Living in the Spirit of Gratitude - Leland Zehr

Well, good morning to each one of you. Greet you

in the name of Jesus, and I too want to

thank the visitors for being here with us this morning.

I was thinking about that on the way to church

this morning, especially at a weekend like we have here,

holidays and things like that, we often expect and maybe

take for granted the visitors that come. But it is

a blessing and I enjoy having other people that are

not normally with us, and so we welcome you here,

and I hope and trust that you can be encouraged

and be blessed by being here. Do we have a

couple ministers here with us this morning, And it was

that I wasn't aware, and that I wasn't tempted to

ask to have some participation, But I guess it was

maybe putting into practice the Bible verse, the thought to

do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

And it's good to share, and I would have very

much enjoyed that. But I also know that for myself,

sometimes when you go away from home, it is just

nice to be able to think about your family, be

a little more relaxed, and so I hope that you

all can do that. Don't can't promise that every time

that you come. I was blessed this morning in different ways.

The songs, things that were saying that correlated with some

of the things that have been on my mind for

a while. But maybe one of the things that struck

me or blessed me the most was that so far

is as a simple detail that brother Lynden Troyer didn't know.

But as I was trying to wrap up my notes,

and I always end up with way too many words

in my notes, as you probably know, it's my weakness,

so I need to delete things out. And I really

wanted to read some of Psalms one of six, and

so when Linden got up this morning and said let's

turn to Palms one of six, I'm kind of had

a bit of an almost audible gasp and goose bumps,

And I was blessed with that that one of six,

Palms one O six was read. Maybe that'll make more

sense to you after a bit. Now, before I go

into the title or the subject of a message, I

want to tell a story, a Bible story that you children.

You can listen to this for a bit, and it's

of course for the adults as well. But the Bible

is full of interesting stories, and sometimes, you know, we

get used to hearing them, and so it's hard to

hold our attention. But they're they're very interesting stories, and

they're in there for a reason, the Bible says, and

I'll mention that later they're not. It isn't just an

interesting story book to make us intrigued. But there they

are lessons in there on humanity. And the story I

want to tell you as a background to some of

the other things that I want to say this morning,

is to take you back into the into the beginning

of the Bible. And you remember Joseph, the man Joseph

and his life, How he was a favorite son, how

he was I'm going to skip over lots of the details,

but he was. His brothers were jealous. They sold him

into slaver, into Egypt, a terrible thing to happen to

a young boy. And Joseph lived in Egypt, and he

rose in power, and he was faithful to God, and

God blessed him in spite of being taken away from

his family and all the terrible things that had happened

to him. But many many years later, after Joseph died. Well,

I should say, when Joseph was there, the king of

Egypt loved Joseph, respected him, and appreciated him. And so

Joseph years later was used by God to save the

very men and family that had betrayed him and had

hated him and had treated him wrongly. But they did

not know it. The Bible says that they meant it

for evil. But God had sent Joseph ahead and used

him in that way to preserve his very own family

years later when there was a famine. So through that process,

all of Joseph's family ended up moving into Egypt and

living there with Egypt, I mean, in it with Joseph

in Egypt. But then we fast forward a few generations

or many generations, and the good king died and the

bad king, a bad king, arose in the land of Egypt.

And he was a terrible, wicked man Pharaoh. He suppressed

the children of Israel. And I was thinking about that,

and I asked one of my children yesterday or this morning,

if they knew who the children of Israel are. That's

a term that's all throughout the Bible. And maybe we

can get confused, Well, what have we been talking about?

The children of Israel. Jacob Joseph's father's name was Israel,

and his name then was Jacob, and so all the

descendants of Jacob and Joseph and all those people were

the children of Israel. So when the Bible talks about

the children of Israel, it's just talking about the descendants

coming from that family line. So the children of Israel

lived in Egypt, and they prospered, they grew, their family multiplied.

God was with him. They were still the chosen people

of God, even though they were in a very hard

place and time. And this wicked pharaoh that arose started

to not appreciate the children of Israel. He became worried

about them. He thought that they would become maybe more powerful,

rebel overthrow. I don't know what his fears were, but

he did not like them. So what he did was

he suppressed them with very mean tactics. He made them slaves.

He made them work harder and harder to keep them

I suppose busy and a little bit beat down, so

that they could not become powerful. Another thing that that

pharaoh did that was just tremendously wicked, and it's hard

for us to imagine that today. Even in the most

terrible well, it depends how you look at that. I

guess it does happen, but in most countries it doesn't happen.

