And that's what we're going to talk about this morning.
Before we get into that though, I am going to ask the Guatemala
team to come on up. Those that are still here from
the Guatemala team, they are leaving next Saturday.
They're going to be stuffed full of Turkey and then they're going
to head out. And so we want to, we don't want
them just to go. We want to send them.
We want to bless them. So I'm going to have once you
guys stand up, we're going to, we're going to pray that God
will use them and bless them. And Tom, would you grab that
that mic there and I'm going to have you pray over them.
So this is, this is not a spectator sport around here.
We send people, we want to bless them.
We're going to we're going to bless them as a house.
We're going to just ask God to use them powerfully.
We're behind them. Scriptures clear.
It says how can they hear unless someone goes and how can they go
unless they're sent? So they're not just going,
they're being sent. All right, so let's let's pray.
And Tom, if you want to lead us. Sure.
Well, Father, we thank you, Lord, for these that have said,
Lord here, Father, we thank you for the work that you've put in
front of them. Lord that the calling that you
have on their lives to serve in Guatemala, all the souls that
will be saved, we call them forth now in Jesus name.
We thank you for all the healings.
Lord, Your word says miracles, signs and wonders will follow
those that believe. Father, I thank you for these
believers that you're sending down to Guatemala and I thank
you Lord for all the souls of be turned to the Kingdom.
We give you all the glory, honor and praise in the name above all
names. We pray the name of Jesus Christ
of Nazareth, the one who was, who is, and who is coming again.
Amen. Amen.
Thank you, Tom. All right, they're going to be
going and doing VBS for how many kids?
Four days of VBS, Four days of VBS, 200 kids, 200 kids.
So they need a lot of prayer. Well, this is not just some
token prayer. They need 200 kids for four
days. So bless you guys.
We'll be yes, yes. So man, I'm, I'm just excited.
I appreciate these guys jumping in and doing this.
That's awesome and God is good. OK, let's get into the word.
I, I got away a couple for a few days this week and just to pray
and seek the Lord and there's some things the Lord's been
churning in my heart and some things I wanted to share, but I
really feel like I need to hold off on that.
We'll, we'll be getting into that in the days to come, but I
feel like we need to set ourselves up this morning for
Thanksgiving. We're we're going into this
season. Isn't it a wonderful thing that
we live in a nation that sets aside a day to give thanks?
You know, gratitude. Giving thanks is an act of
humility. It's an admission that, hey, we,
we've been recipients of things that we didn't deserve, that God
has given us things and that we need him.
And so Thanksgiving is a wonderful holiday.
Premeditated gluttony. Hallelujah.
So I'm going to smoke a big old 22 LB Turkey and it's I'm going
to double smoke a ham. Anybody hungry as I talk like
that? So we're, we're, it's going to
be a good time. We're going to host like 25 to
30 people and we'll eat and then we will lay down.
Amen. He maketh me lie down in green
pastures. In my case, he maketh me lie
down on a big old burgundy lazy boy.
Hallelujah. I just felt the anointing when I
said that. All right, so, but we're going
to, we're going to receive communion this morning.
But before we do that, I want to look at this whole thing of
Thanksgiving because Thanksgiving is not a day.
It's not an idea, it's a mindset and it's a lens through which we
look at life. It's a it's a way in which we
interact with life. Gratitude, Thanksgiving is a
crucial posture of our heart. And in fact, it is actually the
culmination of grace in our life.
You know we're saved by grace, right?
We all know that we're saved by grace.
When I was a new believer, I really wrestled with this,
wondering about this whole thing.
We're saved by grace and we're saved by faith.
And I was like, Lord, which is it?
And the answer was, uh huh. You ever seen that picture of
Michelangelo painted of it's God floating in the air and his
fingers coming down, and then man is floating in the air and
his fingers going up and it's a picture of grace and faith.
It's heaven invading earth. God reaches down.
God's finger towards man is grace.
Man's finger towards God is faith, and everything that we
get from God is by grace, but it comes through faith.
So the divine side is God gives us his grace.
So we're going to look at what that word means, but there's
also a response that we have, and that response is faith.
And at the foundation of faith is a conviction that God is
good. That is the foundation you could
do. Let's look at this.
There's a three legged stool, if you will, or there's three ideas
about God that you must buy off on in order for God to be
airtight and you to surrender your life to him.
We know that God is all powerful.
He's omnipotent, He's all powerful.
That's great. That's awesome if, but if that's
all there was, that'd be a pretty scary proposition.
