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Ep 148: From Thanksgiving To Praise - Why Gratitude Changes Everything

• Pastor/ Artist Fred Kenney Jr. • Season 3 • Episode 148

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"Gratitude deepens from polite thanks to worship rooted in God’s saving work, seen in Joseph’s mercy and Philip’s desert encounter. How does recognizing God’s providence reshape your response to both open and closed doors?"

We trace how everyday gratitude grows into worship, moving from holiday traditions to Scripture’s deeper call to praise. Joseph’s famine rescue, Philip’s desert appointment, and God’s wise "no" reveal why saved people serve gladly.

• thanksgiving as praise, not mere manners
• cultural tensions around the holiday and travel
• learning to thank God for "no" as protection
• Genesis 47 and grateful servants under Joseph
• Acts 8 and joy after desert baptism
• hope for messy stories turned into masterpieces
• entering God’s presence with thanksgiving and praise

Until next week, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace!

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SPEAKER_01:

Lord, you know this is the is the best because of the fact that they were they were so grateful to have because they became five minutes.

SPEAKER_00:

Hello, and welcome to Plays on Word Radio Young, where we discuss analyze work and play on the word of God. Okay, thank you for joining us on the security today. Let's join Pastor Teddy, also known as Fred David Kenny Jr., the founder of Plays on Word Theater, as he does a deep dive into the Word of God.

SPEAKER_02:

