Grateful in a Grumbling World

My name's Russ.

I'm one of the pastors here at Church of the Grove.

We're excited all of you are here.

And if it's if it's your first, maybe second time, third time, we're so excited you're here.

We'd love for you to connect with us and you could fill out uh a connection uh form.

You can do it with actual paper out in the lobby, or you can do it electronically by going to our Church of the Grove app if you want to download that.

And uh we'd love to get to know you and get you plugged in, let you build some relationships and friendships, and that will encourage you in your journey of following Jesus.

Let me just mention a couple things coming up.

You all have hopefully one of these uh holiday calendar schedules here, and this is for you to put some of the big stuff that's going on with Church of the Grove and what we're doing in our community, uh, put it on your calendar.

Um uh and so make sure you, you know, that that's important, but I do want to mention um and I want to recognize if if you have served uh in our military and you are a veteran that that that has served in in one of our branches, I want to just recognize you and do that by asking you to stand up.

If you have served in the armed forces, um would you please stand so we can say thank you?

Um yeah, and just remain standing just for a second because I want to scan the room and make thank you.

We we are so grateful for you serving, all of you.

Thank you.

Now y'all can have a seat.

We are so grateful.

I'm I'm so excited about what is happening in in the city of Walnut Grove and uh and they had planned a veterans recognition for today.

It's it's the the question of rain and weather has has led to them canceling that event that was going to be at 1 p.m.

But I'm excited about being in a city that does want to recognize and say thank you to our veterans.

I want to say thank you to our city uh for making that a priority.

Um that is not on the schedule that's a couple of weeks away is our men's pig out.

And so it's a Friday night, Saturday event.

We've got some posters around that can give you some of the details, but it's an opportunity for our men to gather, encourage one another, and and be uh strengthened in our relationship with Jesus.

And then um I do want to mention Shop of the Heroes coming up.

We've got Operation Christmas Child.

Boxes will be due on, let's see, boxes are due on November 17th.

Is that next, is that next Sunday?

Boxes are due next Sunday, and um and then uh and then the next week um we've got our men's barbecue, and then on December 7th is Shop with a Hero in front of Walmart in Loganville.

It's our opportunity, and let me tell you what shop for the hero is.

It's our opportunity to encourage um children that may come with with some issues, whether it be uh economic, behavioral, whatever, and we partner them.

They they are identified to us by, we go through the school counselors, and and we are uh we partner those children that morning with a person in uniform, a hero.

And so it can be it can be uh law enforcement, firefighter, EMT, military person in uniform.

Um we even have medical personnel come wear their scrubs, and so there's something about looking at watching and observing that child build a little bit of a bond, and a lot of those children only see those heroes in negative circumstances.

So this is a positive experience.

And so, and our ultimate goal is to share the love of Christ and to pour out his love upon people in our community.

So, those are important things for us to be a part of.

It's a way for us to live out our faith, it's a way for us to express our gratitude to the Lord and to advance the gospel and to carry out the Great Commission.

Now, I am fired up and I am excited when I think about what Jesus has provided for me.

And I'm gonna tell you, there's nothing that can dampen my excitement.

If I go my whole life and I don't get another blessing, but I can count on the fact that I have been reconciled to Jesus due to his life and his death and his resurrection and the empowerment that I have through the Holy Spirit.

If that's the only blessing I have for the rest of my life, it is enough.

It's enough.

I don't care what happened yesterday.

I know some of you do.

And I may be lying a little bit.

But let's let reality, let reality sit in.

Who cares what happens on the ball field if I know that Jesus has been resurrected and through his power and the resurrection, I have hope.

Through the gospel, I have the hope of eternal life.

He's changed me.

And I'm gonna tell you today and over the next couple of weeks about two words that will change your life.

Two words that have the power to impact every area of your life.

These two words have the ability to change the environment and the culture in your home.

Change your children and change their attitudes.

These two words have the power to change your relationship with your coworkers.

These two words have the power to influence your friends that you go to school with, or your coworkers that you work with, or your neighbors that live next door, across the street, around the corner.

These two words have the power to push back darkness and depression and mental and emotional issues that you have been struggling with.

These two words have the power to change you because the gospel has become personal in your life.

These two words are so simple, but at the same time, they're so hard to make a part of our regular life.