God is also omniscient. He knows everything.
That's awesome. But the real kicker, the good
thing, the foundation of it all is He is loving.
He is good. He wants what's best for us.
So the way this lays out, God wants what's best for us.
He knows what's best for us, and He's able to bring it about once
we understand that we would have to be insane for a moment not to
surrender to Him, because God knows everything.
There's an old saying that God's will is what you would want if
you knew all the facts. God knows it all.
We don't, he knows it all. And so when we understand that,
then we, we say, Lord, I, I, I defer to you.
You're, you're omniscient, you know everything.
But not only that, God is able to, to, to pull it off.
And here's the, there's the foundation.
He really wants what's best for you.
He is good. And that is the foundation of
faith. Matter of fact, when you
struggle with your surrender, and we all have, when you
struggle with your surrender, it's because at one of those
those attributes you're, you're struggling with, you're thinking
and maybe God doesn't know. You ever wondered, Well, God, I,
I know you mean well. You think how ludicrous that is.
I know you mean well, but you don't really understand.
That is a ludicrous statement. He became human being and walked
among us so he could, he could be touched with the feeling of
arm infirmities. Jesus knows better than we do
and so he knows what's best. He has the power to pull it off.
Sometimes we struggle with that. God, I don't know if you can do
this one, He is all powerful. He can move heaven and earth to
get you to where you need to go. But here's the good news that
because if those were the only two realities, if he knew
everything and he's all powerful, that's a scary
proposition. If he's not good, if he doesn't
want what's best for me, that is a terrifying reality that an all
powerful, all knowing God is out there, but he is an out out for
my good. Hebrews Chapter 11, verse 6, it
says this without faith. It is.
I think it's verse 6. Without faith it is impossible
to please God, for all who believe him must believe two
things, that He exists. It's not good enough just to
believe that Jesus exists. God exists.
The demons believe that and tremble, but they don't
surrender to Him. The second truth there is this
and that He is the rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
And when you realize that, that's where things get good.
It was about 3 years ago on a Sunday morning, I woke up to the
Lord speaking that very strongly to me.
That verse, just that line of that verse, I am the rewarder.
And it's so struck me. I, I mean, I've read that verse
for many years. I've been walking with the Lord
over 40 years. I was raised in church.
I'd heard that a million times, but I never thought about how
God refers he he. That was a self-imposed title.
It was a a self description by God himself.
God says to you I am a rewarder. That kind of tweaks our theology
because again, we're saved by grace through faith.
And we have, we want to emphasize the grace side that
it's all by grace. And it is even our faith is an
act of grace that God has extended to us, the ability to
see Him for who he is. Faith is simply recognizing God
for who he is. And once you see him for who he
is, then you want to surrender to Him.
And when you struggle in your faith, it's because you have a
misconception of who God really is.
And so the it's all grace. But if we're not careful, we
get, we get a little squeamish when we begin to talk about
faith, when we look at scriptures like your faith has
healed you, We look at this thing of God being a rewarder.
If you look in in Hebrews Chapter 11, it's called the Hall
of faith of the faith chapter. And it get lists, all these
great men and women of faith and how they did great exploits.
And again and again you'll see this idea it says and they were
commended for their faith. They were commended.
There is a commendation from heaven towards those who have
faith. God has reduced this whole thing
called a relationship with him, what we call Christianity.
He's reduced this whole thing. The one way in the door in is
faith. You ever wondered why that was?
Maybe I'm weird, but when I first got saved, I, I remember
having this conversation with the Lord and I, I didn't want to
voice it because I felt like this is not good to think.
But I'm thinking, Lord, you know, is it a little
unreasonable for you to reduce it all to faith?
And isn't it kind of self-centered that I got to
believe in you before I get in? Why do you take it so personal?
You know why God takes it so personal?
Because it is your faith. Is your estimation of His
faithfulness or His integrity, Your surrender is an expression
of who you really think He is. Is he trustworthy?
It is a personal statement. Now the good thing about God is
He reveals some of His faithfulness and as we put our
faith in Him, we grow in faith. He doesn't demand great faith.
He said you have a faith of the mustard seed.
If you can start there, I will grow your faith.
But we have to be convinced that God is the rewarder.
Do you really believe that? Do you believe that God commends
some and some don't receive a commendation?
And what it's what it's based upon is your faith, your
estimation, your, your, what's the word I'm looking for?
Your, your, your summation. This is who I think you are.
That's what God will judge us on.
