The Guide To Gratitude - Part 3

The Guide To Gratitude

Gratitude and Contentment – Trusting in God’s Provision

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Been a while since I've been in front of you. Just wanna say, by the way, missed all of you. It was so good. We're a family, our church family, and so not seeing you for a couple of weeks felt it. And so we're so glad to be back. In case you haven't seen us or seen baby and mom, we're doing well, we're alive. And we're very thankful for that. And I think someone, people, I mean, you guys are all very kind in asking. And I think one of the best descriptions of how we're doing is we're doing well, but I am drinking coffee at seven o'clock at night, which I don't do. So that's just a little picture of, you know, sleep being still necessary. But we're in this new series of gratitude and in our new series, and because of it, I wanted to share some things that I'm thankful for. I know hopefully some of you or all of you have one of these and you're day by day going through, or maybe you do it at the end of the week and you look back on each day, but you're filling out this card and marking and acknowledging what you're thankful for. And so I'm gonna share some of mine from this past couple of weeks. I'm thankful for all of you, as I said, church family, you guys are so, all your prayers and support, especially in the last couple of weeks, they mean so much to us. I also wanna thank, thankful for all the meals that you guys have provided. We love those and they all have tasted delicious and they mean so much to our family and just feel your care and love. Also wanna be, I'm very thankful for the letters of encouragement and the financial contributions from pastor appreciation. I know pastor Chris and I are both super thankful and it is such a privilege and an honor to serve as pastors at Spring Valley Church. And so we're very thankful for how you show your appreciation, it means the world to us. And then lastly, I am very, but most importantly, I am very thankful for my family, for my beautiful daughters, Kinsley and Hallie and my beautiful wife, Becky, who sacrifices so much to make our whole lives work. And so just very, very thankful. I'm very thankful for this series to get me to think about what am I thankful for? What's going on in my life? What is God doing? How is he providing for me? And all to say that very, very thankful and hoping and praying for a spirit of gratitude within me to grow.

In this series, in the past couple of weeks, we've heard the importance of having a foundation of gratitude, a heart of thanksgiving. We've also talked about gratitude in action, living from a thankful heart. And today I wanna focus on the role contentment plays in living with gratitude. Gratitude and contentment, which really focuses on trusting in God's provision. This is the next simple step in living a life with a more grateful heart. Pastor Phil alluded to this last week through his sermon as he emphasized the need of naming things that we're grateful for throughout our day and throughout our week. Things that we aren't necessarily always wanting, but we see that God is working through it or is present in the midst of it. And it's still important to always express that gratitude. And so today we're gonna lean into that and talk more about being content. But before we begin, let me go ahead and pray right now. If you guys could bow your heads with me. God, thank you again for our time of gathering together. And God, I pray that in this moment here in this room, that you would reach each of us through your spirit exactly where we're at, you know what we need. And God, be it your word or the worship or just interactions with each other, God, I pray that we would be encouraged and pushed and drawn closer to you. God, I pray that your spirit would do work in our hearts, that you would move in us, that you would refine us and sanctify us. And God, we wanna give you all the glory for all that you're doing, give you all the praise. We pray this in your name, amen. Let's start by defining contentment. Merriam-Webster defines contentment as the freedom from worry or restlessness, also a peaceful satisfaction. The Oxford Dictionary defines contentment as a state of happiness and satisfaction. In the Hebrew, in our Bible, the Hebrew, it's translated as to be pleased. And in the Greek, it's very similar, to be pleased or to take delight or sufficient. A theological dictionary defines contentment as a state of mind in which one's desires are confined to his or her lot, whatever it may be. It reminds me of that song, "It is well." Whatever my lot thou has taught me to say, it is well with my soul. It's a song about contentment. This theological dictionary also says that contentment is more inward than satisfaction. It is a habit or a permanent state of mind where satisfaction is a bit more outward and is a response to outside realities that we encounter. Contentment arises from an inward disposition. It's an offspring of humility and thankfulness. And it's present when trusting in God's provision. So where I wanna head today, talking about God's divine providence, God's provision. And before we get there, again, covering contentment.

So we have those definitions, but what about contentment in the Bible? We know that the Bible teaches that Christians should exhibit contentment in the following areas of life. In their respective callings, whatever God has called you to do in your job. First Corinthians tells us that. With our wages, with the money that we make, we are to be content. Jesus tells us that in Luke. Also with the things that we have, that's found in Hebrews 13. And then also with food and clothing. We'll get to those passages in 1 Timothy later today. But before we dive into scripture, let's do something together. I want us to take a moment to measure our current level of contentment. So don't worry, you're not sharing this with anyone. You don't have to whisper it to anyone else. You're not gonna reveal it. But just be honest with yourself. And this isn't measuring of like, okay, this is where I wanna be, or this is where, you know, if I were to share this, I'd be at this number. Just be completely honest and vulnerable with yourself. On a scale from one to 10, I think, oh good, we have it up there. One is feeling the anxiety of greed and a desire for more in your life, specifically with money, possessions, or status. And 10 is feeling non-anxious and satisfied with what you have. Where would you plot yourself right now? Think about that. Take inventory of your life. Think of all the areas. Think of your work situation, your home situation, school grades, belongings that you have, clothes, shoes, vehicles, your home, all the maybe projects that you have going on, appliances. How many times in the last week or two have you caught yourself saying, oh, I just wish I had this, or I wish this was different. I wish, fill in the blank. Keep that number in mind, whatever that is. Keep with that in mind this morning. We're gonna come back to that at the end of our sermon. Today, we're gonna be in a New Testament mostly, in the following letters to the early churches where living with gratitude was a very pertinent topic and being content was so counter-cultural, just like it is for us today. We live in a world and a society that always wants the next best thing, that preys on you being dissatisfied and grows in you a desire for more worldly things. I don't mean worldly as in evil, just things of this world, which could inherently be fine, could be good, but the world wants you to have more of it, which often leaves us feeling stressed and anxious or less than. And that's not what Jesus wants, and it's not what Jesus teaches we should have. So in our passages today, we're gonna see that gratitude leads to contentment, and we'll see how practicing gratitude helps cultivate contentment within our hearts and souls.

You guys wanna get your Bibles out, you can follow along on the screen too, but our first passage this morning is found in Philippians 4:11-13. Let me go ahead and read. It says, "I am not saying this because I am in need, "for I have learned to be," this is Paul speaking, "I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. "I know what it is to be in need. "I know what it is to have plenty. "I have learned the secret of being content "in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, "whether living in plenty or in want. "I can do all this through him who gives me strength." Paul is saying what's important is to have contentment despite life circumstances. That last verse, "I can do all things "through Christ who strengthens me," that's the version I grew up learning in the New King James, is very popular. You've probably heard it before. A lot of people, that's their life verse, maybe they have it tattooed somewhere. I mean, Philippians 4:13. We often think of that as a rallying cry. We use it to motivate us when things are tough. And that's not necessarily wrong or bad. It is a very motivating verse. But one pastor points out that for Paul, this was more than a motivational speech to roll up sleeves and face life circumstances. It was a statement about contentment in spite of life circumstances.

Pastor John Mark Homer, he writes, "Many of us long to experience the content life, but it can feel elusive. We wait for a sense of contentment to trail behind the next thing, a raise, a promotion, keys to a home we can finally call ours. But contentment in Paul's experience was not derived from his circumstances, but pronounced over them. It was not accumulated or purchased, but discovered in Jesus and his way." I love that quote. I think it's very convicting when I first read that. "That is often what I think of. "If I just have this, then I will be content." I think his words perfectly pair with Paul's words to the church in Philippi, that contentment can be and needs to be present in the believer's life, despite life circumstances, not because of life circumstances. When we can practice a deeper sense of gratitude, as we talked about in these previous weeks, expressing thanks in all things for what God is doing, then the next phase, the next state of our heart and soul is contentment. Like that theological dictionary says, "A state of mind in which one's desires "are confined to his or her lot, whatever it may be." This doesn't mean that you can't want more things necessarily. You can't want improvement in your home that you live in, in the car that you drive. But we can't let that turn into greed or discontentment in a way that we are now dissatisfied with what God has blessed us with. So this contentment arises from an inward disposition. It's an offspring, again, of humility and thankfulness. And it's present when trusting in God's divine providence.

Quick story, I try to go, I really enjoy going disc golfing. And there's a course about five minutes from here. And I meet a lot of different people on the disc golf course. Lots of different kinds of people in various walks of life. And I met this one guy, I have a friend of this guy named Casey, great guy. He's in his 40s. And he told me his story once as we're playing, just the whole round, I got to hear his life story. And it's a difficult story. He used to do a lot of drugs and drinking. And a few years back, he had a massive stroke and it completely changed his life. And he had to relearn everything. He had to relearn how to walk, how to read, how to talk. And his relationships at home became very strained and difficult. And as he's telling me this, he's not telling me this in a way of like, it used to be that and now we're good. He's like, my marriage is going through a hard, it's difficult right now. My relationship with my kids is difficult right now. His ability to work is limited. And yet as he's sharing this story, and he shares about how he met God through this situation, and he's very thankful that God is with him through all these hardships. You can tell, I could tell. He's one of the most content people I've ever met. And whenever I see him now, and he shares a bit more of the latest that's happening in life, within minutes, I can just sense this deep peace and satisfaction in where God has him in that moment. Doesn't mean he doesn't want life to get better, but he is content with what God has provided for him, where God has put him in, in that place, in that moment, in that time. I'm so thankful to have, to hear that through rough times, he has found God, he's clinging to God.