In this way, where Pharaoh said one thing. One of

the punishments he wanted to use to control the children

of Israel. He said, whenever a baby boy is born

to the children of Israel, they were to kill that

baby boy. And the logic behind that was to suppress

the growth of the men of that children of Israel. Well,

the Bible says that the midwives, which were the nurses

that helped these ladies have their babies, the pharaoh told

those midwives that when they're a baby boy is born,

you are to kill that baby. The Bible says that

those midwives feared God, and many or all of them,

I don't know, did not do that, did not obey

the voice of the king. And so then the kings

made another decree saying that all these babies and that

didn't get killed when they were born are to be

found and captured and thrown into a river. It's just

terrible thing to actually imagine, as a mother, a father,

your newborn baby to live in that society where that

they would be coming and trying to hide or to

take your baby, and so you would feel the need

to hide it, of course. And that is over the

time when Moses was born, and we know that story

how that he was hid in the basket and saved

in that way. So we fast forward a bit more Moses.

We have the whole story of Moses and how he

grew up in Egypt. And eighty years later, after Moses

was born, the children of Israel were just in agony

of the of the abuse coming from the leaders of Egypt,

and the Bible says that they cried out to God

and the Bible and the Bible says that God heard them,

and he remembered them, and he wanted to go rescue

them and keep the promise that he had made to

the children of Israel. And so that is where Moses

came into the picture. And we remember Moses. He was

a He was a talented young man, but in his

youth he was he was a bit more ambitious. But

he got he got past that and he fled to

the wilderness and God called Moses and told him to

come and lead the children out of Egypt. Now, fast

forwarding through that, we know the process of the ten

plagues that God sent to try to get the attention

of Pharaoh. Pharaoh would not let these people go. They

were his slaves. They were the ones that did their work,

the servants that kept the industry running and without them,

although he hated them, he used them as a machine

for their own good of the Egyptians. Finally, on the

tenth plague, Pharaoh, on that tenth plague, when the Death

Angel came through the land of Egypt and killed the

firstborn of all the Egyptians. That night, Pharaoh finally broke.

And I don't know what that must have been like,

but as harden as a wicked and evil as a

man that he was, and how he could kill babies

demand that to be when he seen his dead firstborn son,

and I don't know how many others he gave up.

He was done. He said, all right, God, you win.

The people can go. And so he sent them away

and they fled in the night, this little huge army

of or not army, huge group of people. The Israelites

headed out through the night with their belongings and out

of Egypt in a hurry to get out of their

While Pharaoh was letting them go. But we know that

that they didn't make it too far out of Egypt,

and they came to the Red Sea. And as they

came to the bank of the Red Sea. I don't

know what their plan was. They must have not had

a plan. I don't know. They were just following the

cloud that God led them with, and it led them

to the sea. And so they got there, and I

don't know. They might have been having a discussion on

what to do next. But somewhere along the line, someone

looked back, and they looked back towards Egypt, the way

that they came, and they seen this army of horsemen

and chariots and men coming, and I suppose there was

a billow of dust as they seen that string of

people coming out across the desert towards them. There they

were trapped between a raging sea and an army that

had abused them, and that they had fled from nowhere

to run, mothers and children and people and the few

belongings that they had all gathered along that shore. And

so what did the people do? What did they do

as they looked back and they looked forward, and they

had nowhere to go? Well, it says they cried out

to Moses. They didn't get down on their knees, they

didn't pray, doesn't say. They cried out to Moses, and

they complained to Moses. And they said, what'd you bring

us out here for? Just to die in the wilderness.

We'd have been better off staying in the land of

Egypt and dying there. And as the horsemen and chariots

grew closer and all hope seemed to be gone, it

looked like they would be heading back to Egypt. Moses

was interceding. He was talking to God. And Moses said, this,

fear not stand still and see the salvation of the Lord,

which he will show you today. For the Egyptian Egyptians,

whom ye have seen today, ye shall see them again

no more forever. The Lord shall fight for you, and

ye shall hold your peace. And God told Moses, as

you remember, as if you can imagine, I'm huddled up

against the bank in order to go. And God move

that cloud that was leading them behind them between the

army and them to give cover. And then he told Moses,

he said, take that rod in your head and stick

it out over the river. And to stick a rod

over a raging river. You have to go right down

to the bank of the river, and was Moses' feet

were almost wet, and he stuck that rod out over

the river, and you know what happened. We know the story,

but it's still just an amazing story. As you think

about the allam A River at flood time, how how

big and dark and wide that river is. But somehow,

through the power of God, that that massive river just

went up on two walls. And Linden read about that

and saw six this morning and there was there was

a trail path, a dry path. It wasn't soggy and

kneed eat mud. It was dry. And the people went across.

