The Pathway to Gratitude

Good morning, Springhouse. Oh, you can do better. Is it a good morning?

Is God good? Come on,

come on. God is good today.

Well, I am so glad to be with you in the presence of the Lord.

You'll have to forgive me if I'm limping a little bit this morning. I'm pretty

sure I'm passing a kidney stone before you right now. But I'm gonna

preach through this because I believe God's given me a word. So I'm gonna do

it today. Before we get started, I have a few

announcements. First of all, aren't we so thankful for the

ministry of f. Stop doing pictures for us. Family

pictures. If you came today, prepare to do family pictures that will be

out there through the way to the fellowship hall. And if you came today and

you didn't sign up but you'd like to have a family portrait, we'd be glad

to do that for you as well. It's a free gift from us to you

and they will have that back to you in time for Christma. Okay, a

couple other things for us to just make note of. Okay? First of all, we're

heading into Advent next week, which is the four weeks leading up to

Christmas Day. And on December 5th and 6th, something very special is gonna

be happening here. And it is our very own Springhouse kids

production of A Star Is Born. And we want you to come and be a

part of that on those nights. That's a Friday and a Saturday night,

and then the day after on the 7th, we're gonna have a Springhouse

Christmas party here. So what that's gonna look like if you wanna

worship and word, we're gonna do that at 9am in this room. And then

following that, at 11, we're gonna do a reprise of A Star Is Born. Yes,

I believe it's gonna be that good. And we're gonna do a reprise of the

show. And then we're gonna have lunch and there's gonna be candy and there's gonna

be all types of fun things for the kids to do and you to do.

Please make plans to come and celebrate with us during that

very special time on December 7th. Then later

on in the month, on December 19th, it's our annual Carols by

Candlelight. And let me tell you, you're not gonna wa. Candlelight.

Make a point to be a part of it. It's always a packed house and

a rich time together. And then one of my favorite services of the year is

on Christmas Day at 11 o'. Clock. And I'll tell you, I've been here nearly

three decades, and I have only missed one Christmas Day.

And I remember it. I remember the year I missed it. It

is the thing that ties that day together. Please be a part of

that, that day. It's 11 to 12. So we know you have plans with your

family, and we will get you out of here on time for those

plans. And then, man, you missed an incred incredible

midweek series. Real Talk with Pastor Justin. So go back and look at that

online. We will not be here this Thursday. Hopefully you'll

be with family gathering, and we do not have midweek gathering again until

January 8th. And so there will be no midweek gathering for the month of

December. If you show up on Thursday night, hopefully somebody else shows up, too, and

y' all can go to Starbucks and hang out. We won't be here, but

we will be back on January 8th.

Okay. It's Thanksgiving week, and so we are going

to talk about the pathway to gratitude. Would you

say that the pathway to gratitude.

And so we're gonna draw from the book of Luke, hopefully a story that you

are familiar with. So if you'll stand with me this morning, let's read with

gusto and excitement this morning, because anytime

God gives a word, it is exciting. Okay, here we go. As

Jesus and his disciples were on their way, he came

to a village where a woman named Martha opened her home

to him. She had a sister called Mary who sat

at the Lord's feet listening to what he said. But

Martha was distracted by all the preparations that he

had been. She came to him and asked, lord,

don't you care that my sister has left me to do the work by

myself? Tell her to help me. Martha.

Martha, the Lord answered, you are worried and upset

about many things, but few things are needed, or

indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is

better, and it will not be taken away from her. Father, I

thank you for your precious word. I thank you for the gift of your word.

And I just pray, Lord, that it would minister to our hearts today. In Jesus

name, amen. You may be seated. Well, I

am extremely grateful for a lot of things, and

first and foremost, I just have to tell you I'm thankful for

macaroni and cheese. Planning

on eating some of that golden deliciousness this year

on Thursday? And I hope that you're planning on having some good food and that

you're grateful for it. It is the season to be thankful. It's the season

to be grateful. But might I suggest to you that the

life of a believer should be saturated with Gratitude.

I'm going to say that again. The life of a believer should be

saturated with gratitude. But the culture with which we

live, the culture, the society we live, we have reduced the time

we've had to earmark a time to be thankful. And that is the

fourth Thursday of the November month where

we get together with family, some people who we actually don't like,

and we invite them over our houses and they sit around our tables and

we look at them and we have shallow conversations and we eat some pretty

good food, hopefully. And then with the people that we really want to say thank

you to, because we're such in a hurry, we'll send them a text message.

