Joyful, Prayerful, Thankful:
A Conversation About Giving Thanks
November 7, 2025
Host: Dr. Isaac Crockett
Guest: Dr. Bob Lepine
Note: This transcript is taken from a Stand in the Gap Today program aired on 11/7/25. To listen to the podcast, click HERE.
Disclaimer: While reasonable efforts have been made to provide an accurate transcription, the following is a representation of a mechanical transcription and as such, may not be a word for word transcript. Please listen to the audio version for any questions concerning the following dialogue.
Isaac Crockett:
Well, welcome to this Friday edition of Stand In the Gap Today. And if you’re listening, you’re not going to hear the regular voice of Sam Rohrer, the president of the American Pastors Network and our normal host on our programs. You can go to our Facebook page, Stand in the Gap Today and see pictures of Sam and his wife. They’re over in Israel right now. Have some special meetings going on, but you probably will recognize the voice of our guest. It’s a return guest who’s been on our program a lot, but many of you’ll say I know that voice from somewhere. And that’s because today you’ll hear Pastor Bob Lepine, who’s known by many for years and years of co-hosting Family Life today. Some of you might recognize him from Family Radio Network or as the announcer on Truth for Life. And I guess, Bob, you’ve been really on radio for probably most of your adult life. Bob’s the lead pastor at Redeemer Community Church in Little Rock, Arkansas. He’s an author, a husband, father, grandfather. A lot of different things we could say, but Bob today, thank you for being on our program for making time to be with us.
Bob Lepine:
It is a privilege. Thanks for the opportunity, Isaac.
Isaac Crockett:
Well, I am Pastor Isaac Crockett and Pastor Bob Lepine and I are wanting to talk about giving thanks. It’s this time of year things start to feel like they’re just leading up faster and faster to all the holiday gatherings or special events at church. But the month of November, we especially think of Thanksgiving, and yet really throughout all of this busy time and throughout every day all through the year, we are called to give thanks. And so we want to look at a very helpful passage of scripture today. It’s actually a passage that commands us as Christians to be joyful, be prayerful, and be thankful. But before we get into all of that, Bob, I just want to ask, as we get into this season where we at least talk about Thanksgiving and being thankful, are there any things in your home that you maybe have as traditions? And then maybe if you could also talk to us a little bit about how you encourage people at your church and other places to keep an attitude of Thanksgiving throughout the year.
Bob Lepine:
Well, our home dynamic has changed over the years and today it’s, excuse me, sorry. You’ve got a little of that going on too right now, don’t you?
Isaac Crockett:
Yeah, I don’t know. It’s that time of year for this.
Bob Lepine:
It’s that time of year. So our dynamics has changed with children and grandchildren now who live out of state when our kids were little, Thanksgiving was a time when we would get together with my mom. She usually made the Turkey. Sometimes we went to her house Thanksgiving, sometimes she came over to our house for Thanksgiving. But it seems like Thanksgiving day is always built around the familiar meal, the dishes that we all look forward to at Thanksgiving time, and then maybe there’s a football game squeezed in here and there. But we did try to make sure that the meal included opportunities for us to reflect on and give specific thanks for what have been highlights in our year. And so we would do things at the Thanksgiving meal where we would have people pull out a grain of corn maybe and just talk about what was one thing they were thankful for or we’d have a special at desserts, there’d be an opportunity to give thanks and to give thanks for one another.
We’d talk about who around the table are we thankful for and what is it specifically? I think it’s good. It’s a good discipline and a good practice for us to get in the habit of regularly recognizing all of the blessings that we have in our lives. I remember Ann Voskamp wrote a book, I think it was called a thousand Prayers or a thousand, I forget what it was, but she made it a practice every morning to get up and write down five things she was thankful for. And she did it so that she would begin her day with a spirit of thankfulness in her own life because she recognized that unless she sets her mind on gratitude, it’s easy for our minds to go right to grumbling. And so she was disciplining herself to be a person who is by nature more grateful. And I think that’s something all of us can be disciplining ourselves to do throughout the year, not just on Thanksgiving, not just in November, but gratitude is a grace that we should seek to cultivate. It may not be listed among the fruit of the spirit, but being grateful is the posture that accompanies the gospel.