God led them across. But they weren't done yet. As

they got up, the last one clambered up the bank

to the other side. And as they they they got

up the other side, they were they were They didn't

have weapons, they had no way of fighting. This meant

these men if they caught up with them. And those

Egyptians made their way through that fog and that cloud,

and they found that same dry river and they headed

down through. They're coming after them. And as the children

of Israel looked back and seeing them coming across as well,

hope that they still didn't feel like they were necessarily

had escaped yet. But again God interceded, and as they

filled that road down between those walls of the river, God

started doing things with the chariots, and the wheels came

off big heavy, I suppose, brass. I don't know what

kind of chariots iron without wheels, just dropping down, and

horses trying to drag them things through through that road,

and chaos and men and armor and just a traffic

jam in the middle of those walls of the river.

And God told Moses, stick your rod back out after

every man was down in between there. Moses stuck his

rod out, and we know that the rivers came together,

and I suppose for a minute or two there was

lamoring and shouting and paddling as hard as you can

with armor. But it wasn't long. I imagine a minute or two,

maybe a few. As the children as will sat on

the bank and look back all that noise and chaos

and drama and stress, there was just silence, just a

raging river, nothing in sight, not a person, not a

thing behind them. And the Bible says not one of

those men escaped God completely destroyed that Egyptian army that

came after them. Can you imagine finally, the feeling that

the children of His had that they had actually made

it across that river. Their enemies were dead, and there

was a big, wide river between them and Egypt. They

were so thankful, And the Bible says, what did they do?

Then they sang a song. They sang the Song of Moses,

and I won't read it's in Exodus fifteen. They feared God,

they felt relief, and they were grateful for his deliverance.

They not only sang, but some of them danced, and

they had a party on the banks of that other

side of the river, rejoicing for God's deliverance. And that

song ends in Exodus fifteen, verse twenty. And you'd read

forward about four verses or two or three verses, and

it says they traveled three more days, and they got thirsty.

And the Bible says, about three or four verses later,

verse four twenty four, it said the people murmured against Moses, saying,

what shall we drink? And then God provided them drink.

And then you go a few more verses, and they

were hungry, and what did they do? Did they pray

to God for food? No. Exitus sixteen to two and three,

it says, the whole congregation of the children of Israel

murmured against Moses and Aaron in the wilderness. And the

children of Israel said, unto them would to God. We

had died at the hand of the Lord in the

land of Egypt, when we sat by the flesh pots,

and when we did eat bread to the full, for

we have brought he For ye have brought us forth

into the wilderness to kill this whole assembly with hunger.

So they murmured. What happened? God provided them with manna, miraculssly.

Every morning there was fresh, heavenly white manna for them

to eat. It wasn't very many verses. Later, in Exodus sixteen,

they wanted flesh, they wanted meat, And so what did

they do? Did they ask God for meat? No, they murmured, again,

What did God do? God gave them quail to eat.

A little bit later, they were thirsty again in Exodus seventeen,

and what did they do? They murmured again? And God provided.

And not only did they murmur this time, it says

they chid it. They chided Moses. They strove and contended,

that's like a little bit beyond the level of murmuring.

