November 21, 2025 • 29 mins
"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!
To find out more, check out our website at playsonword.org
Plays On Word Newsletter Sign Up: https://playsonword.dm.networkforgood.com/forms/newsletter-sign-up
Does any of today's podcast resonate with you? Let us know here: https://playsonword.dm.networkforgood.com/forms/podcast-reviews
To Support Plays On Word Radio & Plays On Word Theater, please visit: https://playsonword.networkforgood
The Plays on Word Theater team is always setting up new performance dates! If you want us to visit your church/venue/community, please reach out with your inquiries here: https://playsonword.dm.networkforgood.com/forms/event-submission-form
Plays On Word website
Plays On Word YouTube
Plays On Word Facebook
Plays On Word Instagram
Email us: team@playsonword.org
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
Lord, you know this is the is the best because of
the fact that they were theywere so grateful to have because
they became five minutes.
SPEAKER_00 (01:02):
Hello, and welcome to Plays on Word Radio Young,
where we discuss analyze workand play on the word of God.
Okay, thank you for joining uson the security today.
Let's join Pastor Teddy, alsoknown as Fred David Kenny Jr.,
the founder of Plays on WordTheater, as he does a deep dive
into the Word of God.
SPEAKER_02 (01:22):
Amen, amen, amen, amen.
Thank you, all of you listeningto Plays on Word Radio.
My name is Fred David Kenny Jr.
Welcome to all of you listeningand streaming and however you
are listening to this.
Maybe you're driving, maybeyou're chilling with the feet
up, maybe you're, I don't know,going for a walk with the uh
(01:47):
headphones on, maybe you got aboom box going while you're
working.
God loves you.
And we are going to dive intosome stuff today.
The uh I often tell the churchwhere I um minister at, I
(02:08):
pastor, it's Calvary Southportin Southport, North Carolina.
And I often say that I feel likea chef that gets to work with
the best ingredients ever, theword of God.
And uh, you know, if you havegood ingredients, you have a
(02:31):
good piece of piece of steak, agood cut, man.
You don't really, all you haveto do is not mess it up.
You don't have to do much tomake 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 auh a five-star missile and chef.
(02:55):
Well, no, no, no, no, let me notsay that.
I feel like a chef that has thethe greatest fridge and freezer
and staff, and all I gotta do isjust basically not mess it up
with the word of God.
(03:16):
Okay, so with that in mind, wehave a uh an American holiday
coming up.
Next Thursday, or this Thursdaycoming up, I should say, uh, we
we celebrate something calledThanksgiving.
(03:39):
Now, for those of you that arenot in the US or not familiar
with the US, it is a holidaywhere we give thanks.
We are supposed to reflect onthings we are thankful for and
(04:02):
grateful for.
And it's kind of strange tryingto describe this, and we
celebrate it by pigging out,eating till we can't move.
I know it sounds bizarre, but weeat we eat turkey, stuffing,
(04:25):
cranberry.
What else am I forgetting?
Um, oh pecan pie.
And some parts of the countrythey call it pecan.
Pecan.
Pecan pie.
That's how my cousin Kevin Kennysays it.
Pecan.
That pecan pie is terrific.
He's not even from the South.
(04:46):
And he sounds southern.
Um, so yeah, we celebrate byeating and being with family.
It's one of the, if not the mostheaviestly, heaviest travel day
(05:07):
in the United States as far asroads and airports.
It's one of them, if not themost, where family members get
back together.
It's also a time of great.
Oh, what's the word I'm lookingfor?
Consternation, maybe, or uhagitation, or it's also a day of
(05:29):
great trouble.
It's where families get gettogether a lot of the time, get
together, and unfortunately,often remember why they move so
far away from each other in thefirst place.
Um the holiday of festivus hasthe airing of grievances, but I
(05:54):
think that comes from I thinkthat comes from Thanksgiving.
Um, so there have been somewhoppers, man, on Thanksgiving,
some family blowouts onThanksgiving.
You get some, you know, hardcoreliberal leftist family members
getting together with somehardcore conservative right wing
family members and Spark starflying, man.
(06:18):
Not always, but sometimes.
So that's also one of thehallmarks of the American
tradition of Thanksgiving.
What I would like to do thoughis I would like to look at the
scripture and just try to digout some concepts here about
(06:42):
Thanksgiving, not the Americanholiday, but basically the idea
and the concept of givingthanks.
And in the Hebrew, it's a littledifferent in the Hebrew the word
(07:04):
that many uh King James um andthe ESV and other translations
will translate as thanksgivingalso has a connotation of
praise.
(07:24):
Some might call it worship.