It's an amazing thing. And what He wants to do is
reveal His faithfulness so you can grow your faith.
But we have to embrace this thing called faith that says God
is good. And that's where this thing
begins. That is the threshold of the
Kingdom. In fact, eternal life and
eternal damnation are both. There's one door in to both.
One it's faith and the other is unbelief over the one it says
God is good. It's a beautiful ornate marble,
you know, door and over is carved beautifully.
God is good. And as you walk through that,
you enter eternal life. And here's what we need to
understand. That is not a someday thing.
It's a right now thing because you are already, if you are born
again, you are already you have already entered eternal life and
the powers of the age to come are bleeding back into the
present and they will overtake your life.
But they only come through faith.
In fact, the measure of the Kingdom of God that invades your
life is based upon the the measure of your faith.
And it's not some earning thing. It's a matter of humility and
saying, God, I need you to reveal yourself.
I need to understand these things about you.
I want to grow in my estimation of you.
I want to see you for who you are.
And Lord, when I'm struggling and I feel like man, I don't
know if I can trust you and this this seems like it's
contradicting your word, what I'm going through.
See, everyone of us have faith and unbelief.
We all have that. We get to choose who we point
our faith towards and who we get to choose.
We choose who we're going to point our unbelief towards.
You see, you can say, God, I'm looking at this and this doesn't
line up with your word. So I'm going to point my faith
at myself and my unbelief towards you, and I'm going to
hold you at a distance because I trust me more than you.
Or we can look at circumstances because who who can admit that
there's times where what you're going through seems to
contradict what you're promised in the word.
There's that fight of faith. And it's like, man, I hear all
these promises, but I'm not seeing them.
There's no movement in my life. I need a miracle.
And in those moments, that's your truest expression of who
you think he is comes to the surface.
It's not what you say in worship in an air conditioned room on
cushy pews, great music mix. Thank you, Jason, all that
That's that's not where that's not your purest worship.
Your purest worship is when everything's falling down around
your ears. Will you still stand and say,
God, I know this, I, I, things are not going like I, I thought,
but I'm going to point my unbelief towards me.
I'm going to suspend my judgement.
I don't understand. It's above my pay grade.
But I know this. You are good.
And we focus on him. We pour in our faith towards
him. It's like binoculars.
You know, when you're a kid, you'd get binoculars.
You'd look and you'd, you'd look at things and things would get
bigger. How many of you were weird like
me? You'd flip them around and you'd
look through the big end and you'd look and everything looks
far away. In a very real sense, unbelief
is like flipping your binoculars around and you're looking
through the long you're You're viewing God through your
circumstances rather than viewing your circumstances
through God. And when you do that, God
becomes very, very small and distant.
It's not reality, but that's what fills your vision and so we
have to have this thing of God is good and I'm going to place
my trust in him. I'm going to decide every one of
us has a measure of faith. Will you exercise it to begin to
grow it? Because you're what I'm saying
is this, that your conviction that God is good is the
foundation of gratitude. Gratitude is not an idea, it's a
mindset. It's a lens through which you
evaluate all of life. And when you do that, it be you
begin to see things differently. When you look through the lens
of gratitude, you see the blessing of God everywhere, even
in the midst of tragedy. But if you look through the
lenses of cynical unbelief, you begin to accuse God and agree
with the narrative of the enemy. I'm telling you, you will find
plenty of evidence to that truth, to, to that lie.
Rather, you're, you're going to find plenty of things to back
that up. It all depends on the lenses you
look through. And so this, this idea of
gratitude is really, it's, it's one of the primary evidences
that you're walking in faith. We said again, one of the
primary evidences that you are walking in faith in God is that
you are walking in gratitude. Because when you're walking in
ingratitude, you're accusing God of abandoning you.
You're accusing God of making mistakes, and it's a very, very
serious thing. It was unbelief, and that
manifested in complaining, which is exactly the opposite of
praise. It's using your mouth to accuse
God. It's using your mouth to say
God, you made a mistake, you blew it.
And when we do that, we attract an entire world, an entire
reality to us. God inhabits the praises of his
people and the enemy inhabits the complaining of God's people
and that both God and the devil bring their world with them.
And your mindset actually cultivates the world in which
you live. I know you've all seen it in
different, different scenarios, but I've talked to people
actually raised in the same home, same parents, same tragic
circumstances. And one walks in the blessing of
God and, and they're blessed and they're, they're thriving in
life. And the other is their life is a
train wreck. And you ask them both
separately, why, why, Why is your life such a train wreck?
