Please open your Bibles to Revelation chapter 5 and find verse 11. Verse 11 in Revelation 5. This is the inerrant, all-sufficient, sweeter-than-honey word of God. Verse 11, then I looked and I heard the voice of many angels around the throne, the living creatures and the elders, and the number of them was 10, 000 times 10, 000 and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, worthy is the lamb who was slain to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing. And every creature which is in heaven and on the earth and under the earth and such as are in the sea and all that are in them, I heard saying, blessing and honor and glory and power be to him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb forever and ever then the four living creatures said amen And the 24 elders fell down and worshiped him who lives forever and ever.

The grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of our God stands forever. Let's pray. Lord we pray that you would fix our eyes upon you this morning, that you would cause us to see your glory as these who were before the throne. Amen. Be seated, please.

What I just read is one of the many songs in Revelation. Those before the throne are lifting up their voices to give thanks to God and they sing this throughout eternity. They can't get over God. He is so magnificent and by my count there are I think around 27 songs in Revelation itself. We preached through Revelation a few years ago.

That was so thrilling for me to do such a thing. But there are many, many songs in the book of Revelation. And they are giving thanks to God for his being, for God as God, his godness in that sense. And that's why they say blessing and honor and glory and power be to him. That's the focus of their praises.

Now all morning we've been singing songs in praise to God for his being and singing is so helpful. You know singing is one of the battle lines for the defense of the true church. And it affects us, and this is why we sing. God commanded us to do such a thing. Singing refocuses our minds, it reshapes our families, and it actually shepherds our church.

God gave singing to shepherd the flock of God. And so I'm so thankful for the singing that we had this morning. There are over 50 direct commands in the Bible to sing and singing is mentioned over 400 times in the Bible. We are actually commanded to give thanks for God and for his many benefits as well. This morning I want us to focus our attention on being thankful for God himself.

I want to direct this congregation to have a laser beam focus really on giving thanks for God, to focus our attention on the being of God. Not first of all what we are thankful for, which we have many things to be thankful for, for our families, for our jobs, for our churches, for the resources God's given to us. We have much to be thankful for, and we should give thanks. And I know when y'all gather on Thursday, there's gonna be a lot of thanksgivings thrown around the room, praise God for that. God has blessed us.

But that's not what I wanna focus on this morning. In fact, we were talking about this in Bible study last Tuesday. And I'm trying to focus this crowd, these men on God and God alone. And here's the problem. You can't think of God without, think of God and his blessings.

He is a blessing. He's a fountain of blessing. So we should do that. I'm not denigrating that at all. Here's what I want to say.

The highest praise should be reserved for the highest being. The highest praise is only deserved by the highest being, and that being is God Almighty. And this should be the center of our thanksgiving. The highest form of thanksgiving, not the only form of thanksgiving, the highest form of thanksgiving is not, thank you Lord for health, thank you Lord for food, thank you Lord for family. These things God abundantly supplies.

All of them are gifts of God, but The highest thanksgiving is when the redeemed sinner lifts his eyes up to heaven and says, Lord, I am thankful for you, that you are God and there is no other. All these other earthly blessings can be fleeting, but there is one thing that is not fleeting, and that is God who sits in heaven and governs all that there is. And I think that we should just consider that the purest worship, the most sustainable and deepest thanksgiving always has God as the object. And in Revelation, that's what you're seeing in this passage and You see it all over the book of Revelation. Holy, holy, worthy is the lamb who was slain.

Their praise is, and get this, is theocentric, centered on God, and it's Christocentric, and it's centered on Jesus Christ. And, you know, when was the last time that you gave thanks just because of God, for who God is? It's so easy to give thanks for so many blessings and there are so many blessings. When was the last time you thanked God for being God? Not because you got that job, not because you know the stock market was rocketing, not because you have this nice house in a car, but for God the only the only stable being in the universe is God.

