The Good, The Bad and The Ugly- Pastor Andrew Maneval

Thank you for listening to this message from Life House Church.

Amen, amen. Well, for those of you that may not know me, may not know who I am, my name is Andrew

Manable. I am the student ministries pastor here, along with my wife Alicia and our little girl Lucy.

She's up in Kitts Town right now and we have another little girl on the way in January. We're

so excited about that. But yes, yes, well it is great to be here this morning. Also wanted to give

a special shout out to our other family up at the East Shore campus. We're super excited about that,

what God's doing up there as well. Super pumped about that. Yes, but yeah, they're up there,

they're worshiping this morning. We're so excited to be doing one church, two locations. We're so

excited about that. But this morning, can you feel it? Can you feel it in the air this morning? It was

a crisp fall morning, the chill of autumn. Maybe you spent yesterday in the grocery store like I did,

right? Thanksgiving is right around the corner, right? Really bad time to go to the grocery store.

It was crazy. Or I know even some of you, and we started doing it yesterday too, but some of us

started decorating for Christmas already. And which I fully support by the way, and here's why,

because that Thanksgiving turkey will taste the same whether the tree's up or not, which I've

completely okay with, right? That thanks. So, but anyway, Thanksgiving, we take a whole day of the

year to celebrate a holiday which represents thankfulness. We take a specific time to be

grateful. And in preparation for my sermon this morning, I looked into what does thankfulness,

what does gratitude really mean, right? Well, according to Webster's, gratitude is just the

state of thankfulness. I'm like, well, that's a circular answer, right? That didn't really

answer my question. So I went in, all right, so what does thankfulness mean, right? Well, thankfulness

or thankful means to be conscious of benefit received. Now we're getting somewhere. Conscious

of benefit received. That really puts some things into perspective here this morning, right?

And too often we aren't grateful or thankful because we don't see, we're not conscious of

that benefit that we receive. But this morning, if you have your Bibles, we're going to be jumping

around all over the place, hang with me, but the first passage of scripture we're going to be in

is in 1 Thessalonians. And if you've heard me preach before, you know I got to give you the

context. You know I got to give you the background details on the passage of scripture. Well, 1st

and 2nd Thessalonians are letters from the apostle Paul, Silas, and Timothy to the church in

Thessalonica. Thessalonica was a city in Macedonia, which is in modern day Greece, right? Back time,

you know, back then it was Macedonia. Well, now it's Greece. Well, Paul and Silas traveled to

Thessalonica from Philippi on Paul's second missionary journey to preach the gospel. They

spent three weeks preaching and teaching in the synagogues, right? They traveled all around the

city and preaching and teaching, but most of the Thessalonian Jews didn't like what they had to say.

They formed a mob and they drove them out of the city, right? But it says that there were some of

the Jews who were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a large number of God-fearing Greeks

and quite a few prominent women. And this was the beginning at the church of Thessalonica, right?

This is how this church got started. So we see 1st and 2nd Thessalonians. That's a tongue twister

there. 1st and 2nd Thessalonians are letters that Paul wrote to these churches. And our passage

district will start off with this morning. 1st Thessalonians 5, 16, and 18. If you don't have

your Bibles with you, the words will be on the screen as well. It says, always be joyful, never

stop praying, be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you who belong to

Christ Jesus. We're going into the season of thanksgiving, right? Thankfulness, right? Paul

here in this letter makes it very clear when we are to be grateful. He says, in all circumstances.

Tell that, lean over to your neighbor and tell them all circumstances. If you're joining us online,

put that in the chat. Up at East Shore, you guys too. Lean over to somebody and say all circumstances.

We are to be conscious of the benefit we receive in all circumstances, right? That's what

thankfulness truly means, right? So what circumstances am I talking about here?

I'm talking about the good, the bad, and the ugly. No, I'm not talking about that Clint Eastwood

Western, all right? I know some of you got your ears perked up when I said that. We're not at

the movies anymore, we're moving on. But the good, right? We're talking about good circumstances

in life. I'm talking about when you have a beautiful, crisp fall morning like you have

this morning, or you find five bucks in the laundry, right? That's a good day. I'm talking

about good health, whether you're free of sickness, right? Or maybe student, you passed that Spanish

test you've been studying for a week for, right? Or you're hitting all green lights when you're

coming through town. These are all good things, right? Or maybe about the bad too, right? Rainy

days. Who doesn't like rainy days? I don't like rainy days. Getting sick, stubbing your toe.

Always a bad day. Getting stuck in traffic, or even as serious as a bad prognosis from a doctor.