Isaac Crockett:
It seems so often that we default to this ingratitude to just kind of expecting things and then we get mad and say, well, how dare they treat me that way or something. And so yeah, you’re right. We need to discipline ourselves to see, to be thankful, to have gratitude to the Lord and for what’s going on. We’re going to dig into a passage about joyfulness and Thanksgiving, one Thessalonians five 16 through 18 today. But before we do, could you maybe lay some groundwork for this passage in the context of what’s going on in this church that Paul is writing to
Bob Lepine:
In this church? Paul is writing to the church at Thessalonica. And by the way, it’s always good to ask the question about context. I commend you for that, and I would encourage our listeners, whenever you come to a passage of scripture, it’s good to know what’s the context for this. When Paul gives the commands he gives in one Thessalonians five, why is he giving these particular commands? And in this case, after laying out a theological foundation for the church, which is Paul’s pattern, he begins his letters by talking about what God has done for us in Christ. Then he gets to the imperatives. So we start with the indicatives, what is true? And then Paul always moves to the imperatives, how should we live as a result of believing what is true? If this is true, if God has done these things for us in Christ, then how should we live our lives?
And in chapter five, there is a section where he just gives one instruction after another, one, command after another, encourage one another, build one another up. Respect those who labor among you and esteem them highly be it peace among yourselves. Admonish the idol. I mean it’s a listing. There are 18 commands in this passage that’s like 12 verses. And among those commands verses 16, 17, and 18, these are easy verses to memorize. You’re looking for a verse to memorize today, verse Thessalonians five 16. Rejoice always, you just got that one memorized. Okay, and then 17, pray without ceasing. And then 18 says, give thanks. In all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. He’s telling these people, this is how we live together in the body of Christ. This is how we get along with one another. This is what our life in union with one another should look like.
We’re to be in unity in the body of Christ. And a part of that unity means that we are rejoicing, that we are prayerful, praying without ceasing, and we’re to give thanks in all circumstances because that’s the will of God for us in Christ Jesus. And it’s one of those verses I default to when it gets to November and I start thinking about Thanksgiving because I need to in everything, give thanks. Will people say, I want to know God’s will for my life. Well, here it is, give thanks in all things. This is God’s will for you.
Isaac Crockett:
I love that and I love kind of where we’re headed with this Bob, talking about how we can be joyful, prayerful and thankful. It reminds me of the Fannie Crosby song. This is my story. This is my song Praising My Savior all the day long, that blessed assurance that she wrote of and that is our assurance, and there’s just so many things we can think about to praise the Lord for, and yet our default so often is not. It takes discipline to have that spirit of gratitude that you were talking about, but we’re going to take our first break to hear from some of our partners when we come back, we’ll talk about this and I hope you’ll remember be joyful, prayerful, and thankful. We’ll be right back after this. We’ll, welcome back to the program. I’m glad that you’re listening. I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett and we’re talking with Pastor Bob Lepine, who has a lot of experience on the radio having spent, I guess, Bob, most of your adult life. You’ve been dealing with radio, haven’t you?
Bob Lepine:
Yeah, I’m thinking back to the first time I went on the radio and it was actually, I guess next year it’ll be 50 years that I’ve been on radio in one form or another. So it’s all my life really.
Isaac Crockett:
Yeah, I was just thinking that’s a lot longer than I realized. So wow, you must’ve been very young when you got started then. And this has just been one of your life’s callings, and God has used this for many of us. We recognize your voice and your wisdom that comes from that. I would encourage you, if you’re listening to us right now, whether you’re listening on a stream or podcast or a radio, unless you’re driving a car, this might not be a good idea. But to take your phone out or to take your actual physical Bible out and turn to First Thessalonians chapter five. We’re talking about a very relevant cultural topic today, but there are many passages we could go to, but first Thessalonians five is going to be where we’re going to be yet. And Bob, could you maybe read this passage for us again and you were talking about memorizing scripture.
