Cornerstone Christian Center
Cornerstone Christian Center
Give Thanks
What if a simple thank you could change more than a moment—what if it could change your day, your focus, and your faith? We start with a warm, funny tour of “thank you” in different languages—gracias, merci, donobad, and the exuberant shokran awi—and use those stories to show how appreciation can turn strangers into allies and chaos into connection. From guards guiding cars through Cairo traffic to a shopkeeper who always had a bag of chips for a child, we highlight how gratitude softens edges and opens doors.
From there, we anchor the conversation in Scripture. Psalm 118 reminds us that God’s steadfast love endures forever, and Ephesians 5:20 calls us to give thanks always. We break down the daily choice to live gratefully—across 35,000 decisions a day—especially when feelings want to steer. Gratitude doesn’t deny pain; it refuses to let pain be the narrator. We unpack a classic selective attention study to reveal how easily we fixate on problems and miss the quiet gorillas of grace walking right through our field of vision. When we practice thanks, attention shifts from the problem to the Provider, and the Eeyore mindset loses its grip.
We close by elevating the why: God is worthy. With help from Charles Spurgeon, we move gratitude from a transaction—“I thank you because I got something”—to adoration—“I thank you because You are good.” We talk about forgiveness, freedom, mended pieces, and the faithful presence of Jesus who never leaves. If you’re new to faith or ready for a fresh start, you’ll hear a clear, hopeful invitation to follow Christ and a pathway to next steps in community.
If this encouraged you, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs a lift, and leave a review. Your words help more people choose gratitude and find hope this week.
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Give thanks. Well, happy Thanksgiving is the week of Thanksgiving. How many of you are excited that it's finally here? Amen. Amen. We're gonna talk about give thanks this morning. Um, if you don't know, I have lived in several locations all over the world, um, probably in the last 30 some years. And um, people often ask me this question and they'll say, Celeste, what is the scariest thing about living overseas? And I'll think about it, and not a lot phases me. I'm not too scared about many things, but um the one thing that would always kind of get me was when you don't speak the language, and you just can't communicate, and you're trying to ask questions or get things across, and you just don't know how to communicate it. And so knowing the language, uh not knowing the language was always difficult for me. I would study the language, I would have private tutors, I would go um into a classroom setting, and there's always one word or phrase that I wanted to learn every time. And I know it might shock you what I would ask to learn. I mean, some people might say, Where's the bathroom? That was important to them. Um, others would say, maybe a certain food, where do I find this? Um, but for me, it was always how do you say thank you? And I wanted to know how to say that. It was just a high priority for me everywhere I lived. There's something about being appreciative to someone that helps you out. There's just something about it. Um, just knowing how to say thank you when somebody gives of their time or they're assisting you. Um, it was just a blessing to know how to say it. So I just want to give you a little walk of where I've been and how to say it. Um, this morning somebody kept asking me, how do you say this again? How do you say this again? Um, it's kind of fun just to get to know these phrases. But I first started out. Obviously, I'm um part Hispanic, my dad is Mexican, and so I always knew how to say thank you in Spanish, which is gracias. And then when I went to Paraguay, I thought everybody just spoke Spanish there. And I realized um down south in South America, it's one of the lower countries, down at the bottom, it's the first place I lived outside of the US, and they speak a mixture of guatani with Spanish, and so a lot of things are kind of mixed together. So if you are in the country of Paraguay and you want to say thank you, you would say aguje. And that's how you would just appreciate them for whatever they're helping you with. Um, before I was married, I also lived in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is like a country, everybody's like, where is that place? Um, that place is next to India. It actually used to be part of Pakistan um not that long ago. And then they separated and India's kind of in between. And so in Bangladesh, um, if you were saying thank you, you would say Donobad. And that's how um you would tell people you're appreciative of what they're doing there for you. Then we moved to France, Jay and I with our kids. We served and started an international church inside of Paris, and of course, we all think we speak French. Um, we all would love to speak French, it's just such a beautiful language, and so um, probably the one thing everybody knows how to say is thank you, and that is merci. Yeah, and so we would say that quite frequently as we were wrangling our small children all around the city. Um, thank you if you drop something, thank you. They're helping you and assisting you. And then we move to Egypt, and Egypt uh they speak their own Arabic. I just want to make that very clear. Arabic is um, there's a lot of countries that speak Arabic, but Egypt has their own Arabic. So there's a Maya and there's Fusa. And in Egypt, um, everybody knows how to listen to Arabic in Egypt because they are the people that broadcast the movies. So they're like the Hollywood, Bollywood of the Middle East, and