Amen, amen, amen, amen. Thank you, all of you listening to Plays on Word Radio. My name is Fred David Kenny Jr. Welcome to all of you listening and streaming and however you are listening to this. Maybe you're driving, maybe you're chilling with the feet up, maybe you're, I don't know, going for a walk with the uh headphones on, maybe you got a boom box going while you're working. God loves you. And we are going to dive into some stuff today. The uh I often tell the church where I um minister at, I pastor, it's Calvary Southport in Southport, North Carolina. And I often say that I feel like a chef that gets to work with the best ingredients ever, the word of God. And uh, you know, if you have good ingredients, you have a good piece of piece of steak, a good cut, man. You don't really, all you have to do is not mess it up. You don't have to do much to make it uh uh the tasty or anything like that. It's already good on its own. That's the bottom line. So I feel like a I feel like a uh a five-star missile and chef. Well, no, no, no, no, let me not say that. I feel like a chef that has the the greatest fridge and freezer and staff, and all I gotta do is just basically not mess it up with the word of God. Okay, so with that in mind, we have a uh an American holiday coming up. Next Thursday, or this Thursday coming up, I should say, uh, we we celebrate something called Thanksgiving. Now, for those of you that are not in the US or not familiar with the US, it is a holiday where we give thanks. We are supposed to reflect on things we are thankful for and grateful for. And it's kind of strange trying to describe this, and we celebrate it by pigging out, eating till we can't move. I know it sounds bizarre, but we eat we eat turkey, stuffing, cranberry. What else am I forgetting? Um, oh pecan pie. And some parts of the country they call it pecan. Pecan. Pecan pie. That's how my cousin Kevin Kenny says it. Pecan. That pecan pie is terrific. He's not even from the South. And he sounds southern. Um, so yeah, we celebrate by eating and being with family. It's one of the, if not the most heaviestly, heaviest travel day in the United States as far as roads and airports. It's one of them, if not the most, where family members get back together. It's also a time of great. Oh, what's the word I'm looking for? Consternation, maybe, or uh agitation, or it's also a day of great trouble. It's where families get get together a lot of the time, get together, and unfortunately, often remember why they move so far away from each other in the first place. Um the holiday of festivus has the airing of grievances, but I think that comes from I think that comes from Thanksgiving. Um, so there have been some whoppers, man, on Thanksgiving, some family blowouts on Thanksgiving. You get some, you know, hardcore liberal leftist family members getting together with some hardcore conservative right wing family members and Spark star flying, man. Not always, but sometimes. So that's also one of the hallmarks of the American tradition of Thanksgiving. What I would like to do though is I would like to look at the scripture and just try to dig out some concepts here about Thanksgiving, not the American holiday, but basically the idea and the concept of giving thanks. And in the Hebrew, it's a little different in the Hebrew the word that many uh King James um and the ESV and other translations will translate as thanksgiving also has a connotation of praise. Some might call it worship. So, for example, if say you're yeah your hands are full, right? Your hands are full with with okay, let's let's make this appropriate. Your hands are full with gifts that you buy on Black Friday or Cyber Monday, but most like Black Friday, the Thanksgiving Day sales. It's also one of the largest sales days. Many companies uh make their whole year budgets by the sales that happen during this holiday. So once again, we've turned we've turned something noble into a commercial endeavor, but I digress. Anyway, so your hands are full with some bags and some boxes, and you have to go through the door. And somebody comes to the door and they open a door. And you look at them, you say, Thank you, thank you. You give thanks to them for that. Biblical thanksgiving is a little different, a little bit different. There's praise involved, worship. You're not praising the person, you're just saying thank you. A simple thank you recognition. Thank you for opening the door for me. Uh that's a little bit different. And when it comes to God, we want to be on the we want to be on the praise side. And when you recognize who he is and who you are, and what he has done, and what you did. When you recognize that, that absolutely, when that is processed properly, produces thanksgiving that is praise. Not just thank you, Lord, for opening the door for me, you know. Thank you very much. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. No, it goes way beyond that. It's like, Lord, oh my god, thank you, God, for who you are, what you did for me after what I did, all the things I did, and you forg forgave me, Lord. You pulled me out of the pit, whatever, whatever it might be. Some of you might be in the midst of something right now, looking for that hand, looking for the light of God. Reach out to Him, I'm telling you. And you will look back and be like, Wow, Lord, thank you. Just yesterday, my wife told me, I'm so thankful, I'm so grateful for the nose. Not the appendage on your face between your eyes. No, the nose as far as NO, the denials of request. I'm so thankful for where the Lord said no. Think about that for a second. You know, children lose their minds when the parent says no. You know, immaturity gets all worked up and upset when you hear the word no. The maturing Christian recognizes that a no from God really is a yes somewhere down the line. And that no from God can be a protection at the time. And he, when he says no, it's because will we and and many of you parents understand this completely. Many of you parents understand you've had to say no to the kids, and an explanation is in many cases beyond um the kids' comprehension. I remember asking my dad, Dad, I want a hand glider. He said no. Thank God he said no. Imagine that. I'd be on the uh the Red Bull games or whatever right now, or in a wheelchair, or dead. So, yeah. Hey, thank God