Habits of a Healthy Heart – A Grateful Heart

This podcast is presented to you by Pastor Jason and Liz Burns in Access Church in Lakeland and Bartow, Florida.

For more information, visit Access.tv.

Is anybody else thankful to be in church this fall at Access?

Man, love you so much.

I just said I love you so much.

I hope you know that's true.

I I pray for you every single day.

I love you almost as much as your mama does, everybody, and I really do.

I mean that we pray for you every week.

If we've never met, my name is Jason.

I'm one of the pastors here.

And if you're new to this place, you may not know this, but Access is one church that meets in three physical locations.

We're here in South Lakeland.

Right now, church is streaming to our church in North Lakeland and in Bartow.

So grateful for that.

And then hundreds, really thousands of people now join us at church online every single week, which is amazing.

And I want to call out one special church online attendee today.

My wife, my bride, is preaching out in California, and she's joining us at church online right now.

So everywhere, can we put our hands together and welcome everybody to church today?

So glad you're with us.

Hey, before I uh get after the message, I just want to take a moment and say thank you.

I want to tell you I love you and I'm so proud of you.

Last Sunday was amazing.

Last Sunday was our largest ever non-holiday Sunday, which is amazing to me.

Almost 3,300 people came to access in person at one of our locations, which is so cool.

And like, look, let me just be clear about this.

This isn't about me.

I'm not bragging on me, I'm bragging on you.

Thank you for loving this city, thank you for loving our people, thank you for loving our neighbors, thank you for caring about people because people matter to God, and that means people better to matter to us.

Can I get a good amen on that, everybody?

So look, don't stop.

If we run out of room, we will figure it out.

We will get all the single people and let them sit on laps, like we'll figure everything out.

Like, don't woo for that, okay?

Some people be desperate up in these streets.

Okay.

So let's get to work today, everybody.

Uh, we are in part two of a four-part series called Habits of a Healthy Heart.

And I'm enjoying the series.

Last week, if you missed it, let me kind of explain what we said.

Every single person when the New Year starts tends to come up with New Year's resolutions.

And often the resolutions are about me.

They're about me losing some weight, me getting a better job, me earning more money, me going on the trip, and there's nothing wrong with any of those things.

You do it all, do it boo-boo, you do all of it.

Like I want that for you.

But I also want you to hear this.

Very often we set New Year's resolutions and we never accomplish them.

What if, instead of fixing external stuff, what if we got a running head start into next year by working on the internal stuff of our heart?

Here's the reason.

Solomon in Proverbs chapter 4, he said, above all else, like the most important thing you can do, guard your heart.

Proverbs 4 · chapter mention

For everything you do flows from it.

All that you are, all that you think, all that you dream up, everything that makes you you flows from your heart.

So we better pay attention to it.

So last week I kicked off this series with a habit that is so counter-cultural, and I have heard from dozens of people this week that are literally reorienting their schedule around the ways of God.

It is to have a Sabbath.

Sabbath is 24 hours where you turn everything off, you stop working, and you rest with joy and delight in God's presence.

If you missed last week, if you will do it, it's an absolute game changer for you.

Love for you to watch it.

Today, I've got a message for you that's one of the most, what I would call relationally determinative messages.

If you will do this, if you will adopt this, it will change every part of your life, every part of your relationships, all of your friendships.

You will become the most honoring person imaginable.

Now, to get us started, I want to do the opposite of habits of a healthy heart.

I'd like to do habits of an unhealthy heart for just a moment, okay?

This is an all-skate play-along moment, okay?

I want you to think about some little things that just drive you crazy.

Like little things that get under your skin.

I'm not talking about big stuff, not talking about politics or I'm not talking about that, talking about little things that drive you absolutely up the wall.

Okay?

Anybody got some?

I'm gonna have about two minutes of group therapy.

I'm just gonna barf all over you.

These are some of mine, and these are some that like some people have said to me this morning as I've kind of asked around what are little things that bug you.

Here's one.

Um, I hate conversations with people when I have to ask all the questions, and they never ask one back.

Anyone have this person in your life?

We had a staff member years ago and someone said, Hey, did you ever realize that that person never asked questions?