a lot of things take place there. And so when we were there, I learned quickly how to say thank you, and that is Shokran. And in Egypt, I learned, man, you can't just say thank you, you can't just say shokran, but you gotta add something to it because the Egyptians are very um loud and boisterous and fun, and everything they do is uh with their hands and very um expressive. And so if you were in America and you were speaking English, if you wanted to express your thanks a lot, you would say thank you so much. So much, thank you. And so in Arabic, if you're in Egypt, you would add the word awi to it. So you would say shokran awi. And you gotta be expressive with it when you say it. You gotta be loud, you gotta match the word, the phrase. And so I would say it all the time. I mean, that was like my go-to phrase everywhere I went. And so I just wanna let you know that if you ever visit Egypt, let me explain a few things that you will say thank you for. When you go grocery shopping for the first time, or two years after you've lived there and you still can't find things, you are grateful for anybody who will assist you in trying to find something that you're looking for in your broken language. And I would just look at them and I would just be like, Shokran, thank you so much. Thank you, thank you, thank you. To the guards that were outside of the buildings that I was trying to park at. Egypt is 8 million people and an 11-mile stretch. It's crowded. And so, if you're trying to park your car, I would drive everywhere there. It is a miracle that I am still alive. I just want to share that with you. Um, lines are a suggestion and never abided by. And so, when you're trying to park somewhere, you are rolling your window down asking the guard or the boab who is guarding that building, where can I park? And I'm saying it in English because I didn't speak Arabic very fluently there. And the guard would literally put his hand on my windshield and walk with me as I'm driving the car and lead me to where to park. And I would be like, Shogun Aoi. I was so appreciative of him. To the owner of the Kushk. A Kushk is like a little market that's on the street and they just sell chips and soda and ice cream and candy. There's one right strategically outside of my kids' school when we lived there. He's a genius, let me tell you that, best business guy I ever met. And not only was he a genius in his location, but when we would walk by and I carried no cash, I'd carried none. He would always have a bag of chips that he would hand my smallest child. And then they would they would want everything. And he would always, every day she walked by, he would just give her a bag of chips. And I would just be like, Shokran, oui, oui. And I was so grateful that he would give her something. And then to my taxi driver, and I don't know if you'll ever appreciate this unless you live there. My friends in from Turkey might appreciate this. When you get in a taxi, you don't go by addresses, you go by locations, you go by a marker in the city. So you would say, you know, the nursery that's on Indian school. I need to go somewhere in that area. And so to the taxi driver who would actually take me to the location that I needed to go, I would get out of the taxi, and as I'm handing him the money, I'd be like, Shokran, oui, oui, oui, oui. Thank you so much for getting me here. Thank you goes a long way. It goes a long way. And I can remember saying thank you to people, and I would literally see their countenance change. Because I went from somebody who was not just asking for something, but I was expressing appreciation and gratefulness for what they have done. A thank you goes a long way. And as we head into Thanksgiving week, I want to encourage you this morning to give thanks. Psalm 118, verse 1 says this: Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. Well, I want to welcome you to Cornerstone. If you're a guest with us, it is an honor to have you. If we haven't had the chance to meet yet, my name is Celeste, and my husband and I, Jay, have a privilege of leading an amazing team here at this church who our goal is to be more like Jesus. And if you were to walk outside of these doors, it would only take you about two minutes, and you'd realize instantly that it is very hard to be like Jesus all the time. How many of you can relate to that? It only takes maybe two, three minutes in traffic in Phoenix, and you realize that you need to be more like Jesus at all times. Um, but that's what we strive to do here at this church. We just ended a season of life groups, and I am so just I just feel so honored to be able to have life groups here at this church. It is life outside of a Sunday morning, and it gives you a chance to just build community in a smaller group setting. And so we just ended that season. A new one will be starting right after the holidays, and you don't want to miss that. Um, our our motto here at the church is love God, make disciples, and reach the world. And your world is your family, the neighborhood you live in, the work that you go to each and every day, the West Valley, the state of Arizona, the U.S., and the entire world. That is your area of trying to reach the world. And so this morning we're gonna talk about giving thanks. I'm gonna read Psalm 118, verse one again. It says this, oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good. For his steadfast love endures forever. So, number one, I want to talk about give thanks. And this is number one. It is a choice. I know that's hard to think about, it's hard to contemplate, but it is a choice to give thanks. You see, when you wake up each day, you determine how your day's gonna go. As soon as you wake up. Studies actually say that on average, each human will make