The Power of Action-oriented Gratitude | November 23, 2025

Alright, well great job teens.

Thanks so much for

leading us this morning.

That was awesome.

Yeah, super cool.

Super, super cool.

Great job.

And it is Thanksgiving week, so

gotta have a little bit of fun.

And uh, we're gonna do

communion today with stuff.

I'm just kidding.

I would just figure

out That would be fine.

Um, but it is Thanksgiving week and I

love Thanksgiving especially because

I'm a pretty dense guy and my favorite

thing about Thanksgiving is it's

a word that defines itself, right?

So great giving.

Thanks.

That's all it is.

Giving thanks.

Our praise and our worship this

morning is an expression of

thankfulness to the Lord, right?

We sing in church, not because

we're trying to impress anybody.

I think that should be pretty

evident when we do it right.

We're not trying to impress anybody.

Sometimes you'll get the person next

to you and you're like not impressed

and it's not nice to say out loud.

But the point is just simply this.

We're not here to sing

and impress each other.

We're here to express gratitude

to the Lord and thankfulness.

And we do that with music and song

and that kind of helps us kind of

get rolling and, and together be able

to kind of shout in triumph and in

gratitude and thanks to the Lord.

And that's why we do

the whole worship vibe.

Thanksgiving though is on Thursday.

I dunno if you guys realize that or not.

It's Thursday.

Some of you got some houses to clean.

You got some turkeys to thaw.

Get started on that I think here soon.

I can't remember.

I was do it wrong.

But Thanksgiving's on Thursday

and so as you prep for this

awesome week of giving, thanks.

I wanna encourage you in this attitude

of your heart as you go forward.

Now, I was at a basketball tournament

the last couple of days and it, it

is not lost on me that we have three

basketball coaches and an athletic

director from a very disappointing

game last night where it'd be fun if I

brought them each up and made them say

something they were thankful for, but I

don't know if they could this morning.

And we got some parents that

said basketball game, who

also aren't very thankful.

So maybe this is a very timely week

for us and a message this morning.

But here's the truth.

We all struggle with gratitude.

We just do, man.

It's probably the reason that God is

always saying, Hey, be thankful, be

grateful, lead in Thanksgiving, because we

don't naturally default to thankfulness.

I don't know if any of you guys have

ever had like a teenager live at your

house, but the normal default of the

teenager is not typically walking

into a room, start the day with.

Dad, thank you so much for all

that you do to provide for me

and create this environment.

I mean, unless it's a speaking in

tongues, 'cause it's like, ugh, right?

Because maybe that's what it's meant,

but it just comes out differently

and I don't interpret it wrong.

You got little kids, right?

Very seldom do you change a diaper

and they look up and say, thank you.

That's refreshing.

I've been waiting for that and

I appreciate what you're doing.

Right?

It's just not the norm.

Thankfulness is not our default.

And so God encourages us to be

intentional with how we do thankfulness.

So let's jump over to, uh, Psalm

100, verses four through five.

We're gonna unpack this a little bit

and, and look at this a little bit as

it relates to how we engage and how we

navigate this crazy world of ours, and

especially how we approach the Lord and

engage with him because I think God's got

some really important directions for us.

That apply to our relationship with him.

But, uh, quite honestly, probably our

relationship with all of our circumstances

and the things that we run into.

Psalm 100, verse four through five says

this, and you'll probably recognize

if you've been around church much,

you probably will recognize this.

Enter his gate with Thanksgiving

and his courts with praise.

Give thanks to him and praise his name.

For the Lord is good, and

his love endures forever.

His faithfulness continues

through all generations.

Man, if ever there was a statement

of gratitude, the why behind it,

the call to it, we find it here in

Psalm 100, verses four through five.

So let's dive in here a minute.

Um, let's kick it off with this

first word, enter, which is a

really cool word in the Hebrew.

Um, remember how to pronounce it.

It's sort of like Bo.

Which is a really boring word,

but it's a very important word.

'cause in the Hebrew, this word

means how we enter into a space,

how we come into a space, right?

It deals with this idea of introduction

and initial action and engagement, right?