So just for fun, I took him to lunch and I um I just started asking questions.

I got to 39 questions before he asked one back.

And his question back was, why?

And I had to count that, okay?

Like, hate that.

Okay, here's another one.

Um, this is something little that's driving me crazy these days.

I hate it when I go through the drive-thru at a restaurant, and the employee who is working that I'm talking to is wearing AirPods.

Anyone else frustrated?

This frustrates the fire out of me.

Apparently, just me.

Okay, cool, cool, cool.

Um, here's another one, check this out.

Anyone else get frustrated by I4?

Anybody else just like sometimes people are like, Pastor, what is hell gonna be like?

And I'm like, I4, okay, um, and at the end it's Chuck E.

Cheese.

That's what hell's like, okay.

Um I-4 is what it is, right?

But can I tell you what like really grates on me?

Is when you get to the end of the traffic and there's nothing there.

Anyone else have that?

It's like if we're stopping for a reason, fine.

If there's a wreck, I'll pray for you as I go by.

But when there's nothing, drives me crazy.

Okay, so I was asking someone else this morning, what drives you crazy?

And he goes, when I go to the grocery store and I buy chips and it's a big bag and it's only like a third full, that drives them crazy.

If you really want to get me started, and I'm gonna be honest, I may not recover from this one.

Um, I know we live in a time right now where prices keep going up.

That's called inflation.

I get that.

But what drives me crazy, it's what's called shrinkflation.

And that's when the stuff that I buy gets smaller.

Anybody experience this?

Like, I'm a growing boy, I need my food to grow with me.

You know what I'm saying?

Like, I'm at this place where it's like two Chick-fil-A sandwiches might need to be the norm, okay?

But but this is this is the one that really set me over the edge this week.

Um, I love this time of the year, and one of the reasons I love this time of the year is I love the little Debbie Christmas tree cakes.

Anyone with me on this?

And gosh, I'm like, God is real and he loves you.

Radio silence.

Little Debbie Christmas tree.

Woo! Okay, whatever.

So um this week we got some and I pulled it out, and I was just like, ugh, it's so much smaller.

And my family was like, no, it's not.

And I looked it up online, the internet's with me.

Look at this.

Thank you.

It's gotta be at least 30% smaller, anyways.

Drives me crazy.

Now, look, I know we promise not to get political around here, but I will vote for whoever fixes that.

How does that sound, everybody?

Okay, all right, one more, and this one's being a little bit more honest.

Those were kind of fun.

Here's one that drives me up the wall.

I want to be the most open-handed, generous person you'll ever meet in your whole life.

As God blesses me, I realize that it's not my job to be a reservoir.

I I want to be a conduit, a river of blessing.

As God blesses me, I want to bless people.

And I try really hard.

Like my kids call me Mr.

Beast, because I'm always trying to bless people, hook people up, and sometimes it's little things, and sometimes it's wildly big things.

And what frustrates the fire out of me is when I give, and the person on the receiving end doesn't say thank you.

It's little.

It's not that big of a deal.

And I don't even need like thank you.

It's not like Chick-fil-A where they have to say my pleasure.

By the way, I try to trip them up all the time.

I'm like, you're the man, just to see what they'll say, you know, they always say my pleasure.

I I don't need thank you.

I'm I'm chill.

It could be thanks or oh, this means so much.

Just any sort of acknowledgement back about my generosity.

And here's the thing: you and I, we've all done this, we've all been given a gift, we've all had someone do something thoughtful for us or kind for us, and we didn't mean to not say anything.

We just didn't.

And if we can be honest for just a moment, my guess is every person who's been on the receiving end of a blessing or a gift, if we were to say, Hey, why didn't you say something, they would say, Well, I feel thankful.

But I didn't express it.

And here's what happens in relationships.

In our earthly relationships, anytime there's a friendship or a relationship where there's generosity and the feeling of gratitude and thankfulness isn't expressed, what it does is it creates a space, a gap in the relationship.

There's a chasm in the relationship.

And here's what I want you to understand.

When it comes to topics like gratitude, when it comes to topics like thankfulness, it's very important for you and me to understand that thankfulness and gratitude is not feeling something, it's having the courage and taking the time to express how we feel.

Now, here's the thing.