Well, what would you expect from the child of an alcoholic who
was beaten by their parents and all this stuff?
And they're saying, well, of course my life's a train wreck.
I'm a victim of these circumstances.
You ask the other person raised in the same home, how is it
you're so blessed? Well, man, you don't realize
where I came from. And God rescued me.
God was so good to me. He extended the hand of mercy
towards me. What would you expect from
someone that was shown such mercy?
Same circumstances, different lenses, and they live in two
different worlds. You literally create a world
with your belief system. So much so See, gratitude is
both a psychological and a spiritual reality.
There is a psychological element to gratitude that, even apart
from God, is a powerful thing. That's why you'll hear atheists
talk about the power of positive thinking, and sometimes
believers get squeamish. Oh, that's that's New Age.
No, it isn't. It's the way God's wired things.
No, you're not going to. You're not going to enter into
the full blessing of God with that unless you sign off on him
being good. But positive thinking is nothing
more and nothing less than looking for the positive around
you. And the fact is what depending
on the channel you want to tune into, you're going to find an
abundance of evidence and frequencies to tune into, and
you're going to find validation for what you've decided to
believe. And so this whole thing of faith
and the goodness of God is crucial.
And one of the primary expressions of that is, are you
a grateful person or are you a complainer?
Now, the fact is, some personalities have a little more
tendency than others. But don't let that let you off
the hook because you still, regardless of whether you have a
personality propensity or whatever you want to say towards
that, the fact is you're still going to live in the world that
you create with your own mind. I know that sounds New age, but
I'm telling you the what you believe, you will receive what
you if you're believing that everything is against you, then
you will adopt an attitude of a victim and life will happen to
you and you'll live under that. And if you believe that God is
good, you'll begin to recognize his moving and you actually
cultivate that very thing through your gratitude.
Cultivation through appreciation is a very real spiritual
dynamic. We said again, cultivation
through appreciation is a very real spiritual dynamic.
The children of Israel, they complained about what God didn't
give them. He delivered them out of Egypt,
drowned in the most powerful army on in the world right
before their eyes after they plundered it without ever
lifting a sword. They walk out wealthy, fat, and
they're in the wilderness and they start complaining because
they don't have garlic anymore. Wait, brother.
See. And it's it's the mindset.
But then you got Caleb and Joshua had a totally different
mindset. So I'm telling you, this thing
is, this is not some minor thing or, oh, you know that.
Yeah. I need to adjust my attitude.
No, listen, this thing is crucial.
It is do or die. If you don't have the right
attitude. If you don't cultivate an
attitude of gratitude, it will actually sabotage your life.
Gratitude is actually the fruit of grace.
It's it's grace matured. It's the final stage of grace.
It's it's the full maturation, the full fruition of grace in
your life. We're saved by grace.
We receive that when we get saved.
But as we cultivate that, eventually it will manifest
itself in gratitude. And if it doesn't, you'll
actually destroy your own faith. What I mean by that, it's an
interesting study. If you look at the word, the
Greek word grace, it's chorus, CHARIS.
So we get the word charismatic. Charismatic.
I say that, you know, if you speak Greek, you never have to
clear your throat because you just talk and it does it for
you. It's chorus.
The root word of that is char, CHAR, which is joy.
And then chorus is grace, which is fascinating.
There's a whole, there's a whole lot of stuff in that we don't
have time to get into. But the fact is this word chorus
had a history of development. It evolved.
It had several different layers of meaning that evolved over
time, all of it predating the writing of the New Testament.
And so when Paul is searching for a word to communicate this
power that God extends to us and, and make no mistake, grace
is the power of God. Second Corinthians chapter 12,
Paul said this, he's asking God, God, I've got this thorn in my
flesh. This, this, this messenger of
Satan buffeting me and he's saying, God, would you lift this
off? And the Lord said, I've allowed
this because I've got to keep you low so I can keep giving you
great revelation. How many of you want great
revelation? Get ready for a wild ride.
Let me read you. So I was thinking about this
yesterday and it I remembered this one time we had a guy, Joel
Budd. Some of you remember Joel and
Linda. Joel was preaching for US1 time
I was sitting on the front row and the well he was preaching.
I don't know what he was preaching about.
The Lord began to speak to me and I just wrote down what he
said. You be a judge.
Whether this was from God or not.
This is what he told me. He said persistence is key to
understanding. Many get offended by living out
of limited understanding, but refuse to press in for insight.
