Happy Thanksgiving from KCC | October 11,2020

Welcome to Kelowna Christian Center where people belong and Jesus matters.

And we are so uh we are so excited to be celebrating Thanksgiving with you today.

Uh, before we get started, why don't you go ahead and share this feed?

Uh send out a text, let someone know that we're having church today.

Also, want to thank you for continually supporting with your giving.

Uh, we're we're able to do all that we're doing right now because of your faithfulness, and we just thank you so much.

Now, today we're sharing on being thankful.

Being thankful and living life with a grateful heart.

And today our text is coming from Luke chapter 17, verse 11 to 19.

Luke 17:11–19

I'm going to be sharing this with you, but we're going to be learning about a grateful heart.

What a time to be doing this during Thanksgiving.

So it starts this way, and you'll see it on the screen.

If you want to follow in your Bible, making notes at home, go ahead and you can do that too.

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

As he was going into a village, ten men who had leprosy met him, and they stood at a distance, and they called out in a loud voice, Jesus, Master, have pity on us.

And when he saw them, he said, Go show yourself to the priests.

And as they went, they were cleansed.

One of them, when he saw, he remembered, he was healed, he came back, and he praising God in a loud voice, he threw himself at Jesus, his feet, and he thanked him, and he was a Samaritan.

And Jesus asked, Were not all ten cleansed?

Where are all the other nine?

Has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner?

And then he said to him, Rise and go.

Your faith has made you well.

I love this original prayer, and I'd love to see the prayers in Scripture that make a difference.

And one of these prayers was from the ten lepers when they called out, they called out very simply, Jesus, have mercy on us.

Jesus, have pity on us.

And sometimes the shortest prayers are the most powerful.

And I've heard it said that God doesn't look at the length or the breadth of our prayers.

He looks at the passion and the desire and the intent of our prayers.

And so this is obviously just a shout out to Jesus, saying, Jesus, have mercy on us.

Jesus, have pity on us.

We're lepers, and that cry was heard by Jesus.

And that's such an encouraging word today.

The cry was heard by Jesus.

He responded, and they were cleansed.

And some of you may be listening, all right, today, Thanksgiving.

It's going to be a message on Thanksgiving, of course.

And you're thinking, every year we get the same reminder to give thanks.

And I'd like to say, yes, every year you're going to get this reminder to give thanks because it is so important.

Psalms chapter 100, verse 4 and 5 says this when we enter into God's presence, we enter with a password.

Psalms 100:4

And this password is simple.

It's thank you.

You make yourself at home with him.

You begin talking praise and you thank him and you worship him.

This is the secret password.

Thank you.

Thank you.

That those words are so important.

When we're thankful, we have a password.

That password is like a allows us to enter into a secret entrance, a new level of favor, a new level of access and acceptance and entrance to God.

I want you to know today that yes, it's true that God loves you, and there's nothing you can do that could make God love you more than He does right now.

It doesn't matter where you've been or what you've done or where you are at present.

God loves you.

He does.

He loves you.

And it's wonderful.

But God loves you and He's accepted you and He's given you an opportunity to come into His presence in a deeper way when we use this password of thank you.

It opens up a different access portal.

It opens up a different place into His kingdom, into His presence.

Another doorway opens up.

When we enter in with an attitude of gratitude, when we enter into His presence with a spirit and a heart of thankfulness.

Now, thankfulness is not just a goal we set.

It's not just a goal we live for, but it's a state of thankfulness is what we aspire towards.

And I understand that sometimes that state of thankfulness requires us to go ahead and make little steps towards it by setting up goals.

But our objective is not just to be have a goal of giving thanks.

And sometimes that's what thanksgiving can become, where we just say, we want to just give thanks today, and we list out a few things that we give thanks for, and then we move on to tomorrow.

We move on to next week.

But I want us to talk today about a deeper place, a deeper place of access to God, where we're living in a state of thanksgiving.

We're living in a state of saying thank you to God.

And you'll realize people in their lives who live in this state, there's a different level of peace that they live with, there's a different level of joy they live with, there's a different level of presence they live with.