Send them a text message and say, happy Thanksgiving. And if we're really in a

hurry, we'll put them in a group message, because everybody loves a group text message

with all of the thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, and all of

the turkey emojis. And if you're really, really busy, you won't even have time to

spell out the word thank you. You'll just put, ty.

Isn't that the culture we live in? I'm

thankful for macaroni and cheese. I'm thankful for friends

who helped me not make tragic choices in my life.

So tragic that even my baby was kind of scared to be held.

I'm grateful this year to be your pastor,

to walk alongside some of the most wonderful, fabulous, fascinating people

in my life. I'm grateful for my family.

I'm grateful that the Lord has given me Hadassah. He's given

me Lucia, Ruby, Nora, and soon to be Eliana, and my

wife Shari. I'm thankful. I'm thankful. But I'm not just

thankful because a date on a calendar tells me to be thankful.

I'm thankful because of the overflow of blessing

the Lord has placed on my life. I believe that the mark

of gratitude flows from the overflow of

selflessness. Gratitude flows from the

overflow of selflessness. So I want to

talk today about the pathway of gratitude. And I want to start with a story

that I recently heard that I thought really fit with today's message.

There's this man who loves to fly. He loves to fly

internationally, he loves to fly nationally, and he's a businessman. And

he flies. And he flies frequently across seas. And his favorite airport

is the London Heathrow Airport. Has anybody ever flown through London Heathrow?

And so he loves that airport. And he doesn't love that airport because they

are organized or on top of things or the flights get out

faster or Anything like that. He likes it because there's this

doughnut shop in this airport called Little Tiny

Donuts. And every time he goes to London Heathrow Airport,

he goes to this donut shop, Little Tiny

Donuts, and picks up a box of eight fresh

little mini donuts and eats them every single time. And so he has

this itinerary, and it puts him in London Heathrow, and he's gonna go

by and get those donuts just like he always does. And he's super excited. In

fact, his entire day is wrapped around getting these donuts. And so he lands in

London Heathrow for the layover. And

when he gets to the layover, he's looking around and he goes and gets the

donuts, and he's looking around for a place to sit. Because, see, the donuts are

only good when they're fresh. The donuts are only good when they're fresh.

And so he gets the donuts and he's looking for a place to sit, but

he can't because there are tables everywhere, but there are tons of people in

this airport, so he really wants to sit down. And he's looking around and he

sees in the back, there's this round table, and there's this man sitting there, and

he's reading a book. And there's one chair on the other side of this

small round table. And so he goes up to the table and he makes eye

contact with the man, and he nods to the chair, and the man nods to

the chair and he says, okay, that's my invitation to sit down. And so he

sits down and he's excited, and he puts his stuff down and he

grabs his newspaper and he opens it up and he reaches his hand

and grabs that first donut. And, oh, it was just delightful. He

puts it in his mouth, he's chewing it up. It is everything he had hoped

for for that day. So much so that before he actually consumed that entire

donut, he reached his hand back in the box and put a second one in.

He was really enjoying these donuts. Well, as

he's chewing these donuts and enjoying the savory flavor of these donuts and reading the

paper, something astonishing happened. The guy that was sitting on the other side of

the table takes his hand, reaches across the table and

grabs a donut out of the donut box.

And the man reading the paper looked over at the man reading the book, and

they make eye contact. And not only did he take one of the donuts out

of the box, but he smirked at him while he did it. As if

this was something acceptable, as if this was okay.

And so the man reading the paper was not very happy about the man grabbing

his donut. So he continues to read the paper,

and he grabs another donut and puts it in his mouth. And he's just kind

of like, what just happened here? And as he's thinking, what just happened here?

The man across the table reading the book reaches out again and

grabs another donut. And this time, the man

reading the paper looks eyeball to eyeball to him while the other man's

smiling and gives him this stare, blank, like, what are you doing?

And so as he's staring him eyeball to eyeball, he reaches over, puts his hand

in the donut box, slides the donut box toward him, pulls

out another donut, pops it in his mouth. Hopefully he'll get the sign.

Well, the guy with the book kind of straightens up, and he's smiling and happy

and reaches further across the table and

gets a third donut. On the third donut, the man closes the

newspaper, slams it on the table with his hand, and says, I've gotta move.