We encourage everybody to memorize a scripture. I think we have a weekly scripture that we often give out, but this would be something that these three verses are very short. You could memorize one of these verses every day and it would go together really well. Bob, would you maybe read this passage again, first Thessalonians five 16 through 18. Then tell us why it’s so powerful, not just for November when we think about Thanksgiving, but why it’s so important for knowing what God wants us to do. You just said this says that it’s God’s will. How many people have come to a pastor and said, pastor, what do I do? I don’t know. I want to know God’s will. Well, this tells us here’s God’s will for you. So could you kind of walk us through this again, Bob?
Bob Lepine:
Yeah, very simple, in fact, great to memorize with your children and great to have them hide in their hearts. Verse 16 says, rejoice always. It’s actually the shortest verse in the Bible. People will say, well, what about Jesus wept? Well, I’m thinking in the Greek. So there are fewer Greek letters in rejoice always than there are in Jesus wept. But so in the Greek version, rejoice always is the shortest verse in the Bible. Then verse 17 says, pray without ceasing. And verse 18 says, give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God and Christ Jesus for you and for our kids, for all of us to have in our hearts, rejoice, always be prayerful, be giving thanks in all circumstances. This is how God wants us to be living as a part of his family. We’re to rejoice always to pray without ceasing, to give thanks in all circumstances, not just for ourselves, but for those around us.
I mean, who doesn’t want to be around a joyful person and who would rather not be around a grumpy person? So rejoicing always is a part of how we build unity with one another. Pray without ceasing, again, not just for ourselves and not just on our own but together in community and giving thanks in all circumstances is something that we should do for our own personal circumstances. But in our families and in the body of Christ, we need to be people who are joyful, prayerful and thankful in all seasons and in all circumstances. I’ll just point out here, these are imperatives. These are commands. This is not suggestions from God about how to live, but rejoice always is a command. If you are not rejoicing today, you might look at that and go, well, what am I supposed to do is just flip a switch and somehow be joyful in the middle of the pain or the circumstances that I’m dealing with?
No, the Bible doesn’t tell us to deny our circumstances or even to try to just stoically pretend like our pain isn’t real. What this verse is telling us is that in the midst of the pain, in the midst of the difficulties we’re experiencing, we need to recalibrate and find joy. So Paul has already said to the Thessalonians in this letter, he said, I know you’ve lost loved ones and I don’t want you to grieve as others who have no hope. He doesn’t say Don’t grieve. He says, you need to be grieving differently than other people do. In two Corinthians six, Paul talks about being sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. So I think we need to understand that a command like this to rejoice always is to fight for joy in the middle of whatever circumstances we’re experiencing, and that’s just one of these three commands that the Bible is pointing us to here.
Isaac Crockett:
I love that Bob, and I love how you said for parents teaching this to the next generation or to the grandchildren, and it’s easy for me as a dad to be like, yeah, I really want my kids to rejoice and to be joyful, but then they’re going to learn it from me. If I come back from something that happened at work or something with the church where I pastor, I want my kids to be joyful. I want my congregation, my members at my church to be joyful, but as a pastor, as a dad, as a husband, am I being joyful? And it’s one of those things that they will learn it from me. And I remember seeing my dad go through hard things as a pastor and how he just was so excited and had so much Joyce the Lord had changed him and his life, and I remember his last few years fighting cancer, how joyful and excited he was about all of that, even as he was in a lot of pain and things and that meant so much.
And so people were watching us. You’ve already talked about this, but just I remember a little song in Sunday school that we used to sing, and it used to be a Christian always smiles. He never wears a frown. He’s always up in victory. You cannot keep him down. And I don’t know that that’s really, this kind of plastic smile isn’t really what this is maybe talking about. I don’t know if that’s really an appropriate song. So just real quickly, Bobby, we’ve already kind of touched on it, but does rejoice always mean that we have to always be smiling and bubbly and excited about everything even when we lose somebody or something? Difficult is happening.
