Joseph-Dreams and Gratitude

God is love.

That is the most amazing thing, you know, and that's why we can all be together with such uh joy in his presence.

Uh knowing that uh that he loves us, that he's not mad at us, that he's not giving up on us, you know, and and we can experience his uh his love and a close relationship with us.

Loves us so much he uh wants to adopt us as his uh very own children.

Well, it's great being together.

What a beautiful day it is uh today.

Um but uh if you're here for the first time, welcome.

Uh it's to me it's always scary or was going to a church for the first time, and it's partly because I'm introvert introverted, but partly because I just never knew you know what to expect.

So congratulations on your bravery.

I hope you can uh tell that you can just uh be yourself.

Last week we talked about uh three ministries that we're excited to get to partner with this year: um the Cherokee Family Violence Center, the Hope Center, and Papa's Pantry.

And so we get to help them um financially by sharing part of our uh giving with them and uh in different ways.

We've got an opportunity uh with Papa's Pantry coming up a week from Friday.

We probably aren't aware, or some of us um are, I'm sure, but uh you know in this county uh a pretty high percentage, like 20 percent of the people, um, are hungry and don't have enough to eat.

And what Papa's Pantry does is feeds the hungry, and not only that, but just uh trains people and so they you know don't stay hungry and so they can uh have a job and and uh provide for themselves and eventually uh share with others.

So it's a great ministry, and they're having a fundraiser, it's gonna be here over on the youth side, it's a week from um Friday, March 8th, and it's called uh Bella Note, and as you can tell, I speak fluent Italian, and I'm pretty sure that means beautiful night.

And uh and so that's what uh it's gonna be.

It's gonna be an Italian dinner with uh they're gonna have music and entertainment and just a great time for a great cause.

And uh they're here this morning and uh we'll be selling tickets in the lobby afterwards, and they are$35 per person or$60 for a couple.

If you wanted, you could buy a whole table for eight uh and that it's uh$225.

And so that'll be a fun night and uh and a great way to help uh support Papa's pantry.

All right, let's pray.

So, Father, we praise you.

We do thank you for for being love.

You are love, and we just praise you and and worship you and thank you for that.

Thanks for adopting us as your as your children.

And Holy Spirit, we thank you for being our uh comforter, but also being our counselor.

And we just ask you to teach us this morning that uh each of us uh could leave with something that we knew was for us specifically uh from you.

And so we praise you and thank you for that.

And Jesus, we thank you for showing us um what uh God is like, what love looks like, and most of all for saving us.

And it's in your name we pray.

Amen.

So we are right in the middle of a look at a great story from the Bible.

It's a true story, it's a it's a biography.

Uh most of us have a general sense of the story or even know the story well.

It's the story of Joseph.

And uh Joseph was loved by his father, you know, probably uh uh in some ways uh too much, and just the way that that Jacob would spoil Joseph when he was young.

Um but when we think of Joseph, we think often of the of the gift that Jacob gave him, which is he had a custom, he had a robe custom-made for him.

And it wasn't just any robe, it was a robe that was beautiful with all different colors, kind of like the background um this morning.

And it was the type of robe that a prince or a king would wear.

And so he gave that to Joseph, and one of the reactions to that was from Joseph's brothers, who were uh very jealous of Joseph.

And they were really uh partly estranged from their dad, and his brothers really weren't uh nice guys uh either.

And so they ended up plotting to kill Joseph, and at the last minute decided not to kill him, but just to sell him into slavery.

And so they sold him to uh a man named Potiphar.

Potiphar was the head of the Secret Service uh in Egypt.

He his job was to protect uh the Pharaoh, and it was uh, you know, he had a ton of responsibility and it was a prestigious uh uh job.

And Joseph, I mean, served Potiphar well.

He worked hard, he accepted responsibility.

If it was, you know, his area, he he absolutely owned it, ended up taking care of everything, uh, and becoming Potiphar's personal assistant.

He had great integrity.

Uh he was loyal to Potiphar, but he was also loyal to God.

And uh God blessed Potiphar and and his whole household and everything because really because of uh Joseph.

Um but still uh there was a time when Potiphar's wife became obsessed with uh with Joseph and was constantly propositioning him.

And she eventually got upset at uh being spurned, I guess, and um accused him of trying to rape her.

And so Potiphar uh threw Joseph in prison.

