Brethren I want us to go before the Lord this morning, let’s just appreciate Him, let’s bless His holy name for all that God has done for us from January to date; He has brought us all the way up to this moment, let’s appreciate Him, let’s tell Him Father we appreciate You; that hymnal said ‘let all His works praise Him, the works of God shall praise Him\, we are the works of the Lord, let’s offer Him the sacrifice of our lips this morning, let’s register our deepest gratitude unto God, the God that has been so kind enough, the Lord that has been so gracious enough, the Lord that has been so wonderful enough to bring us from January up to date, it can only be God, let’s tell Him Father we are grateful for all that You have done – for all that You have done for me, for my children, for my wife, for my husband (as the case may be), for all that God has done in your business that notwithstanding the turbulent time in the economic space, God has blessed you and God is keeping you there; you are still providing services, you are still producing, it can only be God, let’s magnify His holy name this morning, in Jesus mighty name we have worshiped.
In Philippians 1: 6, He said He that has started a good job is more than able to see us through; we have about 31 days to the New Year, I want us to just pray to God that Father, You have started the year with us, please see us through gloriously in the name of Jesus. Open your mouth and cry onto the Lord, You have brought us this far, Father Almighty God please see us through in the name of Jesus, take us to the New Year gloriously, graciously, joyfully to the praise and glory of Your name, let nothing be missing in our lives except for our sicknesses and our troubles at the end of the year in the name of Jesus, thank You blessed Savior, in Jesus wonderful name we have prayed.
Father in heaven we want to say thank You for all that You have done for us, for taking us through the waters and the fires, for giving us the strength and the resilience to go through all the challenges that we have encountered in the course of this year and for bringing us Lord, to this place of fulfillment, to bringing us to this month the last month in the year 2024; You promised that You will crown the year for us with Your goodness and we know You are not a man that will lie nor the son of man that will repent, You stand by Your word all the time. Thank You for everything that You have done, thank You for what You are doing, thank You Father for what You will continue to do, accept our thanks in the name of Jesus.
On behalf of ourselves we say thank You; on behalf of our families we say thank You; on behalf of the church of God we say thank You; on behalf of our nation we want to say thank You, Lord Almighty God for keeping us standing against all odds, Father we return all the glory back to You, accept our praises in the name of Jesus.
Father in heaven we are here today to raise our Ebenezer, Lord we ask Lord that You will receive us, You will receive our Thanksgiving in the mighty name of Jesus. We pray Lord as we praise You Lord today You will bless us more and more, and Lord Almighty God, for the doors that are shut that are yet to be open, Father even before we leave there today let them be open in Jesus name.
I pray for all Your children who have been faithful in the payments of their tithes and in the giving of their offerings, Lord that You will bless them, You will enlarge them, you will rebuke devourers for their sake in the mighty name of Jesus. Everything and anything that stands in the place of a devourer in their life, Father we pray that once and for all You will clear in Jesus name.
Once again we pray that You have Your way in this assembly today, prove Yourself like never before and take all the glory at the end of everything, in Jesus wonderful name we have prayed.
Good morning church, happy new month, you are welcome to the month of fulfillment, this month has been declared as the month of our ‘Divine Fulfillment’, the good Lord that has started the journey has brought us this far and like we prayed, we believe Him very strongly that He will see us through to the praise and glory of His name in the name of Jesus.
So I want you to help me greet at least seven of your neighbors and say happy new month, welcome to the month of divine fulfillment, you will find joy this month, you will find peace this month, you will find accomplishment this month, in the mighty name of Jesus. It shall be well with you, it shall be well with your fruits, it shall be well with everything that you lay your hands on in the name of Jesus, so shall it be in Jesus name. Praise the Lord!
It’s our month of joy, you will find joy, you will find favor, you will find goodness in every area and fulfillment will be your testimony at the end of the day in the mighty name of Jesus. Tell your neighbors ‘no shaking’, there is no cause for alarm, the Lord that has taken us through 11 months, are you saying He cannot just perfect this one, come on He will do what He alone can do to the praise and glory of His name, and so shall it in Jesus name.