And so he reaches down to grab all of his stuff. And when he reaches

down to grab his stuff on top of his bag, he sees a box of

donuts that has not been opened

the entire time. The man with the newspaper was eating

the donuts that belonged to the guy with the book.

Here we have a story of two heart postures. The first heart posture is,

what's mine is yours. The second

heart posture is, what's mine is mine. And if we

ever live in a culture saturated with what's

mine is mine, if we ever live in a culture that

says, I've earned this. I bought this. I did

this. And you wonder why the blessing of heaven can't

flow free in your life because you are holding on so tight to

what you have. I'm going to tell you right now, I believe with all of

my heart the reason the Beshears family is able to walk through a season with

a new house being built is because they opened their home when they had no

room for multiple families to come stay with them. When you give out of

your nothing, the Lord returns a whole lot to your behalf. He returns

things to you many fold than you can ever imagine. And the Lord is

blessing you guys because of your generosity and your willingness to open up what you

have and say, there's always a place at my table. Is

it said for you guys? Is it said of you that you always have room

at your table or Are you one of the ones

clenching with dear life every little thing that you have because your

name is on it? Let's look at the pathway to

gratitude by looking at five roadblocks. Five

roadblocks that stop us from reaching a lifestyle

of gratitude. Using the story of Mary and Martha,

the first one I want to look at, the first roadblock to our pathway to

gratitude is distraction. We

are distracted.

I didn't get an amen. I'm going to try that again. We are

distracted. You are distracted.

I am distracted. We are so. We are. We

squirrel everywhere. Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel. We are

so saturated with distraction. Can I tell you,

I believe that we were not created to consume as

much information as we consume our

brains and our minds and our lives. We are

overstimulated and over saturated. But here's

what's so crazy about that. We give an amen when a statement like that's

made, but we do nothing to stop it. In fact, we go chase it. We

are looking for more information, looking for more stimulation, looking for more things

to distract us. Busyness is not a

badge of honor. The things

that God has given you, he has graced you in certain things.

Some of you are able to carry a load a lot heavier than the person

sitting next to you. If God has graced you to do that, praise God for

some of you, he has graced you to do fewer things. But

may none of us step out of God's grace when he has given us something

to do. How are the indicators? What are the indicators? Whenever

we're stepping out of God's grace, the indicators are fatigue,

family issues, being distraught, being

sick. All of these are indicators that you may not be. If

you're running on fumes all of the time, if the

fruit of the spirit is not evident in your life, then

you may not be leaning into the spirit.

Imagine going to the gas pump and putting water in your gas tank.

That's not going to last very long. You'll get some of the residue from the

gas you had in before, but eventually your car's going to go kaput.

Can I say it's the same thing with your life. We are

so distracted. This is what the word says. But Martha was

distracted by all the preparations that had to

be made. Can I tell you that some of you hear this? Please.

Some of you are going to get to Thursday. You're going to wake up

early. You're going to go to bed that night and you're going to miss the

entire day because you were distracted

by all the preparation of Serving everybody else.

Now we're going to have a turkey at my house, and my wife's going to

have to make it. She gonna be preparing that

turkey. But what. I don't. But I'm not saying that my wife

is the only. I cook at my house too. Okay? Geez,

Justin. Some

of you guys are gonna make some great dry turkeys, okay? It's gonna be great.

Okay, here's the deal. There are

preparations that have to be made. See, here's the

thing. We read this story about Mary and Martha, and we automatically assume that

Martha has done something wrong. Think about it.

We think Martha has just completely. She's just done something

completely wrong. Like she shouldn't be preparing that Jesus is there. Do you notice at

the end of the story, it never says Martha changed anything.

It wasn't that Martha was necessarily doing anything

wrong. It's that she had the wrong heart posture.

You can be a preparer, you can be

doing things, and you can be doing it with the wrong heart

posture. In the same way, you can be doing nothing

and be doing nothing with the wrong heart posture.

It's all about heart posture. Jesus told Martha, you are worried

and troubled about many things. When we are hurried, overwhelmed, overstimulated,

or emotionally scattered, we literally use the ability to see the

blessing that sitting right in front of us when we're

going so fast. Brittany Grisham said something to me once that

convicted the mess out of me. I was with her, and

she was saying, kevin, I so enjoy walking alongside

you, ministering alongside you. And I have. Brittany and I have

ministered together since youth grew. I mean, we've. For a long time. But I went

to her house one time and she said, but you know, Kev,

the thing is, is I don't mind helping you get to the vision, but I

just don't want to be trampled upon in the.

