Summer Song Vol. 3 // "God I'm Just Grateful"

All right, that's the one we're going to end on in this summer song series for the summer.

And we're going to be singing that in a little while as we close our service.

And I like to refer to songs like this as screamers, uh, where you can just like belt it out.

And I remember actually uh we didn't have a whole lot of like backstory.

So many of the songs we've done this summer have this deep history or this kind of cool, crazy backstory.

But hey, nope, those guys just wrote it, released it right before Thanksgiving of last year.

And it's such a simple song, such a such a powerhouse song.

We sung it quite a few times here already.

But I remember learning that the students did it at retreat last year in December.

So that that was fresh, hot off the press, and the worship team learned it, got it ready so fast.

Um, and here's what I've noticed.

I uh we sometimes we kind of compare all the songs we know, think about the impact they've had on our lives.

I think that our whole lives, every now and then, we just need a screamer song and we love it.

And it's always been that way.

Because I remember the church that I ended up attending uh as a teenager, as a new believer in Jesus before I went off to college, that church, Dione Baptist Church in Harlan County, uh, when Victory in Jesus was on the schedule, it was like, oh victory.

I was like, it was like that.

It was a screamer.

We don't think of that one necessarily in that way.

And then when I went to college, uh trying to find a church that I would attend while in college, some friends invited us to a church, a little church in Corbyn, Kentucky, called Bacon Creek Baptist Church.

I heard that name and I'm like, I'll try it once, at least.

But that name, there was no bacon there, though.

That was unfortunate.

Um, but we went to Bacon Creek Baptist Church and uh we loved it.

My first semester to a whole year, we were attending there.

It was a little bit of a drive.

We ended up going to one closer to campus.

But while attending there, there was a song I'd never heard before called What a Day That Will Be.

And y'all know some of y'all might know that song, and grown men would tear up every time and they'd be like, What a day that will be, and they was screaming out.

So we always had these screamers, you know.

Easter time, because he lives, we just scream it out.

We've just added new screamer songs, and it's okay.

Every generation has it.

We've already sung one of them.

Praise the Lord.

Oh my.

So anyway, one of my favorites is we've already talked about this one.

Goodbye yesterday.

I sing that one all the time.

Whenever I'm feeling like I just need a moment to catch my breath, get some energy.

I'm really uncaffeinated right now, or something bad just happened.

I made a mistake.

I'll be like, all right, we're gonna say goodbye yesterday, right now, move forward, leave the past behind us.

And yes, God, I'm just grateful for you.

We're gonna sing that out a little bit.

Now, I will confess I heard it on the radio, and I knew our students were learning it and have been singing it.

And until we sang it the first time here, I had no clue what the other words to the song were.

All I knew was, God, I'm just grateful for you.

And then I'm like, I don't know what he's saying.

And then we see it on the screen, and I'm like, oh, those are some interesting, cool lyrics.

Who am I that you keep me on your mind?

That's pretty deep.

We're gonna talk about that in a little bit.

All my life, you've been right here by my side.

You gave me chance after chance.

I love that lyric.

I survived, and I'm here to testify.

That's a deep lyric that some of y'all can relate to.

I'm alright if they say I'm out of my mind.

Some very intriguing, intriguing lyrics.

If there's one thing that we can just take home with us today, I want to say, we'll say this again near the end of the teaching time today, but wrap your heart and mind around this statement.

There are things God has done for us that will forever be bigger than any bad thing that happens in our lives.

That's why we can sing what we just sang a minute ago.

All my life you've been faithful.

God, you're so good.

Your goodness is running after me.

And we can actually sing that regardless of our circumstances.

And but sometimes when those really difficult circumstances bubble up all at once, out of the blue, out of nowhere, maybe we're not singing it that moment.

Maybe we're not singing it in that eye of the storm moment, but eventually, ultimately, with the help of the Holy Spirit in our lives, we can say that no matter what happens around us, to us, even because of us, God is still so good.

And who He is and what He has done, is doing, and will do in our lives trumps all of that.