I know these types of people.

They're not putting it on, they're not putting on Thanksgiving.

They're living in that state of Thanksgiving.

I often think about it like there's a friend of mine in my life who's who's incredibly unoffendable.

And he just lives in a state of being unoffendable.

It doesn't matter what happens around him, he's almost oblivious to it.

I call him Teflon because everything that gets thrown at him slides right off of him.

But he lives in that state, and we want to be in that state when it comes to being thankful, where we're living in a state of thanksgiving.

I've noticed that in my experiences that it's the thankful people in our lives, it's the thankful people in our lives who find success.

I've seen it, or you have too probably, when you look at Hollywood, you see all of these uh you know stars and they they've pursued their career in such a way that they want to get an Oscar and they want to be recognized, they want to be on the front page, they want to be in front of the media, they want to be making the money to a degree where they're recognized by the world as famous.

And when they finally hit that goal, that they that achievement that they've been pursuing their whole life, what happens is they, after that, they don't know where to go.

And they s they realize that, and I've heard the stories when you've listened to the interviews, they're like, man, I went up to my my uh suite and I just sat there going, like, what's next?

What's next?

I've achieved that goal, I've achieved that that certain um that certain call, but they've they're looking for something that's more, and that something more, that purpose, comes with a lifestyle.

So thanksgiving is not just a holiday, it's not just a moment, it's not just an exercise or a habit, it is a lifestyle.

And this lifestyle, you can see it around the world.

It's universal.

You see it in the eyes of children, in different places around the world, you see it in the elderly, you see it in men and women, you see it in the young and the old, you see it on different continents.

People are living from a place where they realize the truth that thanksgiving makes a difference.

So I want to help us gain access to this place of thanksgiving.

I want to help us gain access to this secret space, this secret entrance where we can call out that password.

Thank you, and we enter into a different place.

We know we're loved, we know we're accepted, but thanksgiving opens another doorway for us, another opportunity for us, into different favor, into different opportunities, and that's what we want for you because I believe everyone here has got a call on your life, and to take those steps forward is going to require you to be moving forward with thanksgiving.

So here's how we grow a thankful heart.

Looking at this portion of scripture that we read just earlier.

I want to move the needle in your life towards being thankful and finding that gratitude in your heart.

So the first thing we do in order to find gratefulness and that grateful heart is we begin to realize.

We realize.

In Luke 17, the scripture says that the ten lepers, they stood afar away, they stood at a distance, and they began to cry out.

Now, realizing means to be fully aware.

It's when you realize something, you become fully aware of the situation that you're in.

And these ten lepers, they were fully aware of their need for a miracle in their life.

And now, ten of them living together, living in a community, every day they were looking at each other as if they were looking in a mirror, looking at their friends, and saying, Man, that could be me tomorrow.

Because uh leprosy was this disease that made you feel unwanted, distanced you from people, it made you feel untouchable, it made you an outcast from a city.

People would walk around with their ex on their hands and saying, unclean, unclean, and you were labeled because you were a leper.

They knew, they realized their current state of being, they realized their disease, they realized the pain that was going to occur in their body as this disease progressed, as their limbs began to deteriorate, as their nerve endings began to dry out and die, as their appendages began to fall off.

These men were realizing their state that they were in.

And now how in our life do we realize, how in our life are we aware of the miracle that we needed, or that we need today?

When we read the scripture, oftentimes we read it from the perspective that, you know, we are onlookers and we're looking at these ten uh lepers that are afar off, and we think, wow, I'm so glad I'm not those ten lepers.

Some people even read the scripture and they say, Man, I'm Jesus in this scripture.

They put themselves in the story and they go, Wow, I'm like Jesus going around healing these lepers.

What we don't realize is in this in this story, the significance of it is that we are the leper.

You are the leper.

You are the one who's lost sensitivity, lost life, lost the ability to live, and has become like the lepers were, far away from God as they cried out from Jesus from far away.

That's us.

We were far from God.

Ephesians chapter 2, verse 13 says, In Christ, you were once far away and have been brought near by the blood of Jesus Christ.