And it's such an example for us today that his contentment is not found in his current life circumstances. They are tough. They are discouraging at times, they're very challenging, and yet he is still content. And so we as believers need to be encouraged to be content despite life's circumstances. So first point. Our second point is found in 1 Timothy 6, verses six through eight. It says, "But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into the world and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, you'll be content with that." We see here that contentment and godliness are a sacred pairing together. Paul, in this verse, is stressing the importance of contentment by encouraging us to have an eternal perspective. We came into this world with nothing, we're gonna leave this world with nothing. And yet so much of our lives can be found focusing around what we can have, the possessions and the money and the status that we can gain. We stress, we get anxious, we spend time devising plans, we worry, we commit time and energy towards personal gain for us. And just like that quote earlier, we can be tricked into thinking that contentment will follow the next thing that I get, or the more money that I make, then I will be content.

That's not what the Bible teaches. Paul says, "If we have food and clothing and we'll throw in shelter, then we will be content." I'm not adding to scripture. Clothing, if you translate it, it can also mean shelter. So we're saying food, clothing, and shelter. That's Paul's way of saying, "We need the minimum." In the world's eyes, that's not a lot. But in the kingdom of God, that's more than enough. And the reason for that is because we have God. God is everything that we need. Meaning, let me back up here. We have to think of the future, right? Here, let me get, I strayed from my notes and then I got all off course. Okay, hold on. We're gonna get to the future in a second. Let me say this first. Paul mentions godliness, being like Christ, living a holy life, depending on God, just as Jesus did, as we see Jesus' life in the gospels. Every moment, he's depending on God. He gets away in the morning to connect with God so that he can go through that day depending on God. Contentment or godliness does not pair well with materialism, but rather contentment. And Jesus knew where true joy and contentment came from. Nothing on earth, nothing on earth brought true joy and contentment, but it came from God. God is our provider and our sustainer, and contentment comes from him now and forevermore. You see, contentment in the present depends on one's belief in the future. Think about that. Contentment right now depends on what you believe is gonna happen after you die. For those who believe in heaven, we know that nothing material is coming with us into heaven. The Bible is clear that storehouses of worldly treasures do not equal any heavenly treasure or benefit. But if one doesn't understand that or believe in the eternal life with God after death on earth, then of course, materials and wealth make all the sense. This life is all I have, so I might as well get as much as I can.

But for believers who understand that heaven is about being in the full presence of God in a world without sin, all in the fullness of God's glory, and everything material falls short, then that helps us understand that we don't need it now either. We want what we're gonna have in heaven, which is the fullness of God. We can be content with however little we have on earth. Again, Paul says food and clothes and shelter, and that's really enough. We don't wanna become attached to more than that, 'cause we're not gonna have those other things in heaven with us. And that glorious future can help our current state of contentment. I just read this book called "Giving is the Good Life" by Randy Alcorn, and it's a book all about needing to live a generous life. And in that book, there's story after story after story of people who give generously because of heavenly implications. And one of the stories is there's a couple who retired early, made a lot of money, and they were wondering, what do we do with this? We have calculated what it means to live by, still within means, and we have all this extra, what are we gonna do with it? And so they got connected, I think one of their sons was a soccer player, and so they had this connection with an organization overseas in South America that was wanting to build a soccer complex. And so they donated their money to build this soccer complex. This project took millions of dollars to complete, and they gave enough to make it happen because they understood that that money wasn't coming with them into heaven, and whatever they could buy with that money wasn't coming with them into heaven. But that Christian soccer camp, where we gather kids from the community and they were gonna hear the gospel, that would have heavenly implications. That would be money well spent. And so their contentment with what they had helped them to live more like Jesus and to give more like Jesus. And so we see that contentment and godliness are a sacred and powerful pairing that work both inwardly for our souls, but also to the benefit of God's kingdom to the people around us. That's our second point, contentment and godliness are a sacred and powerful pairing.

The third one comes from Hebrews. Hebrews 13:5-6, and it reads, "Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have, because God has said, 'Never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.' So we say with confidence, 'The Lord is my helper, 'I will not be afraid. 'What can mere mortals do to me?’” So continuing that thought that gratitude leads us to contentment, which combats materialism and anxiety. The author of Hebrews knows that materialism fueled by greed and anxiety, stress, pride, and selfishness can be answered by the truth that God is the one that we truly need, and the one who provides everything that we need. I can't say it enough, our world that we live in does us no help in pushing us towards contentment. Again, just the opposite. Every ad you see preys upon your desire for more, your dissatisfaction with what you have. Living in the area that we live in, middle to upper-class America, is not gonna help you be content with what you have. Social media, you scrolling, all the ads, all the algorithms that have, know the things that you say, and all, "Oh, I wish I had this." And then all of a sudden you're like, "Oh, the clogs that I wanted, how's that? "Look at that." It's not gonna help you be content with what you have. All the things around us and more stir within you the opposite of contentment. Envy, greed, selfish ambition, anxiety, feeling discontent, dissatisfied. This world wants you to live out of a motivation of discontentment and fear. I don't have enough. I don't have what I need. I need to do something about that. And again, that's not how Jesus wants you to live. He wants us to be confident in his presence and in his power and in his provision. Says in this verse, "He will never leave us. "He will never forsake us. "He is our helper, "and we do not need to be afraid or anxious.”

I have a friend who I grew up with in middle school, high school, college. And because of some unfortunate financial decisions that happened from his parents, he has always made it a point that money is never gonna be an issue for him. And it has determined every step of his life. What major he was, the job that he took out of college, all the promotions and job changes that have happened, where he's lived, everything has been determined by this goal, which at first, I totally understand, I never want money to become an issue. I wanna be able to provide for my family. I wanna have this life. And so I'm gonna make sure that I have enough to have that. Well, his whole life is run, again, by what he would say is a good goal, what others might say, I call it fear. The job he's had, the hours he's worked, the priority that work and money has had in his life, it's caused significant worry, stress, anxiety, health problems. He and I have talked every couple of months for the last 12 years. We just keep up with each other. Sometimes he's lived close, other times he's lived elsewhere in the state, but we talk and sometimes, 'cause I'll bring it up, I'm like, hey man, it sounds like once again, you're really worrying about this. And let me just tell you, you have more than enough. You have a lot actually. And there's times where he recognizes the pattern in his life. And he understands that God is with him and that he'll provide for him. But by the end of the conversation or by next time we talk, it's his common lines of, if I just make this much, if I just take this promotion, I think it's gonna get me to where I want. If I can retire at this age, I think I'll be good. And gratitude and contentment have taken a backseat in his life. And I wanna tell him, man, you don't have to live with these anxieties and fears that are masquerading as strength. In the world's eyes, everyone around me, you're so good at what you do. Look at the promotions that you're getting. You've really risen in the corporate job that you've had. But no one's addressing what's inside of him, which is anxiety and fear. I always wanna challenge him to practice gratitude, combat that and remind him that contentment will be the best defense against those materialistic and anxious forces that are pressing in on him.

So again, the point is that contentment combats materialism and anxiety. This is both a spiritual and physical battle that we face and that we are fighting in this world, especially in a season that we're heading into with Christmas and all the sales and all the online deals. We need to watch our hearts and where we're at with greed and wanting things. I'm not saying don't take advantage of a good deal. I mean, if you need it, obviously God's provided, it could be the right deal. Be mindful, I'm giving myself an out for the things I'm about to buy. I'm like, but it's God's, it's God's provision. Not telling you yes or no, just hold it before God and be like, God, should I? Be mindful of how your purchases, the things, the way that you're approaching material, your job, whatever it is, be mindful of it and reflect on how it's affecting your heart. Is it feeding something bad? Is it just saying like, I got this, but ooh, now I want more and now I need this because I got this thing. That means these three other things. And maybe you're like, oh, I don't know if that's good for me. Or is it a place of like, hey, I've worn these shoes into the ground. There's three holes in them. My feet are getting wet. It's good to buy new shoes, whatever that is, but just hold it before God. Be mindful.

I wanna ask a few questions as we close for us to reflect on. Number one, are you letting your circumstances determine your contentment? Are you like that quote that says, if I just have this, this and this, then I'll be content. And you're letting, you're allowing whatever's happening in your life to determine whether you are content or not. Just as Paul was teaching in Philippians, we need to learn to be content no matter what is happening in the world around us, no matter what is going on in our lives, what we are going through. And just as he is implied, he says, I learned this. It is a learned skill. So have grace with yourself, but it's gonna take effort. It's gonna take time. You're gonna have to do it over and over again. You're gonna catch yourself being like, oh, I'm greedy again. Oh man, my heart is envious or man, I'm really pursuing the selfish ambition. And so give yourself grace and understand that it's a process, but start, put your time and effort towards wanting to be content with whatever you're going through and pray. Pray to God, God, give me what I need. Give me the contentment that I need. Help me to see how what I have is enough to have the right perspective. So that's the first one. Are you letting your circumstances determine your contentment?

Second, is your contentment in life bringing you closer to God? We want that sacred pairing of godliness and contentment. As true contentment requires a relationship with God, dependence on God, humility of oneself to say, God, I cannot be in control to provide for my every need. You, God, are the one who can provide for all my needs. And then it takes a trust that God will provide. And as we live with contentment, we should be brought closer to God and should develop this cycle of praise and thankfulness and gratitude. And as we thank God and we see that he provides again, and then we go back into praising him and being content. So being content with God molds us to live more like Jesus, dependent on him.