There are bad circumstances that we have in this life, right? And last but not least, maybe even

the straight up ugly, right? These are the circumstances that we are to be grateful in.

The straight up ugly. Whenever we make poor choices and we end up living in consequences

of our own actions, right? We find ourselves in a heap of trouble because of decisions that we made.

We are called to be grateful in all of these circumstances. That's what Paul says in First

Thessalonians there, right? That we are to be thankful in all circumstances, regardless of how

we feel, regardless of what's been done to us, regardless of if it's fair or not, regardless of

what we've done, we are called to be grateful. Let's take a look at the good, right? Let's start

in the good. We're to be grateful in the good. And this seems kind of like an obvious one, right?

It seems obvious that we should be grateful for when good things happen, but we often forget to

thank God and show our gratitude when everything is going right. We take credit when it is an

ode to us, right? We take credit for good things happening in our lives and we cut God out of the

equation. I've been guilty of it before, right? When good stuff happens in our life, we are called

to gratefulness. We are called to be conscious of the benefit that we receive from God because it

comes from God. It's easy when good things happen in our life for us to go and just, you know, pat

yourselves on the back a little bit, right? We think that we earn these things or we deserve

these things, right? Let's look at the example of, let's say you get a promotion at work and you say,

I worked really hard for this. I deserve this. You know, you say maybe you were at the right place

at the right time or it was my time to shine, right? Maybe the boss finally noticed me. We

don't see the fact that we got to that position of getting that promotion because God gave us all we

needed to succeed. God gave us the intelligence to do our job well. He gave us our work ethic.

God gave us our ability to communicate well. All of that is a gift from God. The hands-on skills

needed, it all comes from God. We see this really cool example in the Scriptures about what being

grateful in the good looks like. And it's this really cool passage of Scripture and we see

it's in Luke 17, 11 to 19, but I'll give a little background on that one as well. We see this

passage of Scripture, Jesus is traveling around in his ministry and he comes across the scene.

He's going from town to town, he's preaching, he's healing, he's doing all these miracles.

And we pick up in Luke 17, verse 11, it says, and Jesus continued on towards Jerusalem.

Luke 17:11

He reached the border between Galilee and Samaria. As he entered a village there,

10 men with leprosy stood at a distance, crying out to Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. And he

looked at them and said, go show yourselves to the priest. And as they went, they were cleansed of

their leprosy. One of them, when he saw that he was healed, came back to Jesus shouting, praise God.

He fell down to the ground at Jesus's feet, doing what? Thanking him for what he had done.

This man was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, didn't I heal 10 men? Where are the other nine?

Has no one returned to give glory to God except this foreigner? And Jesus said to the man, stand

up and go, your faith has healed you. Jesus is in his ministry here and he's traveling from town to

town and he sees this, comes across this scene, right? Well, see, in Jesus's day, leprosy was a

vile disease, it's still a terrible disease, but because of the severity and the culture back at

the time, lepers had to live in their own colonies, separate from rest of society so that no one could

be exposed to it other than people who were already exposed to it, already that had it. So these

people had to live away from their friends and family in a group of other people who have the

same disease that they do, right? So Jesus heals these 10 lepers, right? But only one is conscious

of the benefit that he received from Jesus and he gives gratitude where gratitude is due.

Only one is grateful for Jesus, for the good that he did to him, for the good that he healed them.

Maybe the other ones were grateful in their heart, but they didn't express it, right? We only see

that one came back and it says he gave thanks to Jesus.

I have to wonder, we also like the leper who came back after being healed, we are also to give

gratitude to God when good things happen, right? Whenever good things happen, we're supposed to

praise God and thank him, that's what it means to be thankful in all circumstances. When it's a

beautiful sunny day and it's amazing and you're so thankful, you give thanks to God, just a little

thanks to God, right? And you're thankful for the good that he did to you, right? And you're

thankful for the good that he did to you, right? Thank you God, that's a beautiful sunny day.

Or you travel somewhere and you arrive safely, give thanks to God.

Or you get a good grade on your test, right student? Give thanks to God. When you sit down

to eat your meal, thank God, right? We need to thank God for the benefit we receive, we need to

thank God for the great work that he did in the good. But what about the bad? Like Dixie said,

we go through struggles and strife in this life, right? Bad stuff is going to happen,

hopefully I'm not breaking bad news to you here, but bad stuff will happen to you in this life

if it hasn't already. Does God really expect us to be grateful in the bad?

I'd say one of the most common questions I get asked

as a youth pastor and as a minister is,

why do bad things happen to good people?