So, for example, if say you'reyeah your hands are full, right?
Your hands are full with withokay, let's let's make this
appropriate.
Your hands are full with giftsthat you buy on Black Friday or
Cyber Monday, but most likeBlack Friday, the Thanksgiving
(07:46):
Day sales.
It's also one of the largestsales days.
Many companies uh make theirwhole year budgets by the sales
that happen during this holiday.
So once again, we've turnedwe've turned something noble
into a commercial endeavor, butI digress.
Anyway, so your hands are fullwith some bags and some boxes,
(08:10):
and you have to go through thedoor.
And somebody comes to the doorand they open a door.
And you look at them, you say,Thank you, thank you.
You give thanks to them forthat.
Biblical thanksgiving is alittle different, a little bit
different.
There's praise involved,worship.
(08:33):
You're not praising the person,you're just saying thank you.
A simple thank you recognition.
Thank you for opening the doorfor me.
Uh that's a little bitdifferent.
And when it comes to God, wewant to be on the we want to be
on the praise side.
And when you recognize who he isand who you are, and what he has
(08:58):
done, and what you did.
When you recognize that, thatabsolutely, when that is
processed properly, producesthanksgiving that is praise.
(09:21):
Not just thank you, Lord, foropening 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 Idid, all the things I did, and
you forg forgave me, Lord.
(09:41):
You pulled me out of the pit,whatever, whatever it might be.
Some of you might be in themidst of something right now,
looking for that hand, lookingfor the light of God.
Reach out to Him, I'm tellingyou.
And you will look back and belike, Wow, Lord, thank you.
Just yesterday, my wife told me,I'm so thankful, I'm so grateful
(10:03):
for the nose.
Not the appendage on your facebetween your eyes.
No, the nose as far as NO, thedenials of request.
I'm so thankful for where theLord said no.
Think about that for a second.
(10:25):
You know, children lose theirminds when the parent says no.
You know, immaturity gets allworked up and upset when you
hear the word no.
The maturing Christianrecognizes that a no from God
really is a yes somewhere downthe line.
(10:48):
And that no from God can be aprotection at the time.
And he, when he says no, it'sbecause will we and and many of
you parents understand thiscompletely.
Many of you parents understandyou've had to say no to the
kids, and an explanation is inmany cases beyond um the kids'
(11:10):
comprehension.
I remember asking my dad, Dad, Iwant a hand glider.
He said no.
Thank God he said no.
Imagine that.
I'd be on the uh the Red Bullgames or whatever right now, or
in a wheelchair, or dead.
So, yeah.
Hey, thank God he said no tocertain people.
(11:33):
I thought maybe that's my wife.
Hmm?
Hey, can I get an amen?
I'm hearing amens coming acrossthe internet right now.
From some people that are like,amen to that.
I've yeah.
And then some people aregritting their teeth saying, Oh,
I wish, I mean, I wish I wouldhave asked them.
(11:53):
Hey, there's still hope for you,too.
That's the amazing thing aboutGod, Baddie.
He is the expert at taking amess, right?
Taking a mess and making amasterpiece.
Yep.
(12:14):
Oh, he takes a mess and makes amasterpiece.
Reminds me of, well, reminds meof the old Soul Train.
Was it the Scrabble board?
Remember the board on Soul.
Some of y'all, some of you guysdon't even.
What is so what is Soul Train?
Google it.
But they used to have the boardwhere they would scramble,
scramble all these letters, andyou would have to figure out who
(12:36):
what person.
It was usually a famous brotheror sister.
Um, you know, and you'd have aZ, a D, an E, like an N, uh
another E, and you'd be it'd beall scrambled.
And so as the song was going on,and you know, the people would
have yeah, some people arenodding their heads right now.
Now I'm bringing them back.
(12:57):
Yeah.
And you know, you they'd picktwo people, usually uh a dude
and a and a lady, and they'd bepicking out the letters and
unscrambling the scrambledletters, and you know, um, it
would they'd get to the pointwhere they unscrambled the
letter, and you'd start to seewhat okay, I know what that is.
Some people wouldn't um thisthis girl who grew up across the
(13:21):
street, Kiva, she was reallygood at she was good at she
could see she could see what itwas 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 orthat's Denzel Washington.
Okay, Denzel.
(13:41):
And you know, the two peoplewould win, they would they would
win uh special gifts, uh Lustrecurl products.
But I'm digressing.
So anyway, those of you thatknow, you know, that was a thing
Saturday morning.
Soul train.
That was the thing.
So maybe we could bring thatback with a Christian twist on
(14:04):
it.
Soul train.
The soul train.
Are you on it?
