Check Yourself | Part One

Thank you for listening to the Kelona Christian Center podcast.

Our desire is that today's message will be fresh and encouraging to you.

For more information on KCC and how to connect, visit us at KCC.com.

Well, happy Thanksgiving, everyone.

Happy Thanksgiving.

If you're a guest with us this morning, I'm Brody Calluman.

I'm one of the many pastors in this church today.

I'm the lead pastor here at KCC, and we're just so grateful to have you with us today.

Did you meet someone new today?

Did you meet someone around you?

You're grateful for the people that are sitting beside you.

Yeah?

Grateful for them.

You bet, husbands, you better give your wife a nudge.

Yeah, it's totally.

I was going through my notes this week, and I was about halfway done through my message, and so my document was left open.

And let me just find it here.

And it was halfway left open, and at the very end, I I found this note, and it must have come from God or somewhere else.

It says, I want to highlight Thanksgiving.

I was just writing some notes down.

It says, uh, dot dot dot, it's all highlighted.

My wife is amazing.

I'm so blessed beyond measure for her faithful, loving arms.

She's so far out of my league, but the Lord loves me.

I don't remember writing that, but someone who was using my computer, I think, may have actually put that down.

I'm thankful for my wife.

Amen.

So far out of my league.

So, so, so far out of my league.

I am down here.

She's way up there.

That's right.

Um, we're launching a new series uh this October.

Uh, this uh the series is entitled Check Yourself.

Check yourself.

Not before you wreck yourself.

You may have how many of you remember got knew when that that tune was playing?

How many of you connected with that tune?

You were reminded from it.

We have some 90s kids in the house.

But uh the heart.

The heart is uh a fickle thing.

And Jeremiah talks about the heart, and it's one of our themes uh in scripture here.

It says the heart is deceitful and wicked, and it's deceitful above all things, it's desperately wicked, and the scripture says, who can know it?

Who can know it?

And we really need to check and recheck, check and reset, check and reset, check and reset.

The psalmist says this.

The psalmist David said this.

He said, I incline, I lift up, I keep assessing, I keep lifting my head as to what God you're saying to me, because my natural tendency is to recline, it's to decline.

And we have to continually check our heart and say, I'm gonna incline my hearing, I'm gonna incline my listening to what God, what you're saying, because it's not how I feel that should motivate me.

But it's what I believe.

It's what is truth inside, what is truth that should motivate me and move me forward.

The scripture says this in Proverbs.

It says, above all things, keep your heart with all vigilance.

Set a guard over your heart.

Set a guard over your heart, because out of your heart flows the issues of life.

Your life flows not from a place of your bank account.

Your life doesn't flow from your Instagram, your life doesn't flow from your social media presence, your life doesn't flow from those spaces.

Your life, your real life, comes from here.

And the scripture says this who can know your heart?

In other words, I can't know it, but I know someone who does.

I know someone who does, and that's why it's so important that we come to church together, we fellowship together, we gather together because when the Lord's presence is here, he checks our heart.

That's why we welcome the Holy Spirit to come and assess us and to reassess us and to help us move forward because we need that help.

So the heart is a sacred place, it's a place that really matters.

Um, it matters more than anything.

The scripture says that man will even look at the appearance of a person, but it's God who looks at the heart.

God really isn't interested in the kind of car you drive.

God is interested in the heart's desire.

Are you a man after God's own heart?

Are you a woman after God's own heart?

So today on Thanksgiving, of course, we want to talk about this uh this assessment of ourselves and actually look at whether or not we carry this attitude of gratitude.

This we're gonna look at this G attitude, this gratitude attitude.

And uh I've had a few weeks actually to be thinking about this message and to plan and prepare for, and I thought it would be a lot easier than it actually was.

Because when you think about Thanksgiving, you think about being thankful, uh I feel like that everyone in the room would say that there's some level or some degree of that they have that spirit of gratitude, that they carry a spirit of thankfulness.

And at first glance, it may seem like a simple message.

It's a message that's common sense, it's a message that may be a given, it's a message that is a really a non-issue for a lot of people.

They're like, oh, I don't really need to hear another message on being thankful.

No, because I am thankful.

I'm like, oh, are you?