I was, uh I think it was yesterday or the day before, um, it hit me while I was doing something else completely different that there's one passage that I wasn't going to read today.

And I'm like, no, we got to look at that passage.

When you think about just singing out, God, I'm just grateful for you.

Um, a very, very popular passage about Thanksgiving is found in 1 Thessalonians 5.

We're just gonna, I'm just gonna read it to you.

Uh pull it out, it's not gonna be on your screen, but it's this kind of three things in a row that as Paul is winding down his letter to the believers in Thessalonica, he's like winding it down and he's like, I want you to remember this.

Make sure you do this.

1 Thessalonians 5, 16, 17, and 18 say, rejoice always.

That's verse 16.

You can memorize that verse.

Rejoice always.

Pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Give thanks in all circumstances.

There's not a single circumstance that you and I can experience that will ever overshadow our ability to be grateful to God for something.

And I know that sounds almost kind of like that's what we're supposed to believe.

That's what we're supposed to say.

No, when you actually believe it and are convinced of the truth of it, it is a game changer.

It changes everything, man.

It's like a spiritual Teflon in your heart, in your soul, to where when those circumstances come, yes, you're gonna still be sad.

You're gonna still battle fear and stress and worry.

Yes, diagnoses will come up that you don't like to hear.

And you'd be probably inhuman if you didn't feel something there.

But the difference is, is no matter what that is, it can never take away the things that God has done for you.

There are big things that God has done, there are big things that God is for you and to you that nothing can take away.

Nothing that happens to you, around you, because of you, can take those things away.

So we're gonna lean into that a little bit today.

We're gonna be looking in Ephesians 2.

We're looking at the first 10 verses together.

Um, and as we look at it, I think we're gonna find that there's verses in here that I would say support the emotional theology of that song, God, I'm just grateful for you.

Sometimes I'll hear a song and I'm like, that's just emoting.

We're just emoting, emoting.

Like, God, I'm just grateful for you.

In this moment, I feel that, and I'm just gonna scream that out to you.

I don't care if they think I'm out of my mind, I'm just grateful for you.

And it feels like just pure emotion, but there is theology behind that emotion.

And I think we see it in what Paul writes to the believers in Ephesus.

So let's look at that together, starting at verse one.

He says, and you were dead.

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience.

That's okay.

I know I'm a sinner, but come on, right?

Like I was on the I was on the opposite team, apparently, not just a sinner.

Among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the flesh and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

Friends, it's good to park here.

This is where all of us were before Christ.

What it just described in those first three verses.

Completely separated from God, completely lost in our sins, as he says, not lost, dead in the sins, dead in the trespasses.

That is 10 out of 10 humans.

It's why we all need Jesus Christ.

This is who we were, this is where we all once were.

And then two of the best words you'll ever see in scripture, in verse 4, but God.

You were dead in the trespasses, you were dead in the sins, you battled the flesh, you were a slave to your own desires, but God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ.

By grace, you have been saved, and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.

For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

So as we look at this passage and a few others in a moment, as we sing a song in a moment that says, God, I'm just grateful for you.

I'm gonna give you three other things that you can also say because of the truths in the scripture.

One of those is, God, I'm just grateful specifically for your undeserved, unmerited grace.

God, I'm just grateful for your undeserved, unmerited grace.

As we just read, our salvation that comes through Jesus Christ, our assurance of heaven.

Like I can be assured that when I breathe my last breath, that I will step into the presence of God.

And that kind of assurance seems almost like you can't really have that, right?

Isn't that like lack of humility or it just feels off to have that kind of assurance?

But friends, that is the gospel of Jesus Christ.

In fact, I would argue of all the religion and belief systems I've ever studied, there's a whole what-if component in all those things.

Like, go ahead and take that pathway that is laid out in those ancient documents.

And maybe, just maybe, when you die, maybe, just maybe something better happens afterwards.

That sums up so many religions and belief systems on planet Earth.

But this one's different.

Christianity is different.