You see, the thing that we are doing is not more important

than the people we are doing it with. All of

this, everything that you see here is all about

God's people being restored to him and restored to

one another. Everything has to do with relationship.

Everything has to do with eternity. And

we can get so mixed up on this turkey, it's got to look just right,

be just right, and miss the whole point of everybody

who's gathered around. Some distractions

are not just there by happenstance. Some of the distractions you put in your life

on purpose because you're trying to avoid a conversation that you need to have.

Aren't you glad you came to church? This morning.

Hurry overshadows the good stuff.

Hurry overshadows the good, important stuff. I have a

feeling. Has this PowerPoint been updated? Y' all have the most recent

one up there? We're gonna find out in just a minute, aren't we? Okay.

Martha wasn't necessarily doing something wrong. She was doing the right thing with

the wrong heart condition. She was distracted, worried, overwhelmed,

emotionally scattered. Jesus, says Martha. Martha, you are worried and

troubled about many things. There was Christmas

time, and I was just in a season where I was

doing, doing, doing, doing, doing, doing, doing. You ever know anybody that's just always just

doing, doing, doing, doing, doing. I was doing so much, and I was not

focused on anybody around me. And I had a group of friends who wanted me

to come over to their Christmas celebration. And I believe that I

actually told them I was coming, and I didn't come. Have you ever told somebody

you were gonna come and then you didn't? No. You guys are perfect. Okay,

well, I made the mistake. I said I was coming, and I didn't come. And

I thought to myself, I felt so bad because they just wanted to hang out

with me. They just wanted to spend time, and I just felt so bad. So

I said, you know what? I know what I'll do. I'm gonna go buy some

massive Christmas gifts, and I'm just gonna bless em. And so I go

to Target and I buy up the shelves and I wrap them up, and I

go to their front doorstep, and I lay a pile of gifts right there. Right

during the party, the party I was supposed to be at just laid gifts and

walked away. I was so proud of myself. And so I walked away,

and I just was going and going, and I. And I got

in my car, and I'm just awaiting the text message,

the text message that said, thank you so much for these wonderful gifts. You know,

nobody said anything to me. The next day, I'm

looking at my phone saying, maybe something's wrong. Maybe I didn't pay my phone bill.

Surely they got these gifts. I mean, nobody gets gifts and doesn't say

thank you. And I went through that day, not

one thank you, not one message. And then I was ticked.

And so the next day, I just said, well, you know what? Forget them. I

text them and said, did you not see the gifts on your porch? And I

got one response. And the response was this.

You cannot buy your way into relationship.

Presence with a CE is far greater than presence.

Some of you need to take this into Friday of this week.

Silence. You know what Friday is?

Some of you need to take this into Friday and Saturday of this week because

some of you are going to go into the negative in your bank account trying

to buy relationships. When presence with a CE

is all that is needed. Distraction

hides blessings. Presence reveals them. Mary slowed down. She sat.

She listened. You cannot be grateful for what you refuse to slow

down long enough to notice. So

distraction then leads to our second row barrier, which is not.

This is the wrong slideshow. So I'm going to try to make

this happen here, okay? Selfishness. When

we stop appreciating people, we start

expecting from them.

Selfishness filters every decision

through you. Selfishness filters

every decision through you guys. I missed this this week with my

nine month pregnant wife, Shari. I had an activity that I

wanted to go do with a friend and I went and did that activity and

she had asked. She didn't ask me to do anything all week. She asked me,

would you come home and do this one thing at this specific time? And it.

Oh, this is so bad. So horrible. It was an appointment I set up

and I made her meet with the person and I stayed there. Horrible. I

am the most selfish husband. Oh, Jesus, can y' all come pray for

me right now?

But can I tell you my wife loves me.

And it was modeled in her response to my

selfishness. You see, love's test

happens when the rubber hits the road. Love's test

is really about the response when somebody comes upon your path and

wrongs you. And she responded with such

grace. And I did not deserve it.

Paul says to value others above yourself.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition, but in humility, value

others above yourself. Selfishness

shrinks gratitude because it turns every blessing into not enough.