It's a little bit getting in his face and complaining

and threatening him. But God provided them with water, and

the cycle went on, and they murmured against Moses and

Aaron's leadership, and they murmured when the ten Spies returned

with the report of the Promised Land. And the story

of the Children of Israel is just seems to be

the cycle of complaining and murmuring every time they got

into a difficulty. Now why do I tell you that story? Well,

one Corinthians ten. It lists different things in that chapter,

but I'll just read three verses there, and it's referring

and it's talking about the children of Israel. And this

is in the New Testament. Now for Corinthians ten, I'll

just jump in at verse nine. It says, neither let

us tempt Christ, as some of them also tempted and

were destroyed of serpents. Neither murmur, ye, as some of

them also murmured and were destroyed of the destroyer. Now

these things happened under them for examples that they are

written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the

world are come. That is why God gave us this

Bible with so many Bible stories in it and so

many commands, is because we are very much like all

the people that have went before us. We are very

much like the children of Israel. It's the same human nature,

the same tendencies, and the Bible says that they are

written for our admonition, so that we don't have to

go through life making every same wrong mistake as those

that have went before before us. They are examples. Sometimes

there are good examples in the Bible, and sometimes there's

bad examples. This, as was already mentioned, the theme of

Thanksgiving has been going on, and our country recognizes the

stay and I'm glad that they do. I think it's

it's a good thing. But it's a time when we

would have off work officially, we can be with family,

we can think and reflect, and if we use it wisely,

we'll consider the actual thought of Thanksgiving and how I

am doing in that. It's all good. But this morning

I want to not just think about Thanksgiving. I want

to think about some things that are connected to that,

and maybe think about the opposite of thanks thankfulness and gratitude.

In murmuring complaining and that and that spirit. And so

the title that I gave it, I don't know if

it's the best. Is simply living in the spirit of gratitude.

You know, I appreciate and I think it's a good

exercise to say all the things that we're thankful for.

Often that's something we do around this time of the year.

Everybody go around and say something you're thankful for. It's

good helps us think about that. But maybe one of

the dangers of that is that we can subconsciously start

to think that thanksgiving is tied up with whether I

have these things. It's tied up in the thing I'm

thankful for, rather than the ability as Christians to live

in a spirit of gratitude aside from our immediate current

circumstances in life. And there's a difference in that a

person that lives in a spirit of gratitude is much

more equipped for the hard difficulties that they run into

in life. Any heathen and any ungodly person can sit

on the banks of the Red Sea and be glad

and sing and dance when we've been rescued from death slavery.

Any ungodly person can have a rush of gratitude when

we're starving, hungry and somebody gives us a warm meal,

and we should be thankful. But it doesn't take anything special,

it's just it's and my dog appreciates that. So to

live in the spirit of gratitude is a whole different

thing than to just think about something I'm thankful for.

And these are areas as I've been thinking about this subject,

and I about thought i'd have to abord it. Last

Sunday when Gerald started his message, he talked about the

Word of God, a reason to be thankful, something like that,

But then he went towards the Word of God heavily,

and so I could continue my thoughts. But I've been

thinking about this subject here for some time, and it's

an area. It's an area that at like all subjects,

when you actually think about them and ponder and study them,

you start to realize how lacking you are in that.

And I feel that of my own self, And so

I give this as a need as much as an encourage.

And I'm gonna I'm gonna give a few questions for

us all to consider and think about here. Maybe we'll answer,

hopefully at least to some degree, most of these but

they're kind of to just stimulate your thinking here, and

some of them you'll know the answer, and some of

them you might be. Well, I'm not sure. So is

gratitude an emotion or emotion a feeling or is it

something we choose you can think about that is gratitude

good manners like saying please, saying excuse me, we say

thank you, We try to we try to promote good manners,

good etiquette. Is Is that what gratitude is or maybe

or is it a cultural thing? You know, maybe it's

a maybe warm culture people. We have some people from

warm culture that that are just known to be grateful

and thankful, and we're glad for those people. But those

of us out on the West Coast, we're cold culture

and we're just not expressive and necessarily known to be grateful.

It's just a cultural thing, Is that, right? Is our

level of gratitude whatever that is something that can be changed?

Or again, is it just something that some people are

six feet tall and some people are five foot six

and we just that's how it is. If we realize

that we're struggling being thankful, is it something that isn't

possible to change? What does God think about gratitude and murmuring,

it's another question and what effects does gratitude have on

our lives and on the lives of others, and both

spiritually and physically. So those are some things we want

to just touch on throughout this message. Maybe we should

just start with addressing probably maybe the most important point

is God's view on the matter of gratitude or ungratefulness

at times, especially in the Book of Exodus, and if

you get into numbers and Deuteronomy, some of that gives

a different version, different details. But as you read through

some of these events, and it talked about the children

of Visual murmured and then God gave them water, and

the children of Israel murmured, and God gave them quail,

and you see this cycle God and Moses, and the

writings don't always address what God even thought of that.

