Wait, What? (Misplaced Zeal)

Well, for the last few weeks, we have been exploring some scripture together.

And if you're if you're new to his hands, we we like to open up the Bible and read it.

And then go, what does this say?

And how does this apply to our lives?

It takes a lot of pressure off of me because all I have to really do is plagiarize.

That's what I do on Sunday mornings.

Um seriously, like I'm 38 years old, what do I know?

I know so little.

But every time I open up God's Word and I take it seriously, and I ask God to help me understand what it means and what it means for my life, it has everything I need.

It's powerful, it's practical.

And so we're we're doing that.

We're going through a letter in the New Testament of the Bible, and it's the letter to the Romans, and if you're familiar with that, you know that Romans is complicated.

It's not like something you would recommend someone who just started out in their faith.

Like you should read Romans.

I've never heard someone make that suggestion.

But you know what's funny is when Romans was written, everyone was a new Christian.

When this was written, I mean you're talking first century, there was no one who's like, oh, I've grown up, I've been a Jesus follower my whole life.

My grandfather was a Jesus follower, my father was that was there was no one who had a grandparent that followed Jesus.

Not one person.

Every single person following Jesus was pretty fresh.

And that's important to remember because sometimes I think we have a tendency to look at really complicated deep scriptures and go, ooh, that's over my head.

It is not.

Even if you're new to church, even if you're new to the whole Jesus thing, you have been created by God with the capacity to understand him.

You've been created by God with the capacity to understand really deep spiritual truths.

And so I just want to make sure on the forefront of us diving into this, because it is tough stuff, that you know that you're not, you're not too young in your faith.

You're not you're not someone who's playing catch up.

You are a child of God.

He loves you, he created you, he wants you to know him, he wants you to understand him as much as possible.

And when we open up scripture and read it, even the tough stuff, sometimes, especially the tough stuff, we just we grow and we grow faster than we we might be able to imagine.

You know, I have young children, four of them.

Most of you don't know that, and uh, I never talk about them.

And it's so you ever have these moments, those of you who are parents, where like you look at one of your children and it's like, did they grow overnight?

Like what happened?

I was looking at my my three-year-old yesterday, and I think it was just what he was wearing, and and like he's wearing skinny jeans, you know, and and uh just he was dressed differently than normal, and all of a sudden he just looked at, he just looked like years older.

And it was like he's grown like that.

Children do that sometimes.

Children grow fast, they have growth spurts, and you're just like, whoa, you can have a spiritual growth spurt.

You can you can have a moment or a season in your life where you grow spiritually faster than you can imagine.

And I just need us to believe that that when we open up scripture like what we're doing now, really difficult stuff.

Romans 9 through 11 is where we're at, and it might be the most complicated section in the entirety of the New Testament.

Maybe it's like really hard things to wrap your head around.

You just have a tendency to grow quickly.

And so what we've been doing is we've been going through this bit by bit, and and this section of scripture is filled with like no one's favorite verses.

No one gets these tattooed on their bodies.

Like no one ever puts this on, like, you know, they're some special occasion or hangs this in their house.

Like some people have scriptures that are in really pretty writing, like on wood, and it's hanging in their house.

No one does this.

We've looked at scriptures like in Romans 9 where God says, Hey, uh, for Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated.

No one likes that verse.

We all kind of go, skip.

Don't want to deal with that.

Last week we explored where it says that God hardened Pharaoh's heart.

And they're like, well, I don't like that idea at all.

What is that?

What is that about?

But we don't skip the hard stuff, we go through it.

And today we're gonna keep going through Romans chapters 9 through 11.

Romans 9 · chapter mention

And today we get to Romans chapter 10.

Romans 10 · chapter mention

So with that said, I'm just gonna read it for us.

This thankfully is not quite as challenging and difficult to wrap our heads around as the whole hated Esau and hardened Pharaoh's heart thing.

So God has been good.

He's given us a little bit of a break this morning, but what we're talking about is still really, really cool.

So he says, Dear brothers and sisters, the longing of my heart and my prayer to God is for the people of Israel to be saved.

I know what enthusiasm they have for God, but it is misdirected zeal.

For they don't understand God's way of making people right with themselves.

Refusing to accept God's way, they cling to their own way of getting right with God by trying to keep the law.

For Christ has already accomplished the purpose for which the law was given.

As a result, all who believe in him are made right with God.

Now, a little bit of context.

We talked about this a few weeks ago.

When we're dealing with difficult scriptures, we have to look at the context.

He's talking about the people of Israel.

Paul was an Israelite, he was a Jewish man who grew up in a very, very passionate, zealous Jewish community.