And the apostle Paul writes to his protege Timothy in 2 Timothy chapter 3 about how the enemy and the world has challenges for us.

2 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

And those challenges are for us to focus on ourselves and focus on what we feel like we're entitled to.

And they they seem to cause us to forget these two words that are so significant in our relationship with God and our relationship with other people.

And what are those two words?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jesus, for saving my soul.

For if I don't get one more blessing in my life, your life and death and resurrection is enough.

It is sufficient because I have the hope of eternity.

I have a hope for eternity.

Yes, maybe I will have some troubles and some turmoil and some difficulties in this life, this 70, 80, 90 years that I might live on this earth, but I have the hope while I'm living out my faith on this earth to an eternity where the kingdom of God is realized in my life.

And I'm transformed.

And so these two words we're gonna talk about over the next three weeks, looking at different, a few different passages out of the New Testament.

And these words are thank you.

Thank you.

These words are representative of our what our response in worship should be.

We're gonna celebrate communion, which is remembering the shed blood and the broken body of Jesus Christ.

And it is a way for us to constantly come back and be reminded that we should be grateful for what Jesus has provided in giving us eternal life.

And here's what I want you to walk away with this morning.

And it's this big idea that gratitude flows from a life cultivated in the deep waters of faith.

Gratitude flows from a life cultivated in the deep waters of faith, and that through our spiritual formation, through our spiritual journey, and our desire to be formed into the image and the character of Christ, these words are so powerful because they remind us of the challenges and the strategy of the enemy, and it breaks the bondage of selfishness and ingratitude and entitlement.

And so Paul in Timothy's relationship is such a great example for all of us.

Paul has had his life transformed.

Many of us know his testimony.

And if you don't, there's a couple of different accounts in the book of Acts where Paul shares his testimony.

He's been a very religious man.

And out of his fervor and his religious zeal, he has tormented and persecuted and killed Christians, thinking that he is representing God in doing so.

And so Jesus meets him as he's traveling on the road to Damascus.

He's going on one of his missions to kill more Christians.

And Jesus comes in a very personal, very powerful encounter.

And Paul's life is transformed.

It's transformed.

And so Paul begins to take the gospel and share it with as many people as he can.

And he he he builds this relationship with this young man who's probably at the time that they met, he's probably, he's probably 14, 15, 16 years old, maybe uh 18 or so.

And and Paul, he Timothy comes to Christ, hears the gospel, responds to Christ, and then he says, I want I want Paul to mentor me.

And he asks Paul, ask if he can follow Paul and that he would be his rabbi.

And so Paul begins to invest in Timothy, and Paul's relationship with Timothy becomes a model for us.

And here's the challenge.

Every one of us who say that we follow Jesus, we should have a Paul in our life that is investing in us.

And in turn, we should have a Timothy in our life that we in turn are investing in them.

And it's a constant process and cycle where we raise up a Timothy.

And we are raised up as Timothy's.

We've got a Paul investing in us, helping us grow spiritually.

And then when we understand that we are responsible to share the gospel, to carry out the Great Commission, to disciple others and to make disciples, we look for other Timothy's that we can invest in and that we can become a Paul to.

And so Paul has invested his life in seeing Timothy become a faithful follower and a spiritual leader.

And so if you go back and read 1 Timothy, and then you read 2 Timothy, you see this Paul writing a very personal message to his young son in the faith.

And how would I summarize what he writes in 1 and 2 Timothy?

Is he remember where you came from, remember who you are in Jesus, and remember the mission he's given you.

Amen?

Don't forget, he says, don't forget the roots of the gospel.

Don't forget what Christ has provided us.

But also don't forget that you need to grow and you need to mature in your faith.

And as a gift to Timothy, Paul writes these two letters, and then we as the church had the vantage point of looking 2,000 years later at what Paul was challenging Timothy with.

Stay strong in the faith.

Maintain your purity.

Don't forget the mission.

And so we see in this passage, 2 Timothy chapter 3, verses 1 through 9, we see two specific warnings that Paul gives Timothy and one specific challenge in regard to the issue of gratitude and thankfulness.

2 Timothy 3:1–9

And so, in a world filled with ingratitude and self-centeredness, cultivating a heart of thanksgiving is absolutely essential for your spiritual growth and for you to walk closer with Jesus and for other people to see Jesus in you.

And so what are those two strategs of the enemy and the world?

What are they?

