Hi everybody. It's hot up here. It's crazy hot up here. You know that? Dangerously hot up here. But I'm glad to be back with you. Thank you very much for having me again. And if you came last week and came back again this week, thank you very, very much for doing that. That's encouraging to me. And I appreciate many of you speaking to me and saying encouraging things to me about last week. I do hope it's been a time for you and me to reflect on prayer and especially at this time in the history of this church. I don't know. You had just announced that you're going to have this process of having a pulpit committee and all the other various things that go into finding a senior pastor. You know you're going to do that. Yes. That was not shocking. Was it? Okay. Well, you know, good Presbyterian theology would tell us it really doesn't matter whether you pray or not. Now, it's called a good Presbyterian theology but it's really not good for here. It's not good Presbyterian theology. It's bad Presbyterian theology because the reality is that the Bible says it does matter. And it does make a difference whether or not you pray. I want to read to you a passage that almost contradicts everything you probably ever thought in terms of. But I'll say it anyway is in the book of James where James says these words. He says the prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Now, you know, if you and I had written that verse what we would have said is the prayer of a righteous man doesn't make a bit of difference because Dara's day taught us and we thought that John Calvin also taught K. Sarasara whatever will be will be. And so your prayers don't matter. Are you with me on this? Can you admit that that's true? That that thoughts kind of rolling around in the back of your head say yes, please somebody. It's Wednesday night. You can make noise. It's okay. Okay. And not too much noise. We're still Presbyterians. Okay. But a little bit of noise would be good. And you know, James doesn't say that the prayer of a righteous man doesn't do anybody any good. What he says is that the prayer of a righteous man or change that into this church, the prayer of a righteous church, which means a church seeking after the things of God seeking God, not a perfect church, but a church of seeking God, the prayers of such a church make a difference. They as the King James puts it availeth much. Remember that person the King James the prayer of a righteous man availeth much. And it's time for you and me to begin to believe that. That prayer does make a difference in the way history works. Now some of you had catfish tonight and some of you did not. Did anybody eat any tomatoes tonight? Who ate tomatoes? Okay. Now I want to ask you a question. Now think, think like a good Presbyterian. Who predestined how many tomatoes you would eat tonight? Okay. Who did it? God did. Did God or Dane from all eternity? How many tomatoes you would eat tonight? The answer is yes. Yes. Okay. But did that stop those of you who went to the salad bar from deciding how many tomatoes you were going to put on your plate? If you'd sat there and said, okay, now God's fordane how many tomatoes are going to be on my plate and how many I'm going to eat tonight. So I'll just hold my plate here and watch and see what God does. What would you, what would have happened? You would have found out that God didn't ordain you to eat any tomatoes, right? But instead what you did was knowing that God is ultimately the one that's going to decide how many tomatoes get on your plate and in your mouth, you still stood there and picked the tomatoes and put them on your plate. Are you with me on this? Because you know that your fork and your knife and the tongs that were over there on the salad bar are the instruments that God uses to accomplish what he has for ordain. You don't sit around saying yourself, well I wonder if he will do this or not. Or I'd better just be quiet and watch and see what happens. That would be ridiculous. You'd all be starved to death by now. You'd be dead. You know, if you're driving up to the street and there's a stop sign and you say, well let's see if God fordane for me to stop. What's going to happen? You're going to have a wreck. That's what's going to happen and you'll find out he fordane that. So the reality is that that's the way it is when you put the brakes on on a car is the way it is when you use a fork or a knife when you eat is the way it is when you do every single thing you do in your life and it's also the way it is with prayer. Now you can decide as a church, not to bathe the next few months of this church's life in prayer and you can wait and see what God has for ordain for this church and it will happen and it may be good and it may not be good. But if you want to raise the stakes, if you want to raise the percentage or to use a John Wilfong analogy, if you want a paint shot which means a high percentage shot inside the lane on the basketball court, right John? With the beautiful legs. And in a man who has legs like that, you got to believe what he says. If you want to raise the stakes up, if you want to raise the potential up of good things happening during the next six months or so as