Paul was zealous about his faith.

The people of Israel were.

I mean, their faith was a hard faith to live out.

It was a faith that didn't really mesh with the cultures of their day.

To be a follower of God in the Jewish faith meant to be an outsider to everybody else.

And you had to have a certain amount of passion to live that out.

And Paul had he had that in abundance.

But something really interesting is happening at this point in history when Paul is writing, is that the message of Jesus has spread beyond the Jewish community, and now people who have not grown up Jewish are believing in the Jewish Messiah, and they're putting their faith in the God that the Jews worshiped, and this was something that almost no one saw coming.

And they almost don't know what to do with it.

It's surprising because up to this point in history, the God that we worship, the God that we sing about every single Sunday morning, the God that we read about, was a God who was worshipped and known exclusively, almost exclusively, by the Jewish people, by an ethnic group.

Or people very closely related to the Jewish people.

And now, now it's it's spreading beyond.

In fact, it's growing faster in non-Jewish communities than it is in the Jewish communities.

And what is that about?

Has God abandoned the people of Israel?

Has he left them behind?

And he's moving on to other people.

There's all these questions that Paul is dealing with, and that's the context of him writing.

And he's explaining that, guys, we should have seen this coming.

That God is for all people.

That's where we started a few weeks ago.

Genesis chapter 12, verses 1 through 3.

Genesis 12:1–3

1 through Thi.

We're going King James, a lot of these and thou's, I guess.

All right.

Uh Genesis chapter 12, 1 through 3, the Lord said to Abram, This is the father of the Jewish people, leave your native country, your relatives, and your father's family, and go to the land that I will show you.

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

I will make you into a great nation.

I will bless you and make you famous, and you'll be a blessing to others.

I will bless those who bless you and curse those who treat you with contempt.

All the families on earth will be blessed through you.

So right from the very beginning, when God made this promise to Abraham, the beginning of the Jewish people, he's like, I'm doing this through you, but not just for you.

I'm doing this through you, for you, but also for everyone.

All the families of the earth will be blessed through you.

But over time, the Jewish people, in part because they were persecuted and attacked and conquered, they they became very insular.

And at the time that Paul is writing this, the idea that their God would be for outsiders, most of them couldn't wrap their heads around it.

Paul's saying, like, guys, clearly from the beginning, he wanted to bless all people.

And so Paul is, he's kind of lamenting what's happened.

He said, Man, my heart, my prayer is that the people of Israel, my people, would be saved, that they would put their faith in Jesus, that they would recognize him as who he is, the Son of God.

But he says, the thing that's getting in their way, ironically, is their enthusiasm for God.

Go back and read the first three verses of Romans 10.

He says, Dear brothers and sisters, the longing of my heart and my prayer to God is for the people of Israel to be saved.

I know what enthusiasm they have for God.

But it is misdirected zeal.

For they don't understand God's way of making people right with himself.

Refusing to accept God's way, they cling to their own way of getting right with God by trying to keep the law.

He says it's misdirected zeal.

It's passion, yes, but it's it's not passion appropriately applied.

You know, funny thing about passion, it's it's a good thing.

There's probably things that you're passionate about.

Let's let's do some group confession.

Okay?

People are getting nervous right now.

Uh, how many of you have ever been passionate enough about a sports team to paint your body?

Like, raise your hand.

I'm raising mine.

I want to see you.

Some of you are so ashamed right now.

You're refusing.

Yeah.

Like into my 20s, I I went I went to a basketball game in my early 20s.

And I I painted like the whole, it was it was me.

This was it, here I am, you know.

Years of neglect on display, but covered in blue paint.

And I remember being there being like, this is silly.

I'm an adult.

I should not have done this.

You know, sometimes passion, it leads you to do silly things.

You know, passion and zeal, it can be something that's really, really good, but but how many of us have been really, really passionate about something and it's led us to do some stupid stuff?

We just did it passionately.

Sometimes passion is stupid.

Sometimes zeal, which in the right context is a good thing.

Sometimes zeal can be blinding.

Passion can blind you.

I'm sure some of us have been so passionate about a person that maybe we were blind to something they were doing that was really hurtful and wrong, and we gave them the benefit of the doubt, and that's a good thing to do sometimes, but we gave it to them because we just were so passionate about them, we loved them so much we couldn't even fathom something like what was going on is actually being true.

Passion can be blinding, especially when it when it's passion and God and faith and worship and religion and all that stuff gets messed up.

Like that kind of zeal and passion can go off the tracks fast.

I've experienced it.

In fact, I've experienced it here at his hands.