he said no to certain people. I thought maybe that's my wife. Hmm? Hey, can I get an amen? I'm hearing amens coming across the internet right now. From some people that are like, amen to that. I've yeah. And then some people are gritting their teeth saying, Oh, I wish, I mean, I wish I would have asked them. Hey, there's still hope for you, too. That's the amazing thing about God, Baddie. He is the expert at taking a mess, right? Taking a mess and making a masterpiece. Yep. Oh, he takes a mess and makes a masterpiece. Reminds me of, well, reminds me of the old Soul Train. Was it the Scrabble board? Remember the board on Soul. Some of y'all, some of you guys don't even. What is so what is Soul Train? Google it. But they used to have the board where they would scramble, scramble all these letters, and you would have to figure out who what person. It was usually a famous brother or sister. Um, you know, and you'd have a Z, a D, an E, like an N, uh another E, and you'd be it'd be all scrambled. And so as the song was going on, and you know, the people would have yeah, some people are nodding their heads right now. Now I'm bringing them back. Yeah. And you know, you they'd pick two people, usually uh a dude and a and a lady, and they'd be picking out the letters and unscrambling the scrambled letters, and you know, um, it would they'd get to the point where they unscrambled the letter, and you'd start to see what okay, I know what that is. Some people wouldn't um this this girl who grew up across the street, Kiva, she was really good at she was good at she could see she could see what it was like early on, you know. Um but she would be able to say, oh, oh that's uh, you know, uh that's Sydney Portier, or or that's Denzel Washington. Okay, Denzel. And you know, the two people would win, they would they would win uh special gifts, uh Lustre curl products. But I'm digressing. So anyway, those of you that know, you know, that was a thing Saturday morning. Soul train. That was the thing. So maybe we could bring that back with a Christian twist on it. Soul train. The soul train. Are you on it? Hey, I'm gonna have to work on the song and everything. Okay, anyway, I'm off the rails. We are back to the main point Thanksgiving and praise. I wanted to share with you uh an idea, or not an idea, but a story. Check this out. This is from the scripture. I just have a couple different ideas to share with you. There's really not an idea, it's more of a story from the scripture. You guys know the story of Genesis Joe. We do a whole play, 90-minute play on it. And the famine in the land was so bad, and the people were. Um, I'm just gonna read it. This is from Genesis 47. I'm gonna start in verse 14. Listen to this. Now there was no food in all the land, for the famine was very severe, so that the land of Egypt and the land of Canaan languished by reason of the famine. And Joseph gathered up all the money that was found in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan in exchange for the grain that they bought that they bought. And Joseph bought the money. Well, let me get this right. Joseph brought the money into Pharaoh's house. And when the money was all spent in the land of Egypt and in the land of Canaan, all the Egyptians came to Joseph and said, Give us food. Why should we die before your eyes? For our money's gone. And Joseph answered, Give your livestock, and I'll give you food in exchange for your livestock, if your money is gone. So they brought their livestock to Joseph, and Joseph gave them food in exchange for the horses, flocks, herds, donkeys. He supplied them with food in exchange for all their livestock that year. When that year was ended, they came to him the following year and said to him, We will not hide from my lord that our money is all spent. The herds of livestock are all my lords. There's nothing left in the sight of my lord but our bodies and our land. Why should we die before your eyes, both we and our land? By us, and our land for food, and we with our land will be servants to Pharaoh, and give us seed that we may live and not die, and that the land may not be desolate. So, this is verse 20. So Joseph bought all the land of Egypt for Pharaoh, for all the Egyptians sold their fields because the famine was severe on them. The land became Pharaoh's. As for the people, he made servants of them from one end of Egypt to the other. Only the land of the priest he did not buy, for the priest had a fixed allowance from Pharaoh. And Pharaoh l uh uh and they lived on the allowance from Pharaoh that he gave them. Therefore, they did not sell their land. Verse 23. Now check this out. Then Joseph said to the people, Behold, this day I have bought you and your land for Pharaoh. Now here is seed for you, and you shall sow the land, and at the harvest you shall give a fifth to Pharaoh, and four fifths shall be your own, as seed for the field, and as food for yourselves and your households, and as food for your little ones. And they said, Check it out, You have saved our lives. May it please my Lord, we will be servants to Pharaoh. And Joseph made it a statute in the land of Egypt, and it stands to this day that the that Pharaoh should have a fifth. The land of the priest did not become Pharaoh's. That was it. So, bottom line is these folks, they were facing extinction. Extinction. And they did everything in their own strength, and they sold everything they had. They had nothing left. They went to the man of God and begged the man of God, Joseph, type of Christ. They went to him and they asked him, they requested of him to purchase them. Some of y'all, I can see some light bulbs going off right now. Yeah, I see some people connecting the dots. We're smoking the internet right now. Yeah. And check this out the people. Because of the fact that they were saved, they were so grateful to have their lives. They didn't care because they became, you know, they became slaves to a good to good fair a good Pharaoh and the good man of God who cared for them and their little ones and provided for them. That they proclaimed, you have saved our lives. We will basically we will gladly become servants to Pharaoh. Gladly. Now, isn't that the true Christian today? Gladly a slave of Christ. Look at the Apostle Paul. Gladly, a slave, a servant. You have saved our lives. Therefore, we're