Hey, I'm gonna have to work onthe song and everything.
Okay, anyway, I'm off the rails.
We are back to the main pointThanksgiving and praise.
I wanted to share with you uh anidea, or not an idea, but a
(14:26):
story.
Check this out.
This is from the scripture.
I just have a couple differentideas to share with you.
There's really not an idea, it'smore of a story from the
scripture.
You guys know the story ofGenesis Joe.
We do a whole play, 90-minuteplay on it.
And the famine in the land wasso bad, and the people were.
(14:50):
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 theland, for the famine was very
severe, so that the land ofEgypt and the land of Canaan
languished by reason of thefamine.
And Joseph gathered up all themoney that was found in the land
of Egypt and in the land ofCanaan in exchange for the grain
(15:12):
that they bought that theybought.
And Joseph bought the money.
Well, let me get this right.
Joseph brought the money intoPharaoh's house.
And when the money was all spentin the land of Egypt and in the
land of Canaan, all theEgyptians came to Joseph and
said, Give us food.
Why should we die before youreyes?
(15:33):
For our money's gone.
And Joseph answered, Give yourlivestock, and I'll give you
food in exchange for yourlivestock, if your money is
gone.
So they brought their livestockto Joseph, and Joseph gave them
food in exchange for the horses,flocks, herds, donkeys.
He supplied them with food inexchange for all their livestock
(15:53):
that year.
When that year was ended, theycame to him the following year
and said to him, We will nothide from my lord that our money
is all spent.
The herds of livestock are allmy lords.
There's nothing left in thesight of my lord but our bodies
and our land.
Why should we die before youreyes, both we and our land?
(16:16):
By us, and our land for food,and we with our land will be
servants to Pharaoh, and give usseed that we may live and not
die, and that the land may notbe desolate.
(16:36):
So, this is verse 20.
So Joseph bought all the land ofEgypt for Pharaoh, for all the
Egyptians sold their fieldsbecause the famine was severe on
them.
The land became Pharaoh's.
As for the people, he madeservants of them from one end of
Egypt to the other.
Only the land of the priest hedid not buy, for the priest had
(16:59):
a fixed allowance from Pharaoh.
And Pharaoh l uh uh and theylived on the allowance from
Pharaoh that he gave them.
Therefore, they did not selltheir 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.
(17:20):
Now here is seed for you, andyou shall sow the land, and at
the harvest you shall give afifth to Pharaoh, and four
fifths shall be your own, asseed for the field, and as food
for yourselves and yourhouseholds, and as food for your
little ones.
And they said, Check it out, Youhave saved our lives.
(17:47):
May it please my Lord, we willbe servants to Pharaoh.
And Joseph made it a statute inthe land of Egypt, and it stands
to this day that the thatPharaoh should have a fifth.
The land of the priest did notbecome Pharaoh's.
That was it.
So, bottom line is these folks,they were facing extinction.
(18:14):
Extinction.
And they did everything in theirown strength, and they sold
everything they had.
They had nothing left.
They went to the man of God andbegged the man of God, Joseph,
type of Christ.
They went to him and they askedhim, they requested of him to
(18:42):
purchase them.
Some of y'all, I can see somelight bulbs going off right now.
Yeah, I see some peopleconnecting the dots.
We're smoking the internet rightnow.
Yeah.
And check this out the people.
Because of the fact that theywere saved, they were so
(19:03):
grateful to have their lives.
They didn't care because theybecame, you know, they became
slaves to a good to good fair agood Pharaoh and the good man of
God who cared for them and theirlittle ones and provided for
them.
That they proclaimed, you havesaved our lives.
(19:27):
We will basically we will gladlybecome servants to Pharaoh.
Gladly.
Now, isn't that the trueChristian today?
Gladly a slave of Christ.
Look at the Apostle Paul.
Gladly, a slave, a servant.
You have saved our lives.
(19:50):
Therefore, we're stoked, we'reamped up, we're ready to go
serve whatever you want.
That's the true motivation of atrue Christian.
Notice, they're not um, they'renot trying to get their lives
saved by doing these good works.
(20:10):
We're doing all these goodworks, so you'll save us.
No, we're doing all these goodworks because you saved us.
There you go.
Something similar happens in thethe book of Acts, and this is
this is like indirectthanksgiving.
I could quote you all abazillion different verses where
it says thanksgiving and praise.
(20:32):
Okay, I could do that, but Ijust want to give you some
indirect stuff.
You remember the story ofPhilip, the evangelist, chapter
8 of Acts, and the Ethiopianeunuch, right?
And uh I'm gonna read that toyou from verse 26.