you search for a pastor, the best thing you can do is to start using your knife and fork. But in this case is not your knife and fork, it's prayer. Are you with me on this? We just got to stop all this silliness that we have in our lives where we say things like, well, the only reason to pray is because God has commanded us to pray. Well, that gets you to pray a lot, doesn't it? How many other things does God commanded you to do that you don't do? Like a million? You got to believe what James says, and that is the prayer of a righteous church avail of much. Last week, we talked about how to turn your prayers into a time of engagement with God where you are actually involved in giving him reasons for why he should answer the prayers that you're asking for at this point. I think it's time for this church to start praying for its next pastor. Right now, start praying for its next pastor. And you ought to be able to say to God, Lord, we need just the right man to pastor this church. We need just the right person and tell him what kind of person you think he ought to give you. Okay, be great. He'd love to hear it from you. And then tell him why? Why? One reason is because it was show his love for this church, right? God's love for his people to remember that. And then last week, we also said, because such things would give him great glory in the world. Don't you think it would display God's glory in East Memphis if the pastor you get after the next search is like unbelievable? Yes or no? Yeah, okay. So the world will stand up and go, wow, look what happened. Look, those people prayed about this dramatically and something wonderful happened. And of course, not just God's love for this church, not just God's glory in the world, but also God's word and His promises, the things He's promised the church. Because Jesus is the head of the church and as the head of the church, Jesus makes all the pieces of the church fit together like they're supposed to fit. It's His character. He wants that to be true here. And so you can appeal to Him on those bases to bring you the right pastor and it's time for this church to start praying that way, persuasively believing that the prayer of a righteous church can avail much. But bathed in all of this, bathing all of this, I should say, is an attitude that you and I need to have. And it's not an attitude that comes easily to us when we've gone through a hard time, whether it's a personal hard time or a church hard time or a national hard time. It's really not that easy to have this attitude that I'm going to talk about and to in prayer until you've come through the hard time and you can kind of look back on it all and say, well, ain't it great? But what I'm wanting to suggest to you is this is that we must be ready to bathe our petitions for this next pastor and for this church and its ministry, the next phase it goes into, not just with effective petitions but also dramatic Thanksgiving for what God has done for this church already. You see, when you face difficulties in a group or face difficulties in your personal life is very easy just to focus in on those difficulties, isn't it? And to let that discourage you and make you feel down about it, it's like, oh my goodness. And of course that destroys all of your optimism, destroys all of your hope and all of your dreams. And it becomes very difficult to get that. But what we're going to do tonight is to talk about thanking God as we ask Him for things. And to do that, we're going to look at a Psalm. I want you to turn it to me to Psalm 34, Psalm 34. This is a wonderful, wonderful Psalm that actually teaches us how to pray. Now, if it hasn't happened to you, it's happened to somebody you know. Little Johnny goes up to his uncle Joe, an uncle Joe gizmo sucker. Now Johnny's about six or seven years old and Joe uncle Joe gizmo sucker and Johnny unwraps at sticks and his mouth and his mother standing there and she says, Johnny, tell uncle Joe, thank you. And he just keeps sucking away on the sucker. He doesn't want to say thank you. And she says, Johnny, say thank you. And he just keeps on sucking away. He does not want to get say thank you to his uncle Joe. And finally, his mother says, Johnny, if you don't say thank you, I'm taking a sucker away from you and you're going to your room for the rest of the evening. And so at that moment he realizes he's got to do something. So little Johnny pops the sucker out of his mouth for a split second and says, thank you sticks it back in and runs away, right? I mean, that happens to almost every parent and every grandparent and it's so embarrassing. But we realize that children don't learn how to say thank you naturally. I mean, how many mothers in here remember there are tiny little babies telling them, thank you for all that they did for them. Any mother in here remember that? There are lots of common experiences among the mothers of young children. But one of those is not that your baby says, thank you, or is even googues a thank you or even has an appreciative smile every once in a while, not even that. All it is is give me, give me, give me and give me more and more. Thank you is not in the book for a young child. Children have to be taught