Um, I was thinking early this morning, what are some examples in my life of times that I've been generous, especially extravagantly generous, and this has happened before.

Everything from like little gifts all the way up to buying vehicles for people, where it's like I've done so much and not gotten anything back.

And I I didn't want to tell the stories this morning because what it will do is it'll put people on tilt in my life, and I don't want to put people on tilt.

But I want you to understand this is how it feels when you've done something, when there's that space in the relationship where they haven't come back to say thank you.

Here's the principle I want you to get unexpressed gratitude is experienced as in gratitude.

When you don't express how you feel to the giver, to the person who started the process, they experience as in gratitude.

And I want you to hear this thankfulness was always intended to be an expression, not the emotion.

Nothing wrong with the emotion.

Feel grateful, feel thankful, but it was never intended to just be felt, it was intended to be expressed.

Why does it matter?

Okay, here's the reason it matters in your personal relationships.

It's that our hearts gravitate towards recognition and gratitude, doesn't it?

When someone says thank you, when someone is grateful, when someone recognizes the price you paid or the effort you put in, our hearts gravitate towards it.

And this is like not a part of the message, this is just a free principle.

But a lot of people walk through this life, and every room they walk in, they say, Here I am.

I'll be honest with you, nobody really cares.

But you know the people that we care about is the people who walk into every room and say, There you are.

So glad to see you.

You look so good.

That outfit is so great.

Have you lost weight?

That is always my favorite question.

Never true, but it feels so good, right?

Maybe if these little Debbie cakes would just keep getting smaller, maybe, but here's the thing.

If we can understand how we feel, when people don't close the gap, if we can understand how we feel, when we do something generous or kind or thoughtful, and they don't respond back to us with gratitude.

Ready?

How do you think God feels?

When you survey all that He's done for you and me, how do you think He feels when He when you and I live this life entitled?

Acting like we deserve everything, that we've earned everything.

How do you think God feels?

And I want it to be said about you and about me that we're the most grateful people imaginable, that our hearts are characterized as full of thankfulness and generosity and gratitude.

And it's not just that we feel it, but that we have the courage in our relationships and most importantly towards God that we express how we feel.

Now, every year, as we kind of get into the Thanksgiving season, I teach a message on this because this is one topic that if you can get this right, it'll fix almost everything else in your life.

I I read a report one time from a doctor who said if we could sell gratitude in a pill form, it would really erase almost every single disease because there is something physiological that happens when your heart is actually full of gratefulness and not frustration and sadness.

Now, now Jesus has this moment one time when he experiences gratitude and ingratitude in the same moment.

And I want us to learn from this.

The book of Luke, chapter 17, is written by a man named Luke.

Luke 17 · chapter mention

Luke was a physical doctor, medical doctor, and I love his writing because he adds so much like color and detail.

Says this, Luke 17, verse 11.

Luke 17:11

Now, on his way to Jerusalem, Jesus traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee.

Pause here for just a moment.

Samaria and Galilee were two different regions that backed up side by side.

Now, we live in a world where there's still issues of prejudice and bigotry and racism in our world, and we need to fight hard to eradicate, to uproot that as much as we possibly can.

In Jesus' day, it was no secret.

It was like celebrated and paraded that people from Galilee and people from Samaria hated each other.

And so consequently, like nobody really lived on the border region.

And so Jesus and his boys are walking through this kind of no-man land, and they run in two cement.

Even though this was a no-man land, he runs to some men, and it says this it says, as he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him.

Now we'll pause here for just a moment.

It says, ten men who had leprosy.

Let's start with the ten men.

First of all, it's ten.

I need you to tuck that number away because it's important.

Ten in the Bible is often referred to as the number of testing.

Uh, God gives Moses the ten commandments.

Will you like live up to or not live up to these ten commandments?

Um, you think about like tithing is one tenth, give God 10% of everything you earn.

It's a test, will you be faithful?

There's these ten men, and ten represents this test.

And they're all standing on the outskirts of the city.

Why?

Because scripture says they have leprosy.

Now, I don't know what you think of when you think of leprosy, but it was this incurable disease by modern medicine.

A lot of us think of leprosy as this skin disease where your skin would be eaten away, and that's a part of it.