It says, Now the angel of theLord said to Philip, Rise and go
towards the south, to the roadthat goes down from Jerusalem to
(20:54):
Gaza.
This is a desert place.
And he rose and went.
And there was an Ethiopianeunuch, a court official of
Candace, queen of theEthiopians, who was in charge of
all her treasure.
He had come to Jerusalem toworship, and was returning
seated in his chariot.
And he was reading the prophetIsaiah, verse 29.
(21:14):
And the spirit said to Philip,Go over and join his chariot,
verse 30.
So Philip ran to him and heardhim reading Isaiah the prophet
and asked, Do you understandwhat you're reading?
And he said, How can I, unlesssomebody guides me?
(21:36):
And he invited Philip to come upand sit with him.
Now, do you realize what'shappening here?
This guy is a high official man.
And here Philip is invited toget into his limo with him.
And he invited Philip.
Now the the passage of scripturethat he was reading was this:
(21:58):
like a sheep he was led to theslaughter, like a lamb before
its shears is silent.
So he opened not his mouth.
In his humiliation, justice wasdenied him.
Who can describe his generation?
For his life was taken away fromthe earth.
Now that's coming from Isaiah53.
So, just in case you wanted toknow.
(22:20):
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 somebodyelse?
Then Philip opened his mouth,and beginning with this
scripture, he told him the goodnews about Jesus.
Of course, we all know, well,most of us know, or you at least
(22:44):
you should know that Isaiah 53is about Jesus.
Okay?
Go back and read it, and you'llhave a uh uh a greater insight
about Jesus.
And verse 36, and as they weregoing along the road, they came
to some water, and the eunuchsaid, See, here's some water.
What prevents me from beingbaptized?
(23:05):
And he commanded the chariot tostop, and they both went down to
the water, Philip and theeunuch, and he baptized him.
This is awesome.
He baptized him.
Man, look at that.
Verse 39, and when he came upout of the water, the Spirit of
the Lord carried Philip away,and the eunuch saw him no more,
(23:29):
and went on his way rejoicing.
Now, indirect thanksgiving.
This guy, no doubt, was givingthanks to God for sending this
guy, Philip, out of nowhere.
(23:50):
Philip, hey, Philip left ajamming revival in Samaria.
He had a revival going on,people were getting saved, you
know, it was happening.
And the Lord was like, allright, I want you to get up and
go.
He left a jamming revival to goto the middle of the desert, but
he was obedient.
(24:10):
And this guy, this highofficial, this heavy hitter, it
would be like the Secretary ofthe Treasury, man, of the United
States.
A cabinet official ends upgetting saved.
Baptized.
(24:31):
And what was that all what wasthat all about when it says when
he came up out the water?
The Spirit of the Lord carriedPhilip away.
Yo! Just for you guys, for youuh folks that like to dive
deeper.
(24:53):
I believe the word, I don't haveit in front of me, but I'm
pretty sure I'm pretty sure theword is harpazo.
Harpazo, the Greek word.
Same word that Paul uses in 1Thessalonians 4.
That we're gonna be caught up.
Yeah.
And it's the same word thatJerome translated in his Latin
(25:18):
translation of the uh Greek.
He translated that word intorapturous.
Yeah.
So that's where the term rapturecomes from.
The phrase is not in the Bible,but the the Greek root that it
(25:43):
that it comes from.
I want to say Greek root.
The Greek word that inspired itto Jerome is Harpazo.
Think about how thankful thisguy was that the Lord engineered
stuff in his life for him tohear the gospel and to come to
(26:07):
Christ.
He did the same thing forCornelius 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 theywere thanking God like he opened
the door for them, whatever?
You know, thanks for holding thedoor for me for a second there.
(26:29):
No, they thanked from theirheart, from a place of woe,
Lord.
And it's not just thanks, it'spraise.
unknown (26:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (26:41):
So, my brothers and sisters listening to Plays on
Word Radio right now, if I canencourage 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.
(27:05):
Good.
The standard of good.
He is righteous and perfect andholy.
And on top of that, he caresabout you.
Regardless of how you feel aboutyourself.
He says otherwise.
(27:26):
He says you're of value to him.
So if you're in a funk rightnow, let that pull you out.
If you're having a tough time,look up.
Because somebody says somethinggood about you.
(27:47):
And not just it's not justtalking, because he his actions
declared what he feels.
He demonstrated his agape, hislove.
He had demonstrated it for us inthe cross of Christ.
(28:10):
That you are worth so much thathe was not about to let you go
into eternity without having theoption to be with him for all
eternity.
(28:30):
That's the ultimate miracle,man.
How did he pull that off?