stoked, we're amped up, we're ready to go serve whatever you want. That's the true motivation of a true Christian. Notice, they're not um, they're not trying to get their lives saved by doing these good works. We're doing all these good works, so you'll save us. No, we're doing all these good works because you saved us. There you go. Something similar happens in the the book of Acts, and this is this is like indirect thanksgiving. I could quote you all a bazillion different verses where it says thanksgiving and praise. Okay, I could do that, but I just want to give you some indirect stuff. You remember the story of Philip, the evangelist, chapter 8 of Acts, and the Ethiopian eunuch, right? And uh I'm gonna read that to you from verse 26. It says, Now the angel of the Lord said to Philip, Rise and go towards the south, to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza. This is a desert place. And he rose and went. And there was an Ethiopian eunuch, a court official of Candace, queen of the Ethiopians, who was in charge of all her treasure. He had come to Jerusalem to worship, and was returning seated in his chariot. And he was reading the prophet Isaiah, verse 29. And the spirit said to Philip, Go over and join his chariot, verse 30. So Philip ran to him and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet and asked, Do you understand what you're reading? And he said, How can I, unless somebody guides me? And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now, do you realize what's happening here? This guy is a high official man. And here Philip is invited to get into his limo with him. And he invited Philip. Now the the passage of scripture that he was reading was this: like a sheep he was led to the slaughter, like a lamb before its shears is silent. So he opened not his mouth. In his humiliation, justice was denied him. Who can describe his generation? For his life was taken away from the earth. Now that's coming from Isaiah 53. So, just in case you wanted to know. Now check up verse 34. And the eunuch said to Philip, About whom I ask you, does the prophet say this? About himself or about somebody else? Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this scripture, he told him the good news about Jesus. Of course, we all know, well, most of us know, or you at least you should know that Isaiah 53 is about Jesus. Okay? Go back and read it, and you'll have a uh uh a greater insight about Jesus. And verse 36, and as they were going along the road, they came to some water, and the eunuch said, See, here's some water. What prevents me from being baptized? And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down to the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. This is awesome. He baptized him. Man, look at that. Verse 39, and when he came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away, and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. Now, indirect thanksgiving. This guy, no doubt, was giving thanks to God for sending this guy, Philip, out of nowhere. Philip, hey, Philip left a jamming revival in Samaria. He had a revival going on, people were getting saved, you know, it was happening. And the Lord was like, all right, I want you to get up and go. He left a jamming revival to go to the middle of the desert, but he was obedient. And this guy, this high official, this heavy hitter, it would be like the Secretary of the Treasury, man, of the United States. A cabinet official ends up getting saved. Baptized. And what was that all what was that all about when it says when he came up out the water? The Spirit of the Lord carried Philip away. Yo! Just for you guys, for you uh folks that like to dive deeper. I believe the word, I don't have it in front of me, but I'm pretty sure I'm pretty sure the word is harpazo. Harpazo, the Greek word. Same word that Paul uses in 1 Thessalonians 4. That we're gonna be caught up. Yeah. And it's the same word that Jerome translated in his Latin translation of the uh Greek. He translated that word into rapturous. Yeah. So that's where the term rapture comes from. The phrase is not in the Bible, but the the Greek root that it that it comes from. I want to say Greek root. The Greek word that inspired it to Jerome is Harpazo. Think about how thankful this guy was that the Lord engineered stuff in his life for him to hear the gospel and to come to Christ. He did the same thing for Cornelius two chapters over in chapter 10 of the Book of Acts. Cornelius and his whole family. Think about that. And think about how thankful. Do you think they thank they were thanking God like he opened the door for them, whatever? You know, thanks for holding the door for me for a second there. No, they thanked from their heart, from a place of woe, Lord. And it's not just thanks, it's praise.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02:

So, my brothers and sisters listening to Plays on Word Radio right now, if I can encourage you in anything, thank him enthusiastically. Enter his gates. What? With what? Thanksgiving and praise. That's what I'm talking about. Why? First of all, because who he is, he's good. Good. The standard of good. He is righteous and perfect and holy. And on top of that, he cares about you. Regardless of how you feel about yourself. He says otherwise. He says you're of value to him. So if you're in a funk right now, let that pull you out. If you're having a tough time, look up. Because somebody says something good about you. And not just it's not just talking, because he his actions declared what he feels. He demonstrated his agape, his love. He had demonstrated it for us in the cross of Christ. That you are worth so much that he was not about to let you go into eternity without having the option to be with him for all eternity. That's the ultimate miracle, man. How did he pull that off? To judge my sin and to not sweep it under the rug. It's amazing. Amazing. Much more could be said on this. Unfortunately, we're out of time. So until next week. And don't need too much, alright, you Americans. Until next week, the Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you.

SPEAKER_00:

The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.org.

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Fred David Kenney, Jr.

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