It appears that God was very patient with these complaining,

murmuring people, and I think he was very much, But

I don't think it was that he didn't care. I

think that he very much cared about about it. And

I'll read some of these verses, but I jumped over

two things here. I wanted to say, first of all,

define some terms murmuring, and it isn't a term that

we use so much as a King James word more

than a current day. But I think we all know

what that means. Murmuring is it's to complain. It's to

but it has a thought of kind of a continuing complaining.

It isn't you know. We all run into problems in life.

We run into needs. When we're hungry, that's a legitimate need.

We need food. To state that, to say I'd like

some food, or to make a request, it is not murmuring.

But murmuring is just this ongoing grumbling, fussing and grumbling,

and it just kind of goes on and on. Gratitude

thankfulness is, on the other hand, both an expression and

a feeling. It's a lot of it like the other

emotions that we have, good and bad anger, But can

we help them. Yes, we have a control center that

God has given us to govern those emotions. Sometimes we're

overwhelmed with an emotion. We're just overwhelmed with gratitude for

something something did, someone did, or said. And that's good.

It's a blessing. But a lot of times it has

a lot to do with our mental capacity or choices

that we make in life, that very much is the

governor of the other emotions, both good and bad. We

can promote the good and we can control the bad,

but it has personal responsibility. Gratitude is a sense of

wonder and thankfulness and appreciation. Gratitude is a realization, and

this is a good one to think about. Gratitude as

a realization that my life has been enriched by God

and others beyond just what I am capable of doing,

and I am thankful for that. Got back to God's

view on ungratefulness in numbers eleven. I'll read a few

verses just to give a little picture of that. I

think we know that. But God did not like murmuring,

although he didn't always address it numbers eleven, one and ten,

And I'll read a couple verses in numbers fourteen as well,

just to give a bit of a picture of this point.

And when the people complained, it displeased the Lord, and

the Lord heard it, and his anger was kindled, and

the fire of the Lord burnt among them and consumed them.

They that were in the utmost parts of the camp

Verse ten, and Moses heard the people weep throughout their

families every man in the door of his tent. The

anger of the Lord was kindled greatly. Moses also was displeased.

And the first part of numbers fourteen, when the spies returned,

it says in all the congregation lifted up their voice

and cried, and the people wept that night, and all

the children of Israel murmured against Moses and against Aaron,

and the whole congregation set into them. Would God, this

is after they had wandered in the wilderness forty years?

Would God that we had died in the land of

Egypt they're still looking back at that? Or would God

we had died in this wilderness? And wherefore hath God

brought us into this land to fall by the sword,

that our wives and our children should be a prey?

Were it not better for us to return into Egypt?

And they said, one to another, let us make a captain,

and let us return into Egypt. And the Lord God

upset and wiped out. And in this point God was hap,

and he was ready to wipe them out once and

for all. But this is the place that just always

amazes me about Moses, is that he interceded. He prayed

to God for these rebellious, complaining people. And God said,

because of your innercession, and I will save these people.

But there's going to be consequences and many of the

people are going to die for this attitude and this complaining.

So God hates murmuring and complaining. When we murmur and

complain against others and circumstances, we are murmuring against God.

And I think that is something that's good for us

to kind of try to tie that together. Often it's like, well,

I'm not going to murmur against God. I have a

fear of God, of a respect for God. I would

never say anything about God. But in Exodus seven and eight,

it says that the idea that the Lord number one

hears the murmurings, and he said, the murmur for that

he hereth your murmurings against the Lord? And what we

are that you murmur against us? And Moses said, this

shall be when the Lord shall give you in the

evening flesh to eat and in the morning bread to

the full. For that the Lord hereth your murmurings, which

you murmur against him. And what are we? For your

murmurings are not against us, but against the Lord. And

Moses is just saying that when you murmur against me.

In that case, you're murmuring against the Lord. This isn't

about me. I can't control call in quail and provide

bread and all all your needs. And so that is

that is, I think adds a little bit of should

give us pause as we think about when we complain

about circumstances, people, whatever, what are we really doing in

that moment in relation to God? Okay, Another thing is gratitude.

And some of these are kind of I'm probably repeating

a little bit in some ways, but it's gratitude a

fruit or a root. Well, I think it's probably both

a little bit sometimes, but I think about mostly that

gratitude is probably a fruit. It springs from a life

that has a lot of other facets. When a tree

doesn't have the fruit on it, we don't just stand

at the end of the branch and examine and examine

that spot. We understand and realize that there's other problems

that are producing this lack of this fruit. And so

I think gratitude in some ways, in a lot of ways,

is that way we all love and appreciate and are

attracted to gratitude. People that are grateful are just attractive

they're nice to be around, and the opposite is as well,

it's not so fun to be around murmurs all the time.