Now he probably would have, if he, if he totally believed the story, he probably would have had Joseph killed, because that's one of was one of his roles.

He was the chief uh executioner in Egypt.

But instead he throws him in prison.

And that's where we left him last week.

The last two weeks we've left Joseph in pretty bad places.

Uh bottom of a well in prison.

We're gonna do it to him again this morning.

Uh but next week we're gonna break him out and everything will be fine.

Um But here's Joseph.

For eight or nine years, he's served God, he's he's uh been loyal, uh, greatly served uh Potiphar, and now he's alone.

Now he's in in uh prison again.

And so we finished last week with the question of well, where's God in Joseph's life?

I mean, how is it all working out uh for Joseph?

And we saw in the very neck in the very next verse it says, But the Lord was with Joseph in the prison and showed him his faithful love.

And the Lord made Joseph a favorite with the prison warden.

Before long, the warden put Joseph in charge of all the other prisoners and over everything that happened in the prison.

The warden had no more worries because Joseph took care of everything.

The Lord was with him and caused everything he did to succeed.

You know, we talked a little bit last week about how we can ask God for favor, and this is you know uh one example of how God does that.

He made Joseph a favorite uh with the head of the um prison.

And so Joseph's in charge again, now over the prison, and it kind of sets the stage for the next chapter of Genesis, but also uh the next chapter in Joseph's life.

It says, sometime later, Pharaoh's chief cupbearer and chief baker offended the royal master.

Pharaoh became angry with these two officials, and he put them in the prison where Joseph was, in the palace of the captain of the guard.

That's Potiphar's palace.

He's the captain of the guard.

And they remained in prison for quite some time, and the captain of the guard assigned them to Joseph, who looked after them.

And so it's the chief baker and the chief cupbearer, and they get thrown in prison, which means those cupcakes must have been horrible.

Um But they're probably, besides that, which I'm pretty sure is true, um, there must have been some sort of plot, you know, to uh to overthrow Pharaoh, because uh the prison they put him in is the prison of the man who's in charge of uh keeping Pharaoh safe from those type of uh plots.

And and both their roles are important roles, serving Pharaoh directly.

I mean, the the baker would be like the uh the executive chef at the White House, you know, it's it's a prestigious um position.

The cupbearer was kind of part uh sommier and uh and part bodyguard.

And so he would pick the wine uh for Pharaoh, but then he had kind of a unique uh job, and that's um he would drink the wine, uh a sip of it before handing the cup to Pharaoh, which might sound like a good gig, except he drank it to see if it was poisoned.

And so he would have a drink, and then the Pharaoh would watch him, and if he doesn't drop dead, then uh they knew that the wine was uh fine and uh and he wouldn't be poisoned.

Um there's a famous cupbearer in the Bible, uh I'm sure you know who that is.

Anybody?

It's uh Nehemiah.

That was was his job.

He was the cupbearer to the king, and it was why he was in position, you know, another person who asked God for favor, he prayed for favor with the king, and so he asked the king for his help, and the king helped him and then also helped him in a lot uh more ways uh than he even uh asked.

And so the baker and the cupbearer are both in prison with Joseph.

And it goes on.

While they're in prison, the Pharaoh's cupbearer and baker each had a dream one night, and each dream had its own meaning.

When Joseph saw them the next morning, he noticed that they both looked upset.

Why do you look so worried today?

He asked them.

And they replied, this is one thing we're gonna see about Joseph, how uh we'll talk about it in a little bit, but he just wasn't focused on himself.

He wasn't bitter and and uh despondent.

You know, he's actually worried about these other uh two people.

Why do you look so um sad?

And they replied, we both had dreams last night, but no one can tell us what they mean.

Interpreting dreams is God's business, Joseph replied.

Go ahead and tell me your dreams.

You know, God can give us all dreams.

We'll talk about that uh in a minute.

Sometimes we know exactly what a dream uh means.

Sometimes we might not know it all, and and we'll share it with someone else, and God will show them, give them an interpretation for the dream.

And uh and so Joseph says, you know, only God can interpret dreams.

It reminds me of uh Daniel.

You know, he Nebuchadnezzar had a dream that nobody could interpret, and um, he was the king of Babylon, and and so they call in Daniel, and the king says, Can you interpret um my dream?

And in fact, he tested Daniel because he asked him to give an interpretation before he told him uh the dream.

And so Daniel said, Of course I can't do that.

But then he said, But there is a God in heaven.