And the more I looked into this message and the more I dug deep, I realized I am pretty poor at being thankful.

There's a part of me that is fickle.

Uh I'm thankful when the sun is shining, but I'm not thankful when it's cloudy outside.

I'm thankful when I'm feeling good, but am I thankful when things around me are disrupted and uh there's a place of turmoil?

Am I being thankful?

I'd like to think of it that I am, but really in my heart, I I'm challenged at times about where I actually stand in a true spirit of gratitude.

Where I land in this place of gratitude.

I like to I hear this, you know, it's a beautiful day outside.

It's too hot, and you hear it when you're walking down the street.

Man, it's hot.

How many of you felt it this week?

Oh man, it was really cold.

Ugh, it's so cold.

There's just like, it's warm in here, it's cold in here.

You've got this fickle attitude.

I love it when I love my family, and then at the end of the night, oh, they're all crazy, just send them to bed.

I love it.

It's the spirit, we're so, we're so, our person, our humanity is such that it's driven so much by our emotion.

It's driven by how we feel.

And the heart is a dangerous place.

It's a sacred place.

It needs to be ruled not by our feelings, but by our faith.

It's it's got to be ruled by a place that's greater than feeling.

So, what are we thankful for?

Um, I I love this.

You know, like we all love pumpkin pie.

After service, we've got pumpkin pie, apple pie, we have uh whipped cream.

For those of you who like whipped cream, it's all gonna be out there in the lobby.

And I love it.

People are like, I love pumpkin pie, but they don't like their waist expanding, like they like their pants to fit, right?

So, you know, some of you like living on the pro level wore your stretchy pants to church today because you know that after church, you're going out for dinner and you're like, you know what, I'm just gonna think ahead a little bit here.

But you can't have both.

You love both, you're thankful for both.

Uh, some of the kids, when they were asked, you know, what are you thankful for?

And this is coming from a child.

And oftentimes when we get older, we start looking at greater things to be thankful for.

But the children, they said this.

One of the kids said, Um, things I'm thankful for.

My brother, my sister, my new scissors, my bell movie, my bell dress, my cat figural, my bed, my blanket, and steak.

And so that was awesome.

But mom and dad were nowhere in that list, right?

Uh she is she truly thankful.

My four-year-old daughter told me this that she's thankful that her brother isn't a monster because if he was, he would eat her.

So these kids are thankful.

This one kid says, Oh, I won't even read this one.

I should have censored this before I look at that.

Another kid said, I'm just thankful for ceiling fans.

You know, you never really think about it, but ceiling fans are quite important.

But one of these kids, he, you know, he had his priorities straight.

He's like, I'm thankful for toilet paper.

And when I read that, I was like, oh, that is so lame.

That's such a kid thing.

But then I'm like, no, I am thankful for toilet paper.

I really am.

And you would be too if you're like at a place and there, I'll tell you where it hits like critical 10 is when you're in the bathroom and there's nothing on that roll, and it's like, oh no, thank God for cell phones.

Do I hear any Natalie?

Get one of the kids to grab some tepee.

Bring it.

Leave instructions, leave outside the door, knock twice when you arrive.

I want to highlight one thought to you today related to Thanksgiving.

I hope we'll continue with you throughout your celebration of Thanksgiving.

And uh the fact that when it comes to gratitude, my hope today is that you uh are able to celebrate today with more moments of gratitude.

And not just for the day, not just celebrating because it's a holiday, and not just celebrating because, oh, now I'm aware of everything that's good in the presence and where I'm at at this moment, and then uh returning to a place of your old self.

You're just in a flurry of gratitude, then tomorrow you wake up and it's negative again.

Um my hope is that you're able to celebrate with more moments of gratitude based on a on a on an elevated thought.

An elevated thought that it is not just it's a spiritual thing.

That this spirit of gratitude is not just a it's it's a pattern of life.

It's something that we have to face every day, it's something we have to reset and recheck every day.

It's something we have to set our heart to and go, okay, today, where am I gonna stand?

I'm gonna wake up in the morning and I'm gonna be thankful.

Not because everyone on Instagram is saying, Happy Thanksgiving.

I'm grateful for this, I love this, but you're waking up each day.