Bob Lepine:
Reality is there’s grief in our lives, there’s sorrow in our lives, and we’re not supposed to ignore that. Read the book of Psalms and see how David regularly expressed lament and sorrow and grief, but he recalibrated in the midst of it. I think of Psalm 13 where he starts by saying, Lord, how long will you forget me? How long will you hold your favor from me? So he’s in the middle of trial and he’s suffering, but by the end of the psalm he says, on your kindness, I rely I will exalt over your saving grace. I will sing to the Lord. He’s counseling his own heart. Again, think of Psalm, I think it’s Psalm 42, where he says, why are you so downcast on my soul? Put your hope in God. He’s telling his soul what to do. And it’s important here, Isaac, for us to recognize there’s a difference between joy and happiness.
There’s an old British expression they used to say to one another, may the haps be with you. And what they meant was, we hope you have good circumstances. May what happens to you be a good thing. And happiness is contingent upon what’s happening. Those two words go together. So our happiness is rooted in what’s happening, but our joy is rooted in something that goes deeper than what’s happening. Our joy is rooted in the knowledge of the gospel and the knowledge that Jesus knows what’s going on in your life. He loves you, he’s taking you through, he’s with you in the valley and you’ve been adopted into his family and that changes everything. So that’s how we recalibrate for joy in the middle of difficult circumstances.
Isaac Crockett:
I love that. And so many of the Psalms, as you point out, so many of our hymns were written when somebody was going through some extreme pressure and some difficult situations, and yet they realized that God is sovereign and that God is allowing this and God is in control. I think of a New York pastor that wrote, this is my father’s world. The wrong off seems so strong yet God is the ruler. Yet I think it was multi Babcock or something like that. And he ended up having a very interesting life. And even how he passed away, being joyful doesn’t mean that everything goes well for us. It doesn’t mean prosperity gospel. I love how you pointed that out. Well, what about pray without ceasing? A common thing that I hear some people they think pray without ceasing means repeat a prayer over and over and over again. Maybe the Lord’s prayer that he gave to his disciples or something like that. What is that talking about with this praying without ceasing
Bob Lepine:
Across that verse the first time and thought, well, how did I do that then? Do I drive with my eyes closed? And if I’m always praying, how can I be doing anything else and how can I be talking to my wife and praying simultaneously? I think this verse about praying at all times is telling us two things. First of all, we are to constantly be aware of the greatness of God and our full dependence on him in all things. I mean, we pray because we are dependent beings and so we’re to live with an awareness of our dependence on God. We’re to rehearse regularly the greatness of God to hallow his name, we’re to align our heart with his agenda. We want his kingdom to come and his will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. And then we declare our dependence on him for all of our physical and spiritual needs. Lord, we need daily bread. We need you to forgive us our debts and lead us not into temptation. So I think this verse is saying at all times, be aware of the holiness and the greatness of God, his plan, his purpose for your life and your utter dependence on him. But the other thing I think it’s saying is don’t give up on praying. So
Pray without ceasing is really saying don’t quit being prayerful. Jesus talked about the persistent widow who continued to petition the judge until he relented and he was saying, don’t give up. Don’t quit pray without ever stopping loved one. You may have someone you know who you’ve been praying for years that they would come to know Christ and you think, is this doing any good? And Jesus is saying, don’t quit pray without ceasing. The Bible says here, so keep on praying for everything that you have a need for in your life. And that doesn’t mean that it’ll always turn out the way you hope it will, but God wants us to continue to petition him for the burdens in our lives and never quit on that.
Isaac Crockett:
That’s so good. That’s so important. And we’re going to talk about more of this as we dig in. It’s not just because Thanksgiving is coming up. There’s a lot going on in this world and in spite of it all, God has done so much. He offers us so much and we are to be people of gratitude. We’re supposed to have a spirit of gratitude and to be joyful and all of these things. So we’re going to talk about more of this when we come back. We’re going to take a brief time out to hear from some of our partners. We’ll be right back to talk with Bob Lepine on Stand In the Gap today.