And thirdly, last question, are you being proactive to combat materialism and anxiety in your life? Now I wanna be clear, I'm not saying that you have to lie to yourself or pretend to be happy and be like, oh, if I just put on this face, if I just pretend that I'm good with what I have, but inside you're rotten and you're like, oh my goodness, I can't stand anything that, you know, that's not good. Don't do that. But are you taking steps to be content? And again, that doesn't mean that you'll never complain. I was talking with a pastor this week and we were talking about this idea of contentment. And sometimes when people ask, I'm finding myself this, this is true of me in the last couple of weeks, how are you doing? And we, there's the response, I can't complain, right? Well, the truth is you could, you definitely can. I could, and I have. But we were talking about how complaining can sometimes be a necessary act to get us to contentment. Venting, airing frustration or disappointment. It's much of what the Psalms is. You hear David crying out, God, why is this happening? Why are my enemies? Why does it have to be this way? But he always ends, but you Lord are worthy of my praise, but you, oh God, are so good. Blessed are you, God. And so I don't wanna hear me carefully. I'm not giving you permission to complain all the time. What I'm saying is that as long as you don't end on that complaint, as long as that's not your ending spot and your heart is just resting in a status of complaining, we're in the newborn phase and it's hard. A lot of you know, it is hard. Becky and I are exhausted and frustrated at times. And we are two people who like to have it dialed in. And this is not a phase where things are dialed in. So I'm struggling. And so when people ask, how's it going? Obviously I wanna convey the good, but sometimes I'm also like, man, that's really tough. But I try to be sure not to end on like, oh, this is all my complaints. I try to end with, man, but I'm thankful that we are blessed with another daughter. I understand that life is a gift and that having their child is truly a blessing. And so all the nights of sleeplessness and all the moments of losing sanity are worth it. And so I want to express, I wanna end on, but I'm thankful. I'm thankful for what we have as a family and in this world. But I do complain a little bit to get me to this place of contentment. Sometimes it takes airing the negative to land on the positive. In other words, sometimes it takes complaining to get to a place of contentment. And by doing this, this whole point is that maybe that's proactive in combating materialism and anxiety. Maybe you need to be like, man, I really wish, I'm so, I was just talking with Matt, who, I can't find him, but Matt, he's got microwave issues. And he airs his frustration about the microwave, but then he ends on this place of, but it's all good. I can cook, I can still cook food. And I just love that. I love seeing that sometimes you gotta air the negative and then we reach this place of contentment. And it's combating against this, I asked him, I was like, well, are you gonna buy a new microwave? He's like, no, I'm good. Just shut it really quick and it should be fine. Be proactive by expressing gratitude, living with contentment.

So, okay, I wanna come back or circle back around to that contentment measurement again, that one through 10. If you remember your number, great. If you're reassessing some things and you wanna come up with a new number, that's fine. But on a scale from one to 10 again, one, feeling the anxiety and greed and desire for more in your life, specifically with money, possessions and status, and 10, feeling non-anxious, satisfied with what you have. Where would you plot yourself right now? Now, the follow-up question is this, what steps can you take in this next week to get to a 10? Where are you feeling, where you're feeling non-anxious and satisfied with God? What needs to change in your life? Is it a perspective change? Is it a conversation with someone? Is it just some prayer time with God and just being honest, God, here's what's on my heart. I'm really discontent, but God helped me become a 10. Whatever it is, what do you need to do in this next week to get yourself to a place where you're living in a place of gratitude and contentment? As we close, I just wanna encourage all of us to identify areas in your life where discontentment may be present and to offer prayers of gratitude in those areas, trusting in God's provision. And as we trust in God's provision, we'll have gratitude for what he's doing, how he's providing for our every need, and it will lead us to a deeper sense of contentment.

Let’s go ahead and pray together. God, again, thank you. Thank you for your word, for our time together. It is a gift from you. And we wanna pray that through gratitude and contentment, we will be able to overcome some of the anxieties that we face. As we explore, gratitude may help shift our focus from anxiety and worry to your faithfulness, God, and how you provide for our every need. And I pray that it would provide a deep sense of peace and contentment in our hearts so that whatever we're going through, granted, it may be difficult, it may be challenging, God, that we would rely on you, depend on you, trust you, and be able to go through it and see how you provide in ways that we probably can't even think of. But at the other end, as we get through it, we can look back and say, God, you did that, and I'm so thankful. And now I'm gonna live my life content with what I have, with where you have me. God, some of this world does a really good job at making us feeling dissatisfied with what we have, with our current lives, our possessions. God, give us strength, give us endurance, perseverance, fortitude to fight against that, and to see that what we have is enough. Be it in relationships, be it in possessions, be it with finances. God, we trust you and we love you, and we give all that we have to you. Use it for your kingdom, God, we pray this in your name. Amen.

The Guide To Gratitude - Part 2

The Guide To Gratitude

Gratitude in Action – Living from a Thankful Heart

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

The story goes that husband and wife, they're retiree, they had grown kids and they were living life in another state, say Florida, and picked up the phone and he called his daughter and he said, babe, mom and I, we're getting a divorce. We've been married 50 years, it's time, she's driving me nuts, I can't do it anymore, but just wanted you to hear it from me that we're going to be separating. And the daughter is just distraught on the phone and she's like, I can't believe this, how could this happen? And he goes, hey, can you call your brother? I just, I can't call him and tell him the news. So yeah, dad, you got it. So she immediately hangs up, calls her brother who lives in another state and says, mom and dad are divorcing. They're splitting after all this time. And he's like, what? Are you kidding me? There's no way. We have to do something. And she goes, well, what do you think we should do? He's like, well, let me call dad and I'll call you back and we'll figure out a plan. And so he calls dad and he's like, dad, how could you do this? You guys have been married. For so long. How could you let this happen? Don't make any rash decisions before my sister and I get there to be with you guys. And he's like, dad, promise me you're not going to do anything until we get there. And he goes, okay, I promise you. And he hangs up the phone with a smile on his face, turns to his wife, said, hey, babe, I want to let you know tomorrow the kids are coming for Thanksgiving and they're paying for their own flights. What does that have to do with gratitude? I don't know. It's a funny. It's a funny story. I want to share with you.

No, we're starting a series today and on a gearing up to Thanksgiving and we're calling it the guide to gratitude. And we want to take this this month as some of us usually do and have more of a mindset towards being thankful, right? Thanksgiving, we usually maybe sit around the table and you tell maybe something that you're grateful for for the year. But I want us to take this whole month and make it a whole month of gratitude. And so today. We're going to start and it's going to really talk about what it means to have like a foundation of gratitude in our lives. And that starts with a heart of Thanksgiving. It says in scripture so many different places to talk about having a heart of gratitude to having a heart of Thanksgiving to have a mindset of giving praise to God and giving glory to him. But gratitude is really a spiritual practice. It's something we have to work at. This isn't. It's something that we just one day randomly just pick up and we get to carry with us. But I think I want us to shift our mindset to think about what does it mean to really be having a heart of gratitude and thinking about it as practice. I thought about this. I grew up playing saxophone in elementary school and up through like sophomore, junior year of high school. And when I picked up saxophone, it was horrible. Grace and peace to my parents who had to sit there. And listen to three blind mice played as if I was blind. And it was terrible. Honestly, those first couple of years, it was awkward. It was clunky. There was lots of squeaking and honking. Not really like what you would think the sound coming out of a saxophone would be. But it took practice. And eventually I figured out the different notes. I could look at the sheet music and go, OK, that G, this is how I play a G on the saxophone. And then you would learn a scale and you would learn. And you would practice this over and over again. And over time, you would have to celebrate the little victories because there are times where it was really bad. Not going to lie. It was bad at times. But you had to celebrate the little victories. You learned a scale. Maybe you learned a song and you played it for the first time and you didn't mess up. You're like, yeah, look what I did. Like twinkle, twinkle, little star. I own like, yes, I know this. I got this. And then you would show up and you'd play. You'd play with your friends at school and you would have band practice. And you would figure out when like the time you guys are struggling through a piece of music and then you finally get it. It was just exciting.

But it took practice. The same would be said about learning a language. Anybody tried to learn another language? It's hard. It takes time. You start with the basics. Like, donde esta la baño? Like, you have to know the basics. You learn your colors. You learn your numbers. You learn the little things. And you. You start working through to learn to grow and you become better and better and better. And the same is true for us with gratitude. When we see the progress and we see how far we've come, it's incredible. Right? It's so amazing and exciting when you see that. But you don't stop there. I know some of the best professional basketball athletes in the world that take upwards of 800 to 1,000 shots every single day in practice. I know some of the best professional basketball athletes in the world that take upwards of 800 to 1,000 shots every single day in practice. Just because they've arrived at the big leagues, they have the contract, they don't stop practicing. Because they know that how they practice is critical to their success. Repetition. Time in and time out. Every single day. Because it changes who we are. Our repetition and our practice and rhythms eventually change who we are. And when that changes who we are, it begins to live a life reflected. Out of our relationship to God. Our life begins to be gratitude. We don't just give thanks anymore. We live thanks. We live that out with people in our lives. Did you know that a musician only plays about 10% of what he practices? Why? Because he's only mastered 10% of everything that he plays. And we see these musicians and talented people who play these beautiful, beautiful songs. And we go, man, how many hours of practice did you get to learn that song? And they would say, it's not about the practice of the song. It's about my practice overall. That I learned to become better in my song. Just a sliver of it is actually seen and heard before regular people. There's something about when we don't practice, though, that we begin to lose it, right? I can't pick up a saxophone. I could. I could pick up a saxophone right now and try to play. And it would be just as bad when I started in fifth grade. There wouldn't be anything better to it. I would know notes. I would have some head knowledge. But I would get out of breath. My embouchure would just burn. It would hurt my mouth. Because I don't have those muscles. Because I haven't practiced. Could I know some? Yes. I don't think you lose all of it. But when you get out of practice, you lose some of that progress that you've made. So we have to think of it as a skill. As something that we continue to learn on and have a regular rhythm. Gratitude is not just something we do during the month of November. But it is something that needs to be in our week and week out habits.