And the answer for that is because we live

in a fallen and sinful world.

Back in the beginning in the Garden of Eden

when Adam and Eve sinned and they chose to disobey God,

at that moment, bad things entered into the world,

death, sin, right?

All these things that started to happen because of sin.

When sin entered the world, so did bad things.

See, God never intended us to live like that, right?

But even though we live in a fallen and broken world,

we can still be grateful to God in the bad.

But listen to me here, church, God doesn't want

or expect us to be grateful for the bad things in our life.

Hear me what I'm saying.

He doesn't want us to be thankful

for the bad things in our life,

but we can be grateful in spite of them.

We can be grateful for the hope that we have in Jesus

and the promises that he has made.

Dixie, it's like you were reading my sermon this morning

because Hebrews 13, five says,

God will never leave us or forsake us, right?

Those are promises that God has made to us

as his children, right?

We can be grateful in the bad because he is with us,

because our hope is in him.

We can be grateful even then.

I love this passage of scripture, Paul kind of,

the apostle Paul in Philippians kind of gives us

a good blueprint on how we can be anxious for nothing, right?

How we can be, even in the bad, how we can be grateful.

Philippians four, six says, be anxious for nothing.

But in everything, by prayer and supplication, with what?

With thanksgiving.

Let your requests be made known to God

and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding,

will guard your hearts and your minds through Christ Jesus.

When we know where our hope comes from,

when we know that nothing can touch us,

that even if we're taken out, right?

That God is still with us.

Even if we get a bad prognosis from a doctor,

God's still with us.

Regardless of what happens in our life,

God is with us.

When we know where our hope comes from,

we can be grateful even in the bad times.

And I think the best example for this in the scripture

is the story of Daniel.

I love the story of Daniel.

My brother's name is Daniel

and I just love this passage of scripture.

But Daniel was taken as a young man,

a young teenager about, he was taken captive

into the nation of Babylon.

He was an Israelite and he was groomed for leadership

in the nation of Babylon, right?

They raised him up, they trained him,

they taught him, they educated him, right?

And he excelled in all that he did

because God's favor was on him

and because he followed God.

And see, Daniel kept excelling and excelling

and doing more and doing more and doing better

in his position of power.

And he got some opponents, right?

He got some people that didn't like him very much.

And see, Daniel's opponents wanted to take him out.

They didn't wanna compete with this Hebrew.

They didn't wanna compete with this Israelite.

So they're like, they come up with a plan

or like, how are we gonna take Daniel out?

What's the best way we can do to take Daniel out?

And the only thing they could find against him

was his faith.

So they plotted and they schemed

and they kind of tricked the king Nebuchadnezzar

to pass this law, right?

And this law said that anybody who prayed

to somebody who wasn't one of their gods or wasn't the king

that they would be arrested and they would be harmed

that they would be thrown into the den of lions.

But we see Daniel grateful even in the bad times.

Daniel 6, 10 says, but when Daniel learned

that the law had been signed, he went home

and knelt down as usual in his upstairs room

and with the window opened towards Jerusalem.

See, Daniel's not ashamed here, right?

His windows are wide open, he's not hiding his prayer.

He prayed three times a day just as he had always done.

Doing what? Giving thanks to God.

Daniel, in spite of the circumstance,

Daniel knows what it's gonna cost him.

He knows what's at stake here.

He knows what's on the line.

And yet he intentionally takes that time

to give thanks to God just as he had always done.

We continue on to verse 16.

It says, so at last the king gave orders

for Daniel to be arrested and thrown into the den of lions.

The king said to him, may your God whom you serve

so faithfully rescue you.

Jump down to verse 19.

It's very early the next morning, the king got up

and hurried out to the lion's den.

And when he got there, he called out in anguish,

Daniel, servant of the living God,

was your God whom you served so faithfully

able to rescue you from the lions.

And Daniel answered, long live the king.

My God sent his angel to shut the lion's mouths

so they would not hurt me.

For I have been found innocent in his sight

and I have not wronged you, your majesty.

The king was overjoyed in order that Daniel

be lifted from the den and not a scratch was found on him

for he had trusted God.

Regardless of the trouble that was in his life,

regardless of the trouble that Daniel knew was gonna do,

the trouble that Daniel knew was coming,

he was giving thanks to God

because he knew where his hope was found.

He knew that God would protect him.

He knew that God was with him

regardless of what happened in his life.

He had peace and confidence in God

and for that he was grateful.

Daniel wasn't thanking God, oh, thank you God

that I'm gonna be thrown into the lion's den.

He was giving thanks to God that he was with him even then.