Well welcome back to the Stand in the Gap today Friday edition. I’m Pastor Isaac Crockett and I’ve been talking with Pastor Bob Lepine. Many of you recognize his name or his voice from Family Radio or Family Life or Truth for Life, or maybe from the Sing Conference. If you go to the Getty Music Sing Conference in Nashville, you recognize him as the mc or maybe you’ve read books that he’s written. And so we’ve had a lot of good conversation about being thankful and joyful, and it’s not just something that we should talk about because it’s November because Thanksgiving and all of those things, it’s something as Christians that is God’s will for us to do. We’ve been looking at and learning, and this week particularly, there’s a lot going on last week, last Thursday, we talked about the persecuted church and there’s a lot of horrible things happening to our brothers and sisters in Christ, and yet we can still be joyful and prayerful and thankful people.
And maybe you look at the political sphere, the cultural sphere, and you say maybe you have relatives that are unsaved or somebody in your family is suffering something physically, and you say, well, I just don’t feel like being joyful. And we talked about the difference already on this program between happiness and joy, and so there’s so much, and we could spend more time on this, but if you’re just tuning in, I would encourage you to go back and listen to all of this. You can go to stand in the Gap media.org, stand in gap media.org, listen to our archives. You can go to other programs we’ve done on thankfulness, but you could also go to our app Stand in the Gap app. You can get that at the iTunes Apple Store. You can get that at the Android store, and you can listen to our stream and you can listen to our archives.
And I would really encourage you to go to that. I would also encourage you to go to our Facebook page for example, we have some pictures on there that just came in from Sam Rohr, he’s over in Israel. You could look at some of the program. And then open letter. We had talked about the Persecuted church in Nigeria, and God has answered prayer in that, and you could look at that on our Facebook post or you could see Matt Boswell the interview that we had last week with him about Getty Hymnal and have a link to where he could buy the new hymnal from Crossway by Getty Music, seeing hymnal, a lot of neat resources right there through Facebook or through our app or through our website. So I would encourage you, as you pray for us to maybe check some of those things out as well. Well, as we go back to this First Thessalonians chapter five, Bob, before we go back there, we’re talking about our different resources, free resources and things. Maybe we could get some of your resources too. You’re a pastor. Could you maybe give us your church website and maybe even tell us a little bit about one of my favorite things I love finding in my email box is the newsletter from your Reverend subscription.
Bob Lepine:
So our church is Redeemer Community Church in Little Rock, Arkansas, and the website is redeemer lr.org, redeemer lr.org. And so if folks are interested in messages, I preached or visiting us online, my sermon libraries available there and folks can find that. And then you mentioned the substack. So substack is a platform that allows for bloggers to be able to post things, and once a week I try to write on just whatever issue God has laid on my heart. And so if folks are interested in that, they can go to Substack and look for Ear, that’s EAR ear Reverend or just my name Bob, L-E-P-I-N-E, Lepine. And they can subscribe to the Substack and they’ll get an email on typically on Wednesday night, Thursday morning after I’ve written something, it’s passed along to them and they can go back through the archive and see what I’ve written about.
Isaac Crockett:
Well, that’s great and I would encourage you, if you’re looking to listen to some preaching to go to that website, listen to some of Bob’s sermons or if you’re looking for church in that part of Arkansas. But I would also encourage you to sign up for the irreverent. I love it. I think it was this week that you were talking about compassion and mercy as Christians and one of the illustrations you used about Be Patient with Me, God is not finished with me yet. There was something about it with the button that you use and things. I won’t give all of it away. You really need to read the article. But I have heard that statement many times. I’ve never seen that picture. I’ve never seen the button you were talking about, and it just kind of opened up a new way of thinking about that for me. That was pretty cool. Maybe it’s just a generational thing that I had never seen that, but a lot of neat things. Well, let’s get back into talking about being joyful and prayerful and thankful these things are going together and these are things that we’re commanded to do. This is one Thessalonians chapter five in verse 18. It says that we’re to be giving thanks in everything for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Can we start with that first phrase, Bob, about giving thanks and everything. What is this talking about?