And that's why when Job was stripped of everything, do you remember what he said? He had lost everything. He said, blessed be the name of the Lord, Job 1.21. If the only time that we're thankful is when things are going well, when our banks, our bank accounts are full, when our families are healthy, when the turkey is really good, as it will be, have we been deeply thankful? Or are we just satisfied customers?

There's a difference between someone who's a satisfied customer and someone who has their heart on the being of God. And I want us to focus on that for God himself, for his being, for his singular presence, for him, for his independence. There's a theological category for this And it's called the Asiati of God. The Asiati of God among theologians states that God exists for himself, in himself, by himself, depending on nothing outside of himself or his existence. He depends on nothing for his happiness, for his strength.

God is self-sufficient and the independent source of all things. That's the Asiati of God. And there are many, many places in the Bible that speak of this, and we've been singing songs about it and songs giving praise to God for the sake of his being God and the sending of his son Jesus Christ. Now, we have a singular privilege. I think among all the nations of the world, we actually have a government that calls for a day of Thanksgiving every year.

And it's remarkable. It started in 1789 when George Washington issued the Thanksgiving Proclamation. I'm going to read a little bit from it. Now therefore I do recommend and assign Thursday the 26th of November next to be devoted to the people, devoted by the people of these states to the service of that great and glorious being who is the beneficent author of all good, all the good that was, that is, or that will be, that we may then all unite in rendering unto him our sincere and humble thanks for his kind care and protection of the people of this country previous to their becoming a nation." Did you hear the theology in those words? Washington did not say, let's be thankful for this stuff.

Let's, no, let's be thankful for the person for that great and glorious being who is the beneficent author of all the good that was, that is, or ever will be. This is the assiety of God out of the mouth of George Washington, our first president. And every single year after that, with only a few exceptions, presidents and governors have continued to issue the proclamation for the nation to give thanks to almighty God. Praise God for that. I don't think there's another nation on the earth, maybe there is, someone will come up to me and tell me where it is, that have this kind of longstanding tradition for the entire history of their country.

Not in England, not in France, not in modern Israel, not in Iraq, not only in the United States. Look, I just think we should soak in this recognition of what God has done. Ash Noah said to me one time, many years ago, he said, America's the last bastion of freedom left in the world. And that's true. One of the reasons it is is because there are, there is a remnant of a thankful people in this nation.

So this is our heritage. It's interesting though, you know, the current cultural climate on Thanksgiving doesn't look so good. You know, I don't know if you've noticed this, but you know, Halloween is the second largest spend of all the holidays right behind Christmas. But have you noticed that Thanksgiving kind of has been left off? You go straight from Halloween to Christmas in the stores, and there's very little Thanksgiving.

There's actually a war against Thanksgiving in the United States of America. The narrative is now being told that the first Thanksgiving was this twisted narrative of racist genocide and of the pilgrims that the land was stolen And this is really a misrepresentation of what exactly happened in that era. Land was not stolen. Most Indians did not have land boundaries like we have today. America at that time was populated over several hundred years of maybe 600 tribes most of them warring against one another many of them nomadic.

The land was not stolen it was governed by a new population that entered the land. Laws began to govern the colonies instead of lawlessness. That's exactly what happened. And there were boundaries to those laws. And America was transformed out of the chaos of pagan tribes where cannibalism and polygamy and warlike behavior, revenge cultures running all through this land.

And what happened was people who actually believed in the being of God came and established a republic here that was governed by actually the laws of God. That's what made America what it is. And so we give thanks for God's providence. Now, were all the pilgrims perfect? No.

Were all the Indians perfect? No. Some of them did bad things. But I think people forget for the first 50 years when the pilgrims came, there was felicity and peace between the two. And there was some misbehavior that blew it up.

But while there are imperfections in our nation's history, we give thanks for God's providence. No one is perfect. No nation is perfect. No president is perfect. No group of people are perfect.