The gospel truth in the scriptures is completely different, where he doesn't say, here's some hoops to jump through, and we'll just see how it turns out.

Maybe you jumped through them well enough for God to be pleased and to maybe, maybe give you something good after you die.

That's not the gospel.

The gospel is that God himself jumped through the hoops for us, became one of us to die for us, stepping out of his grave so that whosoever, as he said in his own words, so that whosoever believes in him will not perish, but will have everlasting life.

And Paul says right here, if you even come close to thinking there's something that you must do, somehow, some way you must earn it or deserve it or be worthy of it, then you have now negated the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ.

You've made it worthless, you've made it meaningless.

No, instead, we have nothing to give.

He did it all.

And all we can say is, God, I'm just grateful.

You died for me so that I can live with you forever.

Here's another thing we can say, thanks to the passage we just read in Ephesians 2.

God, I'm just grateful for your intimate love for me, knowledge of me, and presence with me.

And I think we find each of those three components in the lyrics that we'll sing when we sing this song in a moment.

But this love, this mercy, this kindness that we read about in Ephesians 2, I think for some reason, why is it so easy for us to not think of God in those terms?

That we're, I don't know if I'm being good enough for him.

I hope he's not totally wanting to judge me or condemn me.

For so many of us, we we tend to go that direction with God.

Whereas by nature of who he is, he is love.

And when Moses received the name for God as he prepared to be the deliverer by God's hand of the Egypti of the Israelites out of Egypt, God gave him the name, I am Yahweh, and I'm rich in mercy and loving kindness.

That's who he is.

It's absolutely who he is.

And so, God, I'm just grateful for your intimate love for me, knowledge of me, and presence with me.

Do you know there's nothing about you he doesn't know?

He is so aware of everything about you.

And we got receipts in the scriptures, and there's so many of them.

You see them listed there on the screen.

You can go back and fact-check me if you want, but I'm gonna read them for you.

Hebrews 2, 6 through 8.

It has been testified somewhere.

What is man that you are mindful of him?

This is where we get that lyric in the song we'll sing.

What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him?

You made him for a little while lower than the angels.

You have crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.

He is mindful of us.

Psalm 139, 2 through 4 says, You know when I sit down and when I rise up.

You discern my thoughts from afar, you search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.

Even before a word is on my tongue, behold, O Lord, you know it altogether.

And we we speak before we even think, but he knows it before we say it.

In verses seven through ten in that same chapter, the psalmist writes, Where shall I go from your spirit?

Or where shall I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there.

If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me and your right hand shall hold me.

He is everywhere, he's ever present.

Proverbs 15 3 says, The eyes of the Lord are in every place, keeping watch on the evil and the good.

Nothing escapes his eyes.

Ephesians 4 6, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

He's everywhere.

All things are consisting because of him.

Acts 17, 26 and 27 says, And he made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined allotted periods and the boundaries of their dwelling place that they should seek God and perhaps feel their way toward him and find him.

Yet he is actually not far from each one of us.

He's ever present.

And everything that's ever happened in your life and that will happen is known by him.

I love this one from Jesus Christ Himself, Matthew 10.30.

But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

And for some of us, we make it easier on him than others.

Every hair numbered.

Psalm 56, 8.

You have kept count of my tossings.

I love that one.

You have kept count of my tossings.

I toss and turn a lot in bed.

It goes on and says, You put my tears in your bottle.

Are they not in your book?

Do you know him how intimately loved and known you are by God?

And then Romans 5:8, but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Romans 5:8

Even now, if you're sitting here saying that all sounds great.

But if you would know what's on my heart right now, or you know how I acted already this morning, or if you would know whatever, that does not negate the love of Jesus Christ.

While we are yet sinners, he loves us.

He knows you, he's with you, and he loves you.

Even if you don't know him, even if you're not chasing after him, even if you can't say right now you love him back, it doesn't take away this truth.

And then I would say this: what if you do?

What if you actually put your faith in this God?

What if you actually believe all of these things he says in his word are true?