But leprosy was more than a skin disease, it was a massive nerve disorder.

It would cause all of your joints to begin to swell up and not work, it would cause your extremities, your fingers and toes, to eventually begin to decay and fall off.

It would affect your eyesight, you would have ulcerative uh vocal cords where you weren't able to talk anymore.

It was this terrible, atrocious disease.

And because it was highly communicable, when you had leprosy, you would be excommunicated, sent out to no man's land on the outside of the city, on the outside of the region, and there's these ten men.

Now, what we know, and we're going to discover in just a moment, is that these ten men were not all Jewish or not all Samaritan.

They were this mixed group of people.

Now, in this world where those groups hated each other, why would they come together?

I think it's because pain has this way of bonding us to each other.

Uh, for everyone old enough to remember September 11th, remember this?

Tragic day, the Twin Towers fall.

Our country and the whole world is watching on pins and needles, not knowing what the future holds.

And then President George W.

Bush had this moment where he goes and he stands in the wreckage and he climbs up on a pile of rubble and he gets a bullhorn and he addresses those people who were actively searching for survivors.

I don't know if you remember this moment, and for a moment, no one in our country cared about Republican or Democrat.

For just a moment, nobody cared about who you voted for or who you didn't vote for.

For just a moment, the pain of the moment bound us together.

For just a moment, like he wasn't just a political figure, he was leading our country towards something together.

If you can understand that, you can understand why these ten men are together.

They're in pain, physical pain, their bodies are falling apart.

An unimaginable emotional pain.

They've lost everything.

Their life, their families.

They don't get to tuck their daughters into bed at night.

They don't get to wrestle with their boys on the floor anymore.

No intimate touch from their spouse, no job, no church community, just no life.

They're literally their whole life, even though they were alive, they stopped living and they just started surviving.

And Jesus comes by and it says this about the guys.

They, the ten of them, stood at a distance and called out in a loud voice.

Now, what was common is if you were to get near a person with leprosy, they would have to yell, unclean, unclean.

Imagine how horrifying that was.

But they cried out in a loud voice, Jesus, master, have pity on us.

What it means is it means they knew who he was.

They knew that the rumors about him were that he was healing people.

But what's interesting is they say master, which means you're in charge, but they don't say heal us.

They don't say fix our situation, they just say, have pity on us.

Like, can we can we get a few bucks so we can go to checkers?

Like we can we just have pity on us, help, help me.

And I want you to see this.

This is when he, Jesus, saw them, he wasn't repulsed, he didn't cut and run.

He just said to them, go.

Now, this is important for me to say to you.

Last week I said this.

I love the word supernatural because it's it's a compound word, it's two words combined.

There's the super part and the natural part.

God can do more in a moment than you and I could do in a lifetime of striving.

That's the super part.

But then there's the natural part.

There's the like, you've got to do your part in the process too, the natural part.

So Jesus says, I want you to do something, I want you to go, and here's what I want you to do.

Go, show yourselves to the priest.

Now, this is weird, okay?

In Jesus' day, the the culture was if you had a disease like a leprosy that excommunicated you, if by some miraculous intervention you were healed, the only way back into society was for a priest to sign off that you're good.

Now I'm gonna be honest, all these years later, I am so grateful that pastors don't have to sign off if you have a rash or a skin disorder, and I swear to you, if you send me a picture of one of those today, I will unfriend you and block you.

Okay, are you with me on this?

Don't do that.

And they have to go to the priest, but here's what it means.

It means to go to the priest, they have to walk through the city, they have to yell unclean, they have to watch moms see them in horror and pull their little kids away.

They have to gather up all of their shattered pride and walk through the city that feels like a betrayal, and they do it.

And the verse says this.

Look at these three words.

It says, and as they went.

Translation as they obeyed.

As they did what Jesus told them to do, as they went, they were cleansed.

And here's the thing: I think for a lot of us, we want the miracle without the process.

We want the like, oh God, I have the faith, but it's just the faith here.

But faith is always a journey.

Like, like churches growing up, I would hear often say things like, we walk by faith and not by sight, and that is a true biblical phrase.

For these guys, they literally had to walk out their faith.

