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Ceres SDA Church

Anil Kanda

Headless Turkeys

I'm really excited because I see God doing so many wonderful things in our church.

And if you haven't experienced that, now is the time like never before.

This next year, we're going to place a very heavy emphasis upon 3 things in the direction of Syriza Church.

By the way, the Malachi message of Malachi chapter 4 message is that the Elijah message will be 1 to restore the hearts of their fathers to their sons and the hearts of their sons to their father.

There's a restoration of family according to God's model.

The second push will be an emphasis on evangelism, the work of saving souls.

And the third thing will be leadership training.

God does not call us to be self-centered and self-focused.

He calls us to expand and to branch out, and this requires to develop leaders.

And I believe God is wanting to do some awesome things this next coming year.

The theme will be, for such a time as this.

Can't think of any better time than now, amen?

I was talking to Chris Nelson, and he saw the title of the sermon, and the title of the sermon is called Headless Turkeys.

And he said that somebody came up to him and heard last week's sermon about the women and thought to themselves, this week's sermon must be about the men.

Well, folks, you know, here's the thing, and I mean this.

It's okay that you're struggling with God.

It's okay that you're struggling and you don't meet the mark.

God wants to do great things in your life and you come to Him just as you are and even if you don't meet the mark we want you here at Ceres, amen?

Even if you aren't a virtuous wife but a vicious knife we want you here at Ceres, amen?

Even if you don't meet the qualifications of a godly mother this is the place where you learn how to be, amen?

Ceres, God's arm is open to every person.

Well, why don't we start with the word of prayer, then we're going to jump into this message rapid fire.

And if you plan on complaining about how fast I talk, I just want to let you know there are always audio recordings.

Father in heaven, we thank you so much for your goodness and for your kindness.

Thank you, Lord, that we can come and worship you just as we are, God, sinful, helpless, and needy.

But Lord, we praise you that you not only make our names beautiful in heaven, but God, you make our characters beautiful on earth.

And Jesus, thank you You don't leave us where we're at, but you pick us up and you deliver us from the ruin of sin and you set us on the right path again.

And Father, we have all fallen so short this week of your goodness, of your glory.

But God, we thank you for the blood that restores us and creates in us a clean heart.

We pray, Lord, with this sermon that it would be fruitful, God, and that we would walk away tremendously blessed because we know we have been in the presence with Jesus.

Thank you God, in your holy name we pray, amen.

We're going to be looking at a very interesting story.

This is going to be a very interesting sermon.

I believe that God has some special things he wants to communicate to you.

But we're going to the very first story found in Luke chapter 17.

You know, growing up, Thanksgiving was very interesting for me.

I come from a Hindu background, and in the Indian culture, it's not really a holiday we really recognize.

But I was always surrounded by a lot of friends who did recognize this holiday.

The 1 thing I would know about Thanksgiving was this, that it was just a day where people ate a lot and got sick the next day.

And that's all I knew about Thanksgiving growing up.

As I began to take classes in school, I would learn about the pilgrims and the Indians.

Somebody came up to me earlier this week and they said, I know you should dress up like an Indian this week.

Well, anyways, I, you know, this is the way a lot of us have a sort of an understanding of Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving actually is in line with what the Bible teaches.

Did you know that throughout the Old Testament, God actually instructed the Israelites to have days of Thanksgiving?

Not just 1 part of the year, but throughout the entire year, they were to have various feast days.

And at these feast days, they were to come together and have a very certain type of meal and recall the goodness of God.

She says, well, would it be good for our churches to have more days of Thanksgiving?

Days that God's people come together and over a delicious meal fellowship.

Now, the end goal of Thanksgiving is not turkey.

The end goal of Thanksgiving is not to have a stuffed stomach.

Now, 1 of the reasons why God allowed food into the feast days, or put food into the feast days, is because food is comforting.

And with the fellowship and with the food, it was designed to communicate a time of praise and happiness.

You know, sometimes during Thanksgiving, we're running around with, like, turkeys with our head cut off.

You know, it's so busy, and we're just running around.

We're trying to get things ready, and it's like when the parents are trying to take pictures and they're saying, all right children, I want you to be happy, we're a happy family, take a picture, and they take a picture and everyone's trying to smile at a moment when it's not really happy.

Folks, the 1 thing we don't want to forget about this season, about this time, is the time for us to call forth the praises of God.

We have more to be thankful for than we do to complain.

A very interesting encounter in the life of Christ.

Now it happened as he went through Jerusalem that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee.

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Headless Turkeys

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