Bob Lepine:
We’ll hear that and go in everything I’m supposed to give thanks when things are going poorly, when things are bad, when I’ve lost a loved one, when I just got fired from my job. When I’m facing adversity, I’m supposed to give thanks in everything. And actually in Ephesians five it says, we’re to give thanks for everything. So thankfulness is the right posture of our heart, knowing that God does indeed work all things together for good, for those who love him and are called according to his purpose. Remember Job in the middle of his own adversity, he cried out, blessed be the name of the Lord, so he gave praise and thanks to God in the midst of his adversity and gratitude, thankfulness is an important attribute of our faith. God expects us to be grateful people, people who are grateful for his blessings. Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth says, I think we tend to think of gratitude as an add-on or maybe a second tier grace.
It’s something that’s right up there with going to church on Sunday or being cheerful or hospitable, she says, but as I got into the subject of gratitude, I realized it’s foundational. We are always, always, always debtors. We owe God, we owe others. God doesn’t owe us anything, and yet God has given us Christ. He’s given us grace. He’s lavished his grace on us. And for me to be anything other than grateful Nancy says is really, really wicked. Now, some people will hear that and think that sounds a little to be wicked, to be ungrateful is to be wicked. And it is. Jerry Bridges says it is a most grievous sin to fail to be grateful. So we need to take this issue of thanksgiving and gratitude seriously and say, if we do not have a thankful heart, a grateful heart to God, if we’re not cultivating that in our lives, if we are grumbling or if we are people who are ungrateful, we think about the Israelites coming out of Egypt and how they grumbled and how that was displeasing to the Lord. God wants us to be grateful even in the midst of difficult circumstances,
Isaac Crockett:
Bob, I think we often fall into that category being grumbling Christians and that an oxymoron that should not be possible. And so you’re pointing out that it makes a lot of sense. I’m wondering now we get to the last part where it says, this is the will of God in Christ Jesus. For you, how much, maybe more important does that make this when we see this is the will of God? What does that mean and how does that apply in our lives?
Bob Lepine:
Back to Romans one, one of the things that the Bible says in Romans one is as Paul is talking about the wicked people whose hearts were darkened, he says they knew God because they could see he exists in creation. So the evidence of God’s existence is there for everyone to see, and every man knows God but is actively suppressing the knowledge of the truth. But even though they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkness. Failure to give thanks is again a grievous sin. So it behooves us to cultivate a spirit of thankfulness that permeates our entire lives. And when you say, well, how do you do that? Well, I’ll tell you who is a model for me of that. It’s Johnny Erikson is somebody who for 50 years now has been a quadriplegic in a wheelchair with limited physical capacity and she can’t get up in the morning, she can’t get herself dressed. She can’t feed herself.
But if you’re with her, anytime you’re with her, she has an effervescent joy. She loves to sing hymns. She praises the Lord. She has a thankful spirit and she would tell you she’s had to fight for that. She’s had to train her heart to be thankful. She’s disciplined herself to do that, to teach herself for it to become a reflex reaction. So I think that’s what we have to recognize. We have to be training ourselves toward gratitude. We have to teach our kids say thank you, say thank you. What do you say when somebody does something nice for you? What do you say? You say, well, we have to train our own hearts to look to today at the blessings that God has bestowed on us and let our hearts swell with gratitude to God for the blessings that are ours, even in the midst of the difficult circumstances we face.
Isaac Crockett:
That is so good. We just have a moment here before the break, and I would just encourage you who are listening, if you are wanting to cultivate that in your life, if you say, you know what I think that might be missing, go to the word of God, go to the Book of Psalms as a great place, but even Romans and some of the epistles in different places, we see it throughout Old and New Testament, a thankful spirit. But go to the book of Psalms and then maybe also pull out a hymnal. I know it was last week that we talked about the sing hymnal, but pull out a hymnal and just look up Psalms of praise and Psalm of Thanksgiving and just focus on some of those in your devotions. Take some of those and think about those words throughout the day, maybe as you hum it or listen to it on YouTube or Spotify or Apple music or something, and just let the word of God dwell in you and give you a thankful spirit.