how to say thank you. Now I think you and I have learned enough going through life to understand that Captain Kangaroo was right. If you say please and thank you then you'll get a touchy roll and that's a good thing. So saying thank you is a polite thing to do and we all know that that's correct. But when it comes to religion, when it comes to Christianity, when it comes to faith, we find it very hard to express Thanksgiving. We find it very hard to say thank you. I mean how many times can you say thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus, thank you Jesus without sounding like gomer pile talking to Sergeant Carter. Thank you Sergeant Carter, thank you Sergeant Carter. I mean you know you get to the point where you go well there must be something else I can say. There must be something more I can do. Then just say thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you over and over and over again and there is. And what we're going to do tonight is look at Psalm 34 as an example of how to say thank you to God because I'm convinced that this church as it approaches this season of fasting, of praying, of searching for pastor, searching for leadership, searching for vision, the kinds of things that go into all this process. You have got to be a church that is thankful and not a gripping church, a thankful church. Okay. Psalm 34 is great for this because of the way it works. It starts off with the person's heart, the heart of a person that says thank you. Then it moves from the heart, the attitude to the lips of a person that says thank you that knows how to say thank you to God. And then it moves from the lips to the life of this person. So we're kind of going inside out here. What kind of heart is in a person that knows how to say thank you. And then what does a person say when a person wants to tell God thank you in an effective way to avail much. And then what difference does it make in your life. So let's start off with the heart. What kind of person is a grateful, thankful person to God? Look at Psalm 34 verse 1. I will extol the Lord at all times. His praise will always be on my lips. My soul will boast in the Lord. Let the afflicted hear and rejoice. Glorify the Lord with me. Let us exalt his name together. If there's anything that we can learn from these first couple of verses here in Psalm 34, it is what kind of attitude deep within this person there was. That led him to say thank you to God. Notice what he says. God's praise is going to be continually on his lips. In other words, he something's happened. We don't know exactly what it was, but something's happened. And he's so grateful and he's so thankful he can't stop talking about it. Have you ever had that kind of experience that something's happened to you and you're so excited about it. You're so turned on by it that you just can't stop talking about it. Every wife in here knows that this is true Monday morning or Tuesday morning whenever your man watches football. You know what they do. They get together and they start talking to each other. Don't just talk about the football game one time and settle the matter. Do they? They go on and on and on and on and on about these great sporting events that occur. And why is that? It's because they're excited about what they saw on the television or what they saw at the stadium. I remember when my family moved from Boston, Massachusetts to Jackson, Mississippi, we got in a U-Haul truck and drove all the way down to Jackson, Mississippi. No, talk about culture shock to move from the North Shore of Boston to Jackson, Mississippi was a big shift for us. And one of the things I learned real quickly, and by the way, it's true here in this church, if you didn't know it, is that all true men, all real men go hunting. They don't go hunting, they go hunting, right? All true men go hunting. Well, I had been Yankeeized enough to think that hunting was not that cool anymore. So I'm down there and I noticed that it's hunting season because everybody's got the camo and the orange hats and things. I don't know what season it was. Exactly, but it was season. And I noticed that men driving off early in the morning, they coming back real late at night and they were all congregated in the middle of the road in my neighborhood. So I thought, okay, I'm new to the neighborhood. I'll get out and get to know the guys. Oh boy, that was a big mistake. So I'm walking out my bermuda shorts or whatever it was by John tonight. And they're still in their camo. And of course, what they're doing is they're standing around the circle and ladies, if you don't know this, this is what the men do. They talk about the one they could have gotten. Okay, you know, the 16 pointer this and that big one buck over there and this and the other. The one that passed right into the stand, but you know, it's just a little too close, a little dangerous for the other guys. They didn't want to bother with that one. And so they go on and on. But the funny thing about it was they didn't just talk about these events one time and let it rest. They went around the circle and told the story about this over and over and over and over and over again. The sun went down. I decided it was time