And and he asked God for the interpretation, and God uh gave that to him, and that ended up changing uh Daniel's life.

And Joseph's not surprised because he had two important dreams, you know, when when he was a uh a teenager.

And so the chief cupbearer told Joseph his dream first.

In my dream, he said, I saw a grapevine in front of me.

The vine had three branches that began to bud and blossom, and soon it produced clusters of ripe grapes.

I was holding Pharaoh's wine cup in my hand, and so I took a cup cluster of grapes and squeezed the juice into the cup.

Then I placed the cup in Pharaoh's hand.

This is what the dream means, Joseph said.

The three branches represent three days.

Within three days, Pharaoh will lift you up and restore you to your position as his chief cupbearer.

And so Joseph asked the cupbearer for a favor.

And he says, And please remember me and do me a favor when things go well for you.

Mentioned me to Pharaoh so he might let me out of this place.

You know, I was kidnapped from my homeland, the land of the Hebrews, and now I'm here in prison, but I did nothing to deserve it.

And so that's good news for the cupbearer.

And not only is he excited, but the baker's excited, because he just got to hear the good news for the uh cupbearer.

And so when the chief baker saw that Joseph had given the first dream such a positive interpretation, he said to Joseph, I had a dream too.

In my dream there were three baskets of white pastry stacked on my head.

The top basket contained all kinds of pastries for Pharaoh, but the birds came and ate them from the basket on my head.

This is what the dream means, Joseph told him.

The three baskets also represent three days.

Three days from now, Pharaoh will lift you up and impel your body on a pole.

Then the birds will come and peck away at your flesh.

Ouch.

Um at least he knew.

You know, at least he had three days to get prepared.

Um, Pharaoh's birthday came three days later, and he prepared a banquet for all his officials and staff.

He summoned his chief cupbearer and chief baker to join the other officials.

He then restored the chief cupbearer to his former position so he could again hand Pharaoh his cup.

But Pharaoh impaled the chief baker, just as Joseph had predicted when he interpreted his dream.

Pharaoh's chief cupbearer, however, forgot all about Joseph, never giving him another thought.

So this week we're going to talk about two themes that kind of run throughout uh Joseph's life.

The first is dreams, and the second is just how Joseph uh chose a response to adversity, which he certainly faced uh at different times in his life.

Now, God speaks to us a lot of different ways.

I mean, first and foremost, first and foremost through his word.

You know, I don't know if you've ever done like a one-year Bible or done a reading plan or something like that where you're reading the Bible a little bit every day.

It's uh shocking how often uh God will use a verse to just jump out at us, you know, and speak to us about something that's going on in our lives that day, a situation that could be um anything.

God uh sometimes gives us pictures, speak to us that way.

You know, I was thinking about um Megan McTear because uh been in a group praying where that she was in, and twice in the last month, uh two different times, God showed her a picture.

And it was a very meaningful uh a very meaningful thing.

Um God speaks to us through music, he'll speak to us through art, he'll speak to us through other people.

And one way that God's always spoken to people is through dreams.

And uh I'm not a dream expert by any means.

In fact, you're about to see that as true.

Um I call dreams soul dreams and God dreams.

And I learned that from Susan, I think.

I wouldn't have thought of that myself.

But um a soul dream comes from its side.

Excuse me, like pulled a Marco Rubio right there.

But um anyway, that was just I guess for my own amusement.

Um where was I?

Soul dreams.

Okay, our soul, sometimes we think of it as a Christianese type of word, but it it's really a describer of what's inside us.

It's our personality, you know, it it's um it's our memories, it's uh um our fears, it's our emotions.

Uh all that go up, you know, uh to make our uh our soul.

And most dreams are soul dreams, you know, where it's something inside of us and and it comes out in a in a dream.

Um if I'm concerned about work, you know, maybe I'm I'm just working a lot or I'm thinking about uh work, then I might have a dream that has something to do uh with work.

In Ecclesiastics 5.3, it says, too much activity gives you restless dreams.

Too many words make you a fool.

But just because soul dreams don't come directly from God, it doesn't mean that God can't use them.

In fact, a lot of times he can.

Uh Joseph's gonna, next week we're gonna see Joseph uh, he gets to interpret a dream for Pharaoh.

And Joseph makes the point.

He says, you know, pay special attention to recurring dreams.

Um and and the Pharaoh had a recurring um dream.