Number one is this it's the peril of selfishness.

The peril of selfishness.

Now, how do you break the peril of selfishness?

I'm going to give you the action point before I read the passage and talk about what Paul says to Timothy.

Here's your action point.

You say those two words, you make them a part of your life.

What are those two words?

Thank you.

Thank you.

Has the power to break the bondage and the strategy of the enemy and the world and to crush selfishness.

Here's what Paul says to Timothy, 2 Timothy 3, verse 1.

2 Timothy 3:1

And he says, You should know this.

You should know this, Timothy.

He's reminded Timothy of what he already knows.

How does he know this?

Because Paul has taught him.

You should know this, Timothy, that in the last days there will be very difficult times.

We are in the last days, and we are living in difficult times.

Anybody?

Anybody do I have a witness?

Man, these are tough times.

And we're blessed, but there's some tough times that we're dealing with.

And so he says, for people will love only themselves and their money.

They will be boastful and proud, scoffing at God, disobedient to their parents, and ungrateful.

They will consider nothing sacred.

Now, I could write those words in our present culture, in our society, and they would be just as powerful and true as they are, as they were when Paul wrote this down for Timothy 2,000 years ago.

And so in these verses, Paul begins describing the perilous times, the difficult times.

That they are marked by two specific things: self-centered behavior and a lack of gratitude.

Self-centeredness and a lack of gratitude.

And so I want you to understand and emphasize that this reflects our world just as much as it reflected that world back then.

And it challenges us to be as followers of Jesus so grateful and so thankful.

And not to focus on the circumstances and the difficult times, but focus on the victory that's been won on our behalf by Christ.

See, that's the gospel.

The gospel is Jesus has come.

Jesus was born.

Jesus has lived.

Jesus has surrendered.

Jesus has been crucified.

Jesus has been bodily resurrected.

And now we get the gift of the Holy Spirit.

Yes, hallelujah.

Ungratefulness.

No, y'all aren't ungrateful because you're here at church saying thank you, Jesus, aren't we?

Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you, Jesus, for dying for me.

Thank you, Jesus, for for me being born and living with the freedom that I have.

Thank you, Jesus.

I have a house.

I have a car.

I have a beautiful wife.

I didn't list those things in the order that I should have.

So let me let me go back.

Thank you, Jesus, for my salvation.

Thank you, Jesus, for my wife.

Thank you, Jesus, for my children.

Thank you, Jesus, for my church family.

Man, thank you, Jesus, that I have a meaning and significance and I've got a mission.

That's a better order, isn't it?

That stays between me and you.

And so the perils of selfishness, and this, if you if you look at the meaning here, he says, people will love only themselves and their money.

And so people will love themselves.

They'll make themselves the center of everything.

And then they become lovers of money.

That word lover there is it comes from the root word phileo, which is a word that is translated in the New Testament as the word love.

And there's different types of love.

And the phileo is a bond between brothers or family members or good friends.

It's that type of love.

And so Paul says, you, you have decided to love yourself.

Now that fits right in with what our culture says.

Hey, hey, it's all about you.

You be you.

You take care of you.

And so we we, you know, we we talk about having me time.

And we talk about um, you know, believing in ourselves, and and and to the point that we become lovers of self.

We we love ourselves.

That's even something that the current culture says, hey, take care of yourself.

Life's hard.

Take a me day.

Now you you tell that to a mother of three toddlers.

You take a me day.

Moms don't get a me day, do they, mom?

Dads, we we just take our me days.

We don't ask for them.

We just take it and then we pay the price.

We even we even logically think it will be worth the punishment if I do what I want to do.

We kind of you know go back and forth, or we craft our apology statement before we're guilty.

And so, now, our your health is important.

You are valued by God, you're creating the image of God.

He He He loves you.

You are worth dying for.

That's what God thinks about you.

He loves you so much.

But here's what He says: if you want to take the gospel and apply it to your life, and then still make yourself the center of your own world, then you've missed out on the message of the gospel.

This good news, Jesus has died for us.

Tim Keller tells, he said, you want to understand that word gospel?

He said, He said, take it out of the context that it was spoken in around the time of Jesus.

What does that word gospel mean?

You had you had city-states, which means that you had uh God's people living in Jerusalem.

You had other kingdoms that were that were built around cities, and so one king would lead his troops into battle against another king that was king of a city-state.