about 35,000 decisions a day. And right now, you're deciding whether you actually do that or not. Do I do 35,000? They say that those decisions are made both consciously and unconsciously, but they're choices that you make. So every hour that you're awake, you're averaging about 2,000 decisions an hour. Now, those decisions will be different. Maybe in the morning you wake up, your alarm goes off, you have to determine do I wake up instantly or do I hit that snooze button? Decision. Maybe when you get up, you all of a sudden you have to decide, I'm either gonna get up and I'm gonna complain that I didn't get enough sleep, or I'm gonna get up and I'm gonna choose to be grateful for the little sleep that I did get. Decision. Maybe you have to decide what you're gonna wear. Maybe you have to decide, am I the person that puts my sock on right foot first, left foot second, or vice versa. Maybe you're the person that says, I don't brush my teeth until I'm done with my entire morning routine, and then I brush it before I leave, and other people would say, I brush it as soon as I get up, because I don't want anybody to smell my breath. Decisions. You would be interested to know this that your day is not determined by whether you are a morning person or not. But many of us like to blame that for our attitude. You're like, ouch, yes. We choose what we're gonna do that day. We choose our attitude, we choose whether we're gonna be grateful. It has nothing to do with whether we are a morning person or not, but it has everything to do with the choices that you make. Are you choosing to give thanks? You see, giving thanks should naturally flow from our hearts as we express gratitude to the Lord and for those around us. It should be like second nature to you. It should be so easy to walk up to somebody, look at them, and just say, thank you. Thank you. I've seen people before where they're attempting to say it and they're like, and then they walk off. And you're like, what are we gonna say? In fact, there are people in your life right now, and you can think of them instantly when they actually say thank you, you're in shock because you've never heard them say it. And do not nudge your spouse or your neighbor or anybody you're sitting by. But you can just think of people who are like, actually, I don't think I've ever heard them say thank you. It should be second nature to us. You should be able to walk up and just say thank you. I am so grateful for you. I appreciate you helping me on that project at work. I would have never got out of work on time if you hadn't come along and assisted me in that. I am grateful and I just want to say thank you. If you're not naturally just saying things like this, I want to challenge you today to go home, go wherever there's a mirror, and just practice it. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Put it as a screensaver on your phone. Thank you, thank you. Just let it be second nature to you. You see, culture tells us that we should be led by our feelings. Even though I received something, maybe I received something that was so amazing and it's great. I did not get everything I wanted, so therefore I'm gonna complain and I'm just gonna sit in frustration. I know, it doesn't sound like anybody you know, or someone didn't help me like they helped them. Not fair. Not fair. We tend to go with our feelings. My son is in university and he has a class right now, and they have to read these books and discuss them, and he's like, mom, all they want to talk about is their feelings about this book. He's like, it drives me crazy. He's like, I just want to talk about the book. I don't want to talk about how made you feel, but I just want to talk about the book. Because culture has told us that we should be led by our feelings. As a believer, we do not let our feelings lead us. How many of you know that? We are not led by our feelings. In fact, if you want an example of real life, I will tell you this: that our feelings tend to lead us astray. Because the person that you're married to, there was probably people before them that you thought you were in love with. Oh, I love them. Well, you're not married to them, so your feelings kind of led you somewhere. Your feelings will lead you astray. I know even on a Sunday morning, sometimes as a believer, you wake up and you're like, I don't really feel like going to church today. But I just want you to know, Jane, I love being here. We would never say that. We would never think it. We are first, like we wake up and we're like, this is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. But there's days that you just don't feel something. But we are not led by our feelings. But as a believer, we should choose what we're gonna do, and our choices will lead us, and our feelings will follow. Amen. We should choose to give thanks at all times, not just when we feel like it, but you have to make the choice to be thankful. It says in Ephesians 5 20, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. This means even though things are not perfect in your life right now, you give thanks. You give thanks. And I don't want to ruin your week, but things will never be perfect. Okay? But you give thanks for where you are right now. When we walk through the valley and you feel like you're all alone and nobody understands you, you give thanks. Because you're gonna learn things from there that are gonna carry you on in life. And you give thanks. When you have a mountaintop experience and you're like, this is the best season of my life. I have, I just feel like I'm so close to God, everything is just going like smoothly in order. Give thanks. You didn't make that happen, He did. And so you give thanks. When we have energy and rest and things are going good, we give