To judge my sin and to not sweepit under the rug.
It's amazing.
Amazing.
Much more could be said on this.
(28:51):
Unfortunately, we're out oftime.
So until next week.
And don't need too much,alright, you Americans.
Until next week, the Lord blessyou and keep you.
The Lord make his face to shineupon you and be gracious to you.
SPEAKER_00 (29:05):
The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give
you peace.org.
Lord, you know this is the is the best because of
the fact that they were theywere so grateful to have because
they became five minutes.
SPEAKER_00 (01:02):
Hello, and welcome to Plays on Word Radio Young,
where we discuss analyze workand play on the word of God.
Okay, thank you for joining uson the security today.
Let's join Pastor Teddy, alsoknown as Fred David Kenny Jr.,
the founder of Plays on WordTheater, as he does a deep dive
into the Word of God.
SPEAKER_02 (01:22):
Amen, amen, amen, amen.
Thank you, all of you listeningto Plays on Word Radio.
My name is Fred David Kenny Jr.
Welcome to all of you listeningand streaming and however you
are listening to this.
Maybe you're driving, maybeyou're chilling with the feet
up, maybe you're, I don't know,going for a walk with the uh
(01:47):
headphones on, maybe you got aboom box going while you're
working.
God loves you.
And we are going to dive intosome stuff today.
The uh I often tell the churchwhere I um minister at, I
(02:08):
pastor, it's Calvary Southportin Southport, North Carolina.
And I often say that I feel likea chef that gets to work with
the best ingredients ever, theword of God.
And uh, you know, if you havegood ingredients, you have a
(02:31):
good piece of piece of steak, agood cut, man.
You don't really, all you haveto do is not mess it up.
You don't have to do much tomake 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 auh a five-star missile and chef.
(02:55):
Well, no, no, no, no, let me notsay that.
I feel like a chef that has thethe greatest fridge and freezer
and staff, and all I gotta do isjust basically not mess it up
with the word of God.
(03:16):
Okay, so with that in mind, wehave a uh an American holiday
coming up.
Next Thursday, or this Thursdaycoming up, I should say, uh, we
we celebrate something calledThanksgiving.
(03:39):
Now, for those of you that arenot in the US or not familiar
with the US, it is a holidaywhere we give thanks.
We are supposed to reflect onthings we are thankful for and
(04:02):
grateful for.
And it's kind of strange tryingto describe this, and we
celebrate it by pigging out,eating till we can't move.
I know it sounds bizarre, but weeat we eat turkey, stuffing,
(04:25):
cranberry.
What else am I forgetting?
Um, oh pecan pie.
And some parts of the countrythey call it pecan.
Pecan.
Pecan pie.
That's how my cousin Kevin Kennysays it.
Pecan.
That pecan pie is terrific.
He's not even from the South.
(04:46):
And he sounds southern.
Um, so yeah, we celebrate byeating and being with family.
It's one of the, if not the mostheaviestly, heaviest travel day
(05:07):
in the United States as far asroads and airports.
It's one of them, if not themost, where family members get
back together.
It's also a time of great.
Oh, what's the word I'm lookingfor?
Consternation, maybe, or uhagitation, or it's also a day of
(05:29):
great trouble.
It's where families get gettogether a lot of the time, get
together, and unfortunately,often remember why they move so
far away from each other in thefirst place.
Um the holiday of festivus hasthe airing of grievances, but I
(05:54):
think that comes from I thinkthat comes from Thanksgiving.
Um, so there have been somewhoppers, man, on Thanksgiving,
some family blowouts onThanksgiving.
You get some, you know, hardcoreliberal leftist family members
getting together with somehardcore conservative right wing
family members and Spark starflying, man.
(06:18):
Not always, but sometimes.
So that's also one of thehallmarks of the American
tradition of Thanksgiving.
What I would like to do thoughis I would like to look at the
scripture and just try to digout some concepts here about
(06:42):
Thanksgiving, not the Americanholiday, but basically the idea
and the concept of givingthanks.
And in the Hebrew, it's a littledifferent in the Hebrew the word
(07:04):
that many uh King James um andthe ESV and other translations
will translate as thanksgivingalso has a connotation of
praise.
(07:24):
Some might call it worship.
So, for example, if say you'reyeah your hands are full, right?
Your hands are full with withokay, let's let's make this
appropriate.
Your hands are full with giftsthat you buy on Black Friday or
Cyber Monday, but most likeBlack Friday, the Thanksgiving
(07:46):
Day sales.
It's also one of the largestsales days.
Many companies uh make theirwhole year budgets by the sales
that happen during this holiday.