He was not grateful for his circumstances

but in spite of them, he was grateful.

And church, we can follow Daniel's example

for gratitude and gratefulness here, right?

For the, we can be grateful for the hope

that we have in Jesus, even when our life seems

to be falling apart.

Gratitude, even in the bad times,

helps us to see past our circumstances,

however bad they may be, however bad things might seem,

we can be grateful and we can see the benefit

that we have gained by having our hope and trust in Jesus.

Like Daniel, when all odds are stacked against us,

we need to give thanks to God.

And sometimes that looks like starting small, right?

Sometimes that looks like starting small

and finding the smallest thing possible

in your life to be grateful for

but soon that starts to stack and it starts to grow

and you find thing after thing to be grateful for.

And that will change your heart and change your mind

and your attitude on your circumstances.

And that's how we can be grateful in the bad.

Okay, so we're to be grateful in the good, right?

We're to be grateful when God provides good things for us.

We're grateful for the good that God has given us.

We can also be grateful in the good

when we're grateful for the good that God has given us.

We can also be grateful in the bad for who God is

and how he'll see us through

and realize that our hope lies in him.

But what about the ugly?

How can we be grateful in the ugly, right?

I mentioned earlier, the ugly, right?

That's whenever we mess up so badly

that our lives just turn ugly, right?

We make mistakes, we all make mistakes, right?

Big ones sometimes, right?

We end up living in the consequences of our own wrongdoing.

How then can we be grateful?

How then can we see our benefit gained

if we're in the middle of reaping what we have sown?

Maybe it looks like you told a lie for years

and it ended up finding you out, right?

And it hurts those around you that you love.

Maybe the circumstances of life,

some things happen to you in your life

and it caused you to put God in an arm's length

to seize yourself from him.

Or maybe you made bad choice after bad choice

and you ended somewhere

that you never thought your life would be.

How can we be grateful in circumstances like that?

When we have to learn lessons the hard way,

what do we have to be grateful and thankful for?

And I'll tell you this, we can be grateful

when we realize that our help

and our salvation comes from the Lord alone.

He is our salvation when we have our lives so messed up

that only he can right our wrongs.

And God will see us through even messes

that we have made ourselves.

And this is, I tell a lot of stories when I preach,

so bear with me here, but this is,

this one I think of messes like this

and I think there's only one man in the Bible

that comes to my mind first and foremost,

that somebody that got themselves so twisted

so messed around that it was only God who could get them out.

And that's the man Jonah, the prophet Jonah.

Jonah was a prophet, right?

A prophet was a man of God,

a direct messenger from God to his people.

And Jonah had lived an honorable life up to this.

He followed God, God gave him message

for the nation of Israel.

And Jonah would give the people those messages.

One time we hear in the book of Jonah in the Old Testament,

we see that God gave the people the message

that God gave Jonah a message for a foreign nation,

for the city of Nineveh.

And Jonah doesn't wanna go to the nation of Israel.

Jonah disobeys God, says, I'm not going to do that.

God sends somebody else, I'm not going, right?

Jonah runs from God.

He gets on a ship and heads as far away as possible from God.

He tries to run from God,

which if you've ever tried to do that, you can't do it.

Jonah tries to physically run from God and he can't do it.

The consequences of his actions of disobedience

finally catch up to him, right?

Jonah, and he's on the ship

and he's bound for the complete opposite end of the map

from where he's supposed to go.

And we see the storm raise up in the book of Jonah.

We see the storm raise up on the ship

and the sailors are all crying out to their gods,

their false gods, right?

And they say, they have Jonah on board

and they say, Jonah, what's going on here?

And Jonah confesses, Jonah admits what he's done.

He said, the only way you're gonna fix this

is if you throw me overboard into the raging sea.

They say, well, sure, if we can fix it,

we'll throw you overboard.

So they throw Jonah overboard

and God sends a giant fish to swallow up Jonah whole.

So Jonah's consequences for his actions, right?

Jonah is only here in the belly of a giant fish

because of his disobedience for God.

Jonah's life is a little bit ugly.

I don't know if you've ever smelled the inside

of a fish before, but it ain't great, all right?

And Jonah was in there for quite some time,

but we see, even in the ugly,

we see Jonah praying to God.

And Jonah's prayer was recorded in Jonah chapter two.

We'll pick up in verse one, it says,

and then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God

from the fish's belly.

And he said, I cried out to the Lord

because of my affliction and he answered me.

Out of the belly of Sheol, I cried and you heard my voice.

For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas

and the floods surrounded me.

All of your billows and your waves passed over me.