The moments of entry,

really where we begin.

And here's the crazy cool concept that I

think God wants us to live in across the

board, that we start with Thanksgiving,

that we begin with giving thanks.

When that becomes our launch point,

everything that we are walking through,

everything that we face, everything

we're navigating gets shifted, right?

When we lead with negativity, with

complaining, with frustration and

anger and bitterness, we've already

selected the course and the direction

of where we're gonna go, man.

And so at the.

Very beginning at this initial moment,

God encourages his people to be

people who initiate, who lead, who

begin, who start with thanks, right?

Who start with thanks.

This scripture here is really this

picture of us coming to the Lord with

gratitude regardless of our circumstance,

our situation, wherever we're at.

If we look in here to this, enter

his gates and enter his courts,

these words, gates and courts.

They're really kind of painting a

little bit of a picture of royalty here.

We talked about the

king in the room, right?

And the king is here and present,

and we're gonna come before him

and worship and all these things,

but this is a very clear picture,

biblically of God upon the throne.

The, the God of all creation, the

one who will judge the living and the

dead, and that we come before him.

And make no mistake, there's a

day coming super clearly for each

one of us individually that will

stand before the throne of God,

the great throne judgment, right?

The great white throne of God

that we stand before him and

give an account of our lives.

We're gonna come into his presence and

everybody will be led into his presence.

But this picture here in this psalm

helps us to see kinda how we approach

coming before the king, right?

And it's important how

you approach a king.

Now I know for those of us in America,

we sort of struggle with this because

we threw the king out last time he

was here and sent him back to England.

I get all that, but we're kind

of, uh, not respecters of persons.

And that can be a little problematic

when we think about the kingdom

of heavens, because for us.

We're pretty sure that following

Jesus is sort of like a

representative republic, right?

Where we get to elect officials

that go and talk to Jesus and argue

with him and get what we want.

If we can just get the majority against

God, we can pull it off or maybe, uh,

some kind of socialist environment where

we just do what's best for everybody.

But the truth is, heaven's a monarchy

where there's a king and he is

Lord, and he is the king of kings

and the Lord of lords over all.

And one day, every, every knee

will bow before that king, right?

And in this scripture, we're

encouraged to come before the king

and approach him with thanksgiving.

You know the story of Esther, right?

Where she goes before the king and

there's fasting and prayer, and people are

praying for her because she comes into the

presence of the king, and the king extends

his scepter so that she doesn't extend her

neck and get her head chopped off, right?

Because that's the power of the king.

You don't approach the king.

An in inappropriate way, uh,

unwelcome or an uninvited way.

You only approach the king in a way

that he says, you can approach me.

You may approach the throne.

Right?

It's a familiar phrase in king worship.

Well, here's the cool part.

Jesus said, we can approach the throne,

that we can come boldly before the throne

of grace and ask whatever we would.

We get this cool invitation.

And here's a crazy thing

about following Jesus, right?

We have the king of kings and Lord

of lords, and he invites us into

his family, which then makes us

no longer poppers or subservient.

It makes us princes and

princesses in the kingdom of God.

We get called royalty in the kingdom of

God through our relationship with Jesus,

through that invitation into his family.

Now, we don't sometimes want that or want

to even live like that or act like that.

That's really who we are.

And if we lived in the attitude of being

princes and princesses who engage in this

world around us who are part of another

kingdom, not just this world around us,

it probably affect a lot of how we do

relationships and interactions and how

we love and how we serve, and how we

gratify the simple desires of our flesh.

All those things, right?

It would impact everything

and the scope that we see.

But you and I are given this

awesome privilege of being

stuns and Daughters of the King.

And it can be a weird thing too.

I was thinking about this a lot.

Like it, it can kind of be a

weird thing to try to come before

the king when he is your dad.

You know what I mean?

I was Jed this morning and, and Wake,

even though they were planning on it

seems stunned to be doing announcements.

Good Jeff Ellis.

But Jed said the words like, you know,

praying for Andy to be formal, right?

Because Andy's the pastor, but now he's

gonna be in trouble for not saying dad.

Right?

No, I'm just kidding.