Psalm 100, but before then let me quickly remind us that we’ll be having our prayer chain tomorrow by 6:30 p.m. The theme for tomorrow is ‘The Alpha and the Omega’, Revelation 22:3, please come around, I look forward to seeing you, the Lord will hear and answer our prayers in the name of Jesus.
I’d also like to remind you of the forthcoming Holy Ghost Congress, by the grace of God it starts by upper Monday and it runs through to Saturday the 14th, in fact through to Sunday December 15; the venue of course is at the Redemption City and the theme is ‘Onward Christian Soldier’. We need to bear in mind that we are soldiers of the Lord and soldiers are always on the move and the gate of hell shall not prevail over us in Jesus name. So make every possible attempt and arrangement to be part of this program physically and virtually where physical presence is not practicable; the authority has also declared 15 days of prayer and fasting for the success of this program, please be kind enough, be gracious enough to be part of it, God answers prayers, the Bible says this one cometh not except by prayer and by fasting, it facilitates what I call ‘speedy answers to prayers’, so the Lord will hear and answer every one of us in Jesus name.
Daddy will be coming our way very soon but before then, as usual we will continue in our exhortation of last month, the exhortation we had last month was inconclusive because the time was actually against us and today by the grace of God we’ll be wrapping it up. The theme last month was ‘Running with the Attitude of Gratitude’, and we took our text from the same scripture where the mommy that led us in opening prayer took us through, but we took it in just one verse but we will be considering from verses 1 to 5, Psalm 100:1 – 5, it says “Make a joyful noise unto the Lord, all ye lands. 2 Serve the Lord with gladness: come before his presence with singing. 3 Know ye that the Lord he is God: it is he that has made us, and not we ourselves; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. 4 Enter into his gates with thanksgiving, and into his courts with praise: be thankful unto him, and bless His holy name. 5 For the Lord is good; his mercy is everlasting; and his truth endureth to all generations”.
To say the Lord has been kind to us is simply an understatement; God has as a matter of fact exceeded our expectations particularly with regards to keeping us on our feet on a daily basis. I was in a gathering yesterday and the Pastor in Charge of Middle East Region 2 who led the opening prayer before I was called upon to give my talk, talk about the fact that we need to thank God for the clothes on our bodies and for our ability to put our clothes on our body and to also remove it, and that is a very deep one, it struck me. If you have seen a sick man before, terribly sick person that is helpless, you will understand the grace of being able to put on your clothes and of course when it is time for you to undress you are able to take it off; if you have also been to the mortuary you will also appreciate the import of being able to either wear your clothes or to remove it.
In the mortuary, I remember when my father died, they had to cut the big agbada we sewed at the back because it’s not possible to take a dead man to stand, they had to do it side by side, they will put it at the front first then the back had to be open so that they tied it; at the end of the day when they lied him inside the casket, they dressed it, but because he’s not going to dance like you and I are going to do, nobody will know that it was tied at the back, that’s to let you know a bit of what God has done for us.
We have food and we can eat; in the primary school days, they say ‘some have food but cannot eat, some can eat but have no food, we have food and we can eat, glory be to you’, how many of you can eat? Do you know why I ask that question, because some of you did not even show excitement when you were singing that song or perhaps there are people here who don’t eat at all, praise the Lord! But if you are here and you eat, shout hallelujah! I used to think that beautiful ladies those days don’t eat, it was much later I discovered that all this thing is just an effizzy out there, that when you see where they deal with fufu, praise the Lord!
We need to be conscious, we need to be intentional in giving thanks to God for all that He has done for us. A songwriter once said ‘we are grateful oh Lord…’, that should be our song on a daily basis; it takes the grace of God to survive one day to the other and the line between life and death is a very thin one; David said even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, (he said) I fear no evil, why is it that you fear no evil, is simply because you don’t see, because if you see you’ll be afraid, but God has done in such a way that because He’s always there for us, He does not need to allow us to see, otherwise the fright and others will make us to even lose our steps, and that is why the attitude of gratitude is very important.
