Rick Warren - How God Blesses Grateful Hearts

Hi, everybody. Have I told you lately that I love you?

Because I do. Happy Thanksgiving. You know, since this next

week is Thanksgiving, I'm pausing my series on pain so

we can prepare ourselves for Thanksgiving Day. So you know

what I did this last week? I read through, again,

every reference to gratitude and thanksgiving in the Bible. And

there are actually over 400 passages that mention thanksgiving or gratitude. Now,

what I saw in my Bible study were two big ideas. First,

God wants gratitude to be the primary motivation behind everything

we do or say or think. Let me say that again.

God wants gratitude to be the primary motive, the primary

motivation behind everything that we do or say or think.

He wants us to do everything out of thanksgiving and

out of gratitude. The second thing I learned is that

God rewards gratitude. with a long list of blessings and

benefits when we live with this continual attitude of gratitude

or thanksgiving. So today, if you'll get out your message notes,

I wanna share how God blesses grateful hearts, how God

blesses grateful hearts. And I wanna identify a short sample

list of benefits of gratitude, and then I'm gonna give

you a starter list of Bible verses that you can

use on Thanksgiving day, and then we're gonna practice God's

three favorite ways that he loves for us to use

in expressing our gratitude to him. This is what I

call God's love language. Now, let's start by reading the

top two scriptures on the top of your outline. Deuteronomy

Deuteronomy 28 · chapter mention

chapter 28 verses one to eight talks about the importance

of obedience and the blessing that God gives when we

obey his commands. It says this, Deuteronomy 28, one to eight.

If you fully obey the Lord your God, and if

you carefully follow all his commands, all of these blessings

will be yours. And then he gives us a laundry list.

The Lord will bless you in the city and in

the country. He will bless your children as well as

blessing your crops and your livestock. The Lord will bless

your harvest and the food you prepare. The Lord will

bless wherever you go. The Lord will even defeat your

enemies when they attack you. Yes, the Lord will send

his blessing on all you put your hand to and

bless everything you do. Now, God promises these blessings to

us if we do what he tells us to do.

In other words, if we follow his instructions for life,

He says, I'm going to bless everything you do. Now,

this past week, as I was studying what God tells

us to do about the importance of gratitude, you know

what I noticed? That five different times in scripture, God

tells us that gratitude is far, far more than just

saying thank you every so often. No, no. Gratitude is

a constant mindset. You might write that down. Gratitude is

a constant mindset of thankfulness. It's more than just saying

thank you every once in a while to God or

to people. It's an attitude of gratitude that you make

as your lifestyle. God wants us to respond to everything

that happens in our lives with an attitude of gratitude. Now,

what I want to do is read the next verse

aloud together. So everybody look at that. 1 Thessalonians 5.18

from the New Living Translation. And let's read it slowly

aloud together. Okay, ready? Always be thankful in all circumstances

for this is God's will for you. Now, always be

thankful in all circumstances. That about covers everything, right? There's

no loophole there. Always be thankful in all circumstances for

this is God's will for you. Now, If you obey that,

God says, I'm going to bless you in every area

of your life. And notice that he says, this is

God's will for you. God's will for your life. You say,

I want to know God's will for my life. God's

will is that you are always grateful. You're always thankful.

You're always full of the attitude of gratitude. Now, of course,

when God wants us to help us do the right thing,

he always attaches a benefit or blessings to doing it.

I happen to have right now in my library 79

different books on the topic of gratitude. So I've studied

this a lot. 79 different books just on the topic

of gratitude. And what I've discovered is that both scripture

and scientific studies show that having a mindset of gratitude

yields great, great blessings. This is an important message that

I'm I'm going to share with you before Thanksgiving, but

you're going to use it the rest of your life.

This could actually be an entire series of messages. But

let me just breeze through some bullet points. There on

your outline, there's a list of bullet points on the

benefits of the blessings of gratitude. Notice first, gratitude improves

your brain and your physical health. Did you know that?

