Prayer and Thanksgiving

You are listening to a message from Thrive Community Church, a church located in Southwest Florida. For more info, visit us at thrive-fl.org. Less preaching and more praying today, okay? So this sermon is going to be a little shorter, and we have dedicated this Sunday specifically to a time when we are going to gather together in small groups and corporately to pray for God's will to be done through our church into this community, especially after the last few years. Actually, if you're new to this area, good for you. You missed it all. Ian just happened this fall, and COVID for the last couple of years prior to that. And before that, it all seems to sandwich together, but then we had Irma five years ago. And over the last five years, we have, as a congregation, done many things. And I've reached out into the community in many ways and onto the campus of Florida Gulf Coast University, and God has blessed many of those efforts. And yet at the same time, we are at this point where we're asking, okay Lord, now what? Every time we make some plans, then something like Ian comes along, or COVID really kind of put a kibosh on a lot of things. And so that's just, it's like, okay Lord, I think it's time for us to corporately, publicly, privately, and in every way just be praying for your will to be done through us individually and as a congregation. So that's what we're gonna do today. Now next week, I know, it's not like, I don't want you to stop praying, but we're gonna do a new series called Florida Christmas. And Christmas is a little different down here. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Now I don't know why I'm dreaming of a white Christmas. It's kind of the way everybody thinks of Christmas, because the original probably wasn't. Okay. We don't even know what time of the year Jesus was born. Do you realize that? It was picked as one of the darkest times of the year to show that the light of God was shining into this world in the early church. But when was Jesus born? Well, if the shepherds on the hills were part of the story, and they are in Luke chapter 2, most likely that happened in the springtime. When, like California, the Mediterranean climate of Israel, the rains have come over the winter and the hills are finally green for a while, and that's when you have the sheep out there. So we really don't know. But I'll tell you this, the first Christmas had much more to do like the Florida climate than it does the Canadian climate. And I don't know anywhere in the Bible that it says the North Pole is ever mentioned. Okay. So we're gonna kind of do different scenes. Like, first of all, there's a prophecy from, I think it's Isaiah, that he talks about the knowledge of the Lord will be like the sand that covers, you know, as multitudinous as the sands. And so we're gonna be talking sandy claws, as in the claws or phrase of God's promise. We're gonna look at how palm trees and the promises of God and how that fits together, how we're dreaming of a hot or warm Christmas, because often that's probably what it was. Anyways, you kind of get the drift of where we're going with all that, just not a snow drift. So that'll be all the way through the month of December, including January 1st. Yeah, Christmas Day is on a Sunday. We will not be actually having worship that day, but I will be creating a video to watch with your family at home, and a worship time with your family would be great, right? And then January 1st, we will have a service that morning. So just don't party too hardy on New Year's Eve, okay? But our text today is we're going to have, as we will move into a time of prayer afterwards, is from the Gospel of Matthew chapter 7. Ask and it will be given you. Seek and you will find. Knock and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives. And the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which of you, one of you, if his son asks him for bread will give him a stone, or if he asks for a fish will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your father who is in heaven give you good things to those who ask him? So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them. For this is the law in the prophets. Enter by the narrow gate, for the gate is wide, and the way is easy that leads to destruction. And those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few. So far the text that we're looking at, these verses from part of what Jesus, what has been called the Sermon on the Mount, he kind of takes the place of Moses, he becomes a greater Moses in that message, and proclaims the heart of the entire plan that God has for this world, and how we are to live into it. And part of this in some ways is about prayer, but also God's disposition with us, how God looks at us, and how he wants to give to us. But prayer, are you ever puzzled by prayer? Li...