to go to bed and they're still out there in the military talking about it. Why? Because something had happened in their lives and they were so excited about it that they could not stop talking about it. And there's something else that's said here that gives us this attitude of a thankful person. Come let us exalt his name together. That's just like a new mother. And the first thing you know what mothers do and they first have their babies and they can do it. They get on the phone to their own mothers. They mom, you don't believe it. She's so beautiful. Next thing you know, the right in cards, you know, baby and mother are fine. She's wonderful, things like that. Why do you do that? Why do mothers do that? It's because when you're excited about something and you're turned on to something, you want other people to join in with you. You don't hold it in. You're not private about it. You're not quiet about it. You can't stop talking about it and you want other people to go. Yeah, that is great. Your baby is beautiful. Isn't that true? You do it about sporting events. You do it about babies. You do it about your new house. You do it about your new car. You want people to notice and you can't stop talking about it and you want them to join in with you. But when it comes to religion, we think it's pious to be quiet and not say a single thing about anything good that God has done for us. Let someone think we're a fanatic. What you and I have done in effect is this we have taken the guy glasses of the world and we have begun to look at our lives like the world looks at our lives. And that is that things can be explained as ordinary and usual and in natural terms rather than in terms of God doing things. I mean, think about it. Isn't it true that acts of God in a Christian's average Christian's life is about like acts of God in an insurance policy. You know the stuff that's down in the fine print where it says earthquakes, hurricanes and other acts of God is like if you can't explain it any other way, then you might give God a little bit of glory for it. You might admit that he had something to do with it. But if there's any other way to explain it, we're going to talk about it in very naturalistic terms. Well, you know what that does to your Christian life? It kills it. You wonder why you sometimes feel as if God is not involved in your life and why your Christianity is not compelling and why it's not exciting is not because God has stopped doing things for you is that you had the glasses of the world on and God is doing all kinds of wonderful things in your life. But you hold back for fear of what people will think of you and you're afraid to say it continuously and to get other people to say it with you and therefore you lose the opportunity to rejoice and be glad in what God has done for you. So when was the last time you took 10 minutes out of your life to talk about what good things God has done for you through this church? Just that simple thing, just 10 minutes. When was the last time you talked for 10 minutes about the good things that God has done for you through IPC? If you've been here for more than a week, I know you've got 10 minutes worth of talk to do. You see a grateful person, a person who can bathe prayer in gratitude and thankfulness, it all begins with a heart and it's a heart that sees God doing things and it's a heart that says I'm not going to let it pass by. Because when God does something in my life, I'm excited about it. I can't stop talking about it and I want other people to join in with me. So play the fool a little bit, play a little bit unsophisticatedly here, be a little bit naive, be a little bit fanatical and give God your heart for what he has done in your life. Okay. So suppose you can go that far and you can say you know I really sort of have been ungrateful and sort of ignoring the good things God has done. Well, what do you say? I mean, how do you put it into words if you want to be a thankful person? And that's a very practical question, a very meaningful question because it's one thing to have a heart that can be grateful. There's another thing to put it into words. I think every woman in this room probably wishes that her husband could put his feelings into words more adequately. Don't you, ladies? Okay. You know, he says, you know, I love you because of what I do. Yeah, but it would be nice if you just put it into words once in a while. That's the way God is too. God wants these things put into words and that's what happens in this song. It's one thing to have a grateful heart. Now what we want to do is talk about what do you do with your lips, with your mouth when you're grateful? Verse 4. I, he's talking about himself. I sought the Lord and he answered me. He delivered me from all my fears. Those who looked to him are radiant. Their faces are never covered with shame. This poor man called talking about himself and the Lord heard him. He saved him out of all of his trouble. The angel of the Lord and camps around those who fear him and he delivers them. Now, we don't know exactly what happened in this person's life, but obviously something bad. There was something that was threatening him and God delivered him. God