I don't have time to go into all of these

and talk about it, but doctors say that gratitude is

the healthiest human emotion. It improves your brain, it improves

your physical health. Number two, gratitude creates happiness. If you

wanna be happy, develop a thankful heart. The happiest people

are those who are the most grateful. Number three, gratitude

helps you sleep better. You probably didn't know that. That's

a recent discovery, but the Bible told us that literally

thousands of years ago in the book of Proverbs. Gratitude,

number four, is the antidote to toxic emotions. In other words,

it defeats things like worry and depression and anger and fear.

You can't be grateful and worried at the same time

or depressed and grateful at the same time. It defeats

those toxic emotions. The next one, gratitude improves relationships. You

want better relationships? Become a more grateful man or woman.

You know what, if you express gratitude more to your spouse,

you'd have a whole lot less conflict. And then gratitude

opens the door to people and to other opportunities. I

had a personal example of that I could tell you

this week, but I don't have time to tell you. Gratitude,

when you express gratitude to people, you make friends, it

opens doors, it gives you opportunities. Gratitude, the Bible says,

is the evidence of spiritual maturity. You wanna know if

your spirits are mature? How grateful are you? How much

do you live with the attitude of gratitude? Colossians 2.9

says this, look on the screen. Plant your roots in

Christ and let him be the foundation for your life.

Be strong in your faith, always overflowing with, circle this, thanksgiving.

All right, it is a mark of maturity. The more

mature you are, the more grateful you'll be. And then

gratitude pleases God and it brings his blessing. The Bible

says it's the sacrifice that God loves most, the sacrifice

of gratitude. Now, what has always baffled me about Thanksgiving

Day is how very little actual time is given to

thanksgiving of God. We spend a full day preparing the meal.

We spend several hours watching football and talking and maybe

just hanging out, and maybe one or two minutes thanking

God in prayer because you don't want the food to

get cold with a long prayer. So even though it's

Thanksgiving Day, it's what we do the least of on

that day. So I wanna give you some homework. It's

a homework assignment for Thanksgiving Day with those that you

have Thanksgiving with. Here is a starter list for thanking

God this Thanksgiving. You say, I don't know what to

be thankful for. Well, it's a list of verses, and

what I would encourage you to do is when you're

sitting at the table together, ask everybody around your table

to read one of the verses, okay? And then after

all the verses have been read, you might start a

discussion simply asking, well, which of these verses are you

the most thankful for? And it may be something that's

already been mentioned or maybe something that hasn't been mentioned.

What does God want us to be grateful for? Not

just at Thanksgiving, but all the time. Well, as we

go through this list of verses, and again, didn't give

you any blanks, so just circle the reason in each verse, okay?

Here are some reasons why we need to be the

most grateful people of all people. First, because God gave

us life. God gave us life. Psalm 139, 13 and 14.

You created and formed me. Circle that. You created and

formed me in my mother's body. So I thank you

because you made me. I wouldn't even be alive if

it weren't for God. That's reason enough. Number two, we

can be thankful that we're still alive. Are you glad

you're still alive from a year ago? Ecclesiastes 11, eight says,

be grateful for every year you live. That's another thing

to be grateful for. Number three, we can be grateful

that he saved us. Psalm 13, verse five, my heart

is happy because you saved me. Number four, we can

be grateful because God is good. God is good. Circle this,

I give you thanks because you are good, says Psalm 54,

verse six. Here's another one. I can be grateful that

God answers our prayers. Psalm 118, 21. I praise the

Lord for answering my prayers. And I can be grateful

that he shows us how to live. Psalm 16, verse seven.

I praise the Lord because he guides me. Here's another one.

I can praise the Lord. I can thank God that

he forgives me. Psalm 18, verse one. Tell the Lord

how thankful you are because he is kind and always merciful.

And then number eight. I can be grateful that he

will never stop loving us. Psalm 107, verse eight, give

thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love. Now, I

wanna spend the rest of our time together looking at

what I call God's three favorite ways, God's three favorite

ways for us to express gratitude to him. This last

week in my study of every passage in the Bible

that references gratefulness and thanksgiving, I found at least a

dozen different ways that God tells us to express our gratitude.