Listen, Mary expected. Sorry. Martha expected

Mary to serve her agenda. When we walk in selfish

ways, we expect people to bow down to what we want in our

agenda. Agenda.

When we walk in selfish ways, we expect people to bow down to

our agenda. Selfishness creeps in

quietly. This is what the. It's. Ask these questions. Why am I doing all the

work? Why isn't

anyone here helping me? Why

aren't they meeting my expectations?

Selfishness is a roadblock toward gratitude.

And if it's not distraction that leads to selfishness, the next thing it

leads to is not. It's to

Chili's.

Sorry. It hurts to laugh. Okay, baby. No, it's

chilies. Maybe macaroons. All right. It leads to pride.

Pride. You're like, what did we miss in the first gathering?

Pride is the next step after selfishness. Selfishness says,

serve me pride. Says, my way is right

as your pastor. The first thing, when I met with the elders

and they conferred the appointment of lead pastor,

and then we had a meeting with the leaders, the very first thing I asked

for is, the very first request that I had from the leadership of this church

is I said, I need your permission to fail.

I need your permission to fail.

I know it's astonishing to hear, but I am not always right.

Shari knows that more than anyone. But I'm here to inform you that your

pastor is not always right. But I know a God who always

is. And I know what it

looks like to have a bad attitude towards somebody who's not right and misses it.

I know what it's like to respond the correct way to somebody who

missteps or misses it. I'm not

always right. Pride says, you're right. I'm right all

the time. Martha stands over Jesus and says, lord, tell

her to help me. Pride tells God how

things should go. Have you ever tried that? How's that worked

out for you? Pride makes your perspective the standard. It

makes your expectation the requirement. It makes your experience the

truth. Mary shows humility by sitting at

Jesus feet. Martha shows pride by standing in accusation.

James 4, 6 says this. God opposes the

proud, but gives grace to the humble. Is there

anybody here who needs grace? Raise your hand if you need grace. I just want

to check. Litmus test here. Look at your neighbor and say, I need

grace. Look at them and say, remember that Thursday.

Okay?

He gives grace to those who walk in humility, who are humble.

Pride makes gratitude impossible because pride

convinces you that everything you have is earned,

owned, and deserved.

When I taught back at the school at Lancaster, when I taught early

on, when I started there, I was in a classroom full of students. And

you know what? I thought I was the cat's pajamas when it came to teaching.

I mean, I was like, I am the teacher. And

I got in there and I taught this history lesson. And I knew

that every student got the information that I was trying to convey because I

did a great job presenting the information. And I was

ready on that Friday to give them a test. Because, Scotty, I did my

job. I taught and taught and taught, and they have better retained

everything that I said. So I handed out that test

and I collected that test. And I had about 12 students in that room, and

eight students failed. And I was happy

to give them all an F. F for you. F for you. F. Why?

I taught the subject. I did my job. You didn't do your job

retaining it. Can I Tell you just a sidebar. If you're a

teacher and over half of your class fails the test, you

didn't do a good job teaching. Okay.

But arrogant, prideful Kevin thought, hey,

I did my job and made the dumb mist. Going right into the

faculty meeting with the principal saying, hey, I taught this thing, and I had

eight kids fail the test. She came to my classroom, said, we're gonna have to

remove you from this class.

And she said, kevin, here's the thing you don't understand. When the

student fails, the teacher has failed.

And I had an epiphany that it wasn't about me

giving information to see if they get it right. It was about me making

sure that they owned and learned the material.

And I have failed my students because of my arrogance and

my pride. Gratitude only

grows in humble soil. And so if you've

got distractions that lead to selfishness, selfishness leads to pride.

What does pride lead to? And this, guys, this is really. I'm honing in

right here on what I want your takeaway to be right here. Because this week

is a week where some of you are going to be sitting at tables with

people that you don't want to sit at tables with.

You're going to be conversing. Some of you have already gotten out of gatherings

that you didn't want to go to. And it's because of this issue here,

and it's not this one, because this is going to be. I'm going to get

there. Bitterness.

Distraction leads to selfishness. Selfishness leads to pride. Pride

leads to bitterness.

Martha says, lord, don't you care?

You cannot hold bitterness and gratitude in the same heart.

Let me say it this way. If you rehearse it in here,

if you rehearse what happened in here over and over again, you

can't release it here.

This is what bitterness, bitterness looks like.

I have never. I've struggled with bitterness in my life. I have

never been bitter towards someone I didn't love.