It's a weird dynamic, right?

To have family and some kind of

honoring, you know, positional respect.

It's a trick.

Right?

And I was thinking about that.

For us, as we come before the Lord, I kind

of see this little bit of a continuum or

a tension maybe for us when we come before

the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords.

Sometimes I think we can approach

him almost what I'm gonna just

say is like too familiar, right?

Just a little bit like

too familiar on this end.

And then maybe way over here, maybe

just a little bit like, like too

removed and dignified and separated.

Let, let me see if I can help

you understand what I mean.

Um, sometimes I think we can be real

flippant in our approach, in our

interaction with the ultimate king of

kings and Lord of Lords, the God of all

creation and all eternity who invites

us into relationship with him and calls

us to walk as his sons and daughters

and we can be like, eh, whatever.

God.

Right?

I, I was thinking about this.

I dunno if you've seen these like, uh.

This great t-shirt bro,

formerly known as mom, right?

Like we can sort of do this flippant

thing with our mom and be like, bro, bro,

bro, bro, bro, bro, I'm around teenagers

all the time and I've been saying bro

a lot and it makes me so frustrated

'cause my wife's not bro, right?

Jamie, you're not bro, you're babe.

Totally different story.

But at the end of the day, bro is a

term of like familiarity and, and it

can be kind of cool generationally,

but if we're not careful, we can almost

get to the place where we disrespect

and dishonor the role of mom to

just simplify it down to bro, right?

Because here's the thing, God

says, honor your father and mother.

He actually stuck it in one

of the 10 Commandments, right?

God actually cares about how

we honor our father and mother.

And I don't mean that every

teenager who's like, bro, seriously.

Is trying to dishonor their dad or

their mom, but could we sometimes maybe

get a little too far this direction

that we lose sight of the honor and

the respect that is due to someone in

authority that God has placed in our life.

And that doesn't mean that

we get cold and distant.

It just means maybe we don't get flippant

and sort of just not even careful with

the level of respect that we show.

And I think we do that with God sometimes.

You know?

Like either we ignore

him, don't worry about it.

It's no big deal.

Who cares?

It's just the king of kings.

Whatever.

I'll talk to him when I need to.

I don't really care.

Get outta my space.

I'm busy right now.

That's sort of disrespectful to

the ultimate king of kings and

Lord of Lords who invites us into

relationships and gives a status

in the courtroom of the King.

You know, maybe that's

something we should think about.

I. Try really hard to make this

like my, I always get frustrated

when my family's awake before me.

'cause I try to like get on my knees

and pray before the Lord for a few

minutes with nobody watching, right?

Jesus is going to a closet, man.

Just keep it there.

And then my family's around.

I don't wanna do it.

'cause I'm not trying to be like,

Hey, watch Dad kneel and pray.

But I have to, for me, get

on my knees before the Lord.

Just remind myself that he's the

king of King and he is the Lord of

Lords and he deserves my respect

like the ultimate king does.

So I make myself do that

and then it gets weird.

But as an intentional effort for me

to try to make myself conform in my

brain away from just too familiar that

I take for granted is to flippant.

Now, that said, we have a lot of

crazy conversations, God and I the

rest of the day in the car, right?

And sometimes I'm talking to him about

the guy driving in front of me, sinfully,

all those kind of things, right?

But that's a whole different story.

Now, on the other side of this, I think

we can make God too removed, right?

And remove maybe a lame word here,

maybe like we just put him in this

box where he's the king who sits on

a throne in a castle somewhere, and

we'll approach him when we need to.

Or he's too majestic and too righteous.

I'm just not even gonna go over there.

Or like, I don't even know how to talk

to him because he is so magnificent.

Right?

You ever watch people who are like,

uh, you could tell they don't really

have a relationship with God because

they, they speak to the great heavenly

creation, uh, maker of all dignity

and honor and awe and respect.

And like Thanksgiving is my favorite

time to meet with people who

don't know Jesus and have dinner.

It's so cool because they're

like, do you wanna pray?

I'm like, nah, do, this is your house.

And they're like, oh.