We have more to talk about. I can’t believe how fast the program is going. Bob Lepine is here with us and we’re talking about developing this attitude of gratitude in a thankful spirit, being joyful, prayerful, and thankful. When we come back, we’re going to wrap things up, so please don’t go away. If you’re listening by the radio, keep the radio on this station if you’re streaming. We’re going to be right back after a short timeout here from our partners, and we’re going to come back with some final thoughts and some practical tips for being joyful and thankful all the time.
Welcome back. As we come to the final part of this program, it’s always incredible to me how fast these programs go. Well, I’ve been excited to talk with our good friend, pastor Bob Lepine, somebody who many of you recognize from his many years, multiple decades in radio, and we’re talking about this idea of developing the Christian command to be joyful and prayerful and thankful and how important these seemingly simple things that we expect we teach our children. As Bob was saying, you teach your kids to say thank you and we tell them to read your Bible, pray every day. But are we really developing an attitude of prayer that we are thinking and communicating with the Lord and being persistent? My love at our church, we have a prayer time before our Sunday morning services, and I love hearing the answers to prayer as we take time to pray about a lot of different things.
But we take a short period of time for petitions, prayer request and praises, and it’s always amazing to me to see God answer prayer. And sometimes it’s years and years later that we’ve been praying that we see the Lord answering. Sometimes it’s right away. Last week on Thursday, a CLJ lead attorney Shari Argi, he leads their international departments. He was having us pray for the church in Nigeria and pray that the Trump administration would put Nigeria back on the country of particular concern list. And by Friday, the Lord answered prayer that way that the Trump administration made that move. We’re still praying for the persecuted church, but there’s just so many things that God is doing and we need to be grateful for that and especially grateful for his sovereignty, for his providence, for his salvation. Pastor Lepine, you’ve done a lot of counseling, you’ve done a lot of talking on the radio about it things, but when you have a person that comes to you, maybe it’s a couple or maybe it’s a family, the whole family is in this situation, but you see this attitude of kind of ungratefulness, this kind of expecting everybody just to kind of do for them and not having gratitude, they don’t have the thankful spirit.
What kind of a red flag does that raise for you when you’re trying to help them?
Bob Lepine:
It tells me that they’re not believing the gospel. Now, that doesn’t mean that they’re not saved because we have to believe the gospel over and over again in our lives, but when we believe what the gospel tells us, that’s the reason that we can be joyful. It’s the reason we can be thankful. It’s the reason to remain prayerful when we cultivate the habit of giving thanks, we’re learning to focus on what we have in Christ rather than what we don’t have, and that’s what leads to contentment in our lives. If I were paraphrasing the verses we’ve been looking at and adding words to, it’s very short as we’ve said, rejoice always pray without ceasing, give thanks and all things for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus. If I was paraphrasing that, I would say we need to rejoice when there is reason to rejoice and we need to rejoice when there doesn’t seem to be a reason to rejoice.
We need to remember that whatever the circumstances, God loves us. He has saved you. He’s at work in your life and rejoice in that. And we need to pray and pray and never quit praying. Never give up. Don’t imagine that God is not hearing you or he doesn’t care about your prayers. And then remind yourself regularly of just how much we have to be thankful for in this life and then give thanks to God who is the source of every good gift from the daily blessings we take for granted to the unexpected and extravagant blessings that come our way. I remember hearing somebody say he was brushing his teeth one morning and he realized he was meditating on this verse in everything, give thanks. He realized he’d never stopped to thank God that he has healthy teeth. And he said, Lord, I want to thank you that I have healthy teeth. As he was brushing his teeth and then the thought hit him, if we would only have tomorrow that which we thank the Lord for today, what would we have tomorrow?