thanks. And when we're tired and exhausted and we just want to call it quits, we give thanks. Giving thanks allows us to express our gratitude and our appreciation for all that He has done. You are giving thanks for the things that are seen, and you're giving thanks for the things that are unseen in your life. You are giving thanks. Remember, you determine how your day will go. Give thanks. It is a choice. Number two, give thanks. It keeps your focus on God. You see, there's a lot of things going on in the world right now. You just have to turn the news on for a second or look at the news app on your phone, or you hear rumors or rumors of this or rumors of that, and everybody wants to give you their opinion on what's happening. And if you're not careful, you can begin to shift what or who you put your focus on by what you're listening to, what people are telling you. In fact, a lot of things going on in the world today, let me just be honest with you. Some of it affects us, but most of it doesn't. The majority of it doesn't even affect you in your day-to-day life. But yet we start to shift and put our focus on something else. In 1999, I know for some of you that is a long time ago, but in 1999 there was a study done, and there were two men who were wanting to do this experiment with people, and they called it a selective attention test. It was a study where they wanted to see how people focus on things. So they took six individuals and they put them in a room about the size of this stage. They gave three of them a black shirt, three of them a white shirt, they put it on, they gave the black shirt people a basketball, and they gave those wearing a white shirt a basketball. And they said, for a little bit of time, we want you to just walk around and intermingle, and you only pass the basketball to the person wearing the same color shirt as you. And so they filmed this interaction. So they're just walking around. And then the narrator told the audience, they said, Listen, your goal is you're gonna watch the white shirts, and you are going to hand them, you're gonna count how many times they're passing the basketball only to a person in a white shirt. And so if you're the viewer, you are just staring at that screen because everybody wants to be right, correct? Nobody wants to be like, what? I gotta watch this again. I can't believe I got it wrong. So everybody's focused on this video, and they're counting how many times they're passing it around. And you're trying to focus on one thing. They're training you to concentrate on the relevant thing, the basketball and the white shirts, basketball and the white shirts. And then the video's over, and at the end, the narrator says, How many times was a basketball passed between the white shirts? And it's quiet, and you give your answer. And then the narrator comes back on and they said, You probably missed something very important in this entire video. Did you see the man dressed as a gorilla walking from one side of the room all the way across to the other side of the room? And they said that when they did this study, a high majority of people never saw the gorilla because they were so focused on that basketball getting passed in between those white shirts that they tuned and filtered everything else out. Selective attention. It just proved that people could actually focus on one thing and not pay attention to anything else. But what happens when you are focused on the wrong thing? Think about this. You're just looking at the thing in front of you, and everything else is a blur to you. Maybe you're looking at that bad relationship in your life that you're trying to mend, and your whole day is just focused on this one issue, and you can't see anything else happening in your life. Maybe you're dealing with a sickness, maybe there's a problem, and you're just focused on that one thing, and focusing on it begins to create what I call an Eeyore spirit in you. I know many of you probably grew up with Winnie the Pooh. You may watch it now, and that's okay. But there's a character on there named Eeyore, and he is a uh donkey, and you want to love him. You want to love Eeyore. Everybody's like, oh, Eeyore. But there's something about Eeyore, he complains a lot. I don't know if you just listen to what he says, but man, he kind of has a bad attitude. And Eeyore has a great group of friends. He's got Tigger. I mean, what else do you need besides a bouncy friend who's trying to make you happy all the time? And Eeyore is just walking around, just kind of moping. And one of Eeyore's sayings that he tends to say a lot throughout the shows is this don't worry about me. Go and enjoy yourself. All stay here and be miserable. I'm like, what a friend. Wow, good job there. Good job, Eeyore. That's kind of how some of us are when we practice selective attention. We begin to focus just on this one thing, and there's this Eeyore spirit that rises up within us. We could be at a location where there's a lot of life happening. We could be in church where God's doing amazing things. We could be in a life group. We could be at a friend's house, we can be somewhere where it is going well, and you're just standing around going, don't worry about me. Go and enjoy yourself. I'll just sit here and be miserable. Because all of your focus is on the problem and not on his goodness. 1 Thessalonians 5:18 says this: Rejoice always. Pray without ceasing. Give thanks in all circumstances. For this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Are you ready to give thanks despite what is happening right in front of you? Are you ready to focus on the Lord who can do all things and filter out all the other distractions? Are you ready to give honor where honor is due out of a heart of thanksgiving and just let it flow from your mouth to shift your focus back to Him. Give thanks. Keep your focus on God. And number three, we give thanks because he is worthy. He's worthy. Psalms 118.1 says this again. Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. There's a preacher named Charles Spurgeon, and one of his quotes that he said, I absolutely love, and is talking about this particular verse, verse 1, it says this. Goodness is his essence and nature, and therefore he is always to be praised, whether we are receiving anything from him or not. Those who only praise God because he does them good should rise to a higher note and give thanks to him because he is good. Oh, I don't know if you heard that very clearly. But we don't go to God and say thank you because he gives you something, but we go and praise him and say thank you because he is good. He's good. I've shared this example many times, is if you're a parent and you have children and all they want is something from you, and they only say thank you when you give them something. I mean, that's great, but there's something about them just walking up to you in the middle of nowhere for no reason and just wrapping their arms around you and going, thank you, thank you, mom and dad. And you're like, for what? You're kind of shocked. What did I do? And they're like, I just want to say thank you. I just want to say it. And we, as God's children, should be just like that. We should be coming to Father God and just saying, God, thank you. For you are good. Thank you. You know that no one has ever done for you what Jesus has done for you. There is no one in this earth that has done what Jesus has done for you. He has set you free. He has set you free. You are no longer in bondage or in shackles, but you are free. He has forgiven you. No one else can pay that price on your behalf, but he has forgiven you. He has made a way when there seemed to be no way. He has laid down his life so that you can live. He has mended the broken pieces back together. He has taken what you've handed him and made it whole. He's mended it together. He has brought healing to your body. He has given you strength when you felt weak. And when everyone else fades away, he is constant and he never leaves. No one will do for you what God has done for you. It says in verse 1 that his steadfast love endures forever. The definition of steadfast is to be firm, to be loyal, to be unwavering in one's faith and commitment, even through trials and suffering. There have been friends that have come and gone through each one of our lives. And when things got rough, all of a sudden that friend just kind of faded away. You're like, what happened to my friend? They didn't want to stick with you through the hard things, the hard seasons. And it says here that his steadfast love, his firm, loyal, and unwavering love endures forever. He is good. We do not give him thanks out of an abundance, but we give him thanks out of an obedience. Last week, when I was having private time with the Lord, I remember just telling him, thank you, thank you, thank you. And he so clearly kept telling me, do not thank me because I give you something, but just thank me out of an obedient heart because you want to. When I lived overseas, I would say thank you to a lot of people. And I would thank them because I was so grateful and appreciative for them helping me. I didn't want them to think I was just coming to them for something. But I wanted them to know that I was grateful. And it was the least thing that I could do was just say thank you. There's many times that I want to go above and beyond that. So I would be like, You're my new best friend. You helped me. Do you want to come over? I'll give you tea, I'll make you a muffin. What do you want to do? Let's hang out. Because you helped me, and I survived this crazy day here in this country. And I just wanted to express my gratitude to them so much. It was the least I could do was just say, Thank you, Shokran. Aoi, oui, oui, oui. Shokran. And here we have to make sure that we are doing the same thing with our lives to God. And that we are saying thank you, thank you, thank you. It says in Psalm 118 at the very end of the chapter, verses 28 and 29, you are my God, and I will give thanks to you. You are my God, I will extol you. Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever. We give thanks to him, for he is worthy. Amen. Give thanks. I'm gonna invite the worship team to come up this morning. And I just want to reiterate to you give thanks. It is a choice. So you're gonna choose each and every day if you're gonna be somebody with a grateful heart or not. Give thanks because it keeps your focus on God. A lot of things out there vying for your time, trying to distract you. But keep the main thing, the main thing, and that's Jesus. Give thanks for he is worthy. He is worthy. I'm gonna invite you to stand up this morning, and I just want to give an opportunity for people who may be here and they have never made that decision to follow Jesus. This is your day. Maybe you came here because you were invited by somebody, or you're here just because you were looking for a church and you just wandered in. We're so grateful that you're here today. We have a God who loves us and he created us in his image, and he has a purpose for our life. There is a reason that you are alive, there is a reason that you are breathing today. He has a plan. And many times when we go throughout our day, we make bad choices. It's just we're we naturally fall into sin. We naturally do things that are against the will of God or do not honor Him. And we have to come to that decision whether we are going to surrender our life back to the Creator and let Him take control and lead us and guide us and fulfill the