heard him pray and God delivered him. Whatever that specific thing was, he's very grateful for what's happened. But notice what he does here. Rather than just simply saying, thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. What he does is, he takes time to put into words an account of what God has done. In effect, what he does is he tells God his story. The story of what God has done. He doesn't hesitate to go through what had happened. This poor man called and the Lord heard him. The angel of the Lord and camps around those who fear him and he delivers them. And sometimes in the Psalms, these stories are short like this one. These tiny little Thanksgiving stories are short, but sometimes they're very long. Take a look sometime at Psalm 18 and you'll find there that the story of Thanksgiving is actually about 40 verses long. It's a very long one where he talks about what had happened in great detail in his life. Great detail. This is the art of being a person who can say thank you. It is gaining the ability to tell God your stories. I remember when we moved to Jackson, our daughter Becky had her seventh birthday there. It was her first birthday in Jackson, Mississippi. And there wasn't a lot to do on a birthday, but we had the choice of doing a birthday party at McDonald's or at the roller skating rink. Because she wanted to do the roller skating rink. So okay, we invite all her friends there. I had a big old broken arm at the time. It was miserable, but she liked it. Okay. It's been a lot of money for a seminary professor. It's been the whole day at the roller skating rink. And the whole day Becky had never said thank you to me the whole day. So my usual practice was as she would go to bed at night was to sit on the edge of her bed and pray with her just before she fell asleep. And I did, but I also had to go fishing because I wanted her to say thank you. I spent way too much money not to get some thank you on this one. Okay. Way too much time. So as I sat there with her, I said, well, Becky, did you have a good time today? Yes. That wasn't good enough. What did you like? What did you like, Becky? And she said everything. Okay, like I'm spending a couple hundred bucks on a birthday party for an everything. No way. And so I went fishing really hard this time. I said, well tell me some of the things you liked. And so she started talking about how she got to go around the circle. You know how to do this in roller skating rinks with by herself as they played happy birthday over the loudspeakers. And then how the boys chased the girls into the girls bathroom and how the girls chased the boys into boys bathroom. And how she got this present and the ice cream fell on the floor and things like that. And she just, you can sort of see she was going through the whole day and the whole event in her mind. And she was just sort of telling me this funny thing and that funny thing. And that Becky really didn't even realize it. But as she was saying all those little vignettes and all those little stories to me, she was telling me, thank you, daddy. Thank you, daddy. And I said they're listening to them, photo my arms and said, you know, I'm a good dad. I'm a real good dad. And my daughter appreciates me because she took the time to tell me her stories. That's what's happening right here in this song. Telling stories is one of the main ways that the Bible teaches us to say thank you to God. And you know as well as I do. It's one thing for you to say thank you to someone. It's another thing for you to tell them why you're thankful to them. And often, by the way, men, this is a good thing to do sometimes. Rather than simply saying thank you to your wife or to your children, taking the time to tell them the story of what they did. You say, well, she already knows what she did for me. That's not the point. God already knows what he did for you too. That's not the point. The point is for you to express your heart. The point is for you and me to be able to put on our lips what we feel in our hearts. And that is that God has been good. And if he's been good to you, it's worth you taking some time to tell him how he's been good. You ever wondered why it is so hard to pray without asking for something? Is that ever struck you as odd? Even when you give thanks for food at the table, you usually end up asking for something. Every single time we pray, we just had a sort of natural tendency to drop off into some shopping list of things that we need. Well, one of the reasons for this is because we don't know how to say thank you beyond saying simply thank you. But now you do. So, what is your story? Think of something that's happened to you this week that you cannot attribute simply to natural causes. That you know that God was involved in it and that it showed His mercy to you. What is that thing? Now, what I want to encourage you to do is before you go to bed tonight, you can do this TVO the TV and watch it tomorrow. You can do it for 20 minutes or 30 minutes tonight. I want to challenge you that once you've identified what that event is to take the time in private to tell God the details of what happened. Lord, you did this and I did this and this happened and it was amazing