Um some dreams can be exciting, some can be nightmarish, some can be weird.

Um, but we shouldn't just ignore them because it might be helpful because it actually might reveal something that's in our soul, you know, something that that we need to uh uh speak the truth to ourselves about or uh work on um in some way, or maybe just get out in some way.

I had one um I've really had two recurring dreams uh in my life, and they both are kind of uh fear-based.

Um I'm only gonna tell you one of them.

The uh but the one's kind of funny or sad or weird, depending on how you look at it.

But I started having this dream about seven years ago, and it lasted for about five years, and I'd I'd have it, I mean, all the time, maybe uh a couple times a month.

And I'd be at a church, and I knew it was his hands, even though it was never this building.

It was always a building that I went to church at as a kid, or went to a wedding at or maybe just saw.

And and here's what the dream was every time.

Worship was gone, it was 10:30, and I had nothing to share.

And um, and I would just like wake up in a panic.

I mean, literally, like like stressed and and in a panic.

And so, you know, you can probably interpret that dream, but the truth is I, you know, I I get nervous speaking in front of people, and um, and so I really fought that, especially at uh at first.

And so I would have this recurring dream, and it wasn't from God, he doesn't want me to be afraid or panicked, but it was something I could see, and so I could be like, okay, what's the what's the truth in this?

You know, well, it's part insecurity, and uh, but the other truth I can tell myself is hey, you know, it's God's church, he's gonna give you something to share.

You can you can trust him, and even if it comes out wrong or whatever, the Holy Spirit can uh translate and it'll uh it'll still be okay.

And so that's just an example, my example, of a soul dream that still God can use because it identifies something inside of us, and then we can deal with it or speak the truth to ourselves about it.

Um and then there are dreams where God will speak to us uh in our sleep.

And it could be to encourage us, it could be to um warn us, it might be to help us, it might you know be a course correction in our life.

It it could be anything.

In Joel 2, it says, Then after doing all those things, I will pour out my spirit upon all people.

Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, and your young men will see visions.

And he's talking about this time, he's talking about uh now.

And so um to a lot of us, or I don't know if a lot's the right word, um, to some of us, God will speak to us in dreams.

And it and if he doesn't, it's not something to get frustrated about, um, because he speaks to all of us in in different ways.

And um and often not that that often uh with a dream.

Like for me, I've had really three God dreams in my whole life.

And one was very impactful, and the other two were really more interesting, I guess.

Um the one I can remember um in detail.

Susan has dreams from God all the time.

In fact, I mean, I'd say three times a week, she'll say I had a dream, and I will always say, was it a soul dream or a god dream?

And um and then she'll uh tell me about them in great detail.

But um but as far as we know with uh Joseph, he only had two God dreams in his whole life.

The only two we know about were really the same dream, two different ways, um, when he was uh a teenager.

So a good friend of mine really wanted to have a dream, and he was frustrated because his wife would would um God would speak to her in dreams, you know, and so he really wanted uh to God to give him a dream.

And uh and God did.

And it reminded me of what Jesus said in in Luke uh 11 and verse 11.

It says, You fathers, if your children ask for fish, do you give them a snake instead?

Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion?

Of course not.

So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?

You know, and and and dreams come from the Holy Spirit.

And so that's one thing we can just ask for.

God, you know, I want I want to uh you to speak to me that way.

Or maybe even just God, I want to hear your voice um at all.

That's where I was for years.

I was like, man, I I can't even hear God.

And uh now I look back and I can see where God did speak to me.

I just didn't recognize um that it was Him.

But uh it's it's one thing that we can just ask.

God, I want to I want to hear you.

I want to hear your voice.

And um and He'll do that.

It's one thing that we can have other people pray with us about.

You know, uh Susan talked about uh what a wonderful prayer team we have, and there's always uh some people.

From the team in the prayer room afterwards on Sunday when we're done.

They're there for like 45 minutes or an hour or however long someone wants a prayer.

That's a great thing.

I did that once.

Just you know, pray with me.

I want to um I want to hear um God.

Sometimes God will share something with them to share with us too, which is uh is cool when that happens.

Um and so God's uh speaks to us in dreams sometimes.

The probably the the most I'm gonna tell you about a dream that had probably the most effect on me since um we started his hand.

Susan's had a couple of really important dreams.

God's given other people dreams, um like uh like Tim Rogers.

I see Carol, he's around.

