Thanksgiving 2019: Living Grateful

Well, I'm excited about this morning and this passage that we get to read, Luke 17.

Obviously, it's picked for Thanksgiving week.

We just finished our series on 1 John.

What a great book for us to have worked our way through for three months.

And so we'll have this week talking about Thanksgiving.

And hopefully, my hope in this is that we will contemplate the story for a few minutes.

We'll have a little more extended worship on the backside of the Sermon and Communion, but as well for this to be preparation for our hearts, not just for the remainder 35 minutes of worship, but for this upcoming week of Thanksgiving.

So I nerded out a little this week on some Thanksgiving and gratitude research, and one study, it was published in Harvard Health Publishing, and the study was done by these top, two top psychologists on the research of gratitude.

Dr.

Robert Emmons of the University of California, Davis, Dr.

Michael McCullough of the University of Miami, leading researchers on gratitude.

And they did this study, and their first group, they had this first group write down each week for 10 weeks, all the participants wrote down a few sentences each week about things they were grateful for.

Then they formed a second group.

The second group wrote down daily irritations.

Then the third group wrote down neither positive or negative, just things that happened during the week, but they had neither positive or negative sort of repercussions or feelings or emphasis about them.

So after 10 weeks, you already know the results, right?

I don't have to really share the results.

You know the results.

The people practicing gratitude felt better about their lives.

So that's good news, right?

I mean, that's good news for us to enter a week.

That is perhaps our culture's healthiest holiday, is what this means.

So there's more research though, as I dug a little bit, got way deep on the interwebs.

2015 survey by a survey company called Healthline.

Said 62% of respondents described stress levels as very or somewhat higher during the holiday season.

So does anybody want to guess what the main stressors were?

That these people listed, anybody want to guess?

Maybe you just want to yell yours out.

I don't you can.

You're welcome to.

Might feel good, might feel freeing.

Does anybody want to guess what the major stressors that people said on this survey?

Anyone want to guess one?

Family, that is one.

Money was two.

One time, no, that's a good one.

Loneliness, that's that's good.

It kind of those kind of wrap in.

The third one was was health.

Health.

Money, family, health.

So maybe you don't think you're in the 62%.

So let's say you're not.

Okay?

So let's say that those aren't stressors for you.

But you kind of get caught up in the next fact that a survey showed, and that was that only 10% reported that they had no stress.

So most likely you got some measure of stress during the season of gratitude, by which the gratitude research shows that uh you'll be happier.

So the gratitude research says this week you should be happier, and yet the research shows that this week will also have increased levels of stress for you.

I mean, speaking of family, do any of you, any of you, have anybody in your family that causes any amount of stress?

Just raise your hand.

Okay.

Right?

My hand is up, too.

I will not say their name.

Right?

Of course we do.

And let me blow your mind.

I'll blow your mind.

There's a family member right now sitting in a church.

A family member of yours sitting in a church.

The same question might have been asked of them.

And they raise their hand, and they're thinking about you, right?

And they're thinking about me because I'm causing stress.

That's just how it works.

Families are dynamic places of joy and stress.

So of course, this week has both, and of course, this week requires a lot of grace to other people and a lot of grace to ourselves.

And life is like this.

Life is a dynamic place of joy and stress.

And so that's just good to know, right?

Like it's good to know that because what it means is holidays, hopefully, like life, and hopefully like family or relationships or church, uh, you don't have to pretend to be something you're not.

Of course you feel both.

Of course you can almost simultaneously feel incredibly grateful and still be stressed.

Now you don't have to ignore stress or anxiety to be thankful.

And that's just kind of good news for us.

Now here's the passage.

Sort of priming us into this passage, Luke 17.

I'll read it, it won't be as beautiful as Jill's accent, but I'll read it.

Luke 17, 14 through 19.

When he saw them, he said to them, Go and show yourselves to the priest.

And as they went, they were cleansed.

Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks.

Now he was a Samaritan.

Then Jesus answered, We're not ten cleansed, where are the nine?

Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?

And he said to him, Rise and go your way.

Your faith has made you well.

So a few points to kind of guide us here for the next few minutes.

Point number one is this is gratitude seems to be about slowing down and remembering.

Gratitude is about slowing down and remembering.

One guy returns to Jesus, and what does he do?

Well, he falls down on his face, giving thanks.

That's a posture of slowness and stillness, and I have nothing left, nothing to move on to.

And that's not easy.

We just love to keep moving on.

Just move to the next thing.

Think about the next thing.

I mean, even this morning, I went for a walk this morning, early this morning, I went for a walk, and as I set out, it's okay, you know, I'm gonna be preaching on Thanksgiving.

Let's try not to think too much about the sermon Russ, and let's just kind of enter into, you know, maybe a 20-minute walk of Thanksgiving.

And I did that for about three and a half minutes, and then I found myself thinking about the sermon, and how I'm gonna work my way from one thing, transition from one thing to the next, you know, and all that, and thinking about Thanksgiving travel plans, and thinking about I bought some new running shoes on Friday, and when are they arriving today?

Because they are arriving today, and what time today, and get caught up in that.

I'm looking forward to those shoes.