That there's nothing you could do to earn and deserve his grace, that he intimately knows you and he's always there with you, you can't escape his presence, and that he absolutely loves you no matter what.

What if you actually embrace that and make it near and dear to your heart and begin to live as if that's true, convinced that it is true?

Here's what I believe it will change everything, and I think that's what makes Ephesians 2.10 happen.

I left out that last verse to save it for last.

Ephesians 2.10 says, For we are his workmanship created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.

This is where it gets a little crossed up, I think, sometimes in our minds.

We do walk, and we have choices to make, and we get to make a choice of if we're going to obey God's commands or not, Christ's commands cannot.

We we've talked about that a week or two ago.

We do have those kind of choices to make, but make no mistake about it, that choice is not the thing that earns or deserves the grace of God.

However, because of who he is, and because if you've accepted that free gift of salvation, he has taken up his dwelling within your heart, you have everything in you right now to be the workmanship, the masterpiece that he's creating.

And you can discern how to walk with him every single day that's possible to do.

So here's a third thing that we can say as a result of these truths and passions.

You can say this, the first two we were saying something to God.

God, I'm just grateful for you for whatever.

But here we're gonna say, everyone, let me tell you what God has done for me.

And that's the spirit and the heart behind the lyric in the song that we'll sing, where he says, I don't care if people think I'm out of my mind.

I'm gonna drop the name of Jesus anyway.

I'm gonna tell people what I'm grateful for anyway, because I have something to say.

I have a story to tell.

Everyone, let me tell you what God has done for me.

That lyric that says, I survived and I'm here to testify.

Some of you all, that's part of your story.

You survived something.

It might have been physical, it might have been emotional, it might have been mental, it might have been spiritual, but you have survived something.

There's a God story you have to share.

And because of what God has done in your life, but because your gratitude of what He has done that only He can do, may we tell that story.

Um I was talking to other people, I've been kind of taking a poll actually a little bit secretly, just here and there.

I'm in my mid-50s now, and I've noticed something about me that I think is happening.

And so my other fellow nearly senior adult status people, uh, have you noticed that you are caring a little bit less what people think of you?

Oh, yes.

Like, you know, every now and then I'll see I got this gray hair growing in my left nostril, and I'm like, man, I wish that wasn't there.

But I've kind of grown to accept it, you know.

I've earned that gray hair in that nostril.

Um, I don't know.

I I think that life's too short.

And while I stress about some of the crazy things I usually stress and think about so much, it's like, you know what, I'm gonna say that I love you and not care.

My kids laugh at me for things I don't understand what they're laughing at me about.

I think I'm saying something the wrong way, maybe even inappropriately.

Um, but they laugh and I'm like, what?

So funny about that.

And they just laugh and never explain it.

And I'm like, you know what?

I'm okay with that too, I guess.

You know what?

It doesn't matter.

Life is too short.

How can we hold back saying that I love you?

I love you.

Grab the people that are around you and hug them and tell them you love them.

When you feel gratitude in your heart for God, just God, I'm so grateful for you.

When someone asks you about your day or your week, whether it's at work and you're like, ah, this might be inappropriate, but right now I'm just feeling this immense peace from God right now.

Tell them.

Tell them.

And I tell you what's going on in my life right now.

Let me tell you what God's done for me.

Who cares what people think about you?

That's your story.

That's your God.

That's your life.

And I'm not saying that, trying to like push you to almost like feel this pressure to religiously become an evangelist.

It's like, no, it's like I have no problem telling people about this new coffee shop I would go to and how much I love this brew, this particular single origin bean that I like, like because it's something I'm passionate about, something that's blessed me.

So how would I ever dream of holding back something I love and I'm passionate about?

Having a grandson come into my life?

I'm that guy with my phone now.

Like, oh, you asking me about my grandson?

Pull you aside right now.

I will show you my grandson.

We're gonna talk about this.

You're gonna be afraid to ask me ever again.

Um, but it's that passion, the love that's there.

And I think that's what's beautiful about this modern song we've been given, this screamer song that we have, among many other screamer songs that we've had over the history of worship, over the centuries of worship, that we would scream lyrics like, because he lives, man, I can face tomorrow.