Are you with me? If I meet a random Bob and he

does something wrong, and I've never. I don't have any relationship with him. I

probably am not going to struggle with bitterness.

But if you struggle with bitterness, if you've struggled with bitterness and you

think of that person, it has to be somebody that you've had some

relational equity with. And so

what happens is this. You meet this person

and you strike up a relationship with this person. And in

this relationship, all these wonderful things happen.

Wonderful life, wonderful conversations,

experiences, adventures. Help when you're hurting.

Prayer Just being there when you're down, being there when things

go awry. I mean, just wonderful, incredible things

take place in that relationship that bond you together. And

then that person makes one bad choice.

And all of a sudden, that one bad choice, that one

mistake, that one mission, that one hurt,

that one failure, overshadows everything

that has been good in that relationship.

And so we walk around like this with that

bitter mistake, and we walk away from everything

that brought that relationship to fruition. Every good and wonderful

thing, we walk away from it because we're going to hold on to this one

thing, this one choice, this one mistake. Some

of us are going to go to tables this Thursday and sit down with

somebody that you're holding a big old canister of bitterness toward.

It robs us of the ability of seeing everything

that brought the relationship to the forefront.

We carry this around. I find it interesting that while we

carry this for people, this is how we expect people to

view us,

Because we always got good stuff, right. I want you to view me in the

positive light, while at the same time, I'm going to view

my neighbor like this.

Ephesians 4, 29 says this. Do

not let any unwholesome talk come out of your mouths, but

only what is helpful for building others up. Why do I start here? At the

end of this scripture is going to address bitterness. Why do I start this? I

was not going to start here, but I thought, you know what? No, this is

a great place to start. Because out of the root of bitterness comes unwholesome

talk according to their needs, that they may

benefit those who listen. And then it says, do not

grieve the Holy Spirit of God. Might I

suggest to you, friends, that when you talk bad about other people,

when you slander and you gossip, you are grieving the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit

of God, with whom you were sealed for the

day of redemption. And then it says these three words. Say them with me.

Get rid of all bitterness. Not

some. Not. Okay, I can get rid of this because, you know, I liked your

outfit and your hair today, so I think we're good now. You've paid enough

penance for what you did to me, you know. Okay, you're so.

No. Get rid of all bitterness, rage,

anger, brawling, slander, along with every form of

malice. And then it doesn't just. I love that God doesn't just tell us what

not to do. He tells us what to do. It's not enough.

Listen, it's not enough to just get rid of it. There's more.

There's always more with God. Be kind and

compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as

Christ, God forgave you.

In other words, let's look at this. Bitterness

turns memories into weapons and rewrites a good

story around the worst moment.

In other words, bitterness revises

your story so that the worst part becomes the highlight. The

headline. Bitterness is like an emotional

eraser. It wipes away every good memory that a person created.

Bitterness narrows the story down to one moment, one

wound, one disappointment. Bitterness blinds the

heart. It breaks relationships. It blocks gratitude.

The Bible warns that bitterness will defile everything it

touches, including your ability to see the good in someone.

And so if you start with distraction and it leads to selfishness, and

then you're walking in pride and it leads to bitterness, Bitterness

opens the door for the biggest blockade toward gratitude,

and that is unforgiveness. It's the

heaviest roadblock because you'll never reach

gratitude if you stay chained to the past.

Jesus responds to Martha not with anger, but with compassion.

And there's only seven times that I can find in Scripture that the Lord says

a name twice back to back. And this is one of them. He says, martha,

Martha, have you ever been trying to get somebody's attention and you need them to

listen to you? Scotty, Scotty,

hear what I am saying to you.

To respond out of compassion. Jesus does.

Forgiveness breaks the chains. Forgiveness

heals the heart. Forgiveness makes space for gratitude.

Again, forgiveness is not pretending that the wound didn't hurt. I'm going to

say that again. Forgiveness is not pretending that the wound didn't

hurt. Guys, let me tell you something. You're gonna be hurt by the people

who love you.

In fact, just to make it a little more concrete, raise your hand if you've

ever been hurt by somebody who loves you. Okay,

so we're all pretty much on the same playing ground.

So if we're on the same playground, why are so many of us holding

onto it?

Why are so many of us holding onto it? Several months ago, or

several years ago rather, there was a situation where I felt like I

really hear heard something from the Holy Spirit and I acted upon it.