In other words, you're, you're, you're chugging along as a
believer and all of a sudden there's hardship and you're not
it's it's not lining up something the the dots aren't
connecting like God, I'm I'm trying to be faithful, but this
is happening. What's going on?
And rather than going to Him and really asking those questions
and assuming that my understanding is limited and
Lord, this is what it feels like, but I know that can't be
true because you're good. So I'm coming to you and I want
you to show me what's underneath this thing so I can connect the
dots. The Lord told me He said a lot
of people end up just getting offended.
They check out rather than pressing in for insight.
I would propose to you that often your greatest revelations
are right under your greatest frustrations, and that
frustration is actually the catalyst to cause you to press
in the very frustration that gets some people turn their back
on God, say when friends like that who needs enemies because
they have the wrong lenses on and they don't really believe
God is good. They trust in themselves more
than his omniscience, and they check out.
But for those who really believe that God is good, you go through
a hard time and it's like, man, this is frustrating.
This something isn't connecting. Something's not right.
If we'll cry unto the Lord, he'll hear our cry and he'll
begin to give us insight so that we can understand what's going
on underneath the surface. So again, I say to you, do you
really want great revelation? Because if you want great
revelation, then get ready for some frustration.
Frustration is one of God's primary tools in the life of the
believer. Romans 8 says we are subjected
to frustration in hope. And then he says, and people
don't hope for what they already have.
Matter of fact, it's the hope that's frustrating because the
hope knows, oh, there's a possibility there's God wants me
to, I have this hope, but yet I also have this experience that's
not lining up with my hope and my belief and my promise.
And that that tension there is what frustration is all about.
But that frustration, if you look in Romans 8:00, that
becomes the fuel of your intercession.
You begin to cry out to Him, and those who have great revelation
have had great frustration. And if you begin to know the
ways of God, you realize, OK, what God is doing is he's
drawing me into circumstances that don't make sense so that
I'll turn to him. I'll cry out, and this will
become the platform upon which he gives me a better revelation
of Him. I'm going to grow and you cannot
grow in God without that dynamic.
So God draws us in. So listen to what he's what
what? This is the Scripture I'm
telling you. This is what the Lord spoke to
me. You'd be a judge.
The this is the next thing you told me.
The answers you are longing for are available to you if you will
press in for them. Much of what you long to
understand is too precious to be shared with the heart that has a
little interest. Your pursuit carries a value
system that cherishes the find. The pursuit itself raises the
value of the treasure. And then.
This is interesting. I'd never thought of this
before, but this is what he said to me.
Buried treasure is more valuable than mere gold because of the
expense of unearthing it. The market value raises with the
story of the pursuit. The investment of unearthing it
is folded into the value placed upon the treasure.
It becomes part of the equation. In other words, if you have a
pound of gold, which is worth some money right now, you got a
pound of gold. That's worth what a pound of
gold is. But if you've got a pound of
gold, the blooms, I think that's what they're called, and they
were part of some famous pirate treasure that was discovered.
Them though our pieces of gold are worth more because of the
story behind it. And the fact is, easy money
spends easy. If God were to give you
everything that you wanted very easily, you wouldn't value it.
But as God, God's a good steward.
This is the next thing he told me.
Listen to this. This is he said.
I long to reveal more to you. But the value system to carry it
must be in place. The pursuit, the investment,
creates an internal value system which will steward the treasure
I long to give you. I will not throw pearls to those
who cannot understand their value.
I am too good a steward. And So what he was saying to me
is that it was it was actually the pursuit of these things and
the frustration of the circumstances that became the
platform for him to reveal these things.
Those things were necessary because they created within me a
value system. And if everything came easy,
easy money spends easy. You ever see someone win the
lottery or something? Easy money spends easy.
But a guy that has to work his tail off, get up early, come
home late, dirty, worn out, falls into bed, only to do it
again the next day, that money spends a whole lot harder than
the easy money. And the revelation that God is a
good father. He's, he's really good.
He wants to reveal things, but he's also a very wise father and
he knows he can't just give you everything easily because you
won't value it. And So what he does is he draws
us into a circumstance. The circumstance creates a need
that there's, it requires a fresh revelation.
And then he's just waiting for you to ask.
And what he was telling me is what happens in those
circumstances. Many of us get frustrated, we
get offended. God, why'd you allow this?
When in reality, he's a really good father.
He knows what he's doing. He wants to draw you in and give
you a revelation that will cause you to be able to overcome in
that situation. This whole thing of gratitude is
the lens through which you evaluate circumstances.