Ephesians 2:13

At one point in time, I needed to realize that I was far away.

I was far away from God.

And this distance between me and God could not be closed by any of my good works, by any money, by any gift, by any opportunity that I could somehow conjure up this gap, the something that could fill this gap.

I needed something different.

I knew I was in peril.

I knew it was inevitable that I was going to die.

I needed something that would help me close that gap and that someone was Jesus.

When you're far from God, you realize the distance.

And in our life, when we come to a place of thanksgiving and we develop that thankful heart, we start with realizing where we've come from, realizing our current state of where we're living.

I was I was far from God, but now because of Jesus, I've been brought close.

Because of the blood of Jesus, that gap was satisfied, that gap was made close because Jesus came to me.

I couldn't come to him, but Jesus came to me.

Number two, so first we realize where we're at.

Number two, we remember.

We remember.

Remembering is a fascinating thing.

It's a great attribute that we have is to be able to remember.

In the story of the lepers, there was one who remembered as he was running towards the priests to be to be signed off as clean and signed off as well.

The scripture says that one of the ten remembered where his healing had come from, who had healed him, who had performed this miracle.

Thankfulness comes when you remember where your miracle comes from.

Thankfulness comes when you remember the one who made a difference in your life.

Remembering always shows value.

When someone remembers my birthday, when my wife remembers our anniversary, when I remember our anniversary, when someone remembers my kids' names, when someone remembers, you know, uh what I like and what I uh you know, what I order as Starbucks, and they're like, hey, I'm gonna grab your coffee and they know what I want.

It shows value.

And the value is not like the gift sometimes, as much as it is the fact that someone actually remembered the things that you like and the things that you have interests in, and and that's becomes the that becomes what's valuable.

My wife's grandma, she she has included me in the list of her kids, grandkids, great-grandkids.

So every birthday, my birthday, continues today, to I get a letter in the mailbox from her.

Happy birthday, a really nice note and a special little gift in that in that letter.

She remembers, and you know what?

I give her a call, and I'm like, thank you for remembering.

Thank you for thinking about me.

Thank you for valuing me.

When you remember someone, you're valuing them.

Yeah, I remember uh, you know, it's an important point in our life to actually bring things back to remembrance.

A lot of remembrance, a lot of Thanksgiving is about remembrance.

It's so important that we actually have in Canada a remembrance day where we remember those who sacrificed their lives for our freedom, where we remember that freedom didn't come freely.

It came because people sacrificed for us.

And we remember we actually have a day of remembrance.

In our faith, we have the table of communion, which is a table of remembrance where we remember what Jesus did for us.

And what I encourage you today, if you want to build that grateful heart, if you want to start moving the needle in your life to moving to a place of gratitude and a heart of gratitude, you start to learn, you start to remember often.

So my wife and I, what we do is sometimes we just have fun and we just play a little game.

It's called Remember When.

And we just begin to talk around the table.

I did this with our small group the other day, our Connect group.

The other day we sat around, we were having coffee, and uh, and uh we had about an hour's time, and I said, Hey guys, remember when?

Tell me your story.

Remember when.

And I remember when in my life, when I got married, Wally and Maxine opened up their basement suite to my wife and I.

And I remember the shag carpets, and I remember the fact that that if you had the hot plate on and the microwave going, the the fridge would kick out.

I remember the time that my wife and I spent hours on end painting and renovating a house to make a home.

I remember the time we had our children and they were young and we were getting up throughout the night, you know, taking care of them throughout the day.

I remember when we used to travel.

Do you remember going on a flight somewhere?

Do you remember holidays?

Yeah, that's good.

I remember when.

I remember when one time I was given literally a pallet of shoes, crocs, a pallet, like hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of shoes.

And I remember giving them to our missionaries in Kenya and packing bags and sending them over to Kenya, these shoes, so that the kids wouldn't have to deal with the issue of uh having jiggers, these little worms that would crawl in between their toes and bury them between their toes and and make it so uncomfortable for them to walk and and would even in severe cases create crippling.

And uh these kids now had shoes, and I remember giving bundles of shoes in Kenya.