So I was thinking about that for about four minutes, and then you return back to thankfulness that you could buy a pair of running shoes or you have shoes.

I mean, so much that we just sort of overlook, right?

And I think for a lot of us, we resist this sort of slowness, this bowing down, this stillness.

I mean, even a lot of times we'll get still in prayer, and then we'll jump straight into reading something else or learning something new.

And not that those things are bad, but there's something about being completely still and thankful that's very different.

It requires a lot of humility.

And then I think something else happens when we're in this position.

When we're in this position of gratitude.

Gratitude doesn't show up by itself.

Now, this is maybe a little bit separate from the passage.

I mean, I can make an assumption about this guy.

He was a Samaritan, he had leprosy for who knows how long.

You have to assume he had a certain amount of emotional woundedness.

And you gotta think, even in his gratitude, he's being thankful for certain things, but the things he's being thankful for perhaps are very hurtful.

So, along with gratitude showing up, hurt and sin show up.

And so we become still enough, and like we talked about last week, we want to get to that intersection of our woundedness and our sin.

To find our idolatry.

What is it that's driving a lot of the unhealthy habits in our life?

What is it driving us to be so busy in our hearts?

And then what do you do when you get to that place?

When you're in that place of stillness and you have this mix of gratitude, and you have this mix of being overwhelmed, you have this mix of stress, you have this mix of uh sin and woundedness.

Do you hear the loving voice of Jesus that welcomes you in, or do you hear a condemning voice?

I think it brings us to a couple of healthy questions.

The first one is this Do I have a regular practice of slowing down my busy heart in order to be thankful?

Now that's a yes or no question.

So if you answer yes, you feel very prideful, and if you answer no, you feel condemned, right?

I kind of set you up there.

But it's not to say, you know, shame on you, but it's to say, how much freer could you be in Jesus just by beginning to slow down?

What might you see?

What might you be grateful for?

Second question would be Am I preoccupied by trying to get somewhere or something rather than resting in Christ in the present moment?

Now, this is a question we have in our monthly church prayer meeting that we have once a month on a Tuesday from 11 to 12.

This is in the prayer guide.

It jumps out at me every single month because this question nails me.

And it also relieves me that I get to do this, right?

Like it's like, oh man, I do that, but it's like, oh, there's not a voice of condemnation in that, there's a voice of the love of Jesus that welcomes me then to say, hey, you don't have to be preoccupied.

You can rest in my healing, my wholeness, my salvation for you.

Your identity is beloved.

You don't have to move on.

But nine of them moved on, right?

The other nine.

They went to the temple, they all went to the temple.

To be accepted back into society, to be accepted into religious culture, but to be accepted into society.

And nine moved on.

But why do you think they got busy?

Why do you think they moved on?

And this is what I think is a safe speculation.

Point number two idolatry of religion and approval can easily enslave our hearts.

Can you imagine?

Can you imagine for years and years and years, maybe decades, having been rejected, separated from family and friends in society for years because of your disease on your skin, leprosy.

And you know inside of you there's nothing wrong with you.

And everybody's rejected you.

And then you're healed.

And they'll have you back.

I mean, you've been wondering for a long time if you are lovable or not.

And in an instance, you you are accepted by those people, by that system, by that place, right?

The friends will finally have you, the ones you've wanted your whole life, or your dad finally approves of you because of some achievement, right?

The club welcomes you, right?

The thing that you thought you'd never get to, finally you have it.

How intoxicating this would be for your heart.

This week I read a quote by psychologist Gene Veneer.

He said this uh we we don't just want to be loved.

That's what we think at first.

We actually want to know if we're lovable.

And that's even deeper.

And I think these nine, they were healed on their skin in an external way, and then they got accepted back into a religious system that validated them and into an approval of society that that validated them.

Can you imagine that they would have felt lovable?

Now, how long they felt lovable, we don't know.

Probably not very long.

And we know that because this is how idols work, right?

They promise us some group of people, some religious system is gonna be enough for the inside of yourself, for your soul, for your heart to be validated.

But it actually doesn't hold power.

The gospel's what holds power.

Remember last week we showed we showed this, Tim Keller and his book, his study, Gospel and Life.

He talks about idolatry, and I picked back out these two because I thought it was affable into this story.

Approval idolatry and religious idolatry.

And here's how he frames it up for us to grab hold of it.

Idolatry in our hearts begins with a sentence like this Life only has meaning, or I only have worth if I am loved and respected by.

Or life only has meaning, or I only have worth if I am fulfilling my religious duties, my moral codes, and accomplishing what is expected of me.

Approval, idolatry, and religious idolatry.

And these ways of life end up being a lot of promises, but never true deliverance.

It never lasts.

You always have something else to do, someone else to please.

It's a performance idolatry at its core.

And it's not what the gospel is, the good news that the work's already been done for you.

Like the God who created you, who loves you, welcomes you, and deems you righteous.

Your sin cast upon him, his righteousness given to you, so you are forever beloved, and that for you in wholeness and fulfillment in life is more about rooting yourself and your identity back in Jesus.

Point number three is this such good news.

We are not only given blessings by God, but we are saved and made whole.