But if we're lacking, we examine our life and we're

just we're just not thankful or we don't feel like

we are as we should. What what can we do

is that, you know, how can we examine that? And

that's what I want to look at this morning a

little bit is maybe some of these other periphial things,

both good and bad, that we can maybe look at

in our lives that ultimately affect whether we can become

a a or living a life of gratitude, because we

can't just like want just grunt and produce gratitude. We

got to adjust things in our lives so that it

can flow and that fruit can be can grow in

our lives. First, I'd like to look at a few

things that hinder and suppress gratitude, and a lot of

these are in the in the story of the Chill

of Israel. And I don't have time to go back.

I'm already running behind, so I'm going to just move

forward here. But fear or a lack of faith often

makes gratitude almost impossible. When we spend our time worrying

and fretting about all the what ifs in life. We

can't hardly be thankful. At the same time, life without

faith in God, you know, is uh, We're stuck with

just the current circumstances, everything that's happening. Kind of like

the children of Israel. When they got water, they are happy,

and when they were thirsty, they weren't unhappy. And when

they were hungry, they complained, and when they got food

they were happy. And so you just live in that,

yo yo. Without faith, faith is eyes to see beyond

the moment. It gives us hope, it gives us a

bigger purpose in life. Unbelief was a big part of

the problem of the children of Israel, woven with their murmuring,

I'll just move forward on that, resisting our circumstances and

some of these I know, unfortunately from experience, that when

we resist our circumstances or the calling that God has

called us to, let's say, whatever that might be, we

cannot live a full life of gratitude. As life goes

on and we grow up and we tried to be

creates Christians, we realize that the Christian life isn't about

just doing what I want. Through life, we realize that

sometimes we're called to things that isn't our preference. Sometimes

we're led in ways that and asked to do things

that do I want to do it? No, But it

seems like maybe that is the right thing to do.

And so as we mature in our Christian life, we

find ourselves entering into more and more of those type

of things if we're mature, and so it can be

easy as those things come upon us to internally fight

against those things, just resist, and we might not say

much out loud. There's just this turmoil in our heart.

We're just not happy. We're not where we want to be.

I don't want to be doing this job. And we

see that struggle in the life of Moses when God

called him from the burning bush. And I wish we

could spend more time on that. But Moses, when he

was a younger man, was very ambitious. He had answers.

He was ready to lead the children of Israel at

that point when there was injustice. He killed the one man,

and he was fixing problems, and then he realized that

all of a sudden, that that whole method wasn't working,

and he fled to the wilderness, and he hid, and

he went on the backside of a will, and he

learned a lot of lessons for forty years in that

and he became humble, he became contented, he became satisfied

to live as a shepherd in a wilderness. And when

God called him in that burning motion and said, Moses,

remember the children of Israel, Remember Egypt, where you came from.

I want you to go back, and I want you

to lead those people out of the out of the

out to the promised Land. And Moses fought that thing.

He did not want to do it. He said, I can't,

I can't talk, I can't a lot of things. He

just resisted, and God just worked with him and was patient,

answered and solved all his problems for him, and got

to the point where God was angry with Moses. Finally,

and and and and finally, I think Moses seen the

seriousness of the situation, and as it soaked in, he

finally rendered his nice, quiet, little life that he loved

so much to go be a servant of God. And

it was finally at the point when Moses really, I guess,

felt like he wasn't a natural born leader that God

could use him to lead. It's often the way that

it seems to work. And when God finds when Moses

finally gave up and fighting, it says he gathered his

wife and his children, and he went as God told

him to. That's an Exodus four eighteen and twenty. He surrendered,

he accepted the call, and when he did that, he

became the meekest man. The Bible says it ever lived

a depth of humility, and in my opinion, one of

the greatest men that ever lived on the face of

this earth. If you read that man's story over the

next forty years, it's a stump me. Moses was a

humble and a grateful man. And one of the things

that stands out to me is when we get to

the end of Moses' life and Deuteronomy thirty two and

thirty three and God God takes Moses up aside and

he talks to Moses and he says, Moses, you can't

go into the Promised Land. Remember that time, one time

that you sinned against me in all those forty years,

you can't go into the Promised Land. You can come

up and look in it, but you can't go in

to me from the human flesh. It's one of the

most seemingly unjust things that could happen. But God knows,

and God probably took him on to the Promised Land

instead in heaven. But the thing that impresses me, that

shows me just the meetness of Moses. If you have time,

you should go read it. The end of Deuteronomy thirty two.