Our attitude determines our altitude, like I shared with us the other time that is according to Zig Ziglar which simply means that our attitude is more important than aptitude in determining how successful you will be as a man or a woman in life, so we must cultivate the habit of say thank You to our Lord at all times.
In our text, Psalm 100, we are given admonition to thank the Lord for who He is and for all that He has done; we are told very clearly how to thank Him and when and where to thank Him. There are five verses in all and last month I think we were able to cover three of them; number one that we covered last month is the fact that He is worthy of praise, our God is worthy of praise.
Number two, He is worthy of service, it says we should serve the Lord with gladness and we should come to His presence with singing, and I remember that I shared with us that service involves three basic elements:
Number one, humility, you cannot serve someone without humility, because service is not respecter of age, the President of Nigeria today is not the oldest man in Nigeria, the man that is standing before you is not the oldest person in this church, but for you to serve someone there must be a sense of responsibility, and you’ll find out that often more than not your boss in the office is actually younger than yourself but if you allow age to drive you crazy then you’ll be shown the way out, so service requires humility.
Number two element is the fact that service requires fidelity; when you talk about fidelity you talk about integrity, service implies faithfulness otherwise it will be nothing other than betrayal. We are charged in 1st Corinthians 4: 2 that it is required of stewards that they be found faithful, my prayer this morning for every one of us is that God will give us that heart to serve the Lord with fidelity in the name of Jesus Christ.
Number three, activity; I also mentioned the fact that you cannot serve someone without doing anything, you cannot say you are serving the Lord without doing anything, so if you are here today you claim you are serving the Lord yet you don’t belong to any department, you need to review your status, if you are into service you must be doing something, it’s either you belong to the choir or you belong to the ushering department or you are a member of the Sunday school department or you belong to counseling or evangelism or whatever group, but for you to render such service and for you to say it that you are giving service, you got to be doing something. My prayer is that whatever it is that you hold on yourself out to do unto the Lord, the Lord will accept in the name of Jesus.
Number three (was where we stopped last month), is the fact that He alone is God; God has no rival, God has no equal, ko l’orogun l’Olorun, He’s the Almighty, the First and the Last, the One that knows it all, the One that can do it all, so when we know that then He beholds us to always give Him praise.
Number four which we didn’t share last month is the fact that He is worthy of our praise, that scripture that was read to us tells us enter into his gates with thanksgiving and His court with praise, be thankful unto Him and bless His name. The Israelites could only experience the presence of God through the Ark of the Covenant; during the era of the children of Israel, the presence of God in their midst was the Ark of the Covenant, they will carry it because that was what symbolized the presence of God during their time, they believed the presence of God resided in that Covenant, but now the story has changed and it has changed because of the advent of our Lord Jesus Christ who lives inside all of us that place our trust in Him.
We know we have Someone that lives in us, 1st John 4:4 says greater is He that lives in us, Jesus Christ lives in me, Jesus Christ lives in you, for as many of us that have confessed our sin and have invited Jesus into our lives and we live a life of the cross, Jesus lives in us, therefore we don’t need to carry any physical box, we don’t need to carry anything that symbolizes the presence of God because we are carrier of the Spirit of God, we are carrier of God by implication.
So for the believers of our time, we are always in the presence of God and guess what, we cannot escape His presence, therefore our attitude should always be one of thanksgiving and one of praise, we are to be thankful and bless His holy name and if you want to ask me this morning sir, why must we praise Him? Point number five gave us a clear direction on that, we have to praise Him because God is good. He said for the Lord is good, and not only that the Lord is good, He said His mercies endureth forever; from generations to all generations the mercies of the Lord has been in times past during the era of your forefathers, during the era of our fathers, during our own time and even in the course of the generations that will come after us, God is good and His mercy endureth forever.
In the book of James, it says mercy triumph on over judgment, and Romans 9: 16 says it is not of him that willeth, neither of him that runneth, but of God that showeth mercy; you are here today, I’m here, we are here today all because we have received mercy, there’s a way people say it in our local parlance, they said aanu l’arigba, my prayer for everyone under the influence of my voice this morning is that may you receive mercy today.