Now, when when the king went to battle, they're battling and they're fighting over who will serve the other.

And so if they win, if one king wins the battle, the dominated kingdom will in turn provide slaves for the victorious king.

And so when the king leads his troops in the battle, they win the battle.

How do they get the message that we have won the victory back to their city-state?

They send an evangelist, and the evangelist runs.

He runs, he is the carrier of the gospel, the good news.

And what does he say when he gets back home?

He says, Your king has fought for you, your king has won the victory for you.

You do not have to worry about serving as slaves to the other kingdom because your king has won the victory for you and you are free.

Hallelujah! You are free.

And so, what would what would a citizen of that kingdom, what would be their response?

It would be gratitude.

Man, I love.

I love my King.

I love my Savior.

Jesus makes a good Savior.

Political figures do not make good saviors.

Political figures do not make good saviors.

I'll say it one more time if it'll drill it down into us.

Politicians do not make good saviors.

And so one strategy, Amy, is the peril of selfishness.

The second strategy is the pursuit of pleasure.

He said they're lovers of themselves and they're lovers of money.

Okay, here we go.

Preachers talking about money.

Well, Jesus probably talked about money more than he talked about faith or salvation.

Because he knew that we would be tempted to love money.

We're tempted.

And so the pursuit of pleasure, verse 4, they will betray their friends.

He says, you know, Timothy, then of the last days, by the way, we are in the last days.

And understanding what Paul is writing, when he says last days, he is talking about from the time Jesus was crucified, resurrected, and then he ascended to the Heavenly Father.

Between then and now are all last days.

So we've had a couple of thousand years of being in the last days.

And he says, watch out for these difficult times.

People will love self, they'll love money.

In verse 4, he says, they, those people, they will betray their friends, be reckless, be puffed up with pride, and love pleasure rather than God.

They will act religious, but they will reject the power that could make them godly.

And then he says, stay away from people like that.

He said, There's going to be people influenced by the world, influenced by the enemy.

And they are going to be reckless.

They're going to be puffed up with pride, love pleasure more than they love God.

There's that word out of the Greek, the phileo.

You're going to buddy up to money.

That's going to be your friend over and above your relationship with Jesus.

That's what the enemy wants you to do.

And so what does it mean that they will act religious, but they will reject the power?

I believe that what he's saying here is someone who says, Yes, I believe in Jesus with their lips, but they deny that God exists by the way that they live their life.

And so it's a person who at some point in their life, they've walked down an aisle, maybe, or they've prayed a prayer that was repeated.

Hey, hey, hey, just repeat this after me, and you'll be a believer in Jesus.

Well, let me tell you, repeating a prayer does not make you a follower of Jesus.

Surrendering your heart makes you a follower of Jesus.

Making Jesus your rabbi and you follow him, that makes you a follower of Jesus.

And so that's what he's saying.

You've verbally confessed Christ, he is Lord, but you have not gone through a transformation where people can observe you and say, yes, that person loves Jesus.

So Paul continues, he goes on, he talks about people.

They love pleasure rather than being lovers of God.

And I love that, I love that because that he's saying your identity is being a lover of God.

Not that you are loving God, verb, you are a lover of God, a noun, because it gets down to who you are and your being.

People look at you and they say, Man, that person loves Jesus.

We prioritize external events.

We follow something we love.

It could be a hobby, it could be a sports team, it could be, it could be material things, it can be relationships, it can be it can be an addiction.

But when we prioritize and we choose to love things in this world, and we pursue the pleasure that they might can provide, even though it may be a fleeting pleasure.

And so, what is the answer to loving ourselves and loving money?

It's you give yourself away, and you know what you can start with?

You can start with saying two words that that demonstrate your gratitude, and it changed potentially changes your relationships.

What are those two words?

Thank you.

Thank you.

I'm so grateful for my wife because we we married this next year will be 30 years.

Yeah, praise the Lord.

She's put up with me for that long.

Yeah, I can tell y'all are real excited.

Um that that would be her response, probably.

Um But she she she has instilled a culture of gratitude in our household.

And so she she just said, you know what?

I there's there's two phrases, and it's the two words that I talked about.

What are the two words?

Thank you.

So if if I if I'm a good boy and I do my chores, she says, thank you.

Now I I might respond and say, honey, you don't have to say thank you.

This is this is my responsibility.