He tells us, but I wanna focus on just the

three most mentioned ways because they are mentioned more than

all the others put together. These must be God's favorite

expressions of gratitude because as I said, he refers to

them These three that I'm gonna share today more than

all the others combined. Now, the Bible has a lot

to say about the songs of thanksgiving, the offerings of thanksgiving,

and the cup of thanksgiving. I'm sure you're aware that

we all have as human beings different love languages. Your

love language is different than the language of your spouse.

What makes your spouse feel loved is different than what

makes you feel loved. We like to be told that

we're loved in different ways. That's because we're all different. Well,

so does God. And what I'm going to share with

you today are God's three top love languages. These are

the ones that bring him the most pleasure. So let's

look at the first one. The first habit of expressing

gratitude is this. Write it down. Singing back to God.

singing back to God. Now you may not know this.

Nobody has ever told this to you, but God is

a singing God. Did you know that? The Bible tells

us that God sings. In fact, and here's the shocker,

he sings about you. He sings love songs and joyful

songs about you. Zephaniah chapter three, verse 17 says this,

The Lord your God is with you and he is

your mighty savior. He takes great delight in you, calming

your fears with his love and he rejoices over you

with singing about you. Did you know that verse? God

rejoices over you with singing about you. Now let me

just say this. Think about this. You've never heard God

sing over you. But one day in heaven, you're going

to hear God sing about you. And it's going to

be the most beautiful, joyful sound you've ever heard. I

can't wait to hear pure, perfect joy. We have joy

on this planet. But it's a broken joy. It's an

imperfect joy. When God sings, it is pure, perfect joy.

And you're gonna get to hear God sing over you

one day. That's something to look forward to. Have you

ever listened to a mother calm her baby by quietly

singing to that baby? I could never forget the sacred

moments of listening to my wife, Kay, love our children

with lullabies. I can hear her voice in a soft

voice humming and singing to our babies. That's how God

loves you. God sings. You didn't know that. In fact,

the only reason music exists in the universe is because

God invented it. God is a musical God. Since you

were created in his image you like music too horses

don't like music. They're not created in his image Worms

don't like music. They're not created in his image So

let me show you just a few verses of Scripture

where God tells us to express our thanks to him

through singing Psalm 147 verse 7 sing out your thanks

Psalms 147:7

to him sing praises and to our God. Psalm 95

Psalms 95:2

verse 2, let us come before him with thanksgiving, that's

what we're talking about, and sing joyful songs of praise.

Now friends, this is one of the main reasons for

coming together to worship together instead of just watching a

service online. You miss the value of singing praise together.

You may not realize this, but you sing better when

you sing with others, right? Yeah, I don't like to

hear myself sing, but I don't mind singing when there's

500 or 1,000 other people out there. Colossians 3.16 says this,

sing psalms and hymns and sacred songs, singing to God

with thanksgiving in your hearts. This is the first habit

of thanksgiving that God loves, singing back to God. Are

you doing that? Some of you go, I don't sing.

Some of you say, I can't sing. Some of you say,

I've lost my voice, sir. I never had it. Listen

closely to a pastor who loves you. God loves your voice.

He gave it to you. He gave you your voice.

He wants to hear your voice from you, not somebody else's.

Not you trying to be somebody else. He wants to

hear your voice because he gave it to you. And

if you are embarrassed about singing with your voice, I'll

just be honest with you. You got a pride problem.

You got an ego issue. You need to learn to

accept yourself the way God does. You need to treat

yourself the way God does. God enjoys hearing you sing

praise to him. God wants you to learn to Sing

to him all the time. Look at this verse on

the screen, Psalm 44, 8. All day long we praise

our God. Not just in service at worship on the weekends.

All day long we praise to God. We are always

grateful to him. Now some of us hum more than

we sing. We hum our Thanksgiving song. That's okay. You say, well, okay,

all day long. What about at night? Well, If you're

not going to wake anybody up, sing away. Go right

ahead and sing away. But if you've got a full

house at your home, Psalm 63 verse 6 from the

Psalms 63:6

message says this. If I'm sleepless at night, I spend

hours in grateful reflection. Why? Because that's not going to

bother anybody. The first habit of gratitude is singing back

to God. Singing back to God. It's one of God's

three favorite ways for you to express your gratitude to him.