So I've been part of this place for a third of my life, about 14, 15 years now, and one of our passions has always been to be a really accessible church.

That's one of the reasons I love this series that we're doing right now.

We're opening up some really tough scriptures because it's kind of putting that to the test.

That can we be an accessible church, but also be a church that's willing to go deep with God?

Because sometimes, at least in America, the attempts that churches make to be accessible to everyone ends up meaning that we just go shallow all the time.

We never really dive into the difficult stuff.

If it's hard to understand or maybe controversial, we don't talk about it because we're trying to be accessible.

But that's not how Jesus was.

Like Jesus, he talked about anything and everything.

He was never afraid to go deep, but he was super accessible.

Jesus was so, it was so easy for people to talk to Jesus.

It was so easy for everyday people to hang out with Jesus.

He was very accessible, but sometimes church is far from accessible.

And so from the beginning of his hands, we were like, we're gonna be a church that people can just come in off the street and connect with.

And one of our ways of going about that was we wanted to eliminate what we called back in the day Christianese.

Is we didn't want this to be a place where people had to like learn a new language to understand what was going on.

Because Christians have a tendency to say funny things.

And we use lots of language, and if you grow up, how many of you just grew up in church?

I just would love to see you.

You grew up and it was like, okay, yeah, so there's things that you said growing up in church that like normal people just go, what does that mean?

And sometimes it's phrases.

You know, like a one example is I hear this pretty often.

People say, you know, I really feel like God is just leading me in a different direction.

What they mean is I don't want to do that.

Um like I did, okay, I'm gonna, full confession here.

When I was when I was in a junior in high school, I went to church camp, and uh, and there was a girl that I was interested in for like a day.

And uh, and and so there was some some flirtation going on, but then I decided a day later, like, no, I don't think this is no, this isn't, there's a different girl.

Uh I was a junior in high school, okay?

It was before Megan and I.

And uh, and so I told that girl, the the first girl, that I just think God wants me to be single right now.

And what's she supposed to say to that?

Like, I'm at church camp.

You can't say don't listen to God at church camp.

That's not how it works.

And so she understood, and then, you know, a day later she saw me hanging out with a different girl, and it's pretty mad.

Pretty mad.

She was a waitress of mine once at Chili's, and she remembered that.

And it was a very awkward meal.

It was a very awkward meal.

It was like it was like seven, eight years later, she went, Justin McTear.

I was like, I don't remember your name, but good news, God called me not to be single anymore.

I've been married for five years, you know, great, you know, so it was really awkward.

Really awkward, great moment.

Um, but I was using Christianeese, like I was just saying that.

There's all kinds of phrases that you grow up in church, you just sort of use and say, and even words.

So when we first started as a church, we were like, we're not gonna be a church where people have to speak Christianeese.

We like outlawed it.

And so, for example, this room, we call it the big room.

Because it's a big room.

And we don't call it the sanctuary, which was like the normal church word for the space where you worship.

And it wasn't that we we don't care about the sanctity of worship.

It's just that we wanted to be a place that was about Jesus and not religion, so we thought let's just eliminate religious talk.

And so on staff, we had a policy, and this again, 10, 15 years ago, we had a policy that if you said certain words, you you had to pay a dollar.

Like, so if you said sanctuary, you had to put a dollar in the jar in the office.

And we did that for a long time, thinking, you know, hey, we're so passionate about being non-religious that we're gonna we're gonna ban these words and find people if they say them, which actually is about the most religious idea you can think of.

Right?

Like, what's more religious than telling people in church you can't say that word, now pay a dollar?

Like that's like I think we got off track somewhere.

And we realized that we're like, oh, we are totally off.

This is the most religious thing you could do.

And sometimes when you're zealous and you're passionate about something, it can lead you to completely miss the point.

That's exactly what happened with many of the Jewish people, especially the Pharisees, the religious leaders of Jesus' day, they were so passionate about God that they missed the point.

So much so that when they're the God that they were so passionate about, the very God that they were so zealous about was standing right in front of them, they couldn't even recognize him.

You think about it, it's crazy.

The people who murdered Jesus, the people who killed God, were the people who were the most enthusiastic about God.

What does that tell us about passion and zeal?

You know, Jesus He tried to warn them on multiple occasions.

Matthew chapter 15, for example.

Matthew 15 · chapter mention

It says some of the Pharisees and teachers of religious law now arrived from Jerusalem to see Jesus.

They asked him, Why do your disciples disobey our age-old tradition?

For they ignore our tradition of ceremonial hand washing before they eat.

Jesus replied, and why do you, by your traditions, violate the direct commandments of God?