But what a spirit of thanksgiving for the being of God does is it delivers you from perfectionism. The perfectionism that somehow you can't praise God for anything unless it was perfect. You can't praise God for your father unless he's perfect. You can't praise God for your president unless he's perfect. You can't really praise God for your boss who's not perfect.

An understanding of God who is perfect actually sanctifies us to something far, far better, to be able to give thanks where we can. Recently, I gave a whole series on honor, on the doctrine of honor, and God calls his children to honor those who are imperfect in various levels of jurisdiction. So, we are called to honor, And that creates a thankful people. So let's talk about this matter of thankfulness for God himself. I've listed many, too many, too many points.

You're not supposed to give this many points in preaching. It's not, you know, it's, they teach you not to do this. But we're gonna do it anyway. Okay, and you can see the outline in here and as you can see I'm going to have to move quickly if you if you want to you know dive into this these passages of scripture listed you can do that But let's begin with first of all, the centrality of God alone. That really is derived from Exodus 3.12.

God is sending Moses to rescue the children of Israel And God is assuring Moses, he says, certainly I will be with you, there in verse 12. And then Moses says, who am I, Lord? What will I say to them? Because they will say, what is his name? What shall I say?

And God said to Moses, I am who I am. And he said, thus you shall say to the children of Israel, I am has sent me to you. This is a declaration of the independence of God. A.W. Pink in his book on the attributes of God has a chapter on the solitariness of God.

It's one of the first chapters. It's really based on in the beginning, God. And God is the being who never had a beginning. You know, I bet you, I bet you every parent in here has been asked where did God come from? Who made God?

It's the most obvious question and it's a really really good question And the answer to that question, if you have that question here and you're young today, here's the answer. Nobody made God. God simply is. He has always been, There has been no beginning with God. God is eternal, he had no origin, he was not formed.

God is absolute reality. There's no reality before him. There's no reality outside of God. The only realities that exist are the realities that God has brought about through his sovereign hand. God is independent, he depends on nothing.

Everything in the world, every star, every thought, every breath, everything is entirely dependent upon God. Compared to God, the universe is nothing. It's the smallest flicker on this canvas of eternity. And he alone is infinite. He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

And he is not only the creator, but he is, he is in his being the only standard for truth, and goodness, and all beauty. He does not answer to a moral code, he creates the moral code. Behold your God. Let's not raise our children to vague ideas about God. God is the eternal, unchanging, glorious reality who never had a beginning and will never have an end.

This is God. The second, the centrality of God in the created universe. We could go many places here. Here's what I'm saying with this long list. The Bible explicitly declares that God is the center of all activity.

And I think these verses prove it and others as well. The centrality of God in the created universe. In Psalm 19, David says the heavens declare the glory of God and the firmament shows his handiwork day unto day utter speech and night unto night reveals knowledge." In other words, God is the center of the created universe. Of the created universe. And next, the centrality of God in the creation of mankind, Isaiah 43 verses six and seven.

Isaiah says, I will say to the north, give them up and to the south, do not keep them back. Bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the ends of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I have created for my glory. I have formed him, yes, I have made him." This is the centrality of God in the creation of mankind. Why did God create man? God created man for one single reason, that every person, whether they enter into everlasting life or everlasting perdition, every person ever born will glorify God whether they hate him or whether they love him.

Next, the centrality of God over the nations. Isaiah chapter 40 verses 15 through 26. I'll just read verse 15. Behold, the nations are a drop in the bucket and are counted as the small dust on the scales. Look, he lifts up the aisles as a very little thing and then he says, no they are nothing.

They are next to nothing and worthless. God and God alone is the supreme among the nations. Next, the centrality of God in the incarnation. We were headed toward the celebration of the incarnation here soon in just about a month and Luke chapter 2 makes it very very clear that the incarnation was about God and this is why we read when it is announced that for there is born to you this day in the city of David a savior who is Christ the Lord. And then the angel multitude say this, glory to God in the highest.