In other words, if tomorrow’s supply depended on today’s Thanksgiving, how much would we have tomorrow? And I heard that and I was convicted and thought, I need to look around and just say, thank you, Lord, that I have a roof over my head, that I have running water. Thank you, Lord that I have clothes I can wear. Thank you. The people in my life, there are so many things we can count as blessings and stop and don’t take those for granted. Thank God for these blessings. Not everybody in the world has what you have, and we can rejoice in the blessings we have in Christ.
Isaac Crockett:
Wow, that is so convicting to think that way. If tomorrow I only had what I thank the Lord for today, that is really good. Very practical. Last week we had Pastor Matt Boswell who’s a songwriter and a pastor, and he works with Getty Music. We were discussing their hymnal, the Sing hymnal. And you and I have talked about that before. And one of the hymns that has been in my head a lot this week that I’ve been meditating on was written, I think it was Stuart Townsend and Keith Getty. And my heart is filled with thankfulness, just that title. It is good. And I know it’s not the first stanza. I think it might be the second stanza that says something like My heart is filled with thankfulness to him who walks beside, who floods my weaknesses with strength and causes fears to fly. And this is the part I just love to rehearse in my mind, whose every promise is enough. That’s enough. Just his promises I think is for every step I take, sustaining me with arms of love and crowning me with grace. But his promises are enough and they sustain, they provide and they give us grace. We’re getting close to the end of our program, but Bob, are there any hymns that you maybe have found help make you a joyful, prayerful, thankful Christian?
Bob Lepine:
There are two hymns that in my life, it’s not Thanksgiving unless I am singing Come Ye Thankful People Come, which is an old traditional hymn that we sang every year right before Thanksgiving when I was growing up. We’ve done it in our church for years. I don’t know how many of your listeners know that hymn, but it’s a great one to hunt and find the song of Harvest Home. It talks about how the physical harvest is a picture of the spiritual harvest that God is doing and will one day bring to completion. And then there’s the hymn we gather together to ask the Lord’s blessing. It’s a Thanksgiving hymn that was a Dutch hymn in the middle of a time of tribulation in the Dutch nation. So those are the two that come to mind when I think about Thanksgiving. Those are traditional Thanksgiving hymns and then the more modern praise chorus that just says, give thanks with a grateful heart, give thanks to the holy one, give thanks for He’s given Jesus Christ, his son. Let the weak say, I am strong. Let the poor say I am rich because of what the Lord has done for me. Those are just great hymns to meditate on.
Isaac Crockett:
I love that. And when you’re saying those hymns, I’m smelling Thanksgiving, Turkey, and pie and all that because those just go along with thanksgiving to me. We just have a moment left here, Bob. But any closing thoughts, any closing encouragement to somebody listening today?
Bob Lepine:
Well, here’s what I would say. If you’re thinking, boy, I’m under conviction. I don’t know that I’m as joyful as I should be or as prayerful or as thankful, join the club. We’re all there, all growing in grace. And rather than gritting your teeth and saying, I’m going to try to be more joyful and prayerful and thankful, here’s what I would encourage you to do, meditate on Jesus. Paul in Ephesians one says, my prayer for you is that God would give you a spirit of wisdom and of revelation about the glory of Christ. And when we have that spirit of wisdom and revelation about the glory of Christ, that’s what will produce in us joy and gratitude and will cause us to be regularly prayerful. So go back to the gospel, let it be the source that births in you joy and thanksgiving and prayer.
Isaac Crockett:
Amen to that. This has been a fun discussion, a very practical, helpful discussion for all year long. But let’s close in prayer. Our gracious heavenly Father, we just give you the thanks we take our joy and every day that we have from you in the salvation we have from you. And I just pray that you would draw us to you and to our knees, that we would see your providence and every day that we would receive our daily bread as you see fit, and that we would give you the glory for all the things that you have done for our salvation and for our sustenance, and for all that we have through your Holy Spirit guiding us through the word of God and through our savior Jesus Christ. It is in Jesus precious and powerful name that we give you. Thanks. We love you Father. Amen. Well, Bob Lepine, thank you so much for joining us on our program today. Thank you for joining us by listening, and I hope that you will share this with others. And until next time, I pray that you will stand in the gap for truth wherever you are today.
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