And some of you, I'm aware of this.

As a pastor in the church, I'm aware that some of you are going through real challenges, and you're waking up each day, looking at your future, looking at your day ahead of you.

You've had to really create a pattern and a habit that's going to actually develop in your life of gratitude.

So, what is gratitude?

Gratitude is a spirit of thankfulness, it's praise, it's appreciation.

And an attitude is this pattern of uh thinking, and it's typically reflected in a person's behavior.

Now, you can typically predict in people their attitude because it's it's a pattern of how they act, their attitude.

So some people they just have an attitude about them because it's a pattern that they've developed in themselves.

Well, sometimes that pattern and that attitude needs to change.

Don't you just love that word change?

That's it's just such an embracing word.

It's amazing anyone comes to church seriously, because all we do at church is get you to change.

The Holy Spirit's here to help you change.

God is here to help you change.

The scripture here is to help change you.

The message here today is to change you, and it's not easy and it's not comfortable.

So I'm gonna make it as as nice as I can, but today you may have in your heart an attitude that is not aligned with gratitude.

And you need to change.

Scripture says this.

It says in 1 Thessalonians 5.18, it says, give thanks in all circumstances.

It doesn't say give thanks for all circumstances, like if you're driving and your tire goes flat, you don't have to give thanks to God for a flat tire, particularly, but you give thanks to God in the circumstance when you're changing the tire.

You don't have to give thanks to God for cloudy days, but during that cloudy day, give thanks within that day that you're living in where it's cloudy outside.

You give thanks in all circumstances.

Philippians also says this don't be anxious about anything.

But in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your request to God.

So, in prayer, the first way you come to God is with thanksgiving.

In the church, the scripture says, enter his gates with thanksgiving in your heart.

When you wake up, I give thanks to you, God.

Thanksgiving is a core, it is a core foundational attitude.

I would say gratitude is the greatest of all the attitudes.

It is the greatest of all the attitudes, maybe the mother of all good attitudes, comes from thanksgiving.

It because it births every other attitude, comes from this spirit of thanksgiving and gratitude.

You'll never have to worry, you'll never have to worry about having a wrong attitude as long as you keep gratitude your primary attitude.

So it's the foundation of healthy relationships, it's the foundation of healthy thought, it's the foundation of a mind that is healthy and a heart that is healthy.

It's a powerful attitude.

It's an attitude that can open up the good in you, it can open up treasures in you, and that otherwise can be locked down, buried beneath uh hang-ups, buried beneath bad experiences.

Uh, this attitude of gratitude needs to come out.

Now let's look at the scripture here.

Because some people are like, well, you know, there may be other attitudes that are really important.

But the scripture actually talks about gratitude 513 times of verses that are related to gratitude in the Bible.

That's more than hope and faith talked about combined, and it's equal to what love is talked about.

Because oftentimes, if you're loving, you're approaching people with a proper attitude, you're approaching situations with thankfulness, you're approaching people with thankfulness with gratitude.

So when you go to the scripture, there's a lot of instruction about being thankful.

So, and there's a lot of uh a lot of caution to those who go into uh a situation or approach people with unforgiveness or bitterness or or uh going into a place complaining.

You have to be careful.

The the Hebrew people actually had four words that defined uh thankfulness or gratitude.

One of the words was called yada.

Yada, and it primarily means to confess to God in an audible voice, to speak something out to God.

Yada, it means to, it actually had emotion connected to it.

It meant to raise your hands.

That's why in church we raise our hands, we're giving thanks to God.

This is a biblical principle.

It says to yada, I lift my hands to you, God.

I lift up and I give thanks to you, God.

I don't look down, I look up, I raise my hands.

Yada.

Uh halal is another word.

It means to say with a loud, clear voice, like celebration.

Thank you, God.

Woo! You're awesome, God.

It's like that, that thing that comes in from your gut, from the core of who you are.

That means halal.

It's where we get the word hallelujah.

Hallelujah! That's a weird word, like to a lot of people.

It's not a common day word, but halal means to praise God, to give thanks to God.

It's where you celebrate it in your heart and it comes out.

It's an action.

Another word, tawdah.

It's about turning your heart towards thankfulness, and it's it's introspective, and it has a reference to it as someone on their knees before God, giving thanks.