very reason that you were created. And something happens when you just say, it's not about me anymore. I'm just gonna lay my life down and I'm gonna ask Jesus to come in. It says in Romans chapter 10, verses 9 and 10, because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. It's simple. You come to the realization that you cannot do things on your own. And you need God to help you. And so you say, God, I'm just gonna surrender my life to you right now. And in return, I'm gonna ask you to come in to my heart and I'm gonna believe on you. And from this day forward, I want to follow you and go wherever you're leading me because your ways are better than whatever plans I had. And when this happens, when you make that decision, when you say this prayer, there is a freedom that comes about in your life. It's almost like as if somebody was pushing your shoulders down. You begin to feel the weight come off. And you realize I don't have to do this alone, but I have a creator who will walk with me and lead me, and the Holy Spirit will come and guide me every single step of the way. It is not easy to be a follower of Jesus. It isn't. You don't get to hold daisies in your hand and skip around and say, oh, life's so easy. This is amazing. It's not like that. But you're not alone. And when you go through things, you have a family around you. You have God and you have people that He puts into your life that will walk with you on this journey. So this morning I'm gonna ask everyone just to bow their head out of reverence. And if you were in the building this morning and you're just hearing this for the first time, that there's a God who loves you. We want to pray with you. We want to stand with you. We want to see your life be fulfilled. And so I'm gonna ask you if you're in the house today, maybe you're watching online and you're like, Celeste, I want to make this decision to follow Jesus. It's never been presented to me. I don't even really know everything, but I want to make that decision to follow after the Lord with no one looking around but myself. I'm just gonna ask you just to put your hand up just so I can see you. I want to pray with you. We're gonna pray together as a group this morning. Amen. Amen. God is good, God is good, God is good. We're gonna ask everyone to repeat this prayer after me. God, thank you for loving me. Thank you for sending Jesus. I believe Jesus died on the cross for my sins. I believe he rose again. Forgive me of my sins. I surrender my life to you. In Christ's name. Amen. Amen, amen, amen. Amen. If you made that decision today that you want to follow after Jesus, you're gonna see a QR code on the screens on the side. Just take out your phone, just uh take a picture of that, it'll lead you. We want to be able to get resources into your hands. We want to give you a Bible if you don't have a Bible. And the most important thing is we want you to find a Bible-believing church. You got to be surrounded by people that can walk the journey of faith with you. If you live nearby, we invite you to join us. We would love to have you here. Give thanks. Give thanks. I can speak for myself, and I'm sure many of you, we don't give thanks enough. We don't. We wish that we did, but we don't. And so this altar call is gonna be a little bit different today. But I'm gonna ask that we just feel the front of this room today, and that we just give honor where honor is due, and that is to Jesus. That we just come with an attitude of thankfulness, with a heart of being grateful for all that he has done, and we just fill this place with praise and adoration to the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. So, Lord, I pray as the worship team plays that God, we would bring praise to your name. We're entering this week of Thanksgiving, but Lord, this is not the only time that we bring praise to you. It should be like second nature to us. We should be able to say, Thank you, Lord. I am so grateful, Father, for what you're doing. We should just begin to roll it out. In fact, when we're walking around and we're speaking it audibly, people should look at us and think we're crazy because we're constantly giving you praise. And so this morning, as we fill this place, may our praise and our hearts of thanksgiving just bless you this morning for all that you have done and all that you are, for you are good. In the mighty name of Jesus we pray. Amen.
Jason Brown:Can you believe it? Next week we're starting Christmas here at Cornerstone. Isn't that amazing? We have a lot of special events happening every week, something special. So I'm gonna encourage you that you would come out, invite friends to join us with you. Uh, we have a kids uh event that's gonna be happening midway through December. We have a family service to be happening, as well as we have Christmas Eve services on the 23rd and on the 24th. So make sure to put that on your calendar and invite friends alone.
Celeste Brown:And tonight is the night we are going to decorate this place. It's gonna be beautiful. So come and join us. I know sometimes you go home after church, you put on your pajamas, and you're done for the day. Come in your pajamas. We are ready for you. Um, bring a dish to share if you would like. It's gonna be fun, and there is something for everyone.
Jason Brown:Amen. Before we go, I want to pray this blessing over us. The Lord bless you and keep you. Lord, make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. Lord, lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Lord, I pray a blessing upon your church, your people. Lord, you empower us by your spirit to live your love unto those around us. Pray all this in the powerful name that is Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. God bless you, and happy Thanksgiving.