So once again, we've turnedwe've turned something noble
into a commercial endeavor, butI digress.
Anyway, so your hands are fullwith some bags and some boxes,
(08:10):
and you have to go through thedoor.
And somebody comes to the doorand they open a door.
And you look at them, you say,Thank you, thank you.
You give thanks to them forthat.
Biblical thanksgiving is alittle different, a little bit
different.
There's praise involved,worship.
(08:33):
You're not praising the person,you're just saying thank you.
A simple thank you recognition.
Thank you for opening the doorfor me.
Uh that's a little bitdifferent.
And when it comes to God, wewant to be on the we want to be
on the praise side.
And when you recognize who he isand who you are, and what he has
(08:58):
done, and what you did.
When you recognize that, thatabsolutely, when that is
processed properly, producesthanksgiving that is praise.
(09:21):
Not just thank you, Lord, foropening 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 Idid, all the things I did, and
you forg forgave me, Lord.
(09:41):
You pulled me out of the pit,whatever, whatever it might be.
Some of you might be in themidst of something right now,
looking for that hand, lookingfor the light of God.
Reach out to Him, I'm tellingyou.
And you will look back and belike, Wow, Lord, thank you.
Just yesterday, my wife told me,I'm so thankful, I'm so grateful
(10:03):
for the nose.
Not the appendage on your facebetween your eyes.
No, the nose as far as NO, thedenials of request.
I'm so thankful for where theLord said no.
Think about that for a second.
(10:25):
You know, children lose theirminds when the parent says no.
You know, immaturity gets allworked up and upset when you
hear the word no.
The maturing Christianrecognizes that a no from God
really is a yes somewhere downthe line.
(10:48):
And that no from God can be aprotection at the time.
And he, when he says no, it'sbecause will we and and many of
you parents understand thiscompletely.
Many of you parents understandyou've had to say no to the
kids, and an explanation is inmany cases beyond um the kids'
(11:10):
comprehension.
I remember asking my dad, Dad, Iwant a hand glider.
He said no.
Thank God he said no.
Imagine that.
I'd be on the uh the Red Bullgames or whatever right now, or
in a wheelchair, or dead.
So, yeah.
Hey, thank God he said no tocertain people.
(11:33):
I thought maybe that's my wife.
Hmm?
Hey, can I get an amen?
I'm hearing amens coming acrossthe internet right now.
From some people that are like,amen to that.
I've yeah.
And then some people aregritting their teeth saying, Oh,
I wish, I mean, I wish I wouldhave asked them.
(11:53):
Hey, there's still hope for you,too.
That's the amazing thing aboutGod, Baddie.
He is the expert at taking amess, right?
Taking a mess and making amasterpiece.
Yep.
(12:14):
Oh, he takes a mess and makes amasterpiece.
Reminds me of, well, reminds meof the old Soul Train.
Was it the Scrabble board?
Remember the board on Soul.
Some of y'all, some of you guysdon't even.
What is so what is Soul Train?
Google it.
But they used to have the boardwhere they would scramble,
scramble all these letters, andyou would have to figure out who
(12:36):
what person.
It was usually a famous brotheror sister.
Um, you know, and you'd have aZ, a D, an E, like an N, uh
another E, and you'd be it'd beall scrambled.
And so as the song was going on,and you know, the people would
have yeah, some people arenodding their heads right now.
Now I'm bringing them back.
(12:57):
Yeah.
And you know, you they'd picktwo people, usually uh a dude
and a and a lady, and they'd bepicking out the letters and
unscrambling the scrambledletters, and you know, um, it
would they'd get to the pointwhere they unscrambled the
letter, and you'd start to seewhat okay, I know what that is.
Some people wouldn't um thisthis girl who grew up across the
(13:21):
street, Kiva, she was reallygood at she was good at she
could see she could see what itwas 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 orthat's Denzel Washington.
Okay, Denzel.
(13:41):
And you know, the two peoplewould win, they would they would
win uh special gifts, uh Lustrecurl products.
But I'm digressing.
So anyway, those of you thatknow, you know, that was a thing
Saturday morning.
Soul train.
That was the thing.
So maybe we could bring thatback with a Christian twist on
(14:04):
it.
Soul train.
The soul train.
Are you on it?
Hey, I'm gonna have to work onthe song and everything.
Okay, anyway, I'm off the rails.
We are back to the main pointThanksgiving and praise.
I wanted to share with you uh anidea, or not an idea, but a
(14:26):
story.
Check this out.
This is from the scripture.
I just have a couple differentideas to share with you.
There's really not an idea, it'smore of a story from the
scripture.
You guys know the story ofGenesis Joe.
