get up and praise the Lord

Come on my soul Don't you get shy on me Lift up your song You've got a lion inside of those lungs Get up and praise the Lord

Come on my soul Don't you get shy on me Lift up your song You've got a lion inside of those lungs Get up and praise the Lord

Praise the Lord Praise the Lord

So I throw up my hands And praise you again and again Cause all that I have is an hallelujah Hallelujah And I know it's not much But I have nothing else fit for a king Except for a heart singing Hallelujah Hallelujah

Amen I want to read a blessing over you before we leave But first, allow me to invite the members of our prayer team to make their way down here So that if any of you would like to receive prayer, that will be available You can also let us know your requests by going to tlc.org/prayer And hundreds of people, including our pastors, will be praying over those requests this week And if you would like to continue in worship through giving here in the lobby There are offering boxes or you can do so electronically at tlc.org/give And thank you to Inlet Church for your general support, especially here at year's end

And now, first of all, I hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving And may the Lord bless you and keep you The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you The Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace Amen.