And the way that I went about it was completely wrong.

And it caused hurt, it caused division, it caused a

severing of a relationship. And I was broken and grieved because it

never was my intention, but it is what happened.

And there were moments in that severing of relationship I thought, this is

never going to be repaired. And

it wasn't going to be repaired with a flesh reaction. It was

never going to be repaired with a flesh antidote.

But do you know how gracious and wonderful our Holy

Spirit is that he got into that other person's

life? The one that had every right to walk out on my life,

Every right to be upset, be hurt, be wounded, to hold on to bitterness.

And you know that the Holy Spirit of God worked on their heart

and they decided to sit across from me at lunch in tears and say, kevin,

I forgive you.

Can I tell you that our relationship has been so much better

and deeper and more meaningful post that interaction than before?

Because when the Holy Spirit gets involved and you

surrender that hard space to him, what he does is he

removes your flesh glasses and he gives you

eternal ones. He gives you Holy Spirit glasses to

see things the way he sees them, to see the person.

Listen, I want to see you with the hurt I've experienced. I want to see

you with this wound. But the Holy Spirit gets involved in these things. No,

there's so much good. There's so much good.

There's so much life. And if you'll just lay down your

pride and your hurt, if you'll lay down that bitterness, I will

show you all of the good things. And guess what? There's more.

There's more to be had. But you gotta be willing to

surrender. You gotta be willing to give it to the Lord. You gotta be willing

to recognize that you are going to be hurt and other people are going to

hurt you. And you're going to hurt people because we're broken.

Colossians 3 says this. Therefore, as God's chosen people,

holy and dearly loved, clothe yourself with compassion,

kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. I hope

that these are common things happening around tables this week on

Thursday. But more than just this week, this would be a lifestyle and life

posture of those who call themselves believers, Bear with each

other and forgive one another. If you have a grievance against someone, forgive as

the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues, put on love. You

know what the very. You know what the most important word in that first sentence

right there? Forgive as the Lord forgave you. You know what the most important word

is? It's the word as.

Because we read that and say forgive because the Lord forgave

you. It's not what it says. It says

forgive as the Lord forgave you.

Has anyone been forgiven much from the Lord? Raise your hand,

guys. If it's pride, if it's deceit, if

it's lust, if it's theft, all the things I

am a guilty person.

I'm grateful for Mac and cheese. I'm grateful for friends. I'm

grateful for family. But I am grateful that I am really redeemed because of the

blood of Jesus Christ. I'm grateful that he sought

fit to not draw lines, but to draw

circles. I believe that true forgiveness draws circles and

invites in. It doesn't draw lines. The big buzzword right now in the culture is

this word boundaries. Make sure you create a boundary so you don't get hurt again.

Make sure you put distance. Make sure you just keep everything separate in a

way. And then we cleverly get into scripture and we weave our way to be

able to preach that message. But here's the thing. I do believe in

seasonal boundaries. When you're healing, that's important. But I do not

believe in eternal boundaries because Jesus did not come up to me and say,

kevin, I forgive you. Now I don't want anything to do with you for the

rest of your life. He says, I forgive you. Now come back in.

Let's try this again. And if we are to forgive

as the Lord forgave, then guess what it is. Chance

after chance after chance after chance after

chance. And you, my friends. Kevin, I

have the opportunity this week, today, to

release, to surrender, to forgive, so that my life

can be radically changed. And I won't just walk with somebody who's got Jesus on

my shirt praising the Lord on all the situations that are

going well. But I could be a testimony of Christ

to a dying world in situations that look ugly, that

look bad, that are fueled with hurt, hurt and woundedness, and all of those things

that they can say, wow, I can't believe that Kevin had

compassion on that person who didn't deserve it.

We've been talking all year about the greatest stories

ever told. What if one of your greatest stories was that this

year you decided to let go, surrender and forgive somebody. Forgive

the unforgivable. And somebody says to you, how'd you

do it? And you say, I couldn't.

It was the power of the Holy

Spirit.

True forgiveness draws circles, not lines. Martha was not

irritated with a stranger. She was irritated with someone she loved.

Have you ever been irritated with somebody you love? Some of y' all

are irritated with the person you're sitting next to right now.

Not every person is a blessing, but every single person is a lesson.

And as people marked by forgiveness, we ought to also be people marked

by gratitude. Jesus

said, few things are needed. Indeed, only one.