We do a whole play, 90-minuteplay on it.
And the famine in the land wasso bad, and the people were.
(14:50):
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 theland, for the famine was very
severe, so that the land ofEgypt and the land of Canaan
languished by reason of thefamine.
And Joseph gathered up all themoney that was found in the land
of Egypt and in the land ofCanaan in exchange for the grain
(15:12):
that they bought that theybought.
And Joseph bought the money.
Well, let me get this right.
Joseph brought the money intoPharaoh's house.
And when the money was all spentin the land of Egypt and in the
land of Canaan, all theEgyptians came to Joseph and
said, Give us food.
Why should we die before youreyes?
(15:33):
For our money's gone.
And Joseph answered, Give yourlivestock, and I'll give you
food in exchange for yourlivestock, if your money is
gone.
So they brought their livestockto Joseph, and Joseph gave them
food in exchange for the horses,flocks, herds, donkeys.
He supplied them with food inexchange for all their livestock
(15:53):
that year.
When that year was ended, theycame to him the following year
and said to him, We will nothide from my lord that our money
is all spent.
The herds of livestock are allmy lords.
There's nothing left in thesight of my lord but our bodies
and our land.
Why should we die before youreyes, both we and our land?
(16:16):
By us, and our land for food,and we with our land will be
servants to Pharaoh, and give usseed that we may live and not
die, and that the land may notbe desolate.
(16:36):
So, this is verse 20.
So Joseph bought all the land ofEgypt for Pharaoh, for all the
Egyptians sold their fieldsbecause the famine was severe on
them.
The land became Pharaoh's.
As for the people, he madeservants of them from one end of
Egypt to the other.
Only the land of the priest hedid not buy, for the priest had
(16:59):
a fixed allowance from Pharaoh.
And Pharaoh l uh uh and theylived on the allowance from
Pharaoh that he gave them.
Therefore, they did not selltheir 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.
(17:20):
Now here is seed for you, andyou shall sow the land, and at
the harvest you shall give afifth to Pharaoh, and four
fifths shall be your own, asseed for the field, and as food
for yourselves and yourhouseholds, and as food for your
little ones.
And they said, Check it out, Youhave saved our lives.
(17:47):
May it please my Lord, we willbe servants to Pharaoh.
And Joseph made it a statute inthe land of Egypt, and it stands
to this day that the thatPharaoh should have a fifth.
The land of the priest did notbecome Pharaoh's.
That was it.
So, bottom line is these folks,they were facing extinction.
(18:14):
Extinction.
And they did everything in theirown strength, and they sold
everything they had.
They had nothing left.
They went to the man of God andbegged the man of God, Joseph,
type of Christ.
They went to him and they askedhim, they requested of him to
(18:42):
purchase them.
Some of y'all, I can see somelight bulbs going off right now.
Yeah, I see some peopleconnecting the dots.
We're smoking the internet rightnow.
Yeah.
And check this out the people.
Because of the fact that theywere saved, they were so
(19:03):
grateful to have their lives.
They didn't care because theybecame, you know, they became
slaves to a good to good fair agood Pharaoh and the good man of
God who cared for them and theirlittle ones and provided for
them.
That they proclaimed, you havesaved our lives.
(19:27):
We will basically we will gladlybecome servants to Pharaoh.
Gladly.
Now, isn't that the trueChristian today?
Gladly a slave of Christ.
Look at the Apostle Paul.
Gladly, a slave, a servant.
You have saved our lives.
(19:50):
Therefore, we're stoked, we'reamped up, we're ready to go
serve whatever you want.
That's the true motivation of atrue Christian.
Notice, they're not um, they'renot trying to get their lives
saved by doing these good works.
(20:10):
We're doing all these goodworks, so you'll save us.
No, we're doing all these goodworks because you saved us.
There you go.
Something similar happens in thethe book of Acts, and this is
this is like indirectthanksgiving.
I could quote you all abazillion different verses where
it says thanksgiving and praise.
(20:32):
Okay, I could do that, but Ijust want to give you some
indirect stuff.
You remember the story ofPhilip, the evangelist, chapter
8 of Acts, and the Ethiopianeunuch, right?
And uh I'm gonna read that toyou from verse 26.
It says, Now the angel of theLord said to Philip, Rise and go
towards the south, to the roadthat goes down from Jerusalem to
(20:54):
Gaza.
This is a desert place.
And he rose and went.
And there was an Ethiopianeunuch, a court official of
Candace, queen of theEthiopians, who was in charge of
all her treasure.
He had come to Jerusalem toworship, and was returning
seated in his chariot.