I love what it says in Psalm 104. It says, “Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him being God and praise his name.” This is an incredible psalm that was written for worship. It was written for those who, as they enter, entered into the presence of the temple or the church for the Israelites, they would give praise to him. But something there key, I don't, we kind of maybe read over real quick. But it says, Enter his gates, enter his courts. What does that mean? Well, the temple, the way it was built, would have these huge courts and gates around the temple. So if we were to take this psalm to heart, we would be praising God even before we get into church. They are praising God as they come before. They're not even inside church yet. And they're giving praise. It may sound like enter the parking lot with thanksgiving. Get out of your car with praise. We are called to worship God at every moment of our lives. Not just when we're in church and there's good music around us and, and things are going good. No, we're called to live a life of practicing praise all the time so that we can give a lifestyle. A life of praise and gratitude to him. This is why we gather weekly. Is to have a practice session. This is our practice together. Welcome. I'm running, running stingers here in a moment. But we're giving praise to God and who he is together so that we can learn. We can practice. We've become better. So then when we go out, we go out into the world. We know how to give practice and give gratitude to, to God. It keeps us in tune with who God is. This habit keeps us disciplined in a weekly routine to keep. Our lives.

And gratitude is, is a superpower. It, there, there have been thousands and thousands of studies on the physical change that gratitude brings into our, our brain literally rewires itself. It changes the nuclear molecules in our brain. When we have gratitude, that is a superpower. I don't know anything else that rewires our brains. It's pretty amazing. But there's just, there's power in Thanksgiving. Gratitude shifts our perspectives from focusing on what we lack to what we have. Did you know the average person will be exposed to upwards of 10,000 advertisements a day? 10,000. From billboards to apps to websites to mail to email to sign social media, TV, streaming games, texts, notifications. We are constantly bombarded with people telling us what we need to buy, what we need to own, what we need to eat, what we need to do, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And gratitude is a superpower to push back against those 10,000 lies that we hear every single day. To shift our perspective from what we don't have in our lives to truly thinking about what we do and what God has already blessed us with. We have friends. We have family. We have, we drove here in a car today. We have a roof over our head. There's food in our homes. We have, we have access to healthcare. And even greater than that, we have forgiveness in Christ Jesus. We have peace. We have God's hope. We have God's love. And so on and so on and so on. We are so blessed when we truly take a moment and begin to think about what God has blessed us with, which leads us into grounding us in God's provision. What do you mean? What do you mean grounding us in God's provision? God is our provider. God is the one that has given us everything in life. It's all because of him. When you think about what you own, your house, your possessions, your clothes, the phone probably in your pocket, the keys that you drove your car with today. He's the one who's blessed us with those things. Well, you think, well, pastor, you know what? I, I had to work the job. I had to save the money. Who gave you that ability to work that job? Who gave you the blessings of other things so that you could maybe save some money and put it aside? But pastor, I'm the one who drives to the store. I'm the one who bought it with my own money. I'm the one who brought it home. Who do you think gave you the car to drive to the store? Who do you think gave you the ability to even go to a store to purchase something and then to bring it home? Who do you think gave you the ability to even go to a store to purchase something and then to bring it home? It's God. God is our provider.

I love this word in the Bible. It's called Jehovah Jireh. There is literally a name of God that means the Lord will provide. That is one of the aspects of who God is. He is our provider. He is the one that has blessed us with everything that we have. It says in Philippians 4:19, “and my God,” Paul writes to the church in Philippi, “will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.” Another translation here puts it as God will take care of all of your needs. God will fulfill all of your needs. God will provide. God will supply. God will fill up until full. All of your needs. All of your needs. God will overflow into your life. Your needs. That's our God. This brings such great and amazing peace to our lives. Amen. It brings peace to our lives so that we don't have to worry about having everything figured out. We don't have to worry about how things are going to play out. We don't have to worry about how things are going to play out. We don't have to worry about how things are going to play out in life. Why? Because God has got us. Jehovah Jireh is on our side. That's something to give praise about. And that God in this will take care of us. Now, now, careful. We don't need to get lazy with this. Right? We can just not, I don't have to work my job anymore, God. You will provide. You're walking a dangerous line there, buddy. We do have a part to play in that. God provides us with a gift. With a job, we go, we work that job. We're there for a reason at that job. You ever thought about that? You have a job and God has called you to that place for a reason? Start praying about that when you show up at work. God, what do you have for me to do here at this work today? For your kingdom, not for my paycheck. That was a bonus point right there. But the pressure isn't all on us. God is working. God is moving. God is providing. Who better? Who better? To provide than the person who knows us even better than ourselves. Right? Who better to know all the things about us and all the things that we need to sustain us? God is there providing. He's the best person for the job. It's my God. That's my God. And the power of God is directly working in our lives. And this power is unleashed through thanksgiving. To him and for him. But things aren't always good, right?

Life isn't always just cruise control. And especially, especially when things are not good, we're called to give thanks in all circumstances. It says in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, "Rejoice always. Pray continually. Give thanks in all circumstances. For this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.” Gratitude isn't something that's dependent on circumstances. Well, you know, I'll give thanks when life is good. I'll give thanks when life is easy. I'll give thanks when my bank account is full. I'll give thanks when I finally get, the newest iPhone. I'll give thanks when I'm having a good hair day. I'll give thanks when I'm on vacation. When my toes are in the sand, God, I'm giving you thanks. I'll give thanks when I finally hit the lottery. Is that what that scripture says? No. It says I'll give thanks even when life is hard. I'll give thanks when I know, I don't know how I'm going to pay my bills. I'm going to give thanks even when my kids are not there. I'm not listening. Oh, pray for me in that. I'll give thanks when my boss is dumping more and more and more on my plate that I can't handle. I'll give thanks when I'm having a bad hair day. I'll give thanks even when I can't go on vacation. I'm going to give thanks when my phone is acting up. I'm going to give thanks when life is burdensome and heavy. No. We give thanks. Why? Because of who God is. You know, happiness is based on happenstance. But the joy of the Lord that is deep down in our hearts is rooted in the foundation of who he is. True joy is deep, deep, deep, deep down into God. And because of that, we can give thanks in all circumstances. Because God is almighty God. And he has overcome everything in Christ. That's why we give thanks. That's why we give thanks. So whatever we're facing in this short time that we're here down on earth, we know that God has already taken care of our eternity. We can give thanks no matter what we face this afternoon or tomorrow, this week, this month, this next year in 2025. We can give thanks to God because of who he is. The enemy would love to do nothing more. The enemy would love to do nothing more than make sure our gratitude is only based on our circumstances. That's where he gets us. That's where he comes after us and he starts poking us. Poking us. Poking us and telling us lies. Saying, you don't got it. You're not going to make it. You're not going to pay your bills this month. You're not going to have what you need. You're not going to be able to provide. You're not going to be able to take care of your kids. You're not going to be able to do this. You're not going to make it at work. Tells us over and over again. And we have to have a practice of gratitude, of rehearsing gratitude in our hearts and in our lives so that when those lies of the enemy come in, we can see them clear as day and go, not today, Satan. That ain't happening. We can push back.

Gratitude is an expression of faith in God's goodness, even in our difficult times. I see this as gratitude as like a handle we can hold on to life. Because life's getting crazy. Right? I don't know anybody who hasn't told me that life is not a roller coaster. It's life. Everybody who is asleep is just like, what's going on? Gratitude is the handle on that roller coaster that we get to hold on for dear life sometimes. And it's a blessing that God gives this to us. I'm thankful for some of you that right now life is great. I love it. It makes me so happy. But we know it always won't be like that. For some others in this room, life is hard right now. It's coming at us. We feel like we're stuck on that roller coaster and it's just on loop and we cannot get off and it will not slow down. But we got the handlebar of gratitude to hold on to even in the midst of all of that. We have to have a mindset or a rhythm of rejoicing always with God. Amen. Amen. Amen. Amen. as the scripture says, of praying continually. Always having a mindset towards God in whatever we're facing, wherever we're at. It doesn't mean we need to be walking around with our eyes closed and our hands folded the whole time. That's not what pray continually means. It means that we have our mindset on heaven. Where we're looking to Jesus to go, you're my sustainer, you're my life, you're my hope. You are the reason that I can even put one foot in front of the other. That's how we pray continually. And in that we give thanks in all circumstances that we can grab on to hold the handle of that gratitude in our life. When times are good, especially when times are tough, holding on with everything we have because God is good. God is good all the time and all the time God is good.

Part of our series in gratitude this month is we have a card for you today. And this is, this is gonna be handed out, ushers are coming. And they're gonna give you one of these. And what this is, is we wanted something that would be more than just Sunday. We wanted something that would take us through our week and not just be a Sunday morning kind of a practice. And so we're gonna give you a card. And for the next 30 days, we're gonna challenge one another to take a moment every single day in prayer and in your time with God. Maybe you wanna do it while you're in the word with him during that time, maybe morning and evening. You wanna take a moment during your lunch break and just pause your busyness of life and to think about and to begin to inventory our lives and to practice gratitude every single day. And so when you're looking at the card, at the bottom, there's some examples. We wanna give you some prompts here to try to help you. Now, if you notice, there aren't enough prompts to do one of those every day, you're gonna have to come up with some of your own. But these are examples of things that you can think through during this month. And we're gonna do this every Sunday together as a part of our worship service. So you're gonna get at least four checked off. And right now, right in this time in our service, I wanna invite Daryl up. And he's just gonna, he's gonna play some piano in the background for us. We're gonna do three right now together.