For instance, God says, honor your father and mother, and anyone who speaks disrespectfully of your father and mother must be put to death.

A lot of children are like, I'm glad that's not a thing anymore.

But you say it is all right for people to say to their parents, sorry, I can't help you, for I have vowed to give to God what I would have given to you.

In this way, you say they don't need to honor their parents, and so you cancel the word of God for the sake of your own tradition.

You hypocrites.

Isaiah was right when he prophesied about you, for he wrote, These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.

Their worship is a farce, for they teach man-made ideas as commands from God.

Jesus didn't hold back.

Matthew chapter 23.

Matthew 23 · chapter mention

He said, What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees, hypocrites, for you are careful to tithe even the tiniest income from your herb gardens.

But you ignore the more important aspects of the law, justice, mercy, and faith.

You should tithe, yes, but you're not to neglect the more important things.

Blind guides.

You strain your water so you won't accidentally swallow a gnat, but you swallow a camel.

There were certain foods and animals that the Jewish people are not allowed to eat, and a gnat was the smallest of unclean animals, and a camel was the largest.

And so Jesus is taking a play on that.

Like you try so hard not to break the tiniest law, and yet you're missing the entire point.

You're doing the worst thing.

He says, What sorrow awaits you teachers of religious law and you Pharisees, hypocrites?

For you're so careful to clean the outside of the cup and the dish, but inside you're filthy, full of greed and self-indulgence.

You blind Pharisee, first wash the inside of the cup and the dish, and then the outside will become clean too.

So Jesus is constantly telling these people, hey, you've missed the point.

You're passionate about God, yes.

You're zealous about God, yes.

But your zeal has blinded you, your passion has led you in the wrong direction so far that you've missed the point entirely.

You don't even understand what God values and what he cares about.

They didn't like when Jesus said these things.

So they they killed him, thinking that would solve their problem.

That backfired pretty hard.

But this is something that Paul is addressing here in Romans 10, how easily passion for God can actually lead us in the wrong direction.

In Romans chapter 9, he explained it this way.

Romans 9 · chapter mention

You guys can put that on the screens.

Why not?

He says, because they pursue it.

He's talking about why did they miss it?

Why do they miss Jesus?

He says, because they pursued it not by faith, but as if it were by works.

They stumbled over the stumbling stone, basically saying that Jesus became like a stumbling block to them.

That they couldn't recognize him, they they tripped over him because Jesus is someone who forced them to look God in the eye.

I mean, think about that.

Sometimes when my kids are out of line, I force them to look me in the eye.

They don't like doing that, they don't like it at all.

I won't name which one likes it the least, but it's one of my boys.

I got three.

And so I will make this child get down on his level, and I'm like, look me in the eye.

And sometimes he will just be like this.

Like he will not do it.

Jesus forced people to look God in the eye.

And so here they are standing face to face with a God who they say they're zealous about and they hate him.

They tripped over him.

Their passion wasn't it wasn't enough.

And I think it's a it's a really important cautionary tale.

Because we value passion so often, but maybe we overvalue it sometimes.

I've seen this happen in church many times.

I've seen people who have had an experience with God and they put their faith in him and they become really passionate really fast, but that passion all of a sudden turns to like they judge other people and no one else is good enough for them, and no one else takes their faith seriously enough, and all of a sudden they've gone from someone who just received this amazing experience with God to someone who's looking around and being like, you're not good enough, you're not good enough, and it's like, God, uh, your passion is leading you in the wrong direction.

Because zeal and passion can it can be blinding.

See, very often it's it's a short walk from passion to pride.

It's a very short walk sometimes from passion to pride.

And pride, if pride becomes part of our hearts, it's like it dries up all the good stuff.

Compassion goes away, giving people slack, giving people grace, like that goes away, and we become harsh and bitter.

Passion can become pride very, very quickly.

And what we have to realize is that God despises pride.

Scripture actually says he opposes the proud, but he honors the humble.

I've thought about that a lot this week because as I kept reading this and praying about it, just that that phrase, misdirected zeal, it kept jumping into my mind.

Like, zeal, isn't zeal a good thing?

In fact, we have a song that we sing on Sunday sometimes called Zeal.

And when our our first worship album comes out on Spotify, which is taking a little longer than we wanted it to, because you know, there's all kinds of stuff you gotta do for that.

We're working on it.

Like zeal, we have a that song.

We did like a cover of that song on that album.

We we like zeal.

Like we're we're a passionate church.

I think we're a pretty passionate church.

Anyone agree?

Are we passionate sometimes?