Then I said, I have been cast out of your sight,

yet I will look again towards your holy temple.

The water surrounded me, even to my soul,

the deep closed around me.

Weeds were wrapped around my head.

I went down to the mooring of the mountains.

The earth with its bars closed behind me forever,

yet you have brought up my life from the pit, oh Lord my God.

When my soul fainted within me, I remembered the Lord

and my prayer went up to you into your holy temple.

Verse eight, those who regard worthless idols

forsake their own mercy.

Verse nine, this is the verse, guys,

but I will sacrifice to you with what?

With the voice of thanksgiving.

I will pay what I have vowed.

Salvation is of the Lord.

The Lord spoke to the fish

and then it vomited Jonah onto dry land.

See Jonah, even in the belly of this fish,

from his own disobedience, he's here because of the consequences

of his own actions, right?

He chose to run away from God and he got swallowed by a fish.

He calls out to God asking for forgiveness

and with thanksgiving, because Jonah knows

the only way he's getting out of this fish

is if God helps him out.

When we find ourselves in a mess like that,

maybe not literally in the belly of a fish,

but we find ourselves in a mess

that only God can get us out of,

we can still be grateful for our God who saves.

See, God saved Jonah, right?

God gave Jonah a second chance.

The fish vomits him out on dry land

and Jonah goes and does what God commanded him

to do in the first place.

And like Jonah, we too can move from a place

of self-destruction and calamity

to a place of peace and gratitude,

knowing that God has saved us.

Regardless of whatever circumstances

we might find ourselves in, whether they're good,

they're bad, or they're ugly,

we have a reason to be grateful.

We can be grateful because we serve a God

who provides good things for us.

We can be grateful because we serve a God

who gives us hope and a future,

and we can be grateful because we serve

a God who saves.

Church, if you'd stand with me in closing.

I don't know what circumstances you're experiencing

right now in your life, whether they're good,

they're bad, or they're ugly.

You're gonna be somewhere in between there.

Sometimes you got some of each going on,

but we have a reason to be grateful.

If you bow your head, you're gonna be grateful.

You're gonna be grateful because you're grateful

for the things that you've done for us.

You're gonna be grateful for the things

that you've done for us.

You're gonna be grateful for the things

that you've done for us.

If you bow your heads with me this morning.

Church, if you feel the spirit tugging on you this morning,

maybe you haven't been as grateful to God

for the good things in your life.

You haven't been conscious of the benefit

that you have this morning.

And you feel convicted and you feel that you need

to give God more gratitude than you've been giving him.

Whether you're in good circumstances,

bad circumstances, or ugly circumstances,

and you haven't been as grateful to God as you ought to be,

would you slip your hand up and put it right back down for me?

You wanna give God more gratitude than you have been lately?

Thank you for the honesty.

My hand's up as well.

And you'd be more grateful than I have been.

Or maybe you find yourself feeling

like you're in a bad situation.

Or maybe you find yourselves in an ugly circumstance

this morning, and you don't know how you're gonna get out.

You know that it's only gonna be by the grace of God

that you will see another day.

Come to Jesus.

Come to the God who serves, and you can be grateful

for that salvation that he has offered you.

And the Bible makes it really clear

that it's true.

He's gonna let you go.

All we have to do to accept Jesus.

We have to do, it's as simple as A, B, C,

you have to first admit that you're a sinner,

admit that you have wronged God.

Admit that you have done something

sins, that He paid that sacrifice for you, that He is willing to pull you out of the

belly of a fish.

And the last thing you need to do is you need to confess that Jesus is Lord.

You need to put Jesus as Lord of your life.

And that just means you put Him first.

You put Him above everything else in your life.

And if you've never done that this morning, I would love to pray with you.

Pastor Kipp would love to pray with you and talk to you about what that looks like.

Let's pray.

Heavenly Father, God, I thank you for your word this morning.

God, I thank you that we have so much in our lives to be grateful for.

God, whatever circumstances, God, in all circumstances that we face, God, help us to be grateful.

God, whether we find ourselves in good, bad, or ugly circumstances, Lord, help us to be

grateful even then.

God, help us to be conscious of the benefit that we receive from you.

Well, God, if there's any in the house this morning who don't know you, God, that they

would find that gratitude in salvation this morning.

God, we pray all these things in your precious and holy name.

Amen and amen.

Thank you for tuning in to this message from Lifehouse Church.

We pray that you were impacted powerfully by this message.

If you have been personally affected by our ministry and you would like to partner with

us as we love God, love people every day, visit our website at www.lifehousecog.com.