So here we are to give praise to God because we are told to enter His gates with thanksgiving and to serve Him with gladness, why? Because He’s good and His mercies and His truth endureth forever, and because His mercies endureth forever, in fact, Proverbs 23: 23 says buy the truth, and sell it not; when you have it you hold on to it, it’s not for merchandising because is a way of life, and I pray in the name of Jesus that the truth that is in the word of God will continue to govern our lives in the name of Jesus Christ.
There is no one else to whom these things can be said, so permit me (as I try to close) to make three suggestions that I guess will help us gain and maintain an attitude of gratitude in our lives individually and collectively;
Number one, take notes, this means to live with awareness, there should be this awareness, the reason people don’t give thanks to God most of the time is because of lack of awareness, those who speak Yoruba, they say eni ti o ba mo inu ro, a a mo ope da. As a people we are so tempted to see nothing but our own reality, minimize focusing on your own reality, it takes a little more than a brief trip around us then you will realize how much God has been kind to you; the same road that you take on daily basis, some people take the same road they never got to their destination or return back.
Take notes, become aware, open your eyes to the world and the people around you and it will shock you, but it will also cause you to be grateful.
Number two, take stock of your blessings. I love that old song, that hymnal, it says ‘count your many blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord has done’; brethren, you must learn to take stock, count your many blessings, name them one by one.
The reason it looks as if you are heavy, the reason why it looks as if you are so indifferent to thanksgiving is because you have stopped taking stock, if there is no stock in your own imagination, think about the fact that you are still breathing, God is the giver and the loaner of life, and I must tell you this morning that is only who God keeps that is kept, if God decides to withdraw His life then we are gone. Make a deliberate effort to do stocking.
Number three (which is the last one), take action; turn your attitude of gratitude into an action of appreciation, do something good for someone else, God has given you plenty, I beg you share part of it. The Bible tells us in Matthew 16:26 that what shall it profit a man if he gains the whole world and lose his own soul, for what shall a man give in exchange for his life?
God did not give you what He has given to you solely for your benefit, thank God there are some ‘incurable givers’ here, they don’t know what not to give and that’s why God is blessing them and God will continue to bless them because giving leads to recovery. God has placed in your hands so that you can be a blessing unto others; He gave you all you have so that you can be His person, you can be His treasurer, you can be His ambassador, so that you can do with it the same thing He would do or He would have done.
Jesus says when we act in kindness in blessing others with even as much as a cup of cold water, He said it is as though we have done it to Him, that is Matthew 10: 42, and do it while you are here to see the good that it will do.
So in conclusion, I challenge every one of you listening to me today to find some good to do, praise the Lord! Help me tell your neighbor, find some good to do to do especially at a time like this. Ecclesiastes 9: 10 says whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your strength, shall we rise on our feet;
Show your appreciation to God by how you serve Him with what He has given to you, but take this final word, the Bible says behold, to obey is better than sacrifice and to hearken than the fat of rams, so if you are here today you have been listening to me wherever you are, maybe you are here physically, you are here online, you know you have not given your life to Christ, everything I’ve said will not make any meaning to you, for you to be able to digest the exhortation, the manna, then you must be in sync with God, how do you be in sync with God? You need to invite Him into your life, God has been so kind to us January, February, March, all the way to this moment, I’m sure you have slept and woke up 335 times, so you need to think about it, how God has kept you, is it by your power that you always go to bed and wake up the following day?
[Altar call]
Father in heaven we want to say thank You for Your word, thank You for reminding us of the needs to offer our gratitude to You on daily basis, Lord as we have heard Your word today, give us the grace to apply same in Jesus name. For all Your children that have heard Your word and have voluntarily offered to give their life unto You Father, please receive them unto Yourself in Jesus name, let mercy cover for them in Jesus name, write their names in the Book of Life in Jesus name and from today Father Almighty God, let there continue to be joy in heaven over these ones in Jesus name.
And for the rest of us, Father Almighty God that the joy in heaven over us will never cease in Jesus name, back us up Lord, strengthen us and see us through, thank You blessed Savior, in Jesus wonderful name we have prayed.