God tells him that in Deuteronomy thirty three. After that,

Moses gives a whole bunch of words, not a bit

of self pity, not a bit of resistance, just encouraging

the rest of the children of Israel to be faithful

to God, to do what he said, that his promises

are true. And he just gave one last encouragement and

God took him. It's amazing. But the point is when

we resist our circumstances and fight against where God has

called us I get in life or wherever we're at,

we can't blossom, we can't grow as long as we're

in that fighting mode. And that can be in all

kinds of areas of our lives. That can be just

wherever you're at, where you live, you're calling in the church,

you're home, married or unmarried, whatever, those circumstances are that

you wish we're different, surrendering and accepting and better yet

in brave sing. What God has called us to in

life is it just helps us to become a person

of gratitude. One of the keys of living a life

of gratitude is to realize that I cannot. Is to

realize that if I cannot learn to be grateful in

the place in the state that God has me now,

I most likely will not be grateful. And the next

one that I wish I was at, it just isn't

the way that that generally works. Okay, another one is

pretty obvious coveteousness. But it's a problem that we have

unthankfulness when there's a lack of gratitude that leaves a

hole in our heart and our soul, a craving that

makes us just susceptible to all kinds of luss. It

can be less of food, less of money, lust of immorality, pornography, addictions.

But a coveteous life is unsatisfied, it's uncontented. It's you

can say thank you, and you can feel moments of thankfulness,

but there's kind of this hole in this void that

always takes more things to fill coveteousness. And in that

psalm and someal one of six that Lyndon read, it said,

but LUs, I'm jumping in verse fourteen. But they lusted

exceedingly in the wilderness and tempted God in the desert,

and he gave them their request, but sent leanness to

their souls. And that's often the way that it still

is today. God does not withhold, and he lets us

covet and get and have, and he lets us get

all the things we want sometimes, but when we're in

that state, there's a leanness to our souls. Another one

is simply the fact of murmuring that does that hinders growth.

If we say, okay, I got a need in my life,

I'm kind of a complainer. I want to improve, I

want to become more grateful. One of the first things

that we need to quit doing is verbally murmuring. Murmuring

and complaining. Vocalizing too much creates a makes us ruminate

negatively in our minds, and it creates this negative feedback

loop in our minds and a habit of grumbling, and

it blocks out the ability for us to grow in gratitude.

There's a place to take our needs. We suffer, we

have difficulties, we don't like things, we have thorns in

the flesh, we have problems in life. And God has

given us that avenue of to come to Him in prayer,

to ask him for things, or to leave us of things.

But that's different than murmuring murmuring. Another thing that's bad

about murmuring is that it often is a spreader of

discontent and unthankfulness. When we murmur and complain to others.

It's hard to keep your own ship afloat if you're just,

if they're just somebody sucking negatively in your ear. Both

gratitude and discontentment are contagious. They tend to spread and

to affect other people. And we see that in Numbers

fourteen thirty six, when the men came back from the spies,

came back, and eight of them had the negative report.