We get passionate, not that passionate, I guess, but you know, yeah, we're we're kind of passionate.

You know, passion's a good thing, right?

It is, but but apparently it's it's not enough.

In fact, it can be dangerous because it can lead us in the wrong direction.

So I've been praying this week.

Okay, Lord, if if zeal and passion is not the condition of our heart that puts us in the best possible place to experience you the way that we're meant to experience you, then what is it?

Then then what is it?

What is a condition of Our heart that can keep us humble, that can keep us from becoming people, we begin to believe that it's somehow our passion, our our efforts that are winning us your favor.

Zeal makes a lot of sense if you believe that you have to win God's favor.

But if God gives you his favor out of love, how do you how do you experience that?

So I was praying about that this week, and I'm like, Lord, like what is that?

Because I I want that.

I want to be safeguarded from being so passionate that I go in the wrong direction.

And it's a really simple idea.

Like, what do you do when someone gives you a gift and you receive it?

What do you say to them?

Thank you.

It's gratitude.

Gratitude.

See, the people of Israel, at the time of Jesus, at least the religious leaders and the ones who were really calling the shots, they they they had drifted away from an attitude of rhyme, attitude of gratitude.

That's really cheesy.

Um, they had drifted away from that.

And instead of having a heart that just said, thank you, God, for for picking us, who are we?

You know, who am I?

Who am I to be your son?

Who am I to be to be someone that you would choose to use?

Who am I?

I'm not worthy.

Instead of having that kind of heart, they had gotten to the place where they were like, you know who we are.

You know, we're the children of Abraham.

And we keep the law, and we do this, and we do that, and therefore God is with us.

That pride had swelled up.

But gratitude.

If we approach God with gratitude, it prevents us from ever having misdirected zeal.

It keeps our passion moving in the right direction.

We are constantly expressing our gratitude toward God.

And we see this in scripture all the time.

Colossians 4 2 says, Devote yourselves to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart.

Psalm 106, 1.

Praise the Lord.

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good, his faithful love endures forever.

Hebrews 12, 28.

Since we're receiving a kingdom that is unshakable, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping him with holy fear and awe.

Let's be thankful and please God.

Psalm 69, 30 says, Then I will praise God's name with singing, I will honor him with thanksgiving.

Colossians 3.16, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs with thankfulness in your heart.

With thankfulness in your heart toward God.

You know, this Sunday is the Sunday before Thanksgiving.

And it's really funny because I thought about doing a Thanksgiving message.

And then I was looking at the calendar and I was looking at what we have left in this series, and you know, Christmas coming up and wanting to start something fresh in January, and I'm like, ah, there's just sorry Lord, there's not time for a Thanksgiving message before Thanksgiving.

You know?

Should have let me know sooner.

And as I prayed about it, I'm serious, it wasn't forced.

I was like, Lord, what what is the condition of the heart that would prevent us from being the wrong kind of passionate, the wrong kind of zeal of gratitude?

Oh yeah, like Thanksgiving.

Thanks, Lord.

You know?

I'm slow sometimes.

It is so vital that we are thankful on a regular basis to God.

Because it's impossible to be grateful and proud at the same time, right?

It's impossible to have this spirit of gratitude where you're just you're beaming, you're expressing how thankful you are to God and all he's done for you and all he will do and can do, and at the same time being really puffed up, like, yeah, I'm doing it all.

It just doesn't work.

Gratitude, it protects us from that.

And so this morning I want us just to consider three aspects of gratitude as we wrap up and encourage and challenge us to actually spend some time this morning in prayer, expressing these to God.

Here in a few minutes, we're gonna have a little bit of time where we get a little quiet, and you're already quiet, so it'll be me that gets quiet.

And uh and we just pray a little bit and put this into practice because here we have the space and the time to actually do what we're we're talking about doing.

Three aspects of gratitude, really simple.

Number one, we've got to be grateful for what God has already done.

Constantly remembering what has he done in our lives?

Philippians chapter 4, verse 6 says, Don't worry about anything, instead, pray about everything.

Philippians 4:6

Tell God what you need and thank him for all he has done.

Now, this is actually something that's really challenging for the way that we typically interact with God as people today.

But it's something that the people of Israel actually understood much better than we could.

If you read the the Old Testament, the history of that group of people, and even the way that they would talk about God in the New Testament, they would very often refer to God as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

You've probably read that if you've read much scripture, where they'll say the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Why?

This would be hundreds of years after those people lived and died.

Because they had this deep connection as a group of people that they were part of a story that had started long before.

And that their God had done things before they had ever breathed, before they had ever existed, before they had been on the earth.