Like Jesus said it.

Will we take him at his word?

Or will we just stay here where it's comfortable, where we've been excommunicated to?

But it's as they went, as they obeyed, as they did what Jesus told them to do, they were cleansed.

I don't know what this means to someone in the room, but for somebody, I wonder if there's a moment for you where it's like you've been asking God to do something for you, and Jesus is just saying, Hey, how about you do the thing I've already told you to do?

You figure that out for you.

Now look, the verse goes on.

They they go to the priest, and on the way they're they're cleansed.

I would love to get in a time machine.

I would love to see that moment, wouldn't you?

All their skin is marled and disgusting, their eyes are sagging, they have no voice from the ulcerative response to the leprosy in their throats.

They're probably walking on some sort of ancient, um, some sort of crutches, and as they're walking, this miracle starts happening.

Like all those sores begin to go away.

Their hands regain function.

I just imagine they're walking and crutching themselves, and they drop the crutches, 20 crutches just laid out on the streets of whatever the city was, and Jesus heals them miraculously as they went.

Now, if that was you, what would you do?

I want you to think about that.

If Jesus did a miracle for you, what would your response be?

Now, how many of them were there?

Ten, right?

The verse goes on.

I told you, Luke gives us some fun details.

The verse goes on and says, one of them.

One out of the ten.

Now look, I've always been pretty good at math.

I don't know if you're good at math, I'm pretty good at math.

I want you to imagine with me you're back in second grade math.

One out of ten.

If you're bad with math, let me show it to you different ways.

One tenth.

This is all who came back.

One of them, when he saw he was healed, came back praising God in a loud voice.

Pause here for just a moment.

It was only one, and when he came back, it says he praised God in a loud voice.

This had to feel like a miracle to him.

His voice no longer worked from what had happened because of the leprosy.

And this verse in literally in the Greek literally means to scream.

He screams at Jesus his gratitude.

It goes on and it says, He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him.

And then Luke sneaks in this little five-word detail, M-dash, and he was a Samaritan.

Now, why does that matter?

Well, it matters when you understand the world in which they live.

Samaritans hated Jews, Jesus was Jews.

Jewish, this guy was a Samaritan.

There would have been Jewish people in the group, but none of them came back, only the one who was nothing like Jesus.

Now we don't often see moments where Jesus is surprised, but it says this.

It says Jesus asked, hold up.

We're not all ten men cleansed.

Where are the other nine?

The way Greek is written, the interrogative word where would have been at the end of the sentence.

So it would have read like this.

The nine?

Where?

There's just you.

Like, where is everybody else?

Jesus said, has no one returned to give praise to God except for this foreigner?

Then he said to him, Rise and go.

Remember earlier we highlighted the word go?

Because go meant like walk yourself, walk by faith, not by what you see.

Walk yourself to the priest.

This word, rise and go, go means go back to your family.

Go back and kiss your daughter good night.

Go back and pull your boys out of bed and wrestle them until they're laughing and screaming so hard that stuff comes out of their nose.

Go back and kiss your wife.

Go back to your job.

Go back to your life.

Go back.

Rise and go.

Your faith has made you well.

Now I love the Bible so much because Greek is this interesting word.

It's almost like a gemstone where the more you turn it, the more facets of the beauty you see.

This word well, it means healed, but it's different than other places in the Bible.

Other places in the Bible, the word that you use means physically healed.

It means like if your foot's not working, it gets healed.

If you're having problems with your joint, they're healed.

It means that if you have a headache, the headache disappears.

You're physically made well.

This word well in Greek is the word sozo.

And sozo means your soul is in right standing with God, which, by the way, is a way better miracle than any physical healing.

Any physical healing you ever get is temporary at best, but right standing with God is right standing with God forever, for eternity.

I want you to see this.

He says this miracle's happened, and I want you to see what Jesus is recognizing in this man.

This man, the Samaritan, the one who returned to Jesus, he went back to thank the one who enabled him to move forward.

This man who is really nothing like Jesus was the only one of the ten who even had the courage to express his gratitude.

Now again, if we could get back to the future in a DeLorean together, and if we could go back to whatever this year was, if we could be there and we watch the stores heal, we watch Jesus do this miracle for the men, and we grab the nine, we're like, boys, look at me.