Thank you, God, thank you, God.

It's like that that perspective.

And the last one is Shabak, which means to shout with a loud voice like that of triumph, like you won.

That of a victor.

Now, some people would say, Well, Pastor Brody, I'm really quite a shy person.

And my voice is actually quite, I don't like to stand out that much.

That's something you have to overcome.

That's something you've got to change.

Because these words aren't just words by definition, they're words of expression.

Where you celebrate.

So that's why we don't come into his praise, into the presence of God.

The scripture says, come into his presence or come into his house with thanksgiving.

It's not like this.

Thank you, Lord, for this great church and all these people.

It's not the expression, the expression comes out of you.

It's celebrating who God is.

So the descriptions are about a body expression.

Because it your expression becomes your behavior.

And more than just being thankful in your heart, like, hey, I'm thankful in my heart.

It's not enough.

That's why the Bible says, you don't just think it, you have to say it.

You don't just think it, you have to do it.

You gotta move past the place of here and move place to the place of here where you're actually doing it on principle.

I will give thanks.

I will say thank you.

And it's it's even if it's hard to come out, you you will it.

I will, I will, I will say thank you to the Lord today.

So, how many of you have felt someone else's gratitude before?

How many of you have felt when someone's like really grateful?

You don't just feel it, you're not just sitting at a table and it's like, I felt gratitude coming my way.

I felt it again.

Where is that coming from?

And it's like you're like the spidey sense, is this sensing where is this gratitude come?

No, you you feel it because it's expressed towards you.

Thank you, they give you a hug.

Thank you, they use their words.

Thank you, they they welcome you, they they're they're showing their appreciation.

Woo! That was good turkey.

I love that turkey.

What a great job on those Brussels sprouts.

How many of you like Brussels sprouts?

It's pretty divided.

It's like, yeah, I got it.

I don't want to cause a church division here, but we'll leave that up to God.

But you don't, you've got this spirit of thankfulness that needs to be expressed.

And if some people say, well, I'm I'm just quiet, I've seen people come to church and they're like this, and yet they go to the Rockets game and they're like, come on! Woo! Or they're sitting at home.

I'll never forget watching uh watching guys uh watch the World Cup.

And uh the World Cup, and these are friends of ours from different continents, right?

And we had it all set up.

We had the World Cup showing on the three T three screens here, had chairs all up front, and we had sat down, we were streaming it live, and I remember watching as people were literally like.

Come on, come on, like they were anticipating this great event.

Well, how much greater is the event that we have in Christ?

That Jesus bridged the gap between man and the Father, and now we have it.

Amen?

So I encourage you to be daring, courageous, enough to venture into the spirit of expressive gratitude.

Because I believe it will have a positive influence on your life.

And I really do.

You will walk around with this expression of gratitude.

When the heart is filled with gratitude, there's no room for negative attitude.

When your heart is full of good, there's no room for bad.

When the heart is full of positive, there's no room for the negative.

Fill your heart.

Fill the tank with good things.

Fill the tank with thankfulness.

You can't be entitled and thankful at the same time.

You can't.

One of it has to leave.

It's impossible.

You can't feel self-pity and thankful at the same time.

As soon as you take on self-pity, thankfulness walks out the door.

As soon as you change your heart and change your thoughts and actually embrace being thankful, self-pity leaves.

If you want to get rid of self-pity, just begin to be thankful.

Thankfulness is a powerful thing.

And uh it I've got a warning though attached to this.

It's not something that's natural.

It's the last thing you'll want to do naturally.

There have been times I've we've been in a situation, my wife and I, either with kids or together, and I think I've said it to her, and she's said it to me too, so there's no maybe I've done it once or twice more.

But I've maybe.

But I've said, where we're in a situation and what either of us are down.

And she's come to me sometimes and she said, Brody, what are you thankful for?

And you know what I want to do?

I'm thankful for space.

You go over there, I'm gonna go over here, and we're gonna have this space, this thing called space.

What are you thankful for?

And it's like pulling teeth.

It's sit around the table.

We gotta talk.

I've done this with our kids.

Sit down.

I don't want to sit down.

Okay, your attitude just stinks today.