Now here's the second habit of gratitude, giving back to God.

Write that down, giving back to God. At Thanksgiving or

any other time, we give thanks by giving back to God.

We give thanks by giving. We give back the first

part of what he has given to us. Let's look

at some scripture on this. Psalm 54 verse six is this.

I will offer a sacrificial offering as a special gift

to thank you, Lord, because you are so good. That's

a thanksgiving offering. We talked about a thanksgiving song, but

the Bible talks about a thanksgiving offering, an offering where

we give to give thanks. You know, about 400 years ago,

a group of Christian believers who were being persecuted for

their faith left Europe and moved to North America in

order to establish a colony that allowed religious liberty so

they could worship God freely. And those original people who

came 400 years ago from Europe were called the pilgrims.

400 years ago, they established with the Native Americans in

their area, a Thanksgiving day in the fall to give

thanks to God. That's where the whole Thanksgiving Day got

started of the modern days. Now, a lot of nations

have Thanksgiving Days. 150 years later, after the Pilgrims, America's

first president, George Washington, created, at the urging of Congress,

the first national holiday. Thanksgiving holiday. If you'd like to

see Washington's proclamation, just write me a note and give

me your email on a card. I'll be glad to

send it to you this week. You might want to

read Washington's original proclamation. It'll blow your mind what the

President of the United States said about the necessity of

being grateful to God. And it's pretty clear. So that

happened 400 years ago, the first modern Thanksgiving. And and

then 150 years later, the first Thanksgiving holiday for a nation.

But did you know that 3000 years before that, 3000

years before that, God had told the nation of Israel

to establish a Thanksgiving festival every year called the Feast

of Weeks. And they were to celebrate God's goodness and

they were to express their gratitude to God by bringing

him a special Thanksgiving offering. That's 3000 years. before the

modern Thanksgiving day. Deuteronomy chapter 16, verse 10 and 11

Deuteronomy 16:10

says this. I love this in the TEV version. Celebrate

the harvest festival to honor the Lord your God by

bringing him a freewill offering in proportion to the blessing

he has given you. Do this at the place of worship.

So in the original Thanksgiving day, they were to bring

a gift of thanksgiving to the place of thanksgiving, that's

the temple, it's where they worship. Now, this Thanksgiving offering,

it's been practiced by God's people for thousands and thousands

of years. And we've practiced it here at Saddleback since

our church began 42 years ago. So this week, we're

gonna be doing our annual Thanksgiving offering. It's mentioned many,

many times in the Bible, such as in Psalm 116, 17,

where King David says this, I will sacrifice a thanksgiving

offering to you. Now listen, this is God's second favorite

way of being thanked. He talks about it over and

over and over. The thanksgiving offering is mentioned many times

in scripture. In Psalm 50 verse 23, God says this,

Psalms 50:23

those people who truly honor me are those, who are they?

Who bring me offerings. To show thanks. Those people who

truly honor me, God says, are those who bring the

offerings to show thanks. And I, God, save those who

do that. It's one of God's favorite love languages. Singing

back to God and giving back to God. Is it our,

you know, examples and illustrations of gratitude. Anytime we give

an offering to God, It actually represents three kinds of gratitude.

It's a 3D gratitude, past, present, and future. When I

give an offering to God, it represents I'm grateful for

God's blessing in the past, I'm grateful for God's blessing today,

and I'm grateful in faith for God's continued blessing in

the future. I thank him for the past, I thank

him for today, and I thank him that he's gonna

keep on taking care of me in the future. Three

kinds of gratitude. So what kind of offering are we

to bring to show our gratitude to God? Well, the

Bible says it over and over and over and over.

We are to give God the first part of our income,

not the leftovers, not, well, I pay all my bills

and whatever's left, I'll give to God. We are to

put God first in our finances. Now, God knows this

is a step of faith, putting him first. which is

why he tells us to do it because it's a

step of faith. God is more interested in your faith.

He certainly doesn't need your money. God doesn't need your money.

He owns it all. The money you've got isn't really yours.