So what I wanna ask you to do is I want you to just bow your head, go before God, and we're gonna take a couple minutes here. And I want you to specifically begin to think about three different things that you're thankful for. And if you're joining us online, maybe grab a scratch paper or pull out your phone, make a note, and be able just to begin to pray to God and say, Jesus, thank you for this. God, it's such a blessing in my life. God, thank you for, thank you for my car. God, it may not run right all the time. May have problems here or there. But God, thank you for my car. I know because I have a car, I'm in the top one, two percent of the world in wealth because I have a vehicle that can transport me. God, thank you for the blessing that is in my life. Thank you for that you've given that to me. God, may I use it for your glory. God, when I drive around town, God, may I be a kind driver to others to even be a blessing to somebody else around me. So take some time, I'm gonna take a couple minutes here. Begin to think and pray through three specific things in your life of what you're thankful for to God. As we start this month together. As you think of those things, maybe just instead of a check mark, I was just thinking about this, writing down what you were thankful for that day. So you can remember, you can go back at the end of the month and you can see the 30 different things that you're thankful for God in your life.

God, we are so thankful for who you are, Jesus. God, you're an incredible God. You're a loving God. And Jesus, we thank you for the many things that you blessed us in our life. God, I pray for us as we begin this journey of 30 days of gratitude together as a church. God, I'm reminded of our vision that we shared this summer of 20 salvations and baptisms, 10 new families, three key leaders, and our one united heart of gratitude to you, God. God, may we grow in our gratitude this month as you guide us in your word and through your scriptures and through our daily practice of gratitude. God, may we give thanks for who you are in our lives. May we practice with giving thanks for the things that you have done, God, but also in that knowing that we will grow in our gratitude to where we can begin to have a heart of gratitude. A heart for the things that you have yet to bless us with. For the things that you have yet to do in our hearts and in our lives. For the things that you have yet to do in our families, in our kids, in our communities, in our Rocklin, Roseville families. God, you are going to do some incredible things this year, God, but we have to learn how to practice gratitude even now. So Jesus, I pray that you would bless us and that we would stand tall with one another, to not let the enemy come into our hearts and begin to throw us off, but that we would have a foundation of thanksgiving deep, deep, deep down into you, God. That we will be reminded of so many things that you've blessed us with and so many things that we have yet to receive. You are Jehovah Jireh. You are the God who will provide. God, let that truth be locked into our hearts today. May we not forget that. Because we also know what comes in Thanksgiving. Wanting to buy things and shopping and evaluating what we have and what isn't good enough. And what isn't good enough. And how we need an upgrade. And these 10,000 lies daily of advertisers that come in and begins to cloud our mind. And sometimes it's hard to see you, God. I pray that our heart of thanksgiving with superpower would push back all of those lies. And we'd be able to continue to focus on you, Jesus. Not only throughout Thanksgiving, but even throughout Christmas. And the end of the year. God, may we practice and learn gratitude to set ourselves up for a year of gratitude in 2025, Jesus. God, thank you for who you are. God, we give thanks for everything in our lives. May we give thanks in all circumstances. May our gratitude be founded in the grace of God. May we give thanks in the goodness of who you are. So that we can rejoice always. We can pray continually. And we can give thanks in all circumstances. We love you, Jesus. We pray all of this in your son's name. Amen. Amen.

Well, I'm excited to see where this 30 days of gratitude goes. If you along the way have something that happened or you have a friend that you love, have a story to tell, please come tell myself or Pastor Andre when he gets back. We would love to hear your stories of gratitude. And we're looking forward on the fourth Sunday of the month. It will be our Friendsgiving, our annual Friendsgiving meal. We're actually going to have our service. We're going to have a time of testimony of gratitude of what God has done in our lives. So I'm looking forward to that Sunday together. Well, blessings on you guys. I love that you're here with us. Thank you so much for being here. I will be out under the green tent on the way. I will be out if you want to say hello. But may God bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you, be gracious to you, turn his face towards you and give you peace. Amen. Go in Jesus today.

The Guide To Gratitude - Part 1

The Guide To Gratitude

The Foundation of Gratitude – A Heart of Thanksgiving

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Hey, it was fun. I had a chance to listen to Pastor Chris's sermon from last week, and I just wanted a real briefly just share three key points that I pulled from his sermon to remind us as we flow into today. And there were three things that I heard him say. First of all, gratitude is a spiritual practice. Practice means you work at it. Gratitude is a superpower, which is actually fantastic. And then gratitude is for any circumstances. And I loved his story about the saxophone because as I heard him share that, I thought I already had a gratitude, a thankfulness right there that I did not have to listen to him practice that saxophone. He shared about that. In fact, I confirmed it today that the saxophone that he initially started with, I believe is correct, that our son, Ryan, our oldest son, Ryan, who's a few years older than Pastor Chris, he basically had that saxophone. And then after hearing him practice, we paid the Snider’s to take it and give it to Chris as a gift. So that was a fun time. I have a friend, he's written this wonderful book, says, that wrote, he wrote this book that is titled, "If You're Not Dead, You're Not Done." And so in his story, in this book, he shares a story actually of his pastor's wife that he had when he was a little boy. And he talks about the fact how encouraging she was and how she mentored many, many, many young people over the years. As she got older, she contracted cancer. And so as towards the end of her life, they had to put her into a extended care home. And she was in her late 80s, and her son-in-law went to visit her in this situation. And he went to her and he said, again, remember, she was a very encouraging lady. And he went and he was visiting with her and he said to her, "Mom, how can I pray for you?" And she said, "Pray that I don't get grumpy." I thought it was fantastic. That was a wonderful statement. She had this prayer, she's suffering from cancer, she's getting the end of her life. And her thing is she just did not want to get grumpy.

And so as I share this morning, kind of building off what Pastor Chris shared last week, we're going to talk about the fact that gratitude needs to become ingrained in our lives. And I love the fact that you're doing this thing with this card to remind you every day of something to be grateful for. And so as we get into this, I'm going to go to Colossians chapter 3. If you have your Bible, go ahead and turn there or your phone, whatever you use to pull up your scripture. And we're going to take a look at Colossians chapter 3. And Colossians chapter 3, verse 17 says this, "And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him." In other words, he's saying we can have this lifestyle, this living out of our daily existence that we can be thankful and be able to represent God in every situation we find ourselves. And along the way, not get grumpy. All right? And so, but before we do that, it's funny when you read a verse, maybe when you've had this happen to you, it's happened to me. We record a lot of the TV shows that we like so that we can watch them on our own time. And so we were going in and one of the shows that we like is called FBI. And so we put the recording on and all of a sudden the FBI takes off and I felt like that we missed something. Something's going on that seems like we should know about. And it seems like it's getting to the end of this story. And I even said to Joni, my wife, I said, "Did we not record all of this? Did we miss part of it?" And as we're having this conversation, all of a sudden across the screen it says, "24 hours earlier." Ever had that kind of situation? You're in there and all of a sudden you think, "What in the heck is going on?" "Oh, well, let us catch you up." This is here we are now 24 hours earlier and they begin to catch you up to the story. And then Colossians chapter three, verse 17, that's kind of where we are. We kind of are at the end of what Paul is trying to say in this chapter. And so I want to kind of rewind back real quickly and I want to do an overview or a flyover or a summary of Colossians one through 14. And we talk about the fact that in this idea that Paul was laying out in Colossians, that we can have a new us. We can be new people. In fact, we are new people, just sometimes we forget that we're a new person. That's assuming you have a relationship with Jesus and you're living out that faith on a daily basis. As Paul says in Philippians, we need to work out our salvation. In other words, once we come into a relationship with Jesus, then it's a lifetime, not just a few weeks, a lifetime of living out and working out the salvation that he so graciously provided to us through faith in him. And so let's kind of just kind of walk real quickly through before we get down to where we started.

First of all, we learn in the first part of this chapter that we can have a new perspective. And he begins to lay out his, since then you have been raised with Christ. Set your hearts on things above when Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Verse two, set your mind on things above, not on earthly things. That's the new perspective that we can have, that we can set our mind on things above, not just on earthly things. Now you may or may not have heard this statement. It's been, when I was a kid, I heard it a lot. People would say, don't be so heavenly minded that you're no earthly good. And that's not what Paul is talking about here. He's just simply saying, we have this heaven, this reality that we have as a future hope. And we need to realize no matter what happens down here, we run that through the filter of our heavenly mind. We run it through the filter of our heavenly mind. And I don't know about you. We talk about gratitude and thankfulness, and I don't care how you voted. It makes no difference. I'm sure glad the election is over. Just glad that's all over. And so we have that idea that we have this heavenly mind and we run things through that, that this is not all there is in our life, what exists down here.

And then not only do we have this new perspective, but we have this new reality. He lays that out in verses five through 11, but in verses nine and 10, he really kind of, I believe, zeroes in on this new reality. He says, "Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its creator." See, we have this new reality. We no longer have this old self. And previous to that, he lays out a lot of the attitudes and actions that this old self had us wrapped up in. He says, "Now we have this new self." It isn't much different than the old self. You have a new reality and you need to live in that new reality. And as you discover that new reality and live firmly in it, yes, your lifestyle will change as far as how you look at things and you are grateful and thankful for.