Um but uh you know he's emailed a couple of dreams he's had.

In fact, Friday we were talking about uh a dream that he had, and just before I came up, he said, Hey, I I emailed you that dream this morning.

And uh they're always really impact impactful and important um to me.

Um the but the dream that has affected me the most profoundly was a dream right after we had uh decided to start the church.

And I've I've shared this I think at least once before.

Um but we had a company, we sold a company, we took the the proceeds and we bought this building.

And um, I should back up.

We weren't sure what we're gonna do with with uh after we sold the company.

I thought maybe Uganda, I had we had some different ideas, but then God spoke to uh Susan and I both, and by spoke to I mean he gave us a real strong impression that we were supposed to start a church.

And it really freaked us out because that's not what we uh um had wanted to do.

And um and so but he gave us the strength to do it.

And so we we bought this building, we um hired an architect and and uh designed the the renovation, and but still Susan and I had not shared the vision God had given us for his hands with anybody.

It was just uh only she and uh I, I guess the construction company and and the architect um knew about it.

And it was months before we ever met for the first time, which we did at uh at Dave and Buster's.

And so one day um Susan was uh having lunch with a friend, and another friend came along with her friend, which was a friend of ours that that we hadn't seen in years.

And so um she asked uh Susan what what she's up to, and she goes, Well, we haven't told many people this, but uh but Stephen, I think God wants us you know to start a church, and so that's what we're gonna do.

And and uh and Kelly is her name, she gets a kind of a really funny look on her face and she says, I had a dream about you guys starting a church uh two nights ago.

Tell me about the church.

And Susan did something really smart.

I would never be this smart.

Um but she said, No, tell tell me about the dream.

And and she asked her to write it down.

So she did.

She went back and then that night dropped it off um in our uh in our mailbox.

And so this is actually this is the dream.

Um and it was just so amazing because it again, Susan, I hadn't shared this with anybody, and but but the dream was just in great detail what his hands was was gonna be.

It described you all and such uh loving people and in a loving um place.

It it said things like uh um I know it's a church, but it it doesn't uh look like a church or really feel like a church, it's a whole new thing, and talked about impact on uh the community, talked about all kinds of different things that God had had uh uh uh shown Susan and I um as we got started.

Um she said things like she described this room, the big room, and uh she says uh and then God showed me the sanctuary, except I got a feeling you're not gonna call it a sanctuary.

And and the church they go to has a choir, and she actually made a d a drawing, and again no one could have known this, but we had already uh finalized what everything was gonna look like.

And she drew a picture, which you can't probably see, but it's a picture of the front of this big room exactly like it is, with uh steps in the front, with two screens on the side, with a uh drum kit exactly there, uh music stands, and it was just uh an incredible thing because it it described physically the church, it described kind of culturally, if you will, what uh what God wanted um the the church to be.

And the way this affected me was that it God used it to not allow me to quit because um it wasn't really what we wanted to do.

And now I'm thrilled, thank God He has us stretches us and has us do things that aren't our plan.

Um but I didn't want to do it.

And and and so there's times when I'd be like, uh, well, maybe that was just our imagination, you know, maybe that was just a ministerial seizure or or uh or something.

You know, maybe God was just testing us to see if we would be willing to do it, but he we didn't really have to do it.

And and so uh so usually about midnight on Saturday night when I wasn't sure what I was gonna talk about, um, you know, I'd be like, man, I just I I don't think God really wants us to do a church.

And every single time he would say, I mean not audibly, but I would hear his voice and it was always the same thing.

Well, what are you gonna do with Kelly's dream?

You know, because it was through that dream I could not uh rationalize.

I knew that it was something God wanted us to do.

I knew it was something that God wanted um me to do, and so I just couldn't uh get out of it.

And and so that particular dream, and and I don't want to quit now.

I mean it's rare when I do, but um the uh but he used that dream and he and but now it it's it's kind of different because it's a he used it for a while that way uh to reinforce that this was something God uh God was doing.

And and now he uses it to encourage me so I don't get uh you know have an unhealthy responsibility, sense of responsibility, or an unhealthy stress because it's God's church.

You know, it's not our church or even I mean it is our church, we are the church.

Um but it's something God's doing.

And so I can just relax and let him do his thing and try to stay out of the out of the way.

And uh but that dream is really um meant a lot uh to Susan and I.

And that's just an example, it's uh just one example.