how that happened. I can't believe you did this and this is astounding and I really didn't even realize how much this meant to me until I started talking to you about it. Because God deserves to hear your stories and it's the way you bathe this church in gratitude and thankfulness for what God has done. Okay, so it starts off with a heart that's sensitive and is aware that God does things and gets excited about it. It can't be quiet, can't just keep it to yourself. And it moves to the lips where you tell God's stories, you literally go through the story of what He's done. But then there's a third thing in this opening section of this Psalm that I want you to see and that is what difference does it make? What effect does it have on your life? What can you expect to be the payoff in your personal life and in the life of this church? Take a look at me at verse 8. There the Psalmist says this. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him. Fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear Him lack nothing. The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. He says here, taste and see that the Lord is good and the reason he says that he's being very literal. In the ancient rituals of the temple when someone would bring a Thanksgiving offering, what they would do is they would make the offering, part of it would be burned for the Lord, part of it would be eaten by the priest and part of it would be eaten by the worshipper who was giving thanks and his friends and family. So he's actually doing this. He's actually saying to them, okay everybody, I've told my story, now let's eat. Sort of like having a wedding reception after the wedding. You eat to celebrate. You eat to show how grateful you are. They would make these magnificent sacrifices and in fact sometimes even invite the poor to come with them to join in the Thanksgiving. Come let us exalt this name together. This is how you do it. You taste and you see. But notice he doesn't say taste and see how good the food is. What he says is taste and see how good God is. He wants the people with him to put that food to their lips and as they taste that food and see how good it is, he wants them to understand that this is symbolic of how good God has been. Because good food and a culture like ancient Israel was something very rare. Good food was something that was very difficult to come by. And so good food would energize you in ways that you did not normally have in your life. Taste and see how good God is. I don't know about you, but I just can't go for very long with the theory that God is good. I know every person in here knows any theology at all knows God is good. He's the definition of goodness. And that's fine and it's okay. It's good to know that. But I don't need to know the theory that God is good. You know what I need? I hate to say this. What I need in my life is to know experientially that God has been good to me. That he has done things for me. This is what I need to give me energy for life, to give me hope for my life, to give me something that will actually move me forward in my life, not the theory that God is good, but the experience that God is good to me and to people who are important to me. I remember the first time I went to Mexico to teach. I was down there to teach in a respiratory that met from Monday morning until Friday, and I was supposed to preach every day. And the second day I was there, I got Montesumas revenge. My infirmidad del treista. And it was a nightmare for me. The first time I'd ever had the tourist disease in Mexico. And it didn't have any medicine or anything, and nobody was helping me. And so I had to choose between eating and preaching. It was about what it amounted to. So for four days, all I had was Coca-Cola. My first Spanish words. I'm going to Coca-Cola, please. And I finally had some Coca-Cola. I maybe ate one or two bites of bread the whole week. And you can imagine that as we traveled back toward the airport to get me out of there and up here, that I didn't feel very good. I was extremely dehydrated. I had big circles under my eyes. It was a nightmare. As far as I was concerned, I would never go back to Mexico. The whole trip was a waste. No, my whole life was a waste. It was miserable. There was nothing good in this world. And I was just going to get back home, and I don't know what I was going to do next. But I wasn't going to do this again. That was for sure. Okay. So on the way, we had to spend the night at my friend's mother's house. It was that far to the airport in Merida. And so we stopped over. And she took one look at me. And she knew what was wrong, of course. She knew that I was dehydrated and malnourished at the point, at this point, after four days of the little bit of Coca-Cola and bread. And so she went back into the kitchen and made a cheese tortilla with chile sauce on top of it and brought it out and put it in front of me. And I said, no, gracias. And she said, see, pushed it back in front of me. I said, no, gracias. And she said, see, and it came right back in front of me. I looked over my student friend and said, what should I do? He said, you better eat. She's not going to let you not eat. And so I took my fork