God had already done things.

He had already been faithful.

He'd already showed up for their for their ancestors, for their great-grandparents, and their great-grandparents before them.

And they lived conscious of the fact that God has been doing things to bless people for all of human history.

It's not just our little timeline.

And sometimes we have such an individualistic approach to God that we can only wrap our heads around what God has done for us.

We don't think about what he's done before us.

And that that puts a real limit on how much gratitude we can experience.

That's why we talked a few weeks ago about how important it is for us to realize that something Paul talked about in these chapters is that anyone who puts their faith in Jesus becomes a child of God, a child of Abraham, is the language that Paul used, which means that we can now look at all these stories in scripture and that that's our history.

Those are our ancestors.

So can I actually be grateful for what God did for those people then?

Can I be grateful that God led the people of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, even though that was long before me?

You know, can I be grateful for the miracles that God did to rescue the people of Israel and all the stories that I read in the Old Testament?

Can I read those and actually express it as gratitude like it applies to me?

Because it does, because where would I be if God hadn't done that?

How would I have a chance to know Jesus if God hadn't done the things that he did centuries ago?

I think it's important for us as people to remember that our God is the God, not just of today.

He's not a newly invented God.

That our God has been active and working in the hearts of people and doing things that only God can do for centuries.

And we've got to thank him for all that he's done in our lives, but even before our lives.

To have that that kind of gratitude for what God has done in the past.

Your past and beyond.

Like what's something that God's done in your life?

Even if you have to think really far back, like just one moment that you're grateful for.

You're grateful that God.

I'm grateful that we moved from Memphis, Tennessee to Atlanta, Georgia.

I really didn't want to.

It was my sophomore year of high school.

I'd gone to three schools in eighth grade, two schools in seventh grade, and I finally had a year and a half at one place.

Ninth grade to the middle of tenth grade, and my dad said, hey, we're moving again.

And I was mad.

But we moved here.

I met my wife.

I met the people that mentored me, that ended up bringing me to his hands.

Changed my life.

I'm grateful that God did that.

I'm grateful that God answered my prayer with no.

What are you grateful for?

What has God done?

Because even if it's a situation that didn't like work out, there were still hardships because of it.

Can you look back and say, I'm grateful for those moments?

I'm grateful for that I had that year.

That was a good year.

What about your parents?

Or your grandparents?

Is there anything that you can look at that that God did in their lives that you can be grateful for?

Take time to really think about all that you have to thank God for.

And don't limit it just to your time on this earth.

Think about what happened before you ever got here that God did so that you could be in the place that you are right now.

We thank him for what he's done.

Number two, we thank him for what he's doing.

God is always doing something.

He's always active.

And it's actually a discipline to learn to thank God for what he is currently doing, even when you can't see it.

There's actually a really interesting story in the Old Testament about a guy named Jehoshaphat.

He was a king.

He was a king.

I'm gonna read this.

This is a big section.

But what's happened in this story is that Jehoshaphat has just learned that uh a couple of armies are marching against him.

Moab and Ammon and some other some other people in this area are coming after Jehoshaphat.

He is the king of Judah, which was uh part of Israel, but Israel and Judah had kind of a break-off.

And so you had Israel and Judah, and uh and Jehoshaphat is the king of Judah.

So it says Jehoshaphat was terrified by this news, and he begged the Lord for guidance.

He also ordered everyone in Judah to begin fasting.

So people from all the towns of Judah came to Jerusalem to seek the Lord's help.

Jehoshaphat stood before the community of Judah and Jerusalem in front of the new courtyard of the temple, and he prayed, O Lord, God of our ancestors, you alone are the God who is in heaven.

You are ruler of all the kingdoms of the earth, you are powerful and mighty, no one can stand against you, O our God.

Did you not drive out those who lived in this land when your people of Israel arrived?

He's thinking about the past.

He's remembering what God has done.

This is important.

And did you not give this land forever to the descendants of your friend Abraham?

Your people settled here and built this temple to honor your name.

They said, whenever we're faced with any calamity such as war, plague, or famine, we can come to stand in your presence before this temple where your name is honored.

We can cry out to you to save us, and you will hear us and rescue us.

And now we see that the armies of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, we see what they're doing.

You would not let our ancestors invade those nations when Israel left Egypt.

So they went around them and did not destroy them.

Now see how they reward us?

For they have come to throw us out of your land, which you gave us as an inheritance.

O our God, won't you stop them?

We are powerless against this mighty army that is about to attack us.

We do not know what to do, but we're looking to you for help.