And when those situations arise in our life, if we're
ungrateful, it's indicative of a false narrative we've bought
into about God. We believe something wrong about
Him, and it sabotages our ability to receive from Him.
And so God wants to, he, he wants to stretch us, He wants to
grow us. He longs to give us greater and
greater revelation of himself. The fact is, I'm, I'm telling
you, you cannot grow spiritually without more revelation.
Your growth is equal to the revelation that you carry.
Now you can, you can have knowledge and not grow, but you
can't grow without knowledge. You can be a person that just
has a lot of head knowledge, but you're not applying it.
But if you really want to grow in God, he's going to bring you
through circumstances and if you learn to run to him.
What I really wanted to preach on this morning, I got pulled
back into Psalm 63 this week. Oh my goodness, that thing just
destroyed me all over again. And I was so struck by David.
David had a habit throughout his life.
When crisis hit, he didn't try to strategize.
Prayer wasn't the last thing. The first thing he did is said
God, you are my God. Earnestly I seek thee.
My soul thirsts, my flesh faints for you, so I have seen you in
your sanctuary. I have beheld your power and
your glory. David knew I am thirsty.
My circumstances is placing a demand of me and I know where to
find the water. He would always go to God's
presence. And if we will have that value
system, if we will realize He is the truth, He is the key to
unlock the life that God wants to release to you.
But too often, that's the last thing we do.
And what I'm telling you is that at the foundation of that whole
process, that when you go through trials and every one of
us has gone through them, if you don't have that foundation that
God is good, then you are in danger of being offended and
withdrawing from Him. And the very trial that was to
be a pathway to promotion actually becomes a hindrance and
it derails you. You become just another story of
a believer who was once walking with the Lord but got offended.
You and I already live in eternity.
First, John's very clear the the apostle John in in in his gospel
and in his epistles. He's the one that really unpacks
this idea of eternal life and he talks about how eternal life,
we've already entered into it. It's it's they who believe in
him shall never die. They will live forever.
We're already living. We're we're accessing the powers
of the age to come, Hebrews 11 says, But those powers are also
invading here and the Kingdom of God is breaking in and we're
experiencing that in the now. But the way, the avenue, the way
to receive that is through faith, and faith at its
foundation is just the conviction that God is good.
He can be trusted. I don't understand what all this
is, but I know God is good and I know He wants what's best.
He can do it and He knows it. So all I got to do is I got to
go to him and ask him and get in his face until I have a
breakthrough. And when you believe that, if
you can grab onto that one thing.
That was David's secret. I was worshipping this morning
and I was just telling the Lord I said, God, it is an amazing
thing. You are such a covenant God that
Jesus is referred to as the son of David and the root of Jesse,
this tremendously dysfunctional family.
And Jesus said that's the one I'm going to identify with.
I so love this guy David that the son of God himself calls him
his son and he rules from his throne.
Isn't that amazing? I hope that makes you a little
jealous, because it sure does. Me, man, I'm like, I want in on
that. I, I, I don't care what you
think, but I want him to say I want to identify with a guy like
that. I see what's in Dave Olson's
heart and I'm going to identify with, I'm going to, I'm going to
move in and I'm going to release things to him because his heart
is after me. The secret of David's life was
that when crisis hit, even the crises of his own making, he
would hightail it to the secret place.
God, you are my God. I know you're good.
You, your steadfast love is better than life.
And he would find the answers. This is the secret to life.
It's not all the strategizing. Oh, that's good, but that's
secondary. The real thing is are you going
to him? Do you believe he has your best
in mind? That's the key.
OK, we've got to receive community.
Let me read something to you really quick here.
I I I felt this morning that it's like gratitude is an armor
of defense that will deflect the attacks of the enemy because it
it it refuses it, it deflects the false narrative the enemy
tries to feed to us. OK, where is it at?
Man? I can't believe this.
OK, I've shared this with you before.
This is something else. The Lord spoke to me a number of
years ago, and I've read it, but I think it bears repeating.
I'm just going to read through it because we got to hurry here.
Gratitude and ingratitude are to your history what hope and
despair are to your destiny. Ingratitude cries there's
nothing good in my past. Well, despair bemoans, there's
nothing good in my future. You see what I'm saying?
They gratitude breeds hope, Ingratitude breeds despair.
OK, man, I was going to go through this etymology of the
word chorus and I forgot to. OK, real quick here.
Initially, chorus meant a drawing power.
We use it that way. We'll say, oh, that girl, she
skated with such grace. What do we mean?