I remember the time that we got the photos back and seeing the kids running around in these colored crocs.

I remember Pastor Sean packing bags to take these shoes down to Jamaica with the youth team.

I remember the smell of the, you know, the Chinese plastic on the shoes.

I remember those things.

I remember the day my daughter made a decision to serve Jesus.

I remember when I go back to that memory, automatically like a smile develops on my face because the heart of remembrance returns with thanksgiving, even in the difficult times in our life.

I remember back to those difficult times and it brings back, those memories bring back a point of thanksgiving.

Remembrance is so important.

When we fail to remember, or when we fail to celebrate, the things you fail to celebrate, you'll you'll eventually tolerate, and when you tolerate them, you they'll eventually dissipate.

And we want to be able to celebrate the things in our lives, celebrate our marriages and our children and all the highlights in our life.

We have to find ways to celebrate those wins and bring thanksgiving in front of us.

Bring a point of thankfulness.

And when I look back in my life and I when I'm I'm at this point of thanksgiving and I'm at this table of thanksgiving, I remember what Jesus did in my life.

I remember the points in my life where I wasn't a mess, I was confused, where my thoughts were in disorder, my my purpose was unclear.

And I remember going to God and going, I can't live like this.

And I remember the day that God just put everything into order, where He lined things up that I couldn't have done on my own.

He put things into alignment.

When I remember in my life that point where I knew that I was a sinner and there was nothing I could do to actually escape that point of sin, escape that point of disgrace, escape that point of error in my life.

I remember when Jesus came in and his grace made me whole.

I remember when.

Remembering increases this thankful heart.

It increases this grateful heart.

So I realize, I realize from afar my condition.

And I remember what Jesus has done for me.

And lastly, what happens with Jesus and with the ten lepers is that the man who realized his condition remembered what Jesus had done.

He returned to Jesus.

And Jesus, when he came back to Jesus, Jesus said, weren't all ten of you cleansed?

Yet only nine of you, nine of you didn't come back, but only one?

He says, No one's coming back to return, to praise God, to return and give thanks except you who are a Samaritan, a foreigner.

And Jesus said to him, Rise and go for go.

Your faith has made you completely well, has made you whole.

There's something about returning.

There's something about realizing, there's something about remembering, but there's something about returning.

And I want you to know that we when we engage in our faith, when we engage with the church together, in our community together, it's not so that we can get made whole again and again.

It's not like we have to keep coming back for repentance and to find wholeness again.

We realize that we've been made whole.

We return to give thanks.

We return to make a difference for others.

We return to remember.

So we keep returning, whether in person or online right here, we return together for two reasons.

And this is what I think about when I think of the church.

We return because we're a hospital for the hurting.

And we return each week because God has healed us.

And so we want to be able to help others.

We believe it's our duty to now reach others who may be hurting and let them know that God can heal them.

And some people, when they come to church, they have a little bit of a critical nature and they think about the message and the lights and all these things that are going on, the music in church.

But at the end of the day, we're here because people are hurting and we know a God who heals.

And in this place, like there are lepers that come in through our doors.

There are people who don't feel they're worthy of being touched.

They don't feel that they're acceptable.

They feel unclean.

But we come to church so that we can help them realize that this place is a place for the hurting.

This is a hospital for the hurting.

So if you're here to, if you're even listening, if if you're listening today and you're like, I'm not sure if church is the place for me, we return to church.

We come back because this is a place for the hurting.

And if you come in the doors, we're gonna greet you and we're gonna welcome you and we're gonna embrace you.

This is a place where you belong.

It doesn't matter what you've done in the past, it doesn't matter your experiences, this is a place for people who have been hurt and they can find healing.

So you return to help others.

In our life, like as a hospital, in our life, this this place as a hospital has been able to, has been able to help so many people.

And we love to hear the stories.

And if you've come and you're like, man, I don't know if I fit, just push through a little bit.

Sit down, hear some of the stories of the people who are actually in our community, and I believe that your life too can be changed.

So not only is the church a place for the hurting, a hospital for the hurting, but it's a place where there's a party.

It's a party place.