It is God, it is God who is the center of the incarnation. And God is that fountain of blessing. Next, the centrality of God in predestination. Again, what I'm trying to prove here is that God is central in all of the great acts in the world. The centrality of God in predestination, Ephesians 1.5.

We learn why predestination. Having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself, according to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace. God predestines sinners to turn to him and also for the unbelievers not to turn to him, why? To the praise of the glory of his grace. God has designed that he would come out as the greatest dispenser of grace in the world, greater than any grace than anybody ever dispensed.

God alone is the dispenser of grace and he wants to be known, he wants to be made famous for his grace. This is not narcissism. Next, the centrality of God in Christ's crucifixion. John 17 verse 1, Father the hour has come glorify your son that the Son may glorify you." The Lord Jesus Christ is declaring that the crucifixion was designed by God to glorify Himself, even the crucifixion. Next, the centrality of God in substitution, in substitutionary atonement.

Romans 3.25, whom God set forth as a propitiation by his blood. What's propitiation? Propitiation is to soothe the anger of God. What Jesus Christ has done in giving his life and becoming a sacrifice, a substitutionary atonement, is that he has quelled the anger of God and God is no longer angry. Whom God has set forth as a propitiation by his blood through faith to demonstrate what?

His righteousness. Because in His forbearance, God passed over the sins that were previously committed to demonstrate at the present time His righteousness that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. God sent his son that he might be made famous for offering a substitute for sinners, that he would be the one who would be known for being just and the justifier. God wants to be known as the justifier, and this is why He sent Jesus Christ. Next, the centrality of God alone in salvation.

This is so clear in the book of Ephesians, in Ephesians one, verse five. Blessed be the God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Just as he chose us before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love, having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to himself. Why, why? According to the good pleasure of his will, to the praise of the glory of his grace.

God wants to be known as the one, the singular one, who accomplished salvation through Jesus Christ. He wants to be famous for saving sinners. He wants to be famous for changing people's lives. That's the idea here. And then in verse 12 he says, why again?

That we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of his glory." God wants to be known as the people, as the one who can save. He can save you. He can rescue your broken life. He can rescue your well put-together life. You know we just sang that great song, Christus Victor, by the blood you have redeemed us and led us through mighty waters our strength our song our sure salvation that's why the Apostle Paul said thanks be to God for his indescribable gift in 2 Corinthians 9.15.

Thanks be to God. And none of God's gifts of salvation are delivered because of merit. They're delivered because of grace. Next, the centrality of God in sanctification. Philippians 1.9.

And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in knowledge and discernment, that you may approve the things that are excellent, that you may be sincere and without offense till the day of Christ." And here's the hammer blow on this point. Being filled with the fruits of righteousness, which are by Jesus Christ. Why? To the glory and praise of God. In other words, Your sanctification isn't just about you.

Your sanctification isn't just about how he's changed your life, how your affections have shifted, how God is blessing you. It isn't just about you. It is to the praise and the glory of God." You know, people like to say the gospel is God's love letter to you. That's only half true. The gospel is a proclamation of the praise and the glory of God that he reaches down to people like us and he saves.

Next, the centrality of God in reprobation. In other words, God glorifies himself in salvation and in the judgment of the wicked. God, the Bible makes this very very clear in different places. I'll just cite Psalm 16 verse four. The Lord has made everything for its purpose, even the wicked, for the day of trouble.

Ezekiel 28 verse two. Thus says the Lord God, behold, I am against you, O Sidon. I will be glorified in your midst and they shall know that I am the Lord when I execute judgments in her and am hallowed in her." God glorifies himself in the judgment of the wicked. God is central in reprobation. Revelation 19 says the same thing, one through four.

Next, the centrality of God in the second coming, 2 Thessalonians 1, 9, and 10. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his power when he comes in that day. Why? To be glorified in his saints To be admired among all those who believe Why is he coming? Why is God coming?

Why is Jesus Christ coming again so that he would be admired? God wants to be admired. He will be admired. He'll be admired by all those people who turned to him and were made whole and were made clean, who believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who repented of their sins, who received the blessing of the Holy Spirit, and their lives were never the same again, and what is the result? God will be admired.