Many of you could share examples in your lives of how God um can use a dream to encourage us and uh affect us in a big way.

And one small caution, uh in Joel in um where is it, Titus.

It uh Paul talks about um arrogant people that take authority because of their dreams.

And so one thing we never want to do is let someone else tell us what to do because of a dream that they had.

Uh so if I say, hey, I had a dream and you were married to this person, you know, don't run out and propose.

You know, you'd want you would want that confirmed uh in uh in different ways.

And so that's true with our lives.

God doesn't want us running each other's lives.

Uh, you know, it's uh it's God that we we look to.

And so but we shouldn't be scared of things like that.

You know, we can just uh uh if we have a dream or someone else has a dream, we can look for God to confirm it in a lot of different ways, you know, uh besides the specific dream.

Um but there's good dreams and there's bad dreams and there's uh soul dreams and and God dreams.

But God definitely uses dreams.

It's one of the ways that uh that He will speak to us.

And uh He uses them all.

Well, the thing I want to finish this morning with is really again, it's another kind of theme that runs throughout the the life of Joseph, and that's just his overall attitude.

Um and it's a great example for me and maybe an encouragement to to all of us, but he never complains, he never gets bitter, he wouldn't have wanted to quit on Saturday nights at midnight.

He would have been like, man, God's in this, you know?

And uh he's had such an overwhelming positive attitude.

Uh uh he forgives.

Uh you know, we'll see uh toward the end of the story, he gets reunited with his his brothers, and they think that he's going to uh take revenge on them.

And especially after his dad dies, Jacob, dies, now they think, okay, he's not, you know, maybe it was just because Jacob was alive, but now he's gonna kill us.

And and Joseph says, you know, what uh what you guys meant for evil, God turned into good.

You know, and that was just uh an overwhelming attitude of Joseph, seeing the best, uh, being positive.

And having a positive attitude is one of the absolute keys to having a life that's filled with joy.

It's one of the keys to having a successful uh career, being successful in school, it's a key to having uh a happy home life and and a happy marriage.

It's to have a positive attitude.

And so when we talk about positive attitude at church, I think there's just this general sense of you know, that's pop psychology or something, you know, it's it's uh this is church, you know, uh talking about a positive uh attitude.

But it it's it's not true.

I mean, a positive attitude, seeing things positively, looking for the best, is uh expressed over and over in the Bible as one of the keys to a uh to being what God created us uh to be.

In Psalms 118 it says, This is the day the Lord has made.

We will rejoice and be glad in it.

First uh Thessalonians says, Be cheerful no matter what.

Pray all the time, thank God no matter what happens.

This is the way God wants you who belong to Christ Jesus to live.

Philippians uh 4-8.

You know, the we got a great women's group uh that uh meets on Wednesday nights, and if you haven't been part of that, you could come this Wednesday.

But they're together going through a um book called uh 40 Days to a Joy-Filled Life that Tommy Newberry wrote.

And it's a great, great uh um book.

And it's kind of based, it's kind of a sequel, if you will, to uh a book that was a a bestseller called the 4-8 principle.

And it's based on this verse, Philippians 4-8.

That's the 4-8 uh principle.

And it says, summing it all up, friends, I'd say you do best by filling your minds and meditating on things true, noble, reputable, authentic, compelling, gracious, the best, not the worst, the beautiful, not the ugly, things to praise, not things to curse.

Put into practice what you learned from me, what you heard and saw and realized.

Do that, and God who makes everything work together will work you into his most excellent harmonies.

And the reason the Bible talks about it over and over is it's such a difficult thing to do.

You know, it's something that we have to really make an actual choice.

You know, choose to to see the best, choose to think about the best.

Think about you know, our million blessings, not our hundred problems.

And uh and it is difficult, and so we might need to know what keeps us in that frame of mind.

You know, it might it could be music, it could be books, it could be someone else holding us accountable.

We can hold each other accountable if we want, um, to try to see the best and think uh the best.

And one of the things that uh Tommy Newberry says in uh The 40 Days to a Joy Filled Life, he says, gratitude is a choice.

It's a conscious and deliberate decision to focus on life's blessings rather than life's shortcomings.

Life will always have shortcomings and it will always have virtues.

When you focus on your blessings, your life feels abundant.

When you focus on what's missing, life feels incomplete.

Where you put the spotlight of attention is purely a matter of choice.

The power of gratitude is undeniably immense.