I don't know what happened to it, but we're gonna change it right now.

What are you thankful for?

Uh it's just like, oh, it's painful.

It's painful for them.

It's painful for me as a parent.

I was like, God, give me new kids.

Like, just I want new ones.

They're beautiful, they're awesome.

Just ones that are thankful by by design, right?

It just doesn't happen.

Thankful by design, just stamp that.

It's the last thing you want to do in the situation because we love our our rut.

You just keep walking in it.

But thankfulness pulls us out.

Number three, when your heart is filled with gratitude, you're happier and the people around you are happier.

Amen.

When you're filled with gratitude, you're happier.

It's very simple.

The people around you are happier.

If people don't uh like hanging out with you, start with thankfulness.

Are you a thankful person?

Do you carry that heart of gratitude?

Um sometimes I even hear it in the small things.

Oh, I wish I would have made this investment.

Oh, I wish I would have gone to school and become this or become that.

It's it's like very small things that we let into our heart.

We've got to watch those small things because gratefulness is uh so important.

Let me look at uh a scripture uh with you today.

Colossians chapter 3, verse 15 to 17.

Colossians 3:15–17

It says this let the peace of Christ keep you in tune with each other, in step with each other.

None of this going off and doing your own thing, and cultivate thankfulness.

Look at that word, cultivate it.

Cultivate thankfulness.

Let the word of Christ, the message, have the run of the house.

Give it plenty of room in your lives.

Instruct and direct one another until good using good common sense.

Sing your hearts out to God.

Let everything, every detail in your lives, words, actions, whatever be done in the name of the Master Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.

Cultivate thankfulness.

Your own humanity won't naturally look this way.

You'll have to cultivate it.

Cultivate it in your home, cultivate it personally, cultivate it in your business, cultivate it with your staff, cultivate it with your kids, cultivate it with your wife or your husband.

Cultivate it, work it.

You gotta work Thanksgiving, you gotta work gratitude.

And our goal is to get more grateful in more moments.

If you're not grateful today, I'm just challenging you.

Start with waking up in the morning saying thank you and go to bed saying thank you.

Just start.

Start, you'll see the difference.

It's a 21-day challenge, 30-day challenge.

I don't care what it is.

I challenge you.

I double dog dare you.

Do it.

Cultivate thankfulness.

These moments will become patterns, and these patterns will break, break things off you that are holding you down.

So there are three keys to cultivate this attitude.

You want to change?

Well, lucky you, you're here today.

I'm gonna teach you how to do it.

How do you cultivate it?

Number one, fight familiarity.

Fight it.

Familiarity breeds contempt.

You gotta fight it.

If you're unaware of this enemy in your life, uh, this can really help just by being aware of it.

Just stop for a second and look at the things that are familiar around you that you haven't considered, how great it is, the heat that we have when you walk in, the the chairs that we're sitting on, uh, a level of your health.

These things you fight familiarity.

I I think about it at terms when people get into a new job, and we've had some people I was just talking to recently, uh, been in a job for about a year.

When they first got landed this job, they were so excited.

It was like the dream job that they were living in.

And they were so excited, and then they became familiar with that job.

And a year later I'm talking to them, and they're talking about, oh, you know what, my boss is like this, and the work environment is like this, and they started just just because they had become familiar, they started talking down the things that were a blessing to them originally.

Don't become familiar.

Don't become familiar around your workplace, don't become familiar around your church.

Thank God for the people that are sitting next to you.

Thank God that there's a small group or a connect group that you're a part of.

Thank God you have somewhere to come to worship.

Thank God for the worship team.

Thank God for those who are preparing pie outside.

Thank God for whipped cream.

Amen.

Thank God for the coffee girls, right, Natalie?

That's right.

Thank God for your home.

Don't become familiar in your home.

Thank God for the things you just pass over and you get used to.

Um sometimes you can start to feel like, oh man, this place is such a mess.

The grass needs cutting, the grass looks spotty.

Just thank God for it and then approach it.

Thank God.

There are two ways to move ahead in life.

One is as though nothing is a miracle, and the other as though everything is a miracle.

And move to the degree where you're looking at life through the lenses of everything is a miracle.

Thank you, God, for this miracle.