And as all the men of Judah stood before the Lord with their little ones, wives, and children, the Spirit of the Lord came upon one of the men standing there.

His name was Jehaziel, the son of Zechariah, son of Benaniah, son of Jael, son of Mataniah, probably got those wrong, a Levite who is a descendant of Asaph.

He said, Listen, all you people of Judah and Jerusalem.

Listen, King Jehoshaphat.

This is what the Lord says.

Do not be afraid, do not be discouraged by this mighty armor army, for the battle is not yours, but the Lord's.

It's God's.

Tomorrow, march out against them.

You will find them coming up through the ascent of Ziz, at the end of the valley that opens into the wilderness of Jerul.

But you will not even need to fight.

Take your positions and stand and watch the Lord's victory.

He is with you, O people of Judah and Jerusalem.

Do not be afraid or discouraged.

Go out against them tomorrow, for the Lord is with you.

And then King Jehoshaphat bowed low with his face to the ground, and all the people of Judah and Jerusalem did the same, worshiping the Lord.

Then the Levites from the clans of Kohath and Korah stood to praise the Lord, the God of Israel, with a very loud shout.

Early the next morning, the army of Judah went out into the wilderness of Tokoah, and on the way Jehoshaphat stopped and said, Listen to me, all you people of Judah and Jerusalem, believe in the Lord your God, and you will be able to stand firm.

Believe in his prophets, and you will succeed.

After consulting the people, the king appointed singers to walk ahead of the army, singing to the Lord and praising him for his holy splendor.

And this is what they sang.

Give thanks to the Lord.

His faithful love endures forever.

And at that very moment they began to sing and give praise.

The Lord caused the armies of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir to start fighting among themselves.

And before it's all said and done, the armies completely defeat one another, and the Israelites don't even have to lift a finger.

Now I picked a lot of scripture there, and I slightly regret it because there were a lot of words that I know I mispronounced.

But I'm grateful for you overlooking that.

But this story is so powerful to me because, number one, you see everything that we're talking about up to this point, that Jehoshaphat, this king, he's so wise.

That when he's faced with a problem, what he begins with is remembering what God has already done.

And he expresses gratitude for that.

And he recognizes that.

And then when the Lord says, Hey, I'm going to give you victory, he doesn't wait until that's done to begin thanking God for it.

They begin to praise God and worship God before God's even done what he said he's gonna do.

That doesn't make sense to us, right?

You're supposed to wait until the victory happens before you celebrate the victory.

But they they don't wait.

And he appoints these people to sing and he sends them out in front of the army and they they start singing, hey, give thanks to God.

They're saying, Thank you, God, and nothing's happened yet.

But I don't think it's a coincidence that it's as they're saying thank you to God that God comes through for them.

Not that they earned it, it wasn't like they said the magic words, but but they were thanking God for what he was doing at that moment.

We have to remember that right now, God is doing something.

You might be in a really tough situation right now, you might be in crisis right now, your heart might be broken right now, you might be confused, you might be afraid, you might be like Jehoshaphat, and you have no idea how you're gonna get out of this or how you're gonna get through it.

You can actually begin thanking God right now for what he's doing.

Because count on this, God is doing something.

God is always active, he is always working, he never sleeps, he never slumbers.

When you're when you're asleep at night, God is working, he is active.

And we can thank him for that.

We thank God for what he's done.

We think back as far as we can.

I love that Jehosaphat did that.

I love that he's like pushing himself to go way, way, way back.

All the things that God has done, and he thanks God for that.

But then he begins to thank God for what he's doing right now.

That takes faith, but it's powerful.

We thank him for what he's done, we thank him for what he's doing, but also, guys, we thank him for what he hasn't done yet, for what he will do, even when what he will do may be far in the distance.

And this is this is where the rubber meets the road sometimes.

Because sometimes we find ourselves in situations that are really difficult and hard, and it's gonna be hard for a while.

You know, not every situation in life has a quick fix, not every struggle in our lives has a light that's that's at the end of the tunnel and it's really close.

Sometimes the tunnel's long.

Sometimes the challenges last for a really long time.

And I would be a liar if I tried to speak otherwise.

Sometimes there's this version of, in fact, Megan was talking about this this week, this idea of like sunny Christianity where it's it's all positive all the time, there's never any hardship.

I don't read the scriptures and see that.

You know, David, who wrote many of the Psalms, he wrote, Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will not fear evil, for I know God is with me.

David had some long valleys in his life.

He had years that he slept in caves because he was being hunted by the king of Israel who felt threatened by him.

It wasn't a weekend that was really hard.

It wasn't a couple days, it was it was years, it was a whole season of his life.