So here's how we see this in this passage.

There's two words.

There's this word cleansed, and so cleansed, all ten were cleansed.

And the idea here is that they were physically made whole.

They were cleansed of their leprosy, that skin disease, that on the external everything was made fine.

So it would be sort of like if all of your finances were fine.

They're just good.

They're good, they're gonna be fine, they're fine.

Or your social status was fine.

It was fine.

Or your romances or your health or your family situation.

It's just fine.

Everything's just fine.

And don't we know?

I think we know, we can get all of that, all the external fine, and still our inner selves, our hearts can be hurting.

So there's this second word, and this is the word only the one gets who comes back.

Because he comes back to Jesus and says, hey, that wasn't enough.

Like I get it, that that was that was cleansing.

That was the external, but I have more problems than that, and he knows that.

And he comes back, and then Jesus says to him, Your faith has made you well.

So not some merit, not some performance, but a trusting in Jesus' sufficiency for him.

And that word well means to be saved from the burden of sin, shame, and guilt.

It means to be made whole on the inside by God's grace through Christ.

It's about the core of who you are, your identity in Christ.

Not running from woundedness, but bringing it to him, not running from your sin, but bringing it to Jesus.

And then the text says, it points out very clearly two different ways.

One time it says, now the man was a Samaritan, then Jesus says that just this foreigner is returned.

So in the context of the time, this man would have been rejected upon rejected.

Even once cleansed, he was rejected.

He might have had his skin all cleared up, but he was still a Samaritan.

So racially inferior, would not have held great position in that temple or in the society.

I wonder if you've ever not been welcomed, maybe left out.

Have you ever had to say, as my friend Kurt says, that the two worst words in the human English language are what party?

Right?

Have you ever said that?

That's a horrible moment because you were left out.

You were excluded.

Maybe you've never felt like you fit in.

Maybe it's just always been for you.

Like you got to the table and everybody had a seat, and for whatever reason, the chair wasn't there for you.

Or maybe you've been able to fit in along the way, the whole way.

But underneath, you do wonder, because I wonder it.

If someone really knew me.

Like if somebody really knew that intersection of wounded my woundedness and my sin, if somebody knew that, if someone really knew me, would they welcome me?

Would they love me?

Or would I be rejected?

And what this Samaritan shows us, that Jesus welcomes this Samaritan and points it out.

It's not just a lesson about us being thankful, it is.

But it's also a lesson about the welcome of God to all of us who feel like and know we're outsiders and we don't have our acts together.

You come as you are.

And Jesus is just fine with that.

So this man is healed, this one.

He is made well.

So he's healed, but he's also moving in that healing.

And that's important to say.

Because you can get the idea here of, like, oh, and he goes on forever and everything's wonderful.

But don't forget that he's still a person, right?

He's still a sinner.

He still has a background.

He still has, good gosh, who knows what's happened in his life for him to process through.

So he is healed, but he is also healing.

This is the already, but not yet, of the Christian faith.

We're already beloved, and yet we're still growing in our belovedness.

The last bit of good news.

And I love this.

I love that this is hidden in this text.

Point number four.

Jesus fully loves both the grateful and the ungrateful.

Here's what we overlook in this story.

Jesus didn't strike down the other nine.

He didn't say, oh, they weren't thankful.

I'm going to pull back that healing.

Jesus didn't reverse the healing because they didn't show gratitude.

And this is good news because we are not always grateful.

What we are is we are thankful at times, and then we are brats at times.

And sometimes we're both at the same time.

And sometimes you think you're thankful, but really you're brat, and sometimes maybe you think you're a brat, but actually you're being thankful.

It's hard, right?

It's just difficult.

But to know that you are loved by Jesus in your gratitude and also when you're a brat, isn't that amazing?

And isn't it interesting that knowing that sort of grace that pursues you and is enough for you apart from your performance is incredibly relieving and freeing.

And paradoxically, maybe, maybe, maybe, maybe, it begins to form a little bit of gratitude in you.

I close with this quote as we go in to celebrate communion and we go to worship, we move into a week of hopefully slowing down in some measure to be thankful.

I ran into this quote this week by author and apologist Ravi Zacharias.

Love this quote.

Gratitude comes from the same word as freedom.

Gratitude comes from the same word as freedom.

Gratitude is the freeing expression of a free heart toward one who freely gave.

Let's pray together.

God, thank you for the gift of Jesus that is enough for our woundedness, enough for our sin, enough for our guilt, enough for our shame.

Thank you that in Jesus you welcome us.

That you welcome us while we're messy.

You welcome us as we are outsiders, you welcome us before we have our acts together.

Thank you that while we are grateful you love us, and while we're ungrateful, you love us, and boy, does that give us a lot to be grateful for.

God, would you give us enough faith and trust this week to begin to slow our hearts down to not just think about the stressors that exist in our relationships, our finances, and our health, but also to think about your goodness and all those things, your presence even amidst hurt, your sustaining, and ultimately that you welcome and love us.

And that we're never alone.

God, we thank you for the gift of Jesus that is enough for us this morning and always.

In his powerful name we pray.

Amen.