Thank you, God, today for this home.

Thank you that I can go out for lunch and I don't have to worry, it's gonna break the bank.

Thank you, Lord, for the miracle.

Number two, remember what you have.

Never let the things that you want make you forget the things that you have.

Today in our culture, we're so driven.

We are driven by some everyone is looking at the grass as greener on the other side, and they're looking at what someone else has, and they're not looking at the fact that they have green grass on their sides.

Remember what you have.

How rich we are.

Look at some of the let me read to you some of these examples.

You can check it on on the internet if you want to, um, after church, or those of you who are watching at home, you can do it right now on your web browser.

Right?

How rich we are.

If you make 40,000 annual income, you're in the top 0.5% of the world.

You're part of the richest people group.

If you have food in your fridge, clothes on your back, a roof over your head, and a place to sleep, you're richer than 75% of the world.

If you have money in the bank, your wallet, or some spare change, you're among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.

If you woke up this morning with more health and illness, you're more blessed than the million people who will not survive this week.

I think it's higher than that.

If you've never experienced the danger of battle, the agony of imprisonment and torture, or the horrible pain of starvation, you're luckier than 500 million people alive and suffering.

If you can read this message, you're more fortunate than three billion people in the world who cannot read at all.

Can you read?

Who here can read?

Thankful.

You can read the word.

Let's remember, we remember our blessings.

The psalmist says this don't forget all his benefits.

There's lots of benefits, and we can tend to forget, so bring them back to remembrance.

Thank you, Lord, for your benefits towards our life.

Amen.

Number three, fill your conversation with expressions and words of gratitude.

Sometimes you lead your words with your feelings and they get in front of you.

And uh and other times you lead your feelings with your words, and that's the goal.

Let your words come out first and not your feelings.

You can feel grumpy, but your words have to come out first.

No, I'm gonna choose something else.

I'm gonna choose to bless instead of curse.

The Bible says that there's power in the words that you say, and you can set the environment in the home or your workplace environment, you can set it by the words that you say.

So make sure that we're setting the environment with the words that we say and not our feelings, what we're feeling.

If someone just comes to me and is like, grumpy, and I'm like, why are you grumpy?

Well, I just feel this way.

I'm just being honest, I'm just being vulnerable right now.

I'm really upset.

You can be upset, trust me.

I like I understand that.

But you should lead with your words.

You know what?

I'm going through a tough time, but this is what I know, but I'm still feeling this way.

But this is what I know to be true, this is what I believe, but I'm feeling this way.

Help me bring my feelings into alignment with my belief instead of my belief disregarding it and just allowing myself to be ruled by my feelings.

Move forward with that.

So, this is how we do it.

We use compliments.

Great smile, Brody.

We make proclamations of good days and good people.

Speak well of the people that are around you.

You be liberal with it.

Just be liberal with it.

Don't don't be light with it, just be generous in your expression with people.

Um, liberal with words like thank you, grateful, appreciative, uh like just work up that word count in your life where you're just everywhere you're going, you're addressing people uh with gratitude.

Uh the scripture says this, and maybe this isn't for you, but the Bible says, sing.

Some people may say, you know, that won't bring a sense of gratitude into my life, but but I'm telling you, the Bible says, sing songs of praise.

Sing songs of thanksgiving.

I will enter his gates with thanksgiving in my heart.

I will enter his courts with praise.

I will say this is the day that the Lord He has made.

I will rejoice for He has made me glad.

Bye, Natalie.

He has made me glad, he has made me glad.

I will rejoice for he has made me glad.

He has made me glad, he has made me glad.

I will rejoice for he has made me glad.

Again, I will at uh where the horns at, you know.

There's a place where you give thanksgiving in your song.

Uh we used to uh we used to sing this song.

Oh man, it's it kind of sounds corny now, but it's like it's a happy day, and I thank God for the weather.

It's a happy day.

I'm living it for my Lord.

It's a happy day, and things are gonna get better.

So I'm living each day by the promises in God's word.

And we just sing those songs, and that song still is up here from when I was five years old.

Because it birthed, it birthed Thanksgiving in my heart.

Amen?

So sing, praise, and realize that God is for you, not against you.