God will be admired in your salvation, not you. You will admire it because it's so wonderful, but God will be admired in the second coming. God does everything for the glory of his own name. Nothing happens in the world but for the glory of his name. And who knows how all of the evil things in the world are going to end up for the glory of God I do not know there are tips in Scripture But I think that in summary quite likely it is that the Bible teaches that God will be glorified in salvation and he will be glorified in judgment.

God will be glorified. You don't have to worry about that. You know, this all can remind us of the attributes of God. His faithfulness, His sovereignty, His judgment, His grace, His power, His goodness, His patience, His mercy, His love, His loving kindness, His truth. All of these attributes of God.

It's so thrilling to read the great books on the attributes of God. A.W. Tozer, A.W. Pink, there's so many great books on the attributes of God. Even the names of God really proclaim his supremacy.

Elohim, the strong one, the divine one, Adonai, Lord, indicating a master and servant relationship, El Elian, most high, the strongest one, El Roi, the strong one who sees, El Shaddai, almighty God, Yahweh, I am, I am the eternal, existent, independent God. You know, that's why in the song of Moses, that great song that was sung was the first song in the Bible. If you don't count the stars singing before creation, But it's the first song on earth in the Bible in Exodus 15, and it's the last song that's sung in heaven as well. And the words go like this, who is like unto you, O Lord, among the gods? Who is like unto you, glorious in holiness, fearful in praises, doing wonders.

And then the text says, who would not worship you, oh God? Who would not glorify you? Is there anyone here who is not a worshiper of God? Is there anyone here today who has not bowed the knee to Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. You might as well do it today because someday you will do it and you will do it for all eternity even in heaven or hell.

Where are you today? Is he your King? Have you been justified by his blood? Are you following him? You know thinking about all these reasons to give thanks for God.

How do we live lives of thanksgiving when so many bad things are going on in the world? There are lots of bad things going on in the world. You know, even in the church, the Barna research group just did a study saying that only 11% of people who go to church have a biblical worldview. 11%. That's astounding.

And what do we do about that? We proclaim the word of God. That's what we do about it. That's what we can do about it. We need to return to the faithful proclamation of the word of God.

And in fact, Trent and I were just praying before we came out with Cameron. And we were really praying for this church that when we come here, we come for God. We're seeking God, we're seeking God alone. That that's why we come, we want the word of God, we're hungry for the Word of God. There was a Gallup poll just recently that said that young women ages 15 to 44, 40% of them would leave America if they could.

What is wrong? What has gone wrong in this country? The majority of Americans in all age groups are pro-choice. What is that all about? In our country, an entire generation, actually the last three generations, four generations, have really thrown away the command, be fruitful and multiply.

And the birth rate has continued to plummet in America, but all over the world, right now it's 1.6. Replacement rate is 2.1 or 2.2, something like that. When I was growing up, the reality was it was around 2.3. This is one of the great dangers. You know, pragmatism still runs churches.

Pragmatism still runs our country. These things are dangerous. You've got, you have the threat of feminism that's not going away. And you think it went away in the election? Think again, it did not go away.

You think about the threat of Islam in America. It's one of the greatest threats to the United States of America today. And frankly, what are we going to do about it? Well, I hope the government does something about it. They have authority, but what the church should do about it is learn how to share the gospel with Muslims.

And we're actually gonna begin having some sessions to help us do that. They're here, What can we do? We can't get rid of them, but we can preach the gospel to them. That's what we can do. The LGBTQ movement is not over.

Even our current government is promoting it. So, what do we do? I think that what the Bible teaches us about God is that God is in control. We know what to do. We should just do what we know what to do.

And that's what God has required of us. We should build strong families. We should build strong churches. We should build strong companies. That's what we should do.