And sometimes we go through really hard seasons.

And in those moments we have to thank God for what he's done, we have to thank him for what he's doing, because even right now he's giving us the strength, but but we've got to thank God for what he's going to do, even if what he's going to do is years down the road, because it will happen, we will get there, and it will be worth the wait.

In fact, in Revelation chapter 21, verse 4, it gives us exactly what God will ultimately do.

Revelation 21:4

Is he will wipe every tear from their eyes?

There will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain.

All these things are gone forever.

When I wipe the tears from my children's eyes, I know that those are not the last tears they will shed.

Because that's not the way life works.

But guys, one day there will be a day when the Lord will wipe the final tears you will ever shed from your eyes.

And there will be no more tears after that.

There will be no more sorrow, there will be no more pain.

That is where everything is headed, that is where everything is moving.

Jesus' victory on the cross, that was just the beginning.

He will conquer all, he will have victory over everything, he will defeat death once and for all.

And there is a day in all of our futures where there is no sorrow, there is no pain, where the final tear is shed and it's done.

It's done.

And we've got to thank him.

We've got to thank him.

On this side of that, if you're in a valley, if you're in a real struggle right now, if you're in a very dark place, first of all, know that God sees you and he hurts with you and he has compassion for you.

And he cries with you and he weeps with you.

And know that he's going to be with you in that valley every step of the way, no matter how long that valley is.

But thank him for the fact that that valley will be over one day.

And you will come out the other side of it, and you will be stronger, you'll be closer to him, you'll have a greater peace than you've ever had before, and you will be someone who he can use to help other people who are going through the same thing.

Thank him for that, because it will happen.

He's faithful.

Zeal, passion for God is a good thing.

But it's not enough.

It can lead us in the wrong direction if it's not tempered by gratitude.

And so, what I'd like us to do, if if guys, if you could bring the lights in the room down just a little bit, I'd like us to take two, three minutes and just and pray.

And the same goes for the lights on the stage, if you don't mind.

I'd like us to pray.

And just trust that even right now, God's gonna meet us where we're at.

And we're gonna spend some time right now, just a few minutes, but we're gonna pray and thank God.

And this is just time that you have with Him.

So I encourage you to take advantage of it.

You guys can bring Him down.

I faked you out.

I'm sorry.

I don't need the lights on me even when I talk, though.

You're good, you're good.

So let's pray.

Let's do this.

Father God, we come to you this morning right now to pray, to thank you for what you've done.

I pray over these next few minutes that you would bring to our minds, every single one of us, make it personal for us, Lord.

Bring to each of our minds something that you've done for us.

Maybe something that even pre-existed us, Lord, that we can express gratitude to you about.

Let's take that time and thank him for what he's done right now.

Lord, not only do we thank you for what you've done in the past, but we thank you for what you're doing right now.

And we ask that you would remind us that even right now, in this very moment, in these very seconds, you are active, you are working.

You're working out your plans for our lives.

You make us promises, that you say that you work all things together, the good and the bad.

You work it all together for the good of those who love you and are called according to your purpose.

So, Lord, give us a spirit of gratitude right now.

Help us be truly grateful and express what you're doing, even if we don't know what it is.

Let's thank him for what he's doing right now.

Lord, we thank you in this moment for what you will do, for all you will do.

We thank you, Jesus, that one day you will wipe every tear from our eyes.

That you will right every wrong, every injustice will be corrected.

Everything that is broken will be put back together.

Every hurt will be healed.

Everything that has been robbed and stolen will be restored.

We thank you for that day.

Lord, help us remember that it's coming.

Even if it's a long way out, we thank you, and we will wait.

Thank you so much, Father God, for all that you're doing in this place right now.

You know what we need.

Lord, you know what we need to hear.

I pray that you speak to every single person in this room, everybody watching from home as well, Lord, that you would just speak the words that we need to hear this morning.

That you would comfort us, encourage us, spur us on, strengthen us, embolden us, Lord.

But let us be people, God, who, while yes we have zeal, yes we have passion, that it's constantly tempered and shaped by our gratitude toward you.

That we never forget that it's by your grace alone that we're saved.

It's not what we do, it's not our efforts, it's not how often we attend church.

It's not, it's not all the steps of obedience that we take while important.

Yes, God, at the end of the day, everything that we experience from you comes from your hand.

It's a gift given, it's not a wage earned.

And we pray, Lord, that you fill us with gratitude so that we can constantly receive from you and thank you.

So that our passion, our zeal is never misdirected.

We love you so much, Jesus.

We praise you, we thank you.

Amen.

Amen.