It was somebody else's before yours. It's yours right now

on loan. It'll be loaned to somebody else later. God

just wants to know if you trust him. Now, as

I said, with every principle that God gives us, he

also attaches a promise. There are more promises in the

Bible related to giving back to God than any other

promises in the scripture. Proverbs 3, 9 and 10 is

a good example. Proverbs 3, 9 and 10 says this,

honor the Lord by giving him, circle this, the first part,

circle first part, by giving him the first part of

your income. And here's the promise. That was the premise.

Here's the promise. He will fill your barns and barrels

to overflow with more. God says, Giving him an offering

is not just an act of gratitude. It's an act

of faith. And God always honors faith. So he promises

to bless you back. That's why I said there are

more promises in the Bible attached to giving and generosity

than any other subject. Why? God wants his children to

be like him. God is a generous God. Everything you

have in life is a gift of God's love. God

is the number one giver. God so loved the world

that he gave. You can love God. You can give

without loving, but you can't love without giving. God so

loved that he gave. And if you love God, you're

gonna give. And if you love others, you're gonna give. Now,

he says, here's the promise. Give me the first part

and I'll overflow your barns and your barrels. In other words,

you're gonna get back more than you could possibly give

to me. God has said, you give to me and

I'll give to you and we'll see who wins. Now,

Jesus expanded and extended the promise we just read, Proverbs 3.

by saying it this way in Luke 6, verse 38.

Luke 6:38

Look up here on the screen. This is from the

New Living Translation, Luke 6, 38. If you give, this

is Jesus talking, if you give, you will receive. And

your gift will return to you in full measure. And

then he says, press down, shaken together to make room

for more. Like you got a bag of beans, you

keep shaking it so it can hold more. Press down,

press down, shake it together to make room for more

and running over. Whatever measure you use in giving, large

or small, Jesus is talking, it will be used to

measure what is given back to you. Do you believe

that verse? Do you believe that if you give, God

will give back more to you? How much do you

trust God? Do you think Jesus is a liar? You

know what I've never understood, friends? I've never understood why

do people trust Jesus to forgive their sins and save

their souls and take them to heaven, but they don't

trust the same Jesus with their finances and the promises

he makes about that. It makes no sense at all.

If you can't trust Jesus with your finances, why do

you trust him for your salvation? Really, this is a

faith issue. How much do you trust God? What we're

talking about, of course, giving the first part back to God,

is called the principle of tithing. Tithing is the old

English word, means 10%. It's not 12%, it's not 20,

it's not 1%. Tithing means the first 10%. If I

make $ 10, the first dollar goes back to God. If

I make $ 100, the first $ 10 go back to God. First,

we give the first 10% of our income back to

God in faith and gratitude, and then he blesses the

other 90%. Look at these last two verses in this section.

Deuteronomy 14, 23. Living Bible. Bring your tithe. That's the

first 10%. Bring your tithe to the Lord. The first

of all you earn. The purpose of tithing is to

teach you to always put God first in your lives. Now,

you may say, well, God's first in my life. Well,

let me see two things. Let me see your calendar

and let me see your checkbook. Because the way you

spend your time and the way you spend your money

tells me what's really first in your life. And then

one of the greatest promises of all, it's the only

promise in the Bible where God says, you can prove

that I exist. It's a good verse for atheists. You

wanna prove God's exist? Tithe. Here's what God says, Malachi 3.10.

Bring your whole tithe, that's 10%, to my storehouse, says

the Lord, so there will be food in my house.

You bring the first 10% on the first day of

the week as an act that God is first. And

what's first day of the week? Sunday, as an act

of worship, You bring it to my storehouse, says the Lord.

You don't give your tithe to your sister or to

some nice organization out there. It belongs to God. It

goes to his temple. It goes to his storehouse. Says, well,

there'll be food in my house. And then he says this,

test me in this. How dare you? Try it. You'll

like it. Test me. Here's the Pepsi challenge verse. Test

me in this and see if I won't throw open

the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing,

you won't have enough room for it. Wow. God says,

this is the way you can prove God exists. Tithe.