There are some important people in my life that have

been in my Life. Some of these people, you know,

the man on the left, his name is Mike Gibson. And Mr.

Mike, man, he was such a blessing to my life. There was a season when

I was being. I was the youth pastor and I was with the youth. And

man, I just, I felt alone. I felt like I didn't have any support.

I don't mean that this was true, but this is how I felt. I didn't

have any support. I didn't have people rallying around me. And I went and I

shared that with the elders. And do you know that that next week Mr. Mike

came up to you youth. And every week after that, he came up and just

stood there and all he did was pray for me. Said, I'm here, what do

you need? I'm here for you. The second lady, or the first lady in

the picture, her name is Rena Montgomery. Rena was my bus driver as a high

school student. She was the very first person who said anything to me

when I came to Smyrna assembly. I dawned the doors. I saw two things in

that old sanctuary. I saw a disco ball and I saw Rena Montgomery.

Rena screamed out loud. She was so excited to see me.

And she was a blessing and an encouragement to my life. And the last one

there, her name is Margaret Meek. She was the kids pastor here forever. And she

was like a second mom to me. I will tell you right

now, I would not be lead pastor of this church had it not been for

this woman and her investment in my life. Now, the things

outside of them having significant impact in my life. The things that these three have

in common is that they're all with Jesus, Jesus right now.

Margaret, at our funeral, Arwen, her

daughter got up and said, you know,

oftentimes we look for extraordinary moves of God and

extraordinary moments, and we think that those are the moments we're going to remember most

to the people we're closest with. But she said, that's not what I

found with my mom. She was talking about Margaret. She said,

I find it in the ordinary days. And so

with that I got a little plaque that or a little thing that I put

in my office and it says, enjoy the gift

of the ordinary. Enjoy

the gift of the ordinary. Guys, if you're carrying this,

don't let this become ordinary. You have the choice

to not let this be the ordinary. This could be the

ordinary. And I tell you, this is so much more fun and more delicious,

more filling.

So what I say is, if I were to see, I

don't know what's going on right now with the clicker. But if I were to

see these three people, if I were to see these three people again,

I wouldn't spend time. If I, you know, have you ever. Has anybody ever had

somebody pass away and you're like, if I had one more moment. Moment. If I

had 30 more seconds, if I had one more minute. If I had whatever.

I wish I had one more minute with each of those. I wouldn't tell them,

look what I've done. Look what I've. See, See what? What's happened in my life.

I wouldn't say that to them. I probably wouldn't even say I love them. I

wouldn't ask them what it is to be like to be with Jesus. I would

simply say two words to them. Thank you.

Thank you. Now, here's what

I've learned this year. You are

probably sitting by a person with whom you

are so grateful for, yet it has

been an eternity since you have actually conveyed your gratitude

to them. Well, they know. They know. They live with

me. They see it. They know. And you haven't put in words. And I don't

know what that is, that little wall that comes. You're closest to that person

yet. It just seems so hard to actually express gratitude. Well, guess what?

I'm about to give you an opportunity today because this is going to be a

different year. 2025 is going to be a different year. It's going to be a

year where Thanksgiving is just the springboard to a lifestyle of

gratitude. And so everyone, on most of the chairs, there was this

thank you card. This was just a reminder because

your someone may not be next to you right now,

but I'm going to ask you to do something in the next few moments. They

may be sitting across the room here, they may be sitting next to you, but

we're just going to take a few moments. We're going to steal a few

moments here and we're just going to look people eyeball to eyeball. And

you're not just going to say thank you. You're not going to say Ty or

happy Thanksgiving. You're going to

say Barbie, I'm so grateful that you see me, me. I'm so

grateful for the way that you have run beside me so faithfully all these years.

The way that you lift my arms and you encourage me. I'm so grateful

for the staple that you're in my life. The person who never wavers,

never goes away. The rock that I can lean on

if I'm in distress or if I'm discouraged. I can always count on you. The

moments when I ran after other things. I looked back and those things fell in

shambles. And you were always there. You never wavered on me. And I'm so

grateful for your friendship. Thank.

To express our gratitude to one another. Put it into words.

Now. Allow the Lord to begin to develop a

culture of gratitude within your life and within this house.

Would you stand with me? And we're going to take the next few moments and

you move about the room as you need to. And let's give thanks today.