It captured our attention. It was beautiful.
We wanted to watch it. It's grace we we use it that
way. And that was the initial meaning
of chorus. Over time it developed to also
the a feeling of pity and a drawing and a a a feeling of
sympathy. So the best way to probably give
an illustration would be you're a wealthy person sitting in your
big armchair. You got your TV tray with all
your food, like you got your big Turkey leg and the fire's going
and you're warm and you're. And you look out your window and
down the long lane of your mansion in the snowy Dr. sits a
homeless guy right leaning against the gate.
And he's shivering. And he has a little sign.
We'll work for food. And you feel sympathy.
You feel compassion. And that was called grace.
But it didn't stop there. Over time, it became the the
wealthy person. You pick up that Turkey leg, you
get one of your big fur blankets and some other supplies.
And you go down and you say, hey, listen, I saw you.
I saw you shivering. I want to give you this blanket.
Here's here's some food and here's some money.
I want you to get yourself a hotel tonight.
And the concrete meeting of their need itself was great.
So here, This is why this is important.
Because when Jesus looked at us, he didn't just look at us from
afar and have pity on us and say, oh, I feel bad for matter
of fact, I'm going to wipe out their debt.
They don't owe me anything. Problem is, I'm still homeless.
I'm still cold. I can't help myself.
Jesus didn't just look from afar.
He literally got up from his throne, took on human flesh,
came down and met my need again. Grace is power.
He gave me power, not just not to know, not just wiping out my
debt, but He gave me power to become all he called me to be.
So the grace of God begins to live within us.
And that was chorus. It was grace.
But here's the catch. The, there was a final
development of this word and eventually it became also the
feeling of gratitude in the recipient towards their
benefactor. And he would feel grace.
He'd look up, thank you so much. I can't, I thought no one cared.
And he's got that blanket on me. He's got that Turkey leg and
he's so grateful. He expresses his gratitude.
That gratitude was car, as it was called, grace.
And we still use it that way. At my house, we're going to have
about 25 to 30 people there and we're going to say grace.
And at my place, there's going to be a lot of preachers
probably. And so who knows how long that
prayer is going to be because we're going to say grace and
we're going to thank God. See, here's the thing, Grace,
this is that the final stage of grace.
This is why I say when you are grateful, it's the fruition,
it's the maturation, it's the zenith of the grace of God in
your life. And if you're not grateful, it's
because something has been stifled.
What you receive from Him has failed to be returned to Him in
the form of gratitude. There's a reason that when we're
worshipping, all of a sudden the gifts began to break up.
Why is that? Because those grace gifts, when
we continue the flow we've been receiving and receiving, we get
here corporately and we return it back to Him.
And all of a sudden there's a fresh flow of grace and see
people who are grateful that have gratitude.
There's a continual flow that God can give more and they're
sending it back to them. And that literally becomes a
lens through which they evaluate everything in life, and they're
looking for some hint of His goodness.
And where other people are seeing reasons to be
discouraged, they're seeing, they're seeing goodness all
over. Oh, look at what God did, this
little thing, this little thing, and you actually begin to have
breakthrough based upon that. Here's the thing, the fruit of
grace, the gratitude of yesterday's breakthrough
actually be contains the seeds for tomorrow's breakthrough.
That fruit has seeds in it. Your gratitude, my gratitude
today for yesterday's breakthrough actually creates
within me a hope for the future. And I began to cultivate that.
And it creates an entirely different mindset and an
entirely different world I live in.
And that's true of all of us. See, you can live in heaven or
you can live in hell right now. No, there are literal places,
and we will geographically move there one day.
But the fact is, both of them are bleeding into the present
right now. And the danger is, is that as
believers, we can actually cultivate Hell's narrative in
our life by agreeing with it and being cynical and complaining.
And it's because we're fighting against who God really is, and
we're agreeing with the lie of the enemy from way back in the
garden. God can't be trusted.
I better take matters into my own hands.
How's that worked out for us? And so gratitude is so
important. This is not some side issue,
some little thing, or one day a year that we honor this thing.
It must be a lens through which we look at life.
It's an armor of defense. It is the fruit of grace.
It's the mark of maturity in your life.
If you are not a grateful person, I love you, but because
I love you as your pastor, I'm telling you, grow up.
You have to get the right lenses on.
You've got to begin to see even the little seeds.
So often what we do is we destroy tomorrow's crop because
we curse it. And it's, it's, it's just in
that embryonic form, those little seedlings coming up and
we're wanting a harvest. We're wanting to plant a seed
one day and eat the apple the next day.