Without a doubt, a perpetual spirit of thankfulness is the central ingredient in the recipe for a joy-filled life.

You're gonna draw more joy out of your business, out of your marriage, out of your family life, and out of all other aspects of your existence when you make a commitment to become an openly and overtly grateful person.

Um we don't have a last song this morning, and so instead uh we're actually going to finish with uh a video that I wanted to uh share with you.

It's not very long, and then we'll uh then we'll pray.

Um it's actually a video that Lisa shared with me uh a couple months ago, I think, or she uh she emailed it, and it's from a TED Talk.

It's one that Louis Schwartzberg did.

I don't know if you know what it what TED Talks are, but you can find them, you know, you can there are a lot of them are YouTube, and it's this pretty prestigious group of people that get together and then they have guests that are passionate for uh from all you know about all different things in life, from business people to authors, entertainers, filmmakers, which is uh what this person does.

Um and they have 30 minutes or less to share with their specific uh area.

And so it it's uh it's pretty cool.

But this was a uh was part of a TED talk um that Louis Schwartzberg uh did, and it it's a a short film he made and it's called Gratitude.

You think this is just another day in your life?

It's not just another day, it's the one day that is given to you today.

It's given to you.

It's a gift, it's the only gift that you have right now, and the only appropriate response is gratefulness.

If you do nothing else but to cultivate that response to the great gift that this unique day is, if you learn to respond as if it were the first day in your life and the very last day, you will have spent this day very well.

Begin by opening your eyes and be surprised that you have eyes you can open.

That incredible array of colors that is constantly offered to us from pure enjoyment.

Look at the sky.

We should really look at the sky.

We should really know what different it is from moment to moment and going.

We just think of the weather, and even of the weather, we don't think of what many nuances of weather.

We just think of good weather and bad weather.

This day right now is unique weather, maybe a kind that will never exactly in that form come again.

The formation of clouds in the sky will never be the same that is right now.

Open your eyes, look at that.

Look at the faces of people whom you meet.

Each one has an incredible story behind their face.

A story that you could never fully fathom.

Not only their own story, but the story of their ancestors.

And in this present moment of this day, all the people you meet, all that life from generations and from so many places all over the world flows together and meets you here like a life-giving water if you only open your heart and drink.

Open your heart to the incredible gifts that civilization gives to us.

You forget the switch and there is electric light here.

Turn a fossil and there is warm water and cold water, and drinkable water, a gift that millions and millions in the world uh will never experience.

So these are just a few of an enormous number of gifts to which we can open your heart.

And so I wish you that you will open your heart to all these blessings and let them flow through you.

That everyone whom you will meet on this day will be blessed by you.

Just by your eyes, by your smile, by your touch, just by your presence.

Let the gratefulness overflow into blessing all around you.

Then it will really be a good day.

I mean, easily the thing I'm most grateful for is that uh Jesus would come and give me an opportunity to connect with my father, my daddy father, Abba Father, um in heaven.

And it's just so uh simple, like like most things with God.

It is so simple to do.

It's just in our own words, in our own way.

Just say, Jesus, I want you in my life.

You know, I want to follow you.

You know, or and it might be, depending on where we're at, it might be, save me, help me, I need you, you know, whatever it is.

But it's just our heart's desire, and and we're created, all of us, uh, in God's image, which means so much in so many different ways.

But one thing it means is that we're created with the spirit inside of us.

And and when we put our trust in Jesus, that spirit comes alive and connects with God's Holy Spirit, you know, and then he starts transforming us, speaking to us, you know, in different ways, teaching us through his word, bringing people alongside us to help and encourage us.

And he does so many things in so many different ways, but it ends up transforming us from the inside and uh then changing our whole lives.

So if you've never done that, today would be an awesome day to start that adventure that uh is a life with God.

Um all right, well let's uh let's pray.

Father, I just praise you.

Thank you for being such a great and loving God.

Thank you, thank you for loving each of us.

And uh we all have different things going on in our life, Father, and I know that you know uh each of us intimately and care about us.

So I just pray your blessing that you would give each of us exactly what uh we need right now.

And we also ask just that you would uh uh speak to us, just give us the ability and desire to hear your voice and and uh deepen our relationship with you.

And speak to us, God, through dreams, uh through your word, and just any way that you want to.

Uh we love you, and in Jesus' name we pray.

Amen.

So love you all.