Uh, I unfortunately, this whole narrative of the world is that God is against us.

Well, the the fact is, God is for you.

If you're in a rut, God is for you.

He's there to help pull you up, pull you out.

The Bible says these are the benefits.

He removes all our sin as far as the east is from the west.

He crowns you with compassion, he he pulls you out of the pit and puts your feet on a solid rock.

These are the the benefits of the Lord.

He's for us, not against us.

Sometimes it may look like God is for is against us, but he's actually for us.

Uh last week we were at men's camp, and I'll just close with this.

But we were at men's camp, and uh I was talking about a man named Gideon, and Gideon was the least of his tribe, he was of the least tribes, and he was the least of his tribe.

And they would work all year creating a harvest, and at the end of the harvest, people would come in and steal everything that they made.

And the Bible says that Gideon is hiding out at night because he doesn't want to be killed, and he's trying to crush the grain in a wine press.

He's working his tail off, and go, and an angel comes to him and says, Gideon, I want to help you.

And Gideon says, Okay, and they have this little discussion.

And God says, Alright, so this is what I want you to do.

You're gonna go and fight these scavengers, these ones who are coming in and pillaging all your things, all your goods, killing people, and leaving you without food.

And so uh Gideon says, Okay, well, he rallies the troops, 30,000 men gather.

Or 32,000.

And the Bible says 32,000 men are rallying around Gideon, and he's pretty excited, and he's like, This is great, we've got a great army here, they're farmers, they're not trained, but they're their heart is in it, they're gonna fight with me.

And God says to them, Okay, tell whoever is here that if they want to go home, they can just go home.

Gideon's like, Well, that's not very smart.

You know, God, are you really for me?

Or are you against me?

Maybe I'll just I'll say this and it'll concrete this group of men.

So he says, anyone who wants to go home, you can go home.

And 22,000 left.

He's down to 10,000 people.

And then God says, you know what, 10,000?

I don't know about this.

So he says, go down to the river.

And when he goes down to the river, he says, Anyone, Gideon, who goes down on his knees and lit and laps the creek at the creek like an animal, just tell them to go home.

And anyone who cups the water and brings it up to their mouth, tell them to stay.

Well, 9,700 of them bent down, had the worst drinking habits ever.

He looks and says, Anyone who bent down to drink, go home.

9,700 left.

He's left with 300.

God, are you really for me?

Or are you against me?

I uh am I thankful for the loss?

And God says, Well, it's not quite done.

We're still gonna go to battle.

He's like, Oh man, this is looking pretty dismal.

He says, and this is what you're gonna do to go to battle.

Don't bring a sword.

I want you to bring a jar and a lantern.

And okay, well, this is what I'm gonna do.

When when the time comes at night, this is your attack mode.

Crack the jar and say, for the Lord and for Gideon.

And he says, I don't know about this.

He's really challenged because it sounds like God is against him.

But the fact is, God is for him.

It doesn't matter if you had 300 or 30,000.

When God is on your side, it's better to be on the side with God.

It doesn't matter what the circumstances look like, it's better to be with God with 300 than without God and 300,000.

With God, they smashed the jar, they raised their lantern, and when they did that, the Bible says there was a fear that drove into the enemy's camp and they ran away, and uh, in turn, they were able to have that victory that day.

God, when God is for you, who can be against you?

This is something we can enjoy today.

The fact we can all be thankful for is that God is for us, not against us.

Amen.

Amen.

Would you bow your heads with me?

Let's give the Lord an applause before we pray.

Amen.

God is for us, not against us.

Father, we thank you today for your presence with us.

We thank you, Lord, that you love us so much that you sent your son to pay for our sin.

And today, Lord, we just confess that we believe, we trust, we lean on you for all that you've done.

Lord, we know you love us.

We know that that uh that every situation, Lord, that we're going through, you will turn out to work for good.

For those who are called and chosen, Lord, and love you, Father.

We just thank you today that you're looking after us and over our lives.

We thank you, Lord, that when we'll be judged, eventually, we'll be judged.

It's the Father who sees Jesus in us.

Our sins have been paid for, and we now have a fresh life and a new beginning because of you.

And we celebrate you today in the name of Jesus.

Amen.

Amen.