And it doesn't work that way. The Kingdom of God cultivate is
is a cultivation process. And as we cultivate things,
there comes a time where we're always living in a harvest and
always planting seed and always living in a harvest and always
planting seed. But we've got to start with that
faith that says, God, you are good.
And what's gone into the ground, this yesterday's victory is the
seedbed for tomorrow's victory. There's a reason when David
looked at Goliath, he said, you know what?
Yesterday I killed a lion. I got a bearskin rug in my tent.
I got a lion's head over the mantle in my house, and Goliath
is next. I can take that boy.
Why? Why do I believe I can do
something in the future? Because I have proof of it in
the past. That was gratitude.
So let's go ahead and stand. If you don't have your communion
element, just raise your hand and the ushers will bring that.
Well, they're coming psychologically and spiritually.
Gratitude and hope are intimately connected.
The same mindset that appreciates the positive in your
past will naturally expect the same for your future.
But the negative corollary is true as well.
The mindset that refuses to acknowledge the positive things
that have happened to you in the past will fail to recognize any
possibility of it in the future. Breeding despair, you'll
actually reject it as it's arriving.
If you practice gratitude, it will inadvertently cultivate
hope. Put on the lenses of
thankfulness. They are the key to seeing the
blessings that lie in the future.
Gratitude and hope are rooted in the goodness of God, the
conviction that God's character is benevolent and kind and
actively involved in rewarding those who do right and punishing
those who do wrong. And it all comes from your view
of God. All right, lift up your bread
here. Remember how we said Jesus is
the wealthy mansion dweller who had it all, and we were the
frail, shivering, homeless one at the end of the drive?
He didn't just look out and say, ah man, I feel bad for him.
Boy, this Turkey's good. He got up, took on human flesh,
and dwelt among us. It was his grace, and he
imparted to us his victory. Jesus, we thank you for this
prophetic token of your incarnation, that you shared our
frailty, our humanity. You know temptation more than we
do because everyone of us succumb to it.
You were the only one who resisted to the end and broke
the back of temptation. Jesus, we thank you.
We receive your body this morning.
Jesus, we thank you for your blood.
Leviticus says that the life is in the blood.
The life that's in this blood is a life that has fulfilled every
righteous requirement that God had for man.
It says in Hebrews that once made perfect, Jesus became the
source of eternal salvation. It also says that he suffered or
he was perfected by the things he suffered.
He was born innocent but had to go through every test that you
and I failed. There is not a temptation you've
ever faced that Jesus didn't conquer.
You say well wait a minute, you know he never had to deal with
Internet porn. He dealt with the underlying
temptation of that very thing. He was enticed by the enemy.
He passed the test. He was made perfect.
What's in this cup is a life that has fulfilled every
requirement that God had for men except one.
Your faith. So Jesus, we thank you for the
price you paid. We thank you, Lord, that you
passed the test. You refuse to satisfy fleshly
desires for our sake, for the Father's sake.
Lord, we thank You that when you were on the cross spilling your
blood, we were on your mind. For the joy of us set before
you, You endured. Let's receive it.
Hallelujah. Let's lift our hands to the
Lord. Just lift your hands to the Lord
for a moment. Father, we thank you, We bless
you, Lord, we thank you, your goodness towards us.
Lord, oh Jesus. Lord, I ask that you would open
the eyes of our understanding to a greater revelation of you.
And Lord, I ask that the the theme of our heart would be, God
is good, God is good. Hallelujah.
I'm going to ask the ministry team to come forward.
If you need prayer this morning, the altars are open.
If you need to get right with the Lord, this is the day to do
it. If you if you're here to this
morning and and you need to get right with God, it might be
something you've done in the past, you've walked away or it's
something you've never done. If that's you, just raise your
hand high. We want to pray for you this
morning. You need to get right with the
Lord. Amen.
Anybody else, you need to get right with the Lord this
morning. Listen, don't leave here without
doing that. No one's going to judge you.
We've all had to walk that that out, man.
It's a thing to rejoice about. Anybody else you need to get
right with the Lord. Listen, if that's you, those of
you that raise your hand, come forward as we close.
Lord, we thank you for your grace.
Lord, I ask that you'd bless each one of these.
Lord, as we gather with friends and family, Lord, and we
celebrate Thanksgiving, Lord, we ask that your presence would
abide with us in Jesus name, Amen.
Hey, I love you. Have a great week.