And then he talks about our new identity. It's right there in verse 12, he says, "Therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved." That's our new identity. In Jesus Christ, that is our new identity. We are a chosen people. God chose us. And we can be a holy and we can be a dearly loved people. And so as we have these three things that have built up to where we kicked in here, that with this idea of having a new perspective, a new reality, a new identity, as a result, you and I, we can have a new lifestyle.

And it's a lifestyle that says in all that we do, all that we say, all that we think can glorify God. Does it mean that we're perfect? It just means that God can take all that we do and all that we are and all that we say and redeem that for His glory. Verse 15 says this, "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you recall to peace and be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all the wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts." So the foundation of the new lifestyle that Paul talks about here in Colossians is thankfulness and gratitude. They're kind of, in a sense, two sides of the same coin. In reality, one of them informs the other. Thankfulness informs gratitude. Because even though they sound similar, and frankly, we interchange them all the time, it's not a bad thing, it's just what we do, they are a bit different. Thankfulness is typically a response to a specific act that benefits us. Something happens to us, and we just respond in that moment at that time. For example, you start to walk into a store and someone's ahead of you. You stop and they open the door and they let you through. Typically you say, "Thank you." Or you say, "What took you so long?" No, you don't do that. You say, "Thank you." You have thankfulness for that really kind gesture.

Maybe you get an unexpected gift. Thank you. Someone helps you, ready for this? Someone helps you move. Have you ever moved from one house to another? My wife, we've been married, well, this next year we'll be married 50 years. And I know, we were 12 when we got married. But anyway, no, I'm just kidding. That was not our background. But we had this orange Naugahyde couch. Did I mention orange? And it really wasn't, it was a pullout bed. And this is when they actually made furniture very strong. And this was orange, Naugahyde is kind of a leathery type stuff, but it was bright orange. And we, for whatever reason, early in our married life, we moved a lot. Maybe we ran out of money and we had to get, I don't know, that wasn't the case. I'm just saying that. But we moved a lot. And literally, and I am not embellishing this at all, I only had one friend that ever would help me move that more than once. He was a real friend. We were moving it from up into a second story apartment and it wasn't really a, one thing that was wrong with it, the latch was broken. You ever carry a heavy couch up a stairway and it starts to unfold? That's an experience. So when we lived in San Diego back in the day and we were getting ready to relocate up here to Sacramento, we had in our family room, this orange Naugahyde couch. And so the people that we sold it to, the house, not the couch, walked them out into our family room and I said, "You see this orange couch? It's part of the deal. It's yours. You can leave it here. You can move it. I just want you to know when you move in, that couch is going to be sitting right there." The last I ever saw that couch and I'm so thankful for that type of thing. So that's what thankfulness is. It's just this everyday, but yet here's the thing. As we learn to say thank you for things, unexpected things, everyday things, that begins to build a pattern in our life to begin to create, and again, you probably have heard this term before, it's not new, an attitude of gratitude. Because gratitude is more deeper and enduring feeling than just thankfulness. It goes deeper than that. It tends to encompass just our whole general being. We just have this sense of gratitude and that's good. And I'm discovering this. You know, we sing about faithfulness and many times as we understand the faithfulness of God, we begin to understand and be more grateful for that. And I think part of that comes frankly with maturity or with age. I used to think as a younger pastor that only old people talked about faithfulness. And then as I've gotten myself older, I realized part of the reason for that is you have this entire history of seeing God work in your life. Even at the time you may not even notice that. And then you look back and say, "Ah, God is so faithful. I am so grateful for His faithfulness." And young people here, you have that too. And sometimes we just don't take the time to look back and say, "Oh my goodness, look how God entered into our lives. Look where His faithfulness became evident. I am so grateful for that faithfulness." So when we begin to consistently be thankful, it will feed a lifestyle of gratitude.

However, there are some perspectives that can get in the way of being a thankful, grateful person. Here's one person, I'm only going to share three. There's probably more. I'm going to share three. First, I earned it. So if you have the perspective, "I earned it all. I worked it out on my own. I did it all." Very hard to be grateful or thankful for what you earned. And I'm all for earning stuff. I think we should work hard. Nothing wrong with that. But we miss sometimes when we have the perspective, it was I who earned it. We forget of all the people along the way that were gracious to us. Some of you may have heard this adage and it basically is about a turtle that is sitting on the fence post. And here's the adage. If you ever see a turtle sitting on a fence post, you know it had helped getting there. I don't see very many turtles that can climb up a fence and jump on that post. And that's what it is when we say, "I earned it. Oh yeah, I think you probably did. You did a lot of work, but you had help getting there." Be thankful and grateful for the people and the opportunities that allowed you along the way to have the opportunity to earn the things that you have.

A second perspective that tends to erode our ability to be thankful or grateful is simply I'm entitled to it. If I'm entitled to something, if I deserve something, then why would I be grateful for it because I'm entitled to it. And it keeps us from seeing the reality of the situation that helped us to have that quote unquote entitlement and to be able to be grateful for that. Jesus talks about that in a wonderful story he tells in the book of Matthew chapter 20 and verses 1 through 16. I'm going to give you the ex-Twitter version of that. And basically there's this landowner and he needs work done on his property. So he goes out and he sees some guy early in the morning. He said, "Hey, I have some work. Would you like to work for me today?" And they said, "Sure." And he says, "I'll pay you denarii," which basically in there probably would be, "I'll pay you a fair day's wage. That's what I'm going to pay you." You got it. They went to work. And then later that same morning, the landowner went out about nine o'clock in the morning, according to the story. He saw some other people, frankly, kind of standing around. He said, "Would you like some work?" And they said, "Yes." He said, "Okay, you come on and I'll pay you fairly." He didn't tell them what. He said, "I'll pay you fairly." And they went to work. Then about five o'clock in the evening, he sees some other folks and he says to them, "Would you like some work?" And they said, "Yes." He said, "You come on and work." At the end of the day, at the end of the shift, the landowner called his manager in and said, "Listen, I want you to pay everybody. And I want you to start with the people we hired last and go to the ones we hired first and pay them all a denarii, pay them all a full day's wage." I wouldn't be happy about either, by the way, if you're thinking about that. So the ones who were hired first saw what was happening. The people hired at five got a full day's wage. People hired at nine got a full day's wage. They're thinking, "We're going to get more. We work longer, we're going to get more." They got paid what they were promised to be paid, the denarii, their full day's wage. And they got angry. They got mad. And they basically went to the landowner and said, "What are you doing? We work longer than those guys." And the landowner says, "Did I not pay you what I agreed to pay you?" They said, "Well, yes." He said, "Well, then I'm not being unfair. I've given you exactly what I said I would do. If I want to be a hypocite, if I want to be generous, then that's up to me." But what that story tells us, there's these guys that have this sense of entitlement. The oxen were entitled to more because we worked more than those individuals. And so they grumbled and complained. And yet instead of saying, "Well, I probably would have not preferred it that way, but I'm thankful that I had the work. I'm thankful that I got paid what I was said I would be paid." See, sometimes we have that entitlement mindset is we can never be thankful or grateful for what we've received, we'll begin to compare ourselves with what other people have and say, "Well, that's what we should have.”

And the last perspective that I think can hinder our ability to be thankful is that simply it's all about us. It's all about us. Now all of us in this room at some level, I know we're aware of what happened with the hurricane damage in the Southeastern part of the United States with Helena and also Milton. Just devastation. I'm sure you saw the pictures. They're online or on TV or something. Well, my son, Ryan, who I've already mentioned, who was trying to play the saxophone back when he was a kid, he now is a supervisor for farmer's insurance. And when something like that happens, regardless of what part of the country, he lives here in Northern California, regardless of what happens where they live, it's all hands on deck. So they're sending people, obviously, as they can, get them into these hurricane devastated areas to begin to process claims. And he was telling me one morning, he said, "Dad, we processed 10,000 claims in one day." He said, "Let me give you the context for that. The typical adjuster, a home adjuster for claims, will maybe process 300 a year." He said, "So at the time that we're trying to process all these claims of these people who have lost homes or they're flooded in this devastation," he said, "Let me give you an example. Someone here in the Rocklin Roseville area might have a stain on their roof about the size of a paper plate." And so they submit the claim for that. And it's a sunny day. There's no rain coming, the whole thing. They submit a claim for that and we're overwhelmed, so we're not able to process it as quickly as we would prefer to. And they start to complain. He has to sometimes handle some of these complaints when his adjusters are busy. And their thing is, "Why are you not calling me? Why are you not taking care of this?" And he's trying to explain it. Do you not know there's all these people in the Southeastern part of the United States that have no home or their house is underwater? And they said, "Oh yeah, but then I got this stain on my roof." Instead of being grateful that they do have insurance, it will be processed. And that's in human nature. I get it. But sometimes this gets in the way of us being grateful for what we do have in our lives.