And he was reading the prophetIsaiah, verse 29.
(21:14):
And the spirit said to Philip,Go over and join his chariot,
verse 30.
So Philip ran to him and heardhim reading Isaiah the prophet
and asked, Do you understandwhat you're reading?
And he said, How can I, unlesssomebody guides me?
(21:36):
And he invited Philip to come upand sit with him.
Now, do you realize what'shappening here?
This guy is a high official man.
And here Philip is invited toget into his limo with him.
And he invited Philip.
Now the the passage of scripturethat he was reading was this:
(21:58):
like a sheep he was led to theslaughter, like a lamb before
its shears is silent.
So he opened not his mouth.
In his humiliation, justice wasdenied him.
Who can describe his generation?
For his life was taken away fromthe earth.
Now that's coming from Isaiah53.
So, just in case you wanted toknow.
(22:20):
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 somebodyelse?
Then Philip opened his mouth,and beginning with this
scripture, he told him the goodnews about Jesus.
Of course, we all know, well,most of us know, or you at least
(22:44):
you should know that Isaiah 53is about Jesus.
Okay?
Go back and read it, and you'llhave a uh uh a greater insight
about Jesus.
And verse 36, and as they weregoing along the road, they came
to some water, and the eunuchsaid, See, here's some water.
What prevents me from beingbaptized?
(23:05):
And he commanded the chariot tostop, and they both went down to
the water, Philip and theeunuch, and he baptized him.
This is awesome.
He baptized him.
Man, look at that.
Verse 39, and when he came upout of the water, the Spirit of
the Lord carried Philip away,and the eunuch saw him no more,
(23:29):
and went on his way rejoicing.
Now, indirect thanksgiving.
This guy, no doubt, was givingthanks to God for sending this
guy, Philip, out of nowhere.
(23:50):
Philip, hey, Philip left ajamming revival in Samaria.
He had a revival going on,people were getting saved, you
know, it was happening.
And the Lord was like, allright, I want you to get up and
go.
He left a jamming revival to goto the middle of the desert, but
he was obedient.
(24:10):
And this guy, this highofficial, this heavy hitter, it
would be like the Secretary ofthe Treasury, man, of the United
States.
A cabinet official ends upgetting saved.
Baptized.
(24:31):
And what was that all what wasthat all about when it says when
he came up out the water?
The Spirit of the Lord carriedPhilip away.
Yo! Just for you guys, for youuh folks that like to dive
deeper.
(24:53):
I believe the word, I don't haveit in front of me, but I'm
pretty sure I'm pretty sure theword is harpazo.
Harpazo, the Greek word.
Same word that Paul uses in 1Thessalonians 4.
That we're gonna be caught up.
Yeah.
And it's the same word thatJerome translated in his Latin
(25:18):
translation of the uh Greek.
He translated that word intorapturous.
Yeah.
So that's where the term rapturecomes from.
The phrase is not in the Bible,but the the Greek root that it
(25:43):
that it comes from.
I want to say Greek root.
The Greek word that inspired itto Jerome is Harpazo.
Think about how thankful thisguy was that the Lord engineered
stuff in his life for him tohear the gospel and to come to
(26:07):
Christ.
He did the same thing forCornelius 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 theywere thanking God like he opened
the door for them, whatever?
You know, thanks for holding thedoor for me for a second there.
(26:29):
No, they thanked from theirheart, from a place of woe,
Lord.
And it's not just thanks, it'spraise.
unknown (26:38):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (26:41):
So, my brothers and sisters listening to Plays on
Word Radio right now, if I canencourage 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.
(27:05):
Good.
The standard of good.
He is righteous and perfect andholy.
And on top of that, he caresabout you.
Regardless of how you feel aboutyourself.
He says otherwise.
(27:26):
He says you're of value to him.
So if you're in a funk rightnow, let that pull you out.
If you're having a tough time,look up.
Because somebody says somethinggood about you.
(27:47):
And not just it's not justtalking, because he his actions
declared what he feels.
He demonstrated his agape, hislove.
He had demonstrated it for us inthe cross of Christ.
(28:10):
That you are worth so much thathe was not about to let you go
into eternity without having theoption to be with him for all
eternity.
(28:30):
That's the ultimate miracle,man.
How did he pull that off?
To judge my sin and to not sweepit under the rug.
It's amazing.
Amazing.
Much more could be said on this.
(28:51):
Unfortunately, we're out oftime.
So until next week.
And don't need too much,alright, you Americans.
Until next week, the Lord blessyou and keep you.
The Lord make his face to shineupon you and be gracious to you.
SPEAKER_00 (29:05):
The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give
you peace.org.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.