All right, tithe. Put him first. And that is God's

second favorite way of being told you trust him, of

being told you're grateful. We sing songs. of thanksgiving and

we give back to God in thanksgiving. Now, both last

week and this week, those of you who came to

worship at one of our campuses, you received the offering

envelope for our annual thanksgiving offerings. It's our annual offering

to God. We do it every year. I told you

last week, I didn't even want you to give last week.

I said, take it home and pray about it because

you really need to thank God and ask God about it.

And I told you, take it home, pray about it.

And if you're ready, you can give your Thanksgiving offering

when we sing in just a minute. But if you

haven't really prayed about it, you can take your envelope home.

You can mail it in during a Thanksgiving weekend or

you can bring it next week. And of course, if

you set up online tithing, like most of us have,

that's what Kay and I have, You can do that.

You can just tithe online. You know, every single week,

you guys, I receive the most amazing letters and testimonies

from people expressing their gratitude to God through generosity. One

recently was from a guy who a number of years

ago was down on his luck and he came to

Saddleback's free clinic and we helped him in his time

of need. And a few years later, He sent a

check and it was for $ 100, 000. Let me read you

just one letter that I received this week. And then

we're gonna give our Thanksgiving offering. Here's the letter. It

says this. It's not addressed to me. It's actually addressed

to you. Dear Saddleback Church. It's from a woman back

in the Midwest. She says, dear Saddleback Church family. I've

been watching online services from my home in the Midwest.

since the onset of COVID in March 2020 to today.

Your services have been a real blessing to me. I'm

often singing and crying alone as I have found inspiration

from the services of Saddleback from week to week. Now

these 20 months have been trying in so many ways.

So the messages about hope, And grace and even pain today,

which was last week, have never been more real. Then

she writes, sometimes I ponder what my real purpose is.

But God has blessed me well financially. So it may

be that part of my purpose is to help you

continue to build your Saddleback Church. She says, I'll probably

never get to worship in the new facility you're in.

although it looks incredible, but my heart will certainly be

with you and be with all of you there. So

continue your fabulous work. And she signed her name and

she sent a check this week for $ 50, 000. This is

a woman who's never even been to our church, but

she says, I want to support the building of Saddleback

Church and all its campuses. Now, right now, as we

begin to look at God's third favorite way of us

saying thanks to him, expressing gratitude to God, I want

to ask the ushers at all of our campuses to

begin distributing the communion elements while I'm speaking. You go

ahead and get up right now and begin passing out

those elements. Now, we said that the first of God's

three favorite ways that he loves to be shown gratitude

is singing back to God. And the second favorite way

that God has is for us to give back to God.

And we've seen the Thanksgiving song and we've seen the

power of the Thanksgiving offering. But now we come to

what's called the Thanksgiving cup. And what we're talking about

is taking the Lord's supper together as an act of gratitude.

God's third favorite way of being told that we love

him is through communion, through the Lord's supper. The third

habit of gratitude is this. Write it down. Communion with God.

First Corinthians chapter 11, verses 23 to 27. Look up

1 Corinthians 11:23–27

here on the screen. It's not on your outline. It

says this. On the night that he was betrayed, Jesus

took bread and when he had given thanks, he broke

it and he broke the bread and he said, this

is my body, which is for you. Do this in

remembrance of me. Then in the same way, Jesus took

the cup and he said, this cup, is the new

covenant in my blood. And whenever you drink it, do

this in remembrance of me. Now he says it twice,

do this in remembrance of me. Communion is to help

us remember. What's remembering for? So we can be grateful.

Whatever you remember, you can be grateful for. He says,

I've given you this memory tool, communion, the bread and

the wine, the juice and the wafer. I've given you

this communion tool to remember the good thing that I

did for you, the suffering that I did for you,

what it cost me to pay for your salvation. Jesus,

the Bible says this, for whenever you eat the bread

and you drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord's death.

It's a remembering of God's great gift on Calvary, Jesus'

death on the cross. You proclaim the Lord's death until

he comes again. He didn't stay dead. He's coming back again.