So we need to become grateful, thankful people. How might we do this? And this is going to feed right into what Pastor Chris has been sharing with you about that 30 days of gratefulness or thankfulness. And I want to put it this way. There are just three things I want to encourage you to do. In essence, I want you to put pep in your day, P-E-P, pep in your day. Okay? A little pep. All of us can have a little pep in our day. A little energy, a little excitement, a little enthusiasm. And we can do it ourselves. The first one is this. Just simply practice grateful daily, gratefulness daily. Just practice that. Remember Pastor Chris said that gratefulness is a practice? And it is. It's something you practice it doing. Whatever it is, whenever you're learning something new or wanting to gain a certain expertise, what do you do? You practice it. And that's what it's talking about here. I have a, I don't know if I call him a friend. He's an acquaintance. I think I met him. We crossed paths many, many, many years ago. His name is Heath Mulligan. And I noticed on Facebook that regularly he will put out this little thing. Well, actually almost every day. Today I am grateful for, and he'll list a few things. And I, again, I don't know him well. I know him well enough to reach out. He would know who I am, blah, blah, blah. And so I messaged him through Facebook. And I said, "Heath, when did you start doing that?" That fascinates me. "When did you start doing that?" And then I said, "And what motivated you to do that?" He's a younger guy, well, younger than me. Of course, everyone's younger than me. Well, maybe some of you aren't, but most of you are younger than me. And he came back and he said, "Well, I started this practice in 2020, 2021." And he said, "I did it because I was reading some books. And it seemed like the books I were reading, every one of those authors somewhere in that book said it needed to practice being grateful." So he said, "I just thought I would start doing that." And this was just this last week I reached out to him. And just let me give you an example. This is actually from Monday of this week. Heath Mulligan says, "Today, I am grateful for the signs of change, not all of them visible. I'm grateful for back to back to back to back to back meetings. I'm grateful for quad stretches." I don't know why, but there you go. What does he do? He's just practicing gratefulness. And it doesn't have to be something huge or significant, just what was he grateful for that day.

That's the P, Pep, P-E, E, express appreciation to others. Make a habit of openly thanking people. My oldest grandson who lives here in the area, he plays football for Wood Creek High School, and I love football. So he's on the team and I got connected with a guy associated with the Wood Creek football program. And basically he now leverages me onto the sideline, which is great. I love being down there on the sideline. But just again, this was just this last week I'm coming on. There's this young man and he basically, I don't know what they call him now. In our day, we call him the water boy. He's in charge of going out when there's time out or whatever, making sure the players have water. So he has this little satchel on one side, there's their Gatorade field on one side, their water, filled with water. And so I was walking out of the sideline this couple of, actually this last Friday night, I said to him, I just stopped and I said, I introduced myself and I said, "I want to thank you for what you're doing. You really do your job well." And he does. He's very shy. He smiled real big. And, but when there's time, he's right out there and he's giving the players what they need and the whole thing. He always is walking up and down the sidelines in case one of the high school players need to have some water, wherever it might be. He does his job very well. And I just took a moment to say, thank you. That's what we're talking about. Just opportunities to express gratitude or thankfulness or appreciate somebody for what they've done.

And the final P is simply this, pay attention. Practice being fully engaged in moments throughout your day and look for opportunities to be grateful or thankful. Now, I don't know about you, but when I go, I'm in a hurry someplace, which unfortunately is almost all the time. When the light, I'm going down the string of lights and they turn green, I will say in my heart, sometimes outside I'll go, thank you, Lord. Now do I think God changed the light? Absolutely not. But I'm sure grateful that it is changed to green because I had to get someplace. So that's just being aware of what's going on. Being grateful and thankful for friends that you have, for family, thankful for a church community that you have. Hiroko Sanda, I probably butchered that name. The gentleman's not here, so I don't have to worry about it. He is a Japanese actor and producer. And I read a quote that he said, I don't know when he said it, but he read this quote and he talked about certain things. He went on and said, you know, sometimes people want an indoor pool. And when someone has an indoor pool, they never use it. Some people want a new car and some people will have a new car, always looking for the next car they can get. And he went down and used some of those illustrations and he came back around and his final statement was this, the key is to be grateful. Look carefully at what we have and understand that somewhere, someone would give everything for what you already have and don't appreciate it. Just being appreciative of the things that we do have. Nothing wrong with that whatsoever, just to look and see and we go out there today, what can we be grateful and thankful for? So if you practice those three things, that pep, that will help you fill out the card that Pastor Chris has provided for you.

And as I wrap up, I want to invite all of us to stand, if you would. I'm going to read the last final scripture verse. Stand where you are, if you're able. Psalm 150. "Praise the Lord, praise God in his sanctuary, praise him in his mighty heavens, praise him for his acts of power, praise him for his surpassing greatness, praise him with the sounding of the trumpet, praise him with the harp and lyre, praise him with timbrel, timbrel and dancing, praise him with strings and pipe, praise him with the clash of cymbals, praise him with the responding cymbals, let everything that has breath praise the Lord, praise the Lord." Okay, here we go. Ready? We're all going to take just a real deep breath. You ready? Just ready. Okay, there you have it. We all can praise the Lord.

Thanksgiving: The Power of Gratitude

Thanksgiving: The Power of Gratitude & Baptisms

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

I've told this joke before, but I'm gonna jump in and say it again. I think I need to share it this morning. It was Johnny's first Thanksgiving that he felt old enough to be able to want to pray before the meal. And so the family all gathered around, he got ready to pray and he asked mom and dad, he said, "Hey, can I pray for the meal?" And he said, "Sure, sure, Johnny, go ahead and say the prayer." And so he starts thinking Jesus for his friends and for his family and for the turkey and the mashed potatoes and the mac and cheese and all the stuffing and the pies and the desserts and everything. And he gets to the end and he kind of pauses. And you're in that mall where you're like, "Is Johnny still here? Did he leave?" It's like that awkward pause. And then he turns to his mom and says, "Mom, if I thank God for the green bean casserole, do you think God will know that I'm lying?”

We love Thanksgiving around here at Spring Valley. It's one of our favorite times of the year. And this year we just like supercharge it with baptisms. And it's gonna be a great Sunday. I'm not gonna talk long 'cause I know everybody can smell the food. Everybody's hungry. Everybody's excited to see the Jesus jacuzzi get used and to get going here today. And so Thanksgiving is this amazing time. And I love it because I think God specifically created it for us to pause before the holidays. For us to take this moment, and I already have neighbors that got decorations up, it's decorations I feel like have been in the stores since like 4th of July. Like I think 4th of July got passed up with Christmas decorations this year. Like it is crazy. But Thanksgiving is this moment for us to pause. Before the chaos of parties, before the chaos of presence, before the chaos of family drama, Oh, before the chaos of life that is the holidays, Thanksgiving just sits here and it causes us to pause.

And I got a couple of things I wanna share this morning on gratitude and honestly, the power of gratitude. Gratitude is actually one of the most healthy emotions we can experience. There is so much scientific study on the physical effects of being grateful. the physical effects that honestly nothing is better for our health than gratitude. Studies have shown that almost 90% of all doctors visits are linked to stress and gratitude is a stress buster. Gratitude causes us to pause in a moment and to reflect on what's really happening in our lives. Not what we think is happening, not this perspective we've put together in our own minds, but for us to truly pause and to look at the world around us and to see how amazingly blessed that we are. Even if we might feel like we aren't as blessed as the neighbors or the other person down the street or someone else that we know in our life, we are still blessed, right? We are so, so blessed here in our life. And gratitude is actually even linked to being an immune booster. Studies have shown that people who are grateful on a regular basis had a higher number of blood cells to help protect their immune system. That those who were recovering from surgery or fighting a disease or a sickness, they actually had better outcomes when they had a heart of gratitude. Gratitude actually rewires our brains. Studies have shown this where they've literally hooked up all like that cap with all the wires and the gizmos and the gadgets, and had people think on things that they were grateful for. And they literally saw the brain being rewired down to the molecular level, the neurons, and things actually changed our physical brain when being grateful. That's pretty powerful. And I don't think that's a coincidence. I think God created that for us and this way that our brain works better and our life is better and we're healthier and we have a greater perspective and all of this is brought together through the power of gratitude. It's pretty amazing. Self-help author and addictions behavior writer, Melody Beattie says, "Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life." I don't find it a coincidence that the Bible talks over 200 times on thankfulness, being thankful, gratitude, and having a mind of thanksgiving. It is throughout scripture from the moment you open your Bible in Genesis, all the way through the end of Revelation. There is gratitude all throughout scripture. And I wanna run through four key verses today that talk on gratitude and how the power of gratitude actually changes who we are.

Philippians 4,:4-7 says, "Rejoice in the Lord always, I will say it again, rejoice. Let your gentleness be evident to all, the Lord is dear. Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation by prayer, petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understandings will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." I love this word, guard. The Greek here actually for guard is, how do we say it? Through AO. And it's actually translated as protect by a military guard to either prevent hostile invasion or to keep the inhabitants of a besieged city from flight. When I think of that, I think of the top of the top. Whether that's the secret service, whether that's a Navy seal, maybe that's the Green Beret, I think of this elite military force bringing protection. And this is what Thanksgiving does to us. Thanksgiving guards our hearts and our minds in Christ. But that's external. What about the internal? Is there still protection? Is there still a guarding of our heart internally? I was reading a book recently, I haven't finished it, so if the book ends bad, I'll let you guys know. But this book is by John Eldredge, He's a great Christian author. And the book is about getting your life back. And there's this book that it talks about all the things in life that are clamoring at our attention, that are trying to take our lives away from us. And I'm going through the book and it's really good. They're like all this external stuff. I'm like, oh man, yeah, I need to work on that. We're gonna fix that, I gotta figure that out. And then he goes, you're not gonna like this next chapter. And I was like, what? He goes, "The greatest enemy we have "of anything in our life is ourselves." And he shifts into this chapter that's all about the self. And he goes on and he says this, and this hit me like a ton of bricks. The self is the greatest enemy of our own gratitude or thankfulness in our hearts and our minds. The enemy has a secret hold on each of us. an access point from within. The devil doesn't particularly care what your personal sins are or what gets you to stumble or how you fail in life. What the enemy delights in is his unfettered internal access that he has through ourself. Whoa. I think one of the greatest enemies to our gratitude is ourself.