and I cut one tiny little corner off of this cheese tortilla, a little bit of chile sauce, and I put it to my lips. And when I did, and doctors tell me this is exactly what should have happened, when I did, my whole body started shaking like this. Like this. I mean, it was just like this. And I began to salivate like the ocean. And all of a sudden, my whole life turned around. And I stood up and I said, Magnifico. And I started eating this stuff and my body came back to life. Oh, you know, Mexico sure I'll come back next year. No problem. This is a great trip. Man, what a blessing God was to me this whole week. So good to be with this press secretary. It was wonderful. You know, it was magnificent as far as I was concerned. Once I ate, that's the experience this man is telling his people to have right here in this song. That when you hear the stories of what God has done, when you tell your stories of what God has done, it's like tasting and eating after a time of dehydration and you come back to life. Now, how lively is he? Look at what he says. He says in verse 9, those who fear the Lord lack nothing, those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. Wouldn't you like to feel that way about your life just once in a while? That you don't lack anything? You know what he's doing here. He's so excited that all of his needs have disappeared. 15 minutes later, he could probably tell you 100 needs that he had. Yes. But at this moment, he's so overwhelmed with gratitude and the wonder of God and with his thanksgiving that he can look at his life and he can say, I lack nothing. I cannot imagine anything more in my life than this. I don't have a need that I can name. It's all disappeared because I am overwhelmed at how much God has given to me. The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who fear the Lord lack no good thing. Don't you want to feel that way about your life just once in a while? Don't you want to feel that way about this church once in a while? What more could this church possibly want than what it has already been given? What could you as a family want that's beyond what you've already been given? What could you as an individual want that goes beyond what you've already been given? Don't you want to feel that way? You know how to now. It's by getting a heart that's willing to say thank you to God and get excited about what he's done rather than ignore it and keep your dignity intact. And it's by taking that feeling inside of your heart and putting it to your lips and telling God the stories of what he has done. And when you do and when you taste it and you see that God has been good to you, you will be able to say, I lack nothing. That is the way this church will be able to bathe this whole process of searching and reenvisioning itself in thankfulness before the Lord. You have so much that has been given to you but it's so easy to forget that and to focus only on the negatives and only on the down things. Unless you turn your heart around in service to God and put that heart onto your lips and then put those lips to God and then see the result in your life of joy unspeakable right here in independent Presbyterian church. You see I told you young children don't know how to say thank you naturally, nor do Christian adults. But we can learn how to say thank you from a song like this one, Psalm 34. I will extol the Lord at all times. His praise will always be on my lips. My soul will boast unto the Lord. Let the afflicted hear and rejoice, glorify the Lord with me. Let us exalt his name together. I sought the Lord and he answered me. He delivered me from all my fears. Those who looked to him are radiant. Their faces are never covered with shame. This poor man called and the Lord heard him. He stayed him out of all of his trouble because the angel of the Lord encamps around those who fear him and he delivers them. Taste and see that the Lord is good. Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him. Fear the Lord, you his saints, for those who fear him lack nothing. The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing. Let's pray together. Lord Jesus, how we adore you, because we have to confess to you that many times our hearts are not in tune with what you're doing and we are not grateful for what you've done. And yet you forgive and restore and give us instruction and enable us to do it. And Lord Jesus, we also confess to you that many times when our hearts are overjoyed, we don't know what to say. Now you've told us and we are so grateful to tell you stories. And Lord Jesus, you've been in this world, you know what it's like here and you know it is like being dehydrated spiritually. And we need new energy in our personal lives and our families in this church, we need it Lord. We need more optimism, we need hope again. And what we pray for Lord is that as we give you thanks for what you have done, that you will turn us on so that we will be able to see. That we lack nothing because you have been so good to us. As you do this Lord Jesus, we will give you the praise and we're convinced that the world will notice and we're convinced Lord that this is all in line with your will and your word for your people. Amen.