It said that Moses sent when they returned, and it

said and made all the congregation to murmur against him

by bringing up a slander upon thatline. Only eight men

came back talking negative, But by the time it was done,

the whole congregation one hundreds of thousands of people were

just murmuring negative. It spreads pride and entitlement. Pride, pride

and gratitude cannot co exist. Really, pride was the root

sin of satan. He was not satisfied to be in

the spot that God called him to be. He wanted

he wanted to be like God. He wanted to be

something different. And pride makes us feel entitled. We deserve

what we get. I mean, we just I want it,

I'll buy it, I need it, and and it's a

it's a it's a terrible, ungodly attitude. And then guilt

hinders gratitude. When we have sin in our lives, it's

hard to be grateful because they're just kind of this

need to guilt and shame and need to hide. Last

week at our family, the ones of us that got together,

bigger group, they they did what often we do at

meals like that at a time like this, And the

different questions are assignments under the plate to the people

that sat and under your plate you look at that

and read it and you're supposed to do it. And

one of the questions or assignments was who is someone

that you know that lives a life of gratitude. That

was one of several and there was multiple churches represented there,

but I'm happy to say that there was some names

that came out of our congregation. I was blessed without

my name wasn't mentioned. I don't know if that tells you,

but some of you were, and that was that's me,

that's a blessing, that's a testimony. And there was other

names from other congregations and people. And as I thought

about the names that were listed, and I kind of

just did a brief analysis about those people, there was

some common threads in their lives that I thought of,

and one of them is that those people haven't had

a real easy life. I mean, it's not that terrible,

but they face maybe, if anything, a little bit more

on the average of difficult life. And yet somehow through

those things they became, you became extra ordinarily grateful. And

so gratefulness is not tied up in if I could

only be like you and you and have that life,

then that would that's why you're happy, because you have

a good life. That's not that that's not how that works. Okay,

just a few things. I'm basically out of time here,

but I'm gonna mention just a couple of things. Few

things that stimulate, and they're kind of the opposites of

a lot of the things that, of course stifle gratitude.

But that and the one is the first one is humility.

I don't think we can be truly live a life

of gratefulness if we're not humble. Humility is and Gerald

mentioned this and it was a good point. Last Sunday

he mentioned about Africa tribe that the way they express

their gratitude is they get on the ground and they

put their head all the way to the ground. Basically

that humility, the poor of thanksgiving is an act of humility,

and that is just the way it is. Humility is

a proper view of ourselves. Be for good. Humility foster's

gratitude and recognizing that everything that we have and enjoy,

both spiritually and physically, as well as our relationships, are

undeserved gifts. Another one is being a willing servant is

often a trait. It's understanding the concept that it is

more blessed to give than to receive. Another one is

expressing gratitude. The Bible says you should praise the Lord,

you should give thanksgiving, you should sing, you should pray,

give words of praise, encouragement and thanksgiving to others. These

are the ways of that. When we do that, it's

the opposite of the murmuring. It creates a in our minds,

maybe a feed back loop through our mind of a

positive and we develop our thinking patterns and our emotions improved.

Faith in God depends up our ability for gratitude, and

we talked about that a little bit before. But the

eyes of faith to see to see passed, and that

was part of the problem with the children of Israel.

All they could see was their immediate They couldn't see

with the eyes of faith that they were between bondage

and the promised land. They weren't seeing the promised land,

and that they were on their way through the desert

and the wilderness to the promised land. All they could

see was they were in the desert and the wilderness.

And this is miserable. But faith looks beyond, and that

is still the challenge for us today we face hard things.

Can we have the eyes of faith to look beyond

to the promised land. Generosity and kindness are often accompanied

with a heart of gratitude their companions of gratitude. Generosity

flows from grateful hearts, not from complaining hearts. And then

I just have a few facts about the physical benefits

of exercising gratitude in our lives. God created us, and

so we think about this as a spiritual but it's

also actually like the way we're wired that gratitude makes

us more healthy, makes us more happy, and practicing gratitude

has many emotional benefits. Do you have too much stress

in your life? Gratitude is a stress reducer. It lowers

our cortisol levels, holns us down. When we can practice gratitude,

gratitude makes us smarter. In this way. It engages the

pre frontal cortex of our brain to the back and

it and it creates a positive It Actually, practicing gratitude,

I'm told, actually shapes our brain and and and in

a positive way. It breaks down the constant negative room

rumination in our minds and breaks that. It puts off

happy hormones and stabilizes us. That's why it feels good

once in a while just to laugh with friends and

have a good laugh that that we feel kind of

flushed and good about moments like that. Practicing gratitude helps

us sleep better. These are just some simple physic things

that God has bonuses, and when you practice gratitude, it

isn't like you're laying on a bed of nails miserable.

It actually makes us happier and enjoy life better. There's

actual physical benefits. Okay, So in closing, just to recap

Living with a spirit of gratitude opens our lives up

to blossom to the fullness and to be able to grow,

whereas resisting and murmuring kind of dwarfs and buries our talents.

It doesn't it does matter whether we live a thankful life,

and God cares very much. When we find ourselves ungrateful,

we can repent and we can do something about it.

Emotions often fallow our choices, and then we impact others

as well, whether we're negative, whether we're grateful or not.

One closing verse clautions three point fifteen. And let the

peace of God rule in your hearts to that which

also you are called in one body, and be thankful. God,

bless you. Thank you for being a thankful church. It's

a blessing to be with thankful people. Let's have a

closing song.