And then they have to be like, you know,

great sovereign Lord of all matchless, and

they just start dropping a lot of words

that you're like, they don't even, they

don't talk to God very much, do they?

And God's like.

Who are you talking to, right?

What is going on right here?

Right?

So I think there's this tension for us

that when we come into God's presence,

right, that sometimes we can be a little

too flippant, and then other times we

can kind of keep him at a distance, maybe

for our own issues or our own struggles

or own feeling like we're just not

worthy to go talk to him, or we can only

approach him with saintly perfection.

And that's not true either, right?

Because God has told us very

clearly in his word, like, we can

approach with confidence because

of our relationship with Jesus.

We have access, right?

And therefore, brothers and sisters

and Hebrews, since we have this

confidence because of Jesus and

his blood, let's draw near to God.

But let's do it with a

sincere heart, right?

You can tell over here in this

tension when there's just sort of

disrespect and dishonor, there's not,

there's not a lot of sincerity at

heart in that relationship with God.

Like, come on God, really, Jesus.

Or over here where it's like a bunch

of words that we don't even know.

'cause we don't really have a relationship

and our heart isn't connected.

But I think in this middle space we live

in is where God really wants us to be.

That we would come before him, recognizing

family relationship familiarity,

while also God's sovereignty and his

power, and his might, and who he is

and his position in all eternity.

That there's respect and honor, and you

can marry those two together, but you

gotta live in the middle of that tension.

You know what I'm saying?

Oh.

And when you go to God,

this is the cool part.

He really encourages us not

to show up empty handed.

Right?

Don't show up empty handed.

When you go to God.

I love the song that we just sang, right?

I have nothing else fit for

a king, Brandon Lake says.

But the cool part is you have

something fit for a king, right?

And really, if you understand

God's word, you have the one thing.

Fit for a king.

Can you imagine if you're divided

into the presence of the king

and you're like, I'm gonna make

something in my garage real quick.

And you make a little craft and you go

to the king and you're like, I'm here

king, and I beseech thee to accept my gift

of tinfoil and wires and some hot glue.

And the king's like, this is

what I always wanted, right?

No, not even a little bit, right?

Not even a little bit.

Why?

Because we don't have anything he

wants except our gratitude, right?

Our thanks.

He wants us to come before him

and start with, begin with.

Thank you Lord for what you've done.

Thank you for who you are.

Thank you for all that

you're doing in my life.

A step of gratitude.

And that's when we come into the

courtroom of the king and we kneel

before him, and our first words are not.

Dang it, God, this isn't fair.

My circumstances suck.

It's thank you for all that you've given

me, all that you've done in my life.

Thank you for the opportunity to

experience eternal life through you,

whatever these circumstances look like.

And it's okay to be like, and by the

way, king, my circumstances are brutal.

Right?

And that's okay.

'cause he is the king and

he's happy to hear it.

And he's our father who loves

us and he wants to hear.

But it's important how we approach

him with thanksgiving and with praise.

Okay, so I also wanted to throw

this at you 'cause I think this

is interesting, pun intended

this word, Thanksgiving, right?

It's made up of these two words, like I

said, thanks and, or giving and thanks.

Right?

We're we're giving thanks.

And in the Hebrew here, it's really cool.

This word means to throw,

to cast, to shoot, right?

So I was thinking about this, and

it's Thursday on Thanksgiving.

Is it possible that the most

biblical thing we could possibly do

is watch football on Thanksgiving?

Because we're throwing,

you know what I'm saying?

Like I. Prove me wrong here, but

I'm pretty sure we just found the

golden ticket here for Thursday, but,

okay, throwing, shooting, casting.

Can I say this real quick?

Thanksgiving is totally a bro thing.

I'm just saying guys, Thanksgiving

is really not a ladies event.

I don't know what you're talking about.

Like this ladies, I apologize.

You can throw cast a shoe, but a

bunch of dudes getting together, doing

Thanksgiving is what I see on the screen.

And that's like right in the main right

heart of what it means to be a guy, right?

So we're built for Thanksgiving

now, in fairness, right?

Uh, this is really depicting action

and I think this is important.