We should build strong nations. And we should have believers in the highest offices of the land to bring the word of God and the laws of God into the civil realm. That's what America needs. So we do know what to do. Well, I think we should just remember during this season of Thanksgiving that God is a giver.

I was thinking about this this week. In the Garden of Eden, God gave enormous freedom to Adam and Eve. He gave them all the trees of the garden except one. Just one was prohibited. But God was abundant in his grace.

There's a remarkable passage in Ezekiel, I read it this morning, it's astounding, about the trees in the garden. You should read it. But only one. You know, there's so much capability that God has built into the world, so much opportunity in the world. God built into creation tremendous capability.

You just think about it for a minute. God is a giver. You know, there are, did you know, there are 7, 7, 500 varieties of apples. Some of them by man, but many of them just happen naturally out in the wild. You know, there are dozens of hybrids of oranges and some of they morph.

There's so much capability. Think of how many breeds of dogs there are from one species, one species, all these dogs. You know what? God built enormous capability and variety in the DNA, in your DNA, in the DNA of every being. God is a God of abundance.

And you think of this world of wonders that we live in today, harnessing powers of electricity and magnetism and medicines and the electromagnetic spectrum and radio, it's astounding what is embedded in nature and we're still discovering things and that's because God is a giver. The whole earth is full of his glory and And man is not the center of the universe, God is. It's the God who's abundant in riches, in power, in honor, in glory, in strength, and he lays it out to his children, and the capabilities are astonishing. We all have them, And this is the blessing. God is the most loving, giving being in the universe.

And yet, at the same time, in the garden, mankind reached after the one thing God told him not to touch. With all the abundance, with all the glory and beauty, one thing he couldn't keep his hands off of. And that's caused all the problems in the world. Well, Let me just end with this. It's so critical that the people of God are the most thankful people in the world.

And why? Well, for one thing, it's just appropriate, because God is God. And God is the great leveler of everything in the world. No matter what happens in your life, ups and downs, trials, tribulations, God is God. You can hang your whole life on that.

And God is gonna bring many sons to glory, he's gonna take care of everything, that's God. God takes care of everything. But a thankful people are an energetic people. There's nothing that will destroy your usefulness than ingratitude and depression and discouragement. And it slows you down.

An unthankful heart is no help in this world. Because a thankful people, not only are they just happier people, they're more useful. Here's why I'm driving at this. Is it time for any of you today, this morning, to repent of an unthankful spirit? Is it?

It spirals you into introspection. When God wants to raise you up in extrospection, looking to him. Okay, are you introspective or extrospective? You should be extrospective. If there's something eternal, there's something great, something marvelous to keep your eyes on, to fixie, fixing your eyes on Jesus Christ.

You know, a believer, a believer in the middle of the storm in a lighthouse should be standing and looking out at the horizon, not down at the waves. There will be waves and in this Thanksgiving that we have coming up on Thursday we're gonna have a feast and I just I just think we should take that as a reminder of the great feast, the marriage supper of the Lamb. You know, also, let me just say this. I know many of you are doing this, and I praise God for it. Teach your children the real story of Thanksgiving, because the fake stories are all over the news.

Genocide, stealing of land. These are just lies. Tell them about God, that God is God, that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him will not perish but have everlasting life. I'll close with Psalm 92, 1. It is good to give thanks to the Lord and to sing praises to your name, O Most High.

So you know what, we actually do have a thankful people in this church. I'm really, really grateful. Your elders are very thankful for you. We really are. This congregation is a blessing and we're extremely thankful that we get to be a part of it.

You know we view this congregation as hungry for the truth, and a congregation that love one another. What more could you ask? Praise God. Let's pray. Lord, Lord we thank you, Thank you for who you are, the greatness of your being, the God of wonders, the one who is independent of all things, who does all things well, who stands in the midst of all the trouble in the world as the victor, oh Lord we praise you.

And Lord I also pray that you would give these families such joy, giving thanks for you as God in your being, and also Lord to rejoice in the many blessings that you have given them because you are the fountain of all blessing Amen.