You're healed.

You get to go home.

How do you feel?

Oh, Jason, we feel thankful.

Then why didn't you find Jesus and tell him?

I'd like to propose a few ideas, and let me say this up front.

These are probably only true about them, and they're not true about you and me at all.

Okay?

This is just them were way better than this, okay?

For them, maybe they were too busy to be thankful.

Jesus, I got stuff to do.

I got I got a daughter to tuck into bed.

Too busy.

This isn't true about you or me, but maybe they were too cautious to be thankful.

Maybe they thought that because Jesus had done a miracle, if we go back to him, he's gonna ask something of us.

Like they wanted just the blessing without the obedience.

They just wanted the goodness and the salvation of God without like walking it out and obeying what he asked them to do.

Just them, not you and me.

Maybe another one is maybe they were too self-centered to be thankful.

Oh, it's all about me.

I'm gonna be the show.

I get to tell the story to every single person about God's goodness to me, which by the way, uh, one of my personal values with worship songs when we sing is I don't want them to be us-centered, I want them to be God-centered.

God, this is about you.

Worship is about who you give worth and value to.

We live in this self-centered world where it's like worship's about us.

Here's one more.

Maybe they were too arrogant to be thankful.

What does that mean?

Arrogance is when you think that you did something to earn it or deserve it.

And I bet you if we were to grab them, they would say, no, no, none of that's really true.

But here's the truth, no matter what they say, when it came to gratitude, they felt it, but they didn't express it.

And I just want to say this feeling it but not expressing it doesn't count.

It doesn't count.

Gratitude is only gratitude when it is expressed.

Why does it matter?

Well, what we see from Jesus' response is it reflects the heart of God, and God notices the grateful heart.

Just like you and me, when we do something extravagant for someone and they don't close the space, they don't fix the gap, the same thing is true.

God notices, and he notices a grateful heart.

So may it never be said for you and for me that we live grateful, but we never express it because that's not really gratitude.

So let me help you, okay?

Uh, as you're a pastor, I like to put handles on biblical truth so you can leave and apply this to your life.

Write these three thoughts down when it comes to gratitude.

Number one, this is important, from now on, no more looking for weeds.

Let me explain it like this.

In the late 1970s, a young hotshot golf player named Scott Simpson hit the PGA tour in 1987, I believe it was, he won the U.S.

Open, which is a really big deal.

And there's this story about Scott that years later he was gonna be playing in the Masters.

If you're a golf fan, you're gonna love this.

If you're not a golf fan, let me show you why you should love it.

The Masters has played at Augusta National, one of the most beautiful golf courses in the world.

It is pristine.

Every detail is perfect, it is manicured like a bride on her wedding day.

Every attention to detail, nothing is missed.

It is one of the most beautiful golf courses on the face of the earth.

Well, Scott had a new caddy.

And he said to his caddy, have you ever been to Augusta?

And he said, No.

He goes, You're gonna love it.

It's one of the most beautiful places you've ever seen.

You won't see a weed anywhere.

Well, they got out Tuesday and did some practice rounds, Wednesday practice rounds, tournament starts, Thursday, Friday, Saturday.

On Saturday, the caddy is walking with the clubs, and he says to Scott, Ah, I found one.

Scott's like, what?

He goes, I found a weed.

And Scott later he wrote about it.

He said, I wonder how much beauty he missed all around him.

Because he was looking for a weed.

What's the principle?

The principle is you will always find what you're looking for.

If you're looking for a reason to be grateful, there's unlimited reasons to be grateful.

And by the way, if you're looking for a reason to be angry, hurt, sad, or frustrated, there's plenty of those too.

Here's what I want you to understand: sadness and gratitude refuse to share the same heart.

Sadness and gratitude refuse to share the same heart.

You want a positive, happy, God-centered kind of life?

Learn to be grateful.

Stop looking at the weeds and look up at the beauty and splendor all around you.

I'll give you an example of how this plays out for Christians when it comes to work.

Your work should be one of the highlights of your life.

I think you should be the best worker at your company.

I think people should know you love Jesus, that you're active in your church, and you're the best worker and you always bring your best.