It's what I'm supposed to do.

You don't need to say thank you.

Jill would say, No, I want I want that to permeate who we are.

I want it to be part of our culture.

And so you hear all the time, my wife, she says, please.

And she says, thank you.

And it and it really has.

It's changed, it's changed, it changed my life, it's it's affected the culture of our household.

And those those two words do have the power to break the bondage of self and pleasure.

Thank you.

Thank you.

A heart of gratitude.

Even when I don't get things my way, even when the person that I vote for may not win an election, even when the team that I root for may fall flat, even when I can't have maybe something that I desire to have, that I can still be thankful because Jesus has changed my life.

That's really, is that really what matters?

And then what's the challenge that Timothy gives, that Paul gives Timothy, and as a result that it's passed down to us.

And it's the protection through truth.

See, here's the two strategies of the enemy perils of selfishness, pursuit of pleasure, and then the challenge Paul gives Timothy is the protection through truth.

Protection through truth.

What does that mean?

It means you acknowledge that God has given us his revelation through Jesus Christ, and we have it right here.

It has been supernaturally protected for us.

And we have a copy of God's love letter that tells us the gospel, the good news.

Jesus has come, he's died, he's rose again, and the Holy Spirit empowers you to live out his character.

And so we protect the truth.

Paul says to Timothy, he said, he knows that Timothy has been, see, Timothy follows Paul around, and then Paul sends out Timothy to Ephesus.

And he says, while you were here, you stay here and you raise up leaders and elders in this church so you can move on and continue to expand the kingdom and share the gospel.

And so Timothy is a young man in the ministry.

And Paul is encouraging him.

And he said, You must protect the truth.

The truth is the word of God, it is the gospel given to us in written form.

Genesis to Revelation.

He says in verses 6 through 9, he says, They are, who are they?

These are these people that are trying to get us to focus on self and money.

These are the people who say they believe, but they deny God by ignoring the power that the Holy Spirit provides for us.

And he says in verse 6, they are the kind who work their way into people's homes and win the confidence of vulnerable women who are burdened with the guilt of sin and controlled by various desires.

And he says, such women are forever following new teachings, but they are never able to understand the truth.

Now, here's let me tell you what that means for us in the 21st century.

There are people who think that their Christian life is all about another Bible study.

I am more spiritual if I go to more Bible studies.

But I know a lot of those people and they go to a lot of Bible studies, but I don't see the evidence of the power of the gospel in their life.

Now I'm all about Bible studies.

More and more Bible studies.

I know I'm about to contradict myself, but I'm not.

If I only had one Bible study that led me to faith in Christ, it would be enough.

It would be enough.

Now, why do I say that?

Because there are believers all over the planet that do not have a copy of God's word, but they have been, somebody has shared the gospel with them and shared the word of God with them.

They might not have a copy available to them, but they value the word of God.

They value the word.

And so he says in verse 8, these teachers oppose the truth, just as Jonas and Yambris opposed Moses.

Now, who are they?

I don't know.

They are mentioned in Exodus chapter 7, verse 11.

Exodus 7:11

And we don't really know, but most theologians believe, and it's referred to in that verse, that they served in the court of the Egyptian Pharaoh while God's people were enslaved in Egypt.

And these two individuals are referred to, most theologians believe that they were Egyptian magicians and sorcerers.

And they were trying to distract people from the message that Moses was bringing from God to his people.

And it's people that distract us from the truth.

People that say that you can't trust the word of God.

People that say, I don't need Jesus.

I don't need the Bible.

I don't need the Word of God.

Quit trying to control my life.

And he says in verse 9, but they won't get away with this for long.

Someday everyone will recognize what fools they are, just as Janice and Jambris.

Now in a second, we're gonna we're gonna come to the table and we're gonna partake of communion.

And I love this.

I love this practice.

It's commanded to us.

Jesus said, said, You you practice this, you do this, until I return and usher in my kingdom.

And we come and we hold up and break the bread, and we recognize that that is symbolic of the body of Jesus, broken for us.

And then we drink the fruit of the vine, juice, or the wine, and we acknowledge that Jesus has spilled his blood, and that juice is symbolic, representing the blood of Jesus spilled for us to provide for our redemption and salvation.

And so that's the gospel.

It's the gospel.