That's what Easter is all about. And then the Bible says, therefore,

whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the

Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty of sinning

against the body and the blood of the Lord. What

does that phrase mean, an unworthy manner? You know, as

a young Christian, I often wondered and was even a

little worried what that meant. to take the Lord's Supper,

to take communion in an unworthy manner. But I now

believe that taking the Lord's Supper in an unworthy manner

includes taking communion without truly being grateful for all Jesus

paid for with his death on the cross. To take

it in an unworthy manner is to reject the power

of the cross. It is to take communion without fully

understanding and fully accepting and fully being grateful for Jesus'

sacrifice for me. This is Jesus' third favorite way of

us expressing our thanks to him. He gave us the

memory tool of communion. Now you've probably heard that another

name for the Lord's Supper or another name for communion

is the Eucharist. You heard that word, the Eucharist? That's

a Bible term. It's in the Bible. You know, the

New Testament was written in Greek. Eucharist is a Greek word.

You know what it means? Thanksgiving. Eucharist is the Greek

word for Thanksgiving. The communion is to be a model

of Thanksgiving. It's a way we give thanks back to God. First,

through the Thanksgiving song. Second, through the Thanksgiving offering. And third,

through the Thanksgiving cup. 1 Corinthians 10, 16. says this,

is not the cup of thanksgiving for which we give

thanks a participation in the blood of Christ? And is

not the bread that we break participation in the body

of Christ? When we drink from a communion cup and

we eat the bread, we are participating in one another

of God's favorite ways to be told, thank you, God.

By our eating, we are saying, Father, thank you, thank you,

thank you for sacrificing yourself to send your son to

come and die on the cross for our sins so

that we can be forgiven. And we remind ourselves of

the high price that Jesus paid to save us. And

our only response is gratitude. Colossians 2, 13 and 14

says this, we were spiritually dead because of our sins

and our sinful nature. We were dead, separated from Christ.

But God gave us new life. We didn't turn over

a new leaf. He gave us a whole new life.

God gave us new life with Christ. He forgave all

our sins. And he canceled the record that contained all

the charges against us. And he took it and he

destroyed it by nailing it to Christ's cross. That's what

the Bible says. What is our response? to such overwhelming love.

It was 1 Corinthians 15, 57, which says this, how

we thank God who gives us victory over sin and

over death through Jesus Christ our Lord. This is the Eucharist.

This is the cup of thanksgiving. Now, I now want

us to take the elements together, if they've all been

served to everybody by now, as an expression of our

gratitude to God. We have sang, sung together, we've sung

together in Thanksgiving, we have given back to God in Thanksgiving,

and now we're going to drink the cup together in Thanksgiving.

But we have to do it in a worthy manner.

That means you've accepted the gift of salvation in your heart.

Communion means nothing if you haven't already accepted the gift

by faith in your life. And if you've forgotten how

grateful you ought to be for the death of Christ.

That's why we're to take communion, to remind ourselves of

the sacrifice. So I want you to bow your heads

right now. And with your head bowed, I wanna ask you,

have you ever completely fully accepted The gift of God's

salvation by faith. Have you accepted the grace of God

in your life? Have you accepted his forgiveness? Realizing that

you can't earn it, pay for it, or deserve it.

It's just a gift. And have you expressed your gratitude

back to God? If you haven't, say so right now.

In your heart say, dear God, thank you, thank you,

thank you for dying for me. Say that. Thank you

for paying for my sins. Say that. Thank you for

dying on the cross so that I could be forgiven

and that I could go to heaven and so that

I could have a purpose for living. Jesus Christ, I

open my life to you and I give myself completely

to you. And I want to develop these habits of

singing with gratitude, giving back in song, of giving back

financially and of taking communion to remember your sacrifice. I

ask you to accept me into your family in Jesus' name. Amen.

At the end of this message, I'm going to ask

you to let me know about your decision if you did.

But here's my challenge to you, all of you, this weekend.

My challenge is that you'll begin to develop the mindset

and lifestyle and gratitude to God in every aspect of

your life. Now I want you to take the little

wafer right now. The Bible says that on the night

Jesus was betrayed, he took bread and he broke it

and he blessed