But a lot of Christians get the Sunday night blues just like the world around us because we don't want to go back to work.

Listen to this quote.

I love this.

It says, you ought to be glad for the troubles on your job because they provide about half of your income.

If it were not for the things that go wrong, the difficult people with whom you deal, and the problems of your working day, someone could be found to handle your job for half of what you are being paid.

So start looking for more troubles.

Learn to handle them cheerfully and with good judgment as opportunities rather than irritations, and you will find yourself getting ahead at a surprising rate, for there are plenty of big jobs waiting for people who are not afraid of troubles.

All of our life is about perspective.

And you and I get to choose will I look for the weeds or will I look for the beauty around me.

Second thing I want you to do this week is I want you to remember God, the gifts of God.

I want you to remember the gifts of God.

This is so important.

Paul, who wrote like half of the New Testament, he writes this letter to a church, that we call it 1 Thessalonians, and I want you to see this what we're gonna read is three verses.

The first two verses are only five words.

You can leave church today learning two verses, which is just five words.

Here's what he says verse 16 always be joyful.

Pray continually.

That's two verses.

Then he says, and I want you to give thanks whatever happens.

Notice he doesn't say give thanks when things are good.

He doesn't say that.

He doesn't say give thanks if things are easy, if you have no problems.

He says, give thanks no matter what happens.

Whatever happens, this is what God wants for you in Christ Jesus.

Can I say what this means for you and for me?

It means what you have in Christ is far greater than anything you don't have in this life.

Because of what Jesus did for you, there is nothing you can experience, positive or negative, there is no high height or low, low, there is no wind, there is no loss, there is no mountaintop, there is no valley that you can experience that is any greater or worse than what Jesus has already done for you.

So, so what if instead of thinking about all the things that are not going well in my life, what if you kept a gratitude journal?

What if you wrote down every single day, God, you've been so good to me, God, you've blessed me.

If for no other reason, God, this morning I woke up and I took a breath on this side of eternity, and God, I'm gonna use every other breath I have to serve you.

Like, what if we live that way?

Why?

Third point because gratitude to God is worship.

Ready?

Not feeling it, expressing it.

Not feeling thankful, but expressing thanks to God.

This is what it looks like.

So here's how I want to end today.

I want to challenge you to be a person who doesn't just feel things but expresses them.

Why?

Because unexpressed gratitude communicates in gratitude.

And I refuse to pastor a church full of people who feel a certain way to God but never say thank you.

I refuse to let us be a church of the nine who refuse to go back to Jesus.

And may we be a church full of the one, the one who comes and constantly expresses gratitude.

In a moment, as a church, all across our locations, we're gonna take a moment and we're gonna participate by taking communion together.

Every once in a while, someone will say, Pastor Jason, why don't we do communion every week?

Can I give you the short answer?

It's because the things we do all the time, routinely, become common, and common things just get forgotten, and I don't want you to forget what Jesus did for you.

Communion is a moment when we pause and we remember God's goodness to us.

It's a moment when we remember that Jesus didn't have to do what he did, but in his love, he laid his life down for you and me.

That's what it is.

So I want to do this for just a moment.

Before we get to communion, I'm gonna invite you all across this place and all of our locations.

Would you bow your head and close your eyes?

Just a moment.

And I want us to have a moment together with God.

First Corinthians chapter 11.

1 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

Paul says there's an unworthy way to take communion, it is to take communion when there's division in your heart or to be separated from God.

So we don't need to have some big moment, but in a moment we're gonna express our love to God.

But maybe you've never received it for yourself.

Maybe you've never made a decision to follow Jesus, maybe you did and you've walked away from it.

In either case, this moment is for you.

We're not gonna have some big moment where we ask everybody to pray, but if you know that you need to start or restart following Jesus with your own heart and your own words, would you just say, Jesus, I need you, I need you to save me, change me, forgive me.

Jesus, I believe you're the Son of God.

I believe you gave your life for me because of your sacrifice.

I believe my life can be made new.

So, Jesus, I give you my life.

I choose to follow you.

Would you be my Lord and Savior?

From this day forward, I'm yours.

I'll follow you all the days of my life in Jesus' name.

Amen.