That we could scream out that, Lord, I need you every hour I need you.

That we could scream out goodbye yesterday.

I'm living in the light of a new day.

I'm not gonna waste another minute in my old ways.

And we could scream out, God, I'm just grateful for you.

Because I have no other leg to stand on but your grace and your mercy.

In those moments when you come to understand that he knows everything about you and loves you.

The good, the bad, the ugly.

He knows it, and he's still right there by your side, wishing to lead you to walk in his ways.

We talk about next steps every time we get together.

So I got a few, four to be exact.

No matter what you're going through right now, you have something to praise God for, no matter what.

So if you're hurting right now, it doesn't mean that that hurt isn't real.

It doesn't mean that you shouldn't feel the hurt.

That's part of living in this world until we see our Savior Jesus face to face, we're gonna experience hurt.

But introduce that hurt to your hallelujah.

We can still worship through the pain, no matter what.

Secondly, introduce your loneliness to your Lord.

Sometimes the thing that makes it hard to be grateful for is we just feel so isolated, so alone.

But like we just read, what are you that you that I'm on your mind, God?

He's you're always on his mind.

He collects your tears in a bottle.

Your hairs are numbered.

He knows the thing you're gonna say before you say it, even though you don't even know you're gonna say it.

He's right there with you.

So even though you might feel lonely, he's right there.

Introduce your loneliness to your Lord, introduce your silence to your story.

Don't hold back anymore.

Who he is to you, what he's done in your life, that's unique.

There's no two stories alike in the in the kingdom of God, in the family of God.

Share it, tell it, let it out.

Someone needs to hear it.

And then fourth, introduce yourself to your savior.

And I say that not just to the people who might be here, who might be watching, listening line, that have not accepted salvation from the Lord yet.

Even those of us who've been following for decades, sometimes we need to remind ourselves He's God we are not.

He's the Savior.

I can't save myself, I can't earn anything.

Even on my holiest day, when I'm like pat myself on the back, I did pretty good today.

Read scripture, prayed, served, I feel good, and yet still the only leg I had to stand on before God is what he did for me on the cross.

When you start feeling guilty, you start feeling unworthy, introduce yourself to the Savior again and again and again.

But oh yes, if you're here today, if you're watching, listening online, if you can't answer this question with a clear affirmative, this question would be this Have you trusted in Jesus Christ alone for the salvation of your soul forever?

Have you ever done that?

If not, today can be the day of your salvation.

Romans 10, 13 says, For everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.

It's not the prayer you say, it's not the words you say, it's the faith that you have.

Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God?

Do you believe that he died on the cross personally for your sins?

And that if you ask him to forgive them, they are forgiven forever, completely gone.

And that your sin is now traded for the righteousness of Jesus forever.

Do you believe that?

Do you want that?

If so, if you've never done that, in a moment when I pray aloud, you pray in your heart and call on Jesus' name and say, Jesus, I believe, save me.

Come into my life and begin a new journey.

Where forever and ever, no matter what happens to you or around you, you can be able to scream, God, I'm just grateful for you.

Because what He does for you in salvation, nothing can ever overshadow it.

Nothing can ever trump it.

That's forever.

And it's so, so good.

So let's pray together now as we bow.

Father, in this moment, we come before you and just simply ask that you help us to do these next steps, Lord.

There might be someone here that needs to introduce their hurt to their hallelujah, introduce their loneliness to your presence.

They have a story to tell about your goodness, about your grace.

And God, maybe someone here needs to be reintroduced to you as Savior or introduced for the very first time.

Oh Father, hear our prayers as we lift them up to you now, God.

You really are a good, good God.

We are so grateful for you, God.

Lord, help us to never ever forget that you know everything about us, that you are right here with us, that you love us no matter what, and that if we would believe and walk with you, you will use our story for your glory.

Father, we trust in you now, and we ask all these things in the powerful name of your Son Jesus Christ.

Amen.

Amen.