Uh, I've been really chewing on this.

Um, can gratitude just

be a state of being?

I'm not sure can, does it start

there or is it, can we be grateful?

Yes.

But can gratitude and maybe just maybe

say it like this, can biblically gratitude

just be a state of being void of action?

I don't think it can.

I don't think it can.

I think that this idea of giving

thanks requires action on our

part to throw, to shoot to cast.

So I was gonna ask today, maybe

as we think about, what are you

throwing, shooting and casting at God.

'cause that's what we're told

to do, to come before him.

Throwing and shooting and

casting to God something.

And the answers in the

first part of the word.

Great.

Gratitude, thankfulness,

gratefulness, we're supposed to be.

Throwing and casting our

gratitude and our thanks to God.

I'm not sure that's what everybody's

throwing to him or at him.

I'm not sure that that's what I'm

always doing, but definitively we're

supposed to lead with that, right?

And I like this right here, this idea

of this first person pronoun you.

Because here's the thing, we

like to think collectively a lot,

but don't miss the individuality

that's required in giving thanks.

God calls you to give thanks to him,

not your mom and dad to give thanks.

And so you're in on it.

Not, this is not one of those like

epic Christmas moments where dad

has no idea what's in the gift,

but his name's on the tag, right?

And he's as surprised as you are

on Christmas morning 'cause mom

wrapped all the presents and you're

like, did that, authorized that?

It's just discovering it with you, right?

Like that's the truth because.

You weren't really in on it.

That's not how God's gonna roll.

Like you can't be in a family

that's walking in gratitude and

get credit for the gratitude unless

you're one of the gratitudes.

Look it up.

It's not a word, but it's just fun to say,

alright, so what are you throwing to God?

And if we think of Thanksgiving as

kind of this idea of like a thank

offering biblically, this idea of like,

we're offering to God some thanks.

We're casting, we're throwing,

we're tossing, whatever it

is we're shooting to God.

Some thanks and gratitude.

Then we could ask the question,

what are you offering to God?

And maybe that feels better

than chucking things at God.

I can appreciate that.

But what are you offering to God?

Are you showing up?

Stepping into the throne room and

offering thanks and gratitude?

Okay, I gotta show you something,

and this is probably gonna get me

in trouble, but this is Jamie's.

Gifts closet.

Now I'm gonna blur that out just so

I don't get in real trouble in case

there's a gift in there for you.

I don't know.

My wife, my wife is single handedly

kept hobby, lobbying business,

probably her whole marriage, right?

Jamie loves giving gifts to people.

She loves going to places and finding

things not for her husband Tony.

Not that her husband would enjoy

Tony, but that other people who

maybe I don't even know, might enjoy.

And then they get to take spots in

the closet where I used to be able to

put some stuff that used to be mine.

And now we have this overflowing closet.

Now here's the benefit guys.

If your wife does this, the benefit is

once you're outta space in the closet,

you get to like cut it off, right?

Which is true, except now we have

gifts sort of strewn along the floor

trying to get their spot in the closet.

That's not gonna come.

Why?

'cause this is the deal my wife loves.

People, and she loves blessing people

and she loves doing little things

that communicate that you matter.

And so she stockpiles in this

gifts closet stuff to give to

people and it does circulate.

Just so you know, if we apply that

concept a minute here to this thank

offering, so remind of what Jesus

said over in Luke when he says,

the good man brings good things out

of the good treasure of his heart.

The evil man brings evil things out of the

evil treasure of his heart, and out of the

overflow of the heart, the mouth speaks.

And I was thinking like, what are

you storing up in your heart so that

you're ready to shoot, to cast, to give

to God, gratitude and thanks, right?

Because if your heart is packed

full of resentment and bitterness

and frustration, it's awfully hard

when you reach into the closet.

To give to God.

And all you got is a bunch of angry notes

and frustrations, and you're like, ha.

Hi, God.

Right?

Like, that's, that's not, it's

not a picture of giving thanks.

This idea of counting your blessings.

I, I love the song.

Just I did.

Um, the teens did.

You guys did awesome with that.

Counting Your Blessings

used to be an old song.