So coming to the table of communion is remembering, and it is an exercise where we can say, we value and we are so grateful, and we say, thank you, Jesus.

Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you, Jesus.

And it's out of gratefulness that we serve not compulsion, but gratefulness.

In the 1840s, 1850s, there was a gold rush in California.

There's a man that left the East Coast, traveled all the way to California, and he struck it rich.

He's one of the few people that actually found gold.

And he's traveling back home, he's got his gold with him, and as he is traveling from the West Coast back to the East Coast, he's got the money to allow him to see some of the cities and states across our great nation.

And he travels into the into the states where slavery is a predominant practice.

And he walks down into the a little town that has a square, like you would see maybe in Monroe or Covington.

And they are having, as he passes through this town, they're having a slave auction.

Well, he stops to watch.

He's never seen anything like this.

And he is disgusted, he is appalled that human beings would be sold as slaves.

And so he he watches as they bring, they bring a young adult woman up, and some of the men in the audience are making bids for her, and they are saying vile and disgusting things about what they can experience with this beautiful young lady that is being sold as property.

By the way, that still happens in our culture today.

It's called human trafficking.

And so he decides to do something about it.

He's got the ability, he's got the money, he's got the gold, and so he bids hire.

And and he stands at the bottom of the stairs as they hand over this young slave girl.

And she walks down the steps.

She is thinking he is like one of these other men, and she spits in his face.

Because she thinks he has bought her as a slave, where he has something completely different in mind.

And so he takes her and he begins to lead her around the town and the city square, and he's looking for a specific office, and he finds it.

And he goes in, and there's a clerk who has the ability to draw up what was called manumission papers, and they were freedom papers.

It was legal documents for an owner of slave who's trying to set a slave free.

And he comes out of the office and he hands that girl, that beautiful girl, a piece of paper and it's her freedom papers.

And he said, You're free to go.

She says, What?

You just spent a fortune on me.

He says, Yes.

I bought you to set you free.

I bought you to set you free.

He said, You're free to go.

And tears start streaming down this young lady's face.

She falls down to her knees and she says, I don't have anywhere to go, but I know because of your thankfulness, your kindness, I want to follow you and I want to serve you out of gratitude.

You see it?

It's different than asserting power and forcing people to serve out of compulsion versus serving out of gratitude.

And we have been bought.

We have been paid for.

Our freedom, our salvation has been paid for by the blood and the body of Jesus.

He is provided for our freedom, not so we could serve under him by compulsion, but we could serve and follow him out of gratitude.

So what are the two words that have the power to change your life?

Thank you.

And so when you come to the table this morning, and as our team comes to lead us, I want you to come with gratitude.

Paul writes, Jesus taught, we come to the table of the Lord, we are to take, and the way you'll do it this morning, and we invite anyone who is a believer.

And you come and you take the wafer, you dip it in, and you pray.

And what should be the heart of our prayer?

It's two words.

Thank you.

Sometimes when you don't know what to pray, you just, man, you know, Paul talks about this.

Sometimes we don't know what to pray, and it's the Holy Spirit prays through us through groanings and an utterings.

And sometimes we can't get anything else out except thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for saving me.

So I'm gonna pray and I'm gonna invite you to come.

And if you've never put your faith in Jesus, come see me or Jonah.

We'll pray with you.

You can do it alone.

You can ask a friend to pray with you.

But you come to the table, take your wafer and your you dip it in the juice, and you want to step over to the side or down to the altar, you can pray by yourself with your cup, with your spouse, or as a family, with friends, church family friends.

And and the heart of your prayer ought to be those two words.

Thank you.

I'm gonna serve you out of gratitude.

And then when we understand that, that is a great foundation, starting place, then we can go before the Lord and we say, Jesus, thank you.

Thank you for saving me.

Even though life is hard right now and it feels dark, and I'm dealing with depression and heartache and sorrow, we can we can say thank you.

And there's something about saying those two words that begin to change our heart.

So, Lord, we come to give you this time to say yes, we remember.

We remember your goodness, we remember your grace, we remember the work that you have done to provide for our salvation, and we come to experience this meal in obedience and in gratitude.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jesus.

We push back.

We we we we Paul tells Timothy, he said, Hey, look for people that are selfish, lovers of self, lovers of money.

You stay away from them, and you stay close to people that live with gratitude.

Thank you, Jesus.

Thank you, thank you.

It's in Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.