And it's well, either the two, you're either you come in hurting, and I believe that God comes and he'll supernaturally do things in your life that you could not do on your own, so that he can send you into a place of celebration, a place where you can enjoy real life, joy, joy that's abounding.

The Bible says in Psalm 51, God took and gave you a new heart, and he restores unto you a joy to your salvation.

He gives you a joy that accompanies your salvation.

When you come into the church, you realize, wow, look what God has done.

And you come in and you realize again, like, God, I came from so far away, and you brought me close and you healed me and you took away my injury and my disease and my brokenness and my shame and my the lies I was telling myself, and you gave me clarity for a new beginning.

And when that happens, the Bible says that there's joy, he gives you a joy in your heart when you turn to God, when you turn to him.

In fact, the Bible says when one person makes a decision to follow Jesus, all of heaven celebrates with you.

It is a massive party.

And the response for the individual is that they just say, thank you to God.

So when we come to church, when we come, and I know you get to experience this online, when we come to church, when we we play our music, we play it loud, we have people dancing.

At times we've had people waving flags, we've had people singing out loud, we've had people raising their hands and hooting and hollering because what God has done for them in their life has been so dramatic.

We believe that God can do that for you.

Just like the leper, can you imagine coming to Jesus, returning to Jesus, and hearing the words, hearing the words, go, your faith, go.

You've been uh, how was it exactly said?

It was like uh go, rise and go.

Your faith has made you completely well.

Can you believe that?

Completely well.

No longer having to deal with the breakdown of body, the corruption of your body, the decaying of your body, the smell of rotting flesh.

Go, you're made completely well.

You're cleansed, you've got fresh skin, you got a new life, a new beginning.

What a restoration story, what a recovery story, something we can celebrate.

Well, I can imagine what that leper would have done.

The scripture says he fell at Jesus' feet and he gave him thanks.

He celebrated.

And today, when you realize and you and you remember and you return back to Jesus, the only response is just a greater grateful heart, a greater grateful response to Jesus.

And that's our heart.

So today we return to help someone else and to celebrate what God has done in our life and what he can do in others.

So that's the heartbeat of the grateful heart.

That's the heartbeat of a grateful heart.

And we move this beyond a goal, we move this beyond a singular opportunity on a singular day called Thanksgiving, and we move it to a state of being where we actually live in the spirit of Thanksgiving, and we enter into God's presence with this heartbeat that says thank you.

And look what God will open up.

It's like a password that opens up a whole new opportunity and uh life for you.

And I've experienced, and my desire is that you would experience it too.

So if you haven't experienced this great change, if you haven't experienced this opportunity to actually know what it means to walk each day with a thankful heart, uh perhaps it's because you've never made a decision to actually come close to God.

Well, today can be the day.

And my constant call out is that you would know that it's simple to come to Jesus.

It's simple.

You just need to make that call, you need to open your heart, and you have to realize your need.

And if you're feeling that sense today, I'm gonna lead you in a prayer.

And if you'd like to just pray that prayer along with me, then together we can uh walk together into the towards Jesus as he's there and ready and able and willing to take us in.

Would you bow your head with me as we pray?

If you're praying this today for the first time, you can you're welcome just to pray these words after me and um mean it in your heart today.

Father God, I accept you today as my Lord and my Savior, the one who gives me a thankful heart.

I acknowledge today that I've sinned and missed the mark, and I believe that you took care of every gap that exists between me and God.

So today I trust in you.

I ask today that you would make my heart clean, make me new, would you welcome me into your presence and allow me to experience this grateful heart, Thanksgiving 2020.

In Jesus' name.

Amen.

The Bible says that if you prayed that prayer and you meant it in your heart, you acknowledge your your wrongdoing and you repent of your sin, you believe that Jesus Christ made a way for you and you confess him as your Lord, he's faithful and just, he's faithful to forgive you and to give you that new heart.

That's the greatest gift I can give you.

This Thanksgiving is this invitation.

And so may you experience it, may you receive it, may you walk today with a fresh realization, with a fresh remembrance, and a fresh return to the one who loves you so much.

God bless you.