I hear so many people will say, "Well, pastor, you don't know what they did to me. You don't know what happened there with all this other stuff. You don't know what went down in my life." You're right, I don't. And we can't control that, can we? No, there's no way we can control that. But what we can control is who? Ourselves. We can control ourselves. we can control how we respond in our choices. We can control how we respond to those moments. Will it be one with gratitude or without? And if scripture is true, which we believe that it is, it says that God will guard our hearts and our minds in Christ Jesus with gratitude. So it's for us, as we're walking around this world with a real enemy that is out to try to get us, not just a cartoon or a figment of our imagination, but an enemy that wants us to forget our blessings, to forget our forgiveness, to forget the financial gifts we've been given, to forget the food that is on our table, to forget the freedoms we have in life, to forget the blessings of the family that we have and wants us to focus on what we do not have. That's how he gets at us. We have to keep our attention on Christ and to keep ourself in check. Because if not, we'll get caught in the spiraling cycle of envy that only causes pain and suffering. And when we get caught in this comparison game, it is just a dark, dark trap that strips any hope of gratitude in our lives away from us. But Christ Jesus guards us, protects us, has a special forces unit of angels for our lives with us 24/7 through the power of Jesus Christ.

The second thought on thankfulness is that it aligns our souls. First Thessalonians 5:16-18 says, "Always be joyful, always keep on praying. "No matter what happens, always be thankful. "For this is God's will for you "who belong to Christ Jesus." Have you ever been driving in a car at fast speeds that needs an alignment? You might be okay going through the neighborhood, 25, 35, down the road, 40 max, but you cross over that 65 mark and you can barely hang on for life, right? That's life for some of us right now. Life's coming at us so fast and you're just looking down the road going, here come the holidays. Oh, Lord Jesus. Thankfulness realigns our hearts and our minds in Christ. Thankfulness and gratitude is actually a spiritual language. It's the language of heaven. There's no complaining in heaven. There's no asking for stuff in heaven. There's no, well, I hope that this would work out this way. No, no, no. It's just worship and gratitude to Jesus and God on the throne, right? And so here on earth, God wants us to learn this language of heaven. So when we get up to heaven, we don't sound like a newbie walking and going, I don't know what this is all about. God wants to align us into His language, His culture, His life, His world, and His eternal world through gratitude and thanksgiving. Some of us need an alignment in our lives. Some of us really need to get into alignment with who God is, not who the little God that we think we are in our own lives. Everything in life is trying to pull us in different directions at all times. Frustrations, struggles, horrible attitudes, things happening in life that we don't expect to ever happen to us are happening, and it is pulling us out of alignment with God, and gratitude puts us right back into the place where we're supposed to be.

Thankfulness understands that God redeems everything in our lives. This idea of redeeming, to make right, the original intent, original design and purpose. If you wanna hear anything this morning, I want you to hear this. Listen to me. God can redeem anything in your life right here, right now, today. I want you to hear that. 'Cause some of us have walked in here carrying some heavy burdens. We walked in with so many things on our shoulders that we are so tired and worn out, and we're thinking, I don't even know how I'm gonna make it through the holidays. And I want you to know that God is ready to step into your life and redeem that for his glory. We're gonna hear some stories today of redemption and God's glory in some of our lives and our family today through baptism. It's gonna be amazing. But I love what it says in Isaiah 51. It says, "The Lord will surely comfort Zion "and will look with compassion on all her ruins. "He will make her deserts like Eden, like the garden, "her wastelands like the garden of the Lord. "Joy and gladness will be found in her thanksgiving "and the sound of singing." Another translation of the original Hebrew puts it like this, it says, "Likewise, I, God, will comfort Zion, "comfort all of her mounds of ruins, "all transform her dead ground into Eden, "her moonscape into the garden of God, "a place filled with exuberance and laughter, thankful voices and melodic songs. Some of us got dry places in our lives, right? Some of us got some dry, dry places in our lives and we're walking around, we feel like we're just lost in the desert.

But God wants to restore that. He wants to redeem it. He doesn't wanna just like bring back some greenery here and there. He wants to turn that desert into like a greenhouse with all the beautiful flowers and the succulents and the trees and everything amazing that comes along with that. God wants to redeem that in your life. Where are you dry? Where are the waste places in your life? Maybe it's school, maybe it's work, it's relationships, it's a spouse. These are often filled with struggles and suffering and burdens. But what if God would bring redemption to all those dry areas in your life? What would your life look like? Look different, wouldn't it? It would look completely different than it does right now. And this transformation that wants to take place, God wants to redeem our lives. He wants to turn our struggles into an opportunity for His glory. He wants to transform our weakness into moments for His strength. He wants to change our failures into spaces for his triumph. He wants to overcome our battles into spaces for his victory. That's what God wants to do in your life. We create opportunities for him to be glorified and to redeem everything in our lives. 'Cause I feel like we're the ones that hold God back.

One final thought if you're taking notes this morning, thankfulness reveals Jesus everywhere. Psalm 69:30, I love this verse. “I will promise God's name in song and glorify Him with thanksgiving.” Another translation says this, “Let me shout God's name with a praising song. Let me shout God's name with a praising song. Let me tell his greatness in a prayer of thanks.” Or maybe this way, “I will praise the name of God with a song and I will magnify him with thanksgiving." I love that image of magnification. This idea of taking something that might be small or might be minuscule or maybe less significant than we think and just blowing it up. Really, really expanding that in our lives. This idea of magnify to enlarge, to boost, enhance, maximize, increase, augment, extend, expand, amplify, intensify, blow up. It is impossible to make God any bigger. Let me say that right here, right now, okay? It is impossible to make God any bigger than He is. However, it is so easy that every day we forget how big God is. 'Cause what happens? This big, big God starts shrinking down when our problems start getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, right? It's the scale. As our problems get bigger, God gets smaller. God wants to go the other way with it. God wants to take these big, big problems and smash them back down to their proper right size. That is probably mostly minuscule, if we're gonna be honest here, right? He wants to smash those down because he wants to get bigger. He wants to get bigger in our lives to a place where we go, man, I didn't think God could get that big. And God's like, you ain't seen nothing yet, man. That's what he wants to do. And the gratitude in that is like the supercharger of that.

Supercharger, it makes me think of Tesla. I saw a Cybertruck on the road the other day. It was kind of cool. Elon Musk, his new Cybertruck thing, it looks like a floating tank. It's so weird. But their superchargers that they have for these cars is phenomenal of how quickly they can recharge a battery. It's mind boggling. I feel like he somehow bent the laws of physics. That's what God wants to do in our lives. He wants to take what we think who God is in our lives and bend those laws of physics to go, this is who I am. This is who I am and this is what I want to do in our life. He wants to take our distractions, our busyness, our life that happens and make it all itty bitty tiny, minuscule to where it just don't matter anymore that we completely even forget about it because all that we can see around us is God moving and transforming our lives. That's what he wants to do. And when we do that, we're left, but the only response is to worship. There's nothing else that you can do in that moment, except to turn our thankful hearts back to God in what I would call thanks singing. And you say, well pastor, you know, I just, I can't sing. I can't carry a tune in a bucket. That ain't no problem. God's got auto-tune as you sing. It fixes itself on the way up to heaven and it's just a beautiful sound. Amen. That's it. That's what it's about. God's got it fixed. That's not for us to worry about. It's for us just to praise Him. That's what we're supposed to focus in on. And when God minimizes these problems that are alive and He expands who He is, we have no other response, but to start singing a song and live a life of gratitude.

Do people hear the song of Jesus in your life? Do people hear you sing that song? Okay, you don't gotta be singing all the time. You can be, got some theatrical people in the room that love singing at all times. Exactly. “I'm doing the dishes” It's like, okay, just you're doing the dishes, just calm down. We don't need to sing about it, okay? But the idea of singing a song of gratitude in our life is our witness, is our testimony. You're gonna hear some testimonies this morning of what God has done in people's lives. And they here today want to tell you that Jesus is Lord and leader of their life, that God has saved them from their hurt and their pain and their sin and their lost struggles. And He has redeemed them. And He wants you to be the witness to that. He wants you, they want you today in front of God, in front of heaven to share what God has done in their lives. But for those of us who aren't getting baptized today, what does God want to redeem in your life? What does God want to restore? How does God want to realign your hearts and your minds in Thanksgiving today? How will you to survive these holidays tap into God's supercharger to keep our spiritual batteries of gratitude fully charged so we don't turn into that person every single holiday that we know. How will we do that? Will we begin to be filled up with the language of gratitude, with the power of gratitude, with the language of heaven, with thankfulness, how will God's power of gratitude be shared with those around us this holiday season? That's my challenge for you today. I wanna pray, I wanna invite the worship team up, and we're gonna move into our time of baptisms this morning.

Jesus, we thank you for today. God, we are so grateful. We are so thankful for who you are. God, for your power that came that very first Christmas that we're gonna celebrate starting next week, God. That ultimately led to a place on the cross where we were able to have this broken relationship with you that all hope seemed to be lost was restored through your son, Jesus Christ. God, we're gonna hear these stories of what you've done in people's lives today, God, and we worship with gratitude with them. We worship with thankfulness. We worship with just this outpouring of praise, God, for what you did in their lives, reminding you what you've done in our lives, reminding us of this amplification, this magnification of gratitude that needs to happen through each and every one of our lives. Because if we don't share God, who will? So Jesus, we're so looking forward to this moment and this time. God, we praise you, we worship you, we thank you for who you are. Everybody said. Amen.

Give Thanks - Part 3

Give Thanks - Part 2

Give Thanks - Part 1