Count your blessings.

Name them one by one.

Count your many blessings.

See what God has done.

Count your blessings.

Name them one by one.

Count your many blessings.

See what God has done.

We sang that in church a lot, and

all the old people turned and stared

at the teenagers when they sang it.

Count your blessings.

Name them one by one.

Yeah, it was really rough.

Uh, but you know what?

It's a brilliant concept because you start

stacking in your closet the storehouse

of your heart, the things that you have

to be grateful for and thankful for.

And after a few minutes of

beginning to express what.

You have to be thankful for you

accidentally without even meaning to

forget to be angry about the stuff

you were bitter about a minute ago.

'cause you're so busy being grateful and

thankful, and your mind is so focused on

gratitude that you let slip right through

your fingers, all the angry stuff that

you could have thrown at God instead.

And now you're just stuck with a

bunch of stuff you're thankful for.

And man, can God work with that?

And man, can he bring

some cool transformation.

Enter his gates with a thankful

offering, man, A offering of

thanks and gratitude to him.

Praise his name.

Give thanks.

Right?

Shoot.

Throw cast.

Were to come before him.

Tossing and throwing out of

the storehouse of our heart.

Gratitude, thankfulness,

appreciation, adoration praise.

Honor for him, for who he is.

And you might be saying to yourself.

I read it, but why?

Why?

Well here's the cool part.

The answer's right next to it if you

just keep reading for the Lord is good.

Now, here's a real bummer.

The devil, he doesn't

want you to know this.

We tend to not want to believe it

'cause we want to do our own thing.

But God is good and check out this

is right, this is substantive.

It's not just God does good stuff.

God is good stuff.

He is good.

The substance of his

character, he is good.

And, and here's, I was talking to some

people today, like we talk about like

homosexuality and we talk about greed

and we talk about all kinds of sexual

sin and personal sin and all kinds of

sin and, and people just wanna sort

of pretend like, well, you know, just.

Don't talk about that stuff and it's okay.

Here's the thing, man.

If God loves you, and he knows that this

route right here will lead to your eternal

death and destruction, if he doesn't

tell you the truth, he is not good.

If you go to a church where people

pretend like sin is fine, they

don't love you, they're just, I

don't know what they're doing.

They're deceived themselves.

I don't wanna call everybody's

motives into question, but

listen, real love tells the truth.

It just does.

Man, I love Jed.

If he wants to go do jumping jacks in

the middle of the road out there on

the yellow line while cars are coming,

I'm gonna say, no, dude, don't do that.

And he's gonna be like,

dad, you don't love me.

You've never loved me.

I don't even know if we

have a relationship anymore.

I'm doing it.

No, Jed's gonna, well, yeah, maybe.

Okay, fair enough.

Um, but real love, real love

warns and tells the truth about

stuff that actually matters.

And that's not popular

and that's not easy.

And you sure as heck can't grow a church

in Hamilton County if you're just gonna

preach that sin is gonna take you to hell.

But imagine if people loved you

enough to tell you that, that your

sin is your ticket to eternal death

and you don't have to go there.

'cause God is good.

Well, yeah, it's, yeah.

Okay.

Yeah.

And that's the end of this.

Okay?

Anyways, uh, his love constant, it's gonna

chase you right to the gates of hell.

It is, man.

He's gonna come after you.

He's gonna keep trying to love you.

He's gonna, he chase you

as far as he possibly can.

He can't go with you

the whole destination.

He can't.

He'll let you choose to go to eternal

death if that's what you want to do.

But he loves you enough that

he's not gonna stand by and

pretend like it's all fine.

He's gonna tell you the truth,

but it's not 'cause he's a jerk

and it's not 'cause he's a tyrant.

That's a lie of the enemy.

It's 'cause he's good.

He's so good.

And his faithfulness, his steadfastness,

his determination, his no quitting

on you or your family goes on

for generation upon generation.

Upon generation.

'cause he is not willing that

any would perish, but that

everyone would come to salvation.

But we gotta come, we gotta go into

the courtroom of the king and kneel

before him in reverence, confessing

our sin, being honest about the

reality that man, we have a sin issue.

And the king of all kings who has ultimate

authority over our sin issue has the

ability because of the price Jesus paid

on the cross to say, nah, you don't

have a sin issue anymore, my friend.

You're forgiven and you're made clean.

And the consequences

of that sin is removed.

You can't get that outside

of the throne room.

You can't find that somewhere in

the world being good and doing

enough nice stuff for people.

You can't serve enough.

You can't help enough.

You can't be a good enough person.

He's the one who brings opportunity

for us to have life when we

deserve death, and he invites us.

And guys, if there's nothing else to be

thankful for, that's enough that we can

come before him with gratitude and thanks,

and say, thank you for giving me the

opportunity to confess my sin, to have

my sin removed, and to cleanse my heart

and gimme opportunity for eternal life.

Well, here's what we're gonna do.

Josiah's gonna grab his guitar

real quick as we wrap up.

We're gonna do, uh, a little rendition

of counting My Blessings, because I want

us to be able to count our blessings

this week as we walk into this season.

But more than that, I wanna make sure

that before we leave this morning,

that if you're here this morning and.

Maybe here this morning and you're

like, um, I don't really know

what that dude was talking about.

Well, you're not alone.

You're not alone.

But you might be here this morning and

think all that stuff about sin and Jesus.

I'm not really sure, but something seems

like maybe there's some substance to it.

I'd love to talk to you more.

Or you're welcome to pray

up here at this altar.

Uh, maybe you're here this morning and

you're like, Hmm, I think I remember

some of this stuff and I tried to forget

it, but I need, I need to see if it's

okay to come back to the throne room.

Oh, I just want you to know the throne

room door is always open and you have

a standing invitation from the king

to just come and kneel before him.

'cause he loves you.

And maybe this morning you've never asked

him to forgive your sin and to cleanse.

You never confessed that to him.

Maybe you're here this morning and

you've walked some really rough roads

that have been all over the place.

You can come to the altar and pray.

You can sit in your seat and pray, but

you need to take some action, throwing,

casting, shooting your gratitude to

the Lord, your expression of desire

to be cleansed, maybe to be heard,

to be known, to be familiar with

this King of Kings and Lord of lords.

So while just I praise, I'll just ask

you to bow your heads for just a minute.

I'm not gonna over emotionalize any of it.

I just want to not leave this morning

without giving you opportunity.

If that applies to you in any way or feel

like the Lord just drawing you to just

come and spend a minute praying with him.

This whole space up here is open for you

to do that, and I invite you to do that.

So you come even as I pray and

as we close with this song.

Father,

thank you for your incredible love for us.

We have so much to be thankful for.

Thank you for forgiving us, for our sin,

for cleansing us of all unrighteousness,

when we confess you as Lord.

And we humbly come before

you asking for forgiveness.

God, I pray in this space here in these

next few moments, this morning, that

if anybody's here who doesn't know you,

maybe they just know about you, they

don't know you, and they wanna know you

more, I pray, give 'em the courage to

maybe come up here and pray, or even

just turn to talk to someone next to them

and or just give us a few moments where

your Holy Spirit can work on us and in

us and give us the courage to do that.

So what, we're just gonna give you a few

moments as we pause in this space and

have your way in our hearts right now.

Lord, thank you for all of your

incredible blessings in our life.

Thanks for the privilege of

being invited into your family.

Thank you for the privilege of

being part of this cool church

family that loves each other.

Tries to love you.

Thanks for the encouragement of that.

Thanks for not being alone

and God, I pray that we

leave this place today

that you would, you would help us

to be people who enter into moments,

conversations, situations, enter in

full of gratitude and thankfulness,

taking the action to express it, not just

internalize it, but to speak it boldly.

Lord, help us approach you with

gratitude and thankfulness,

and thank you that you are so good to us.

And we have no reason to

not run into your arms,

to chase after you with

everything that we've got.

So help us to be shooters and throwers

and casters of thankfulness in the week

ahead and in all the days of our life.

Experience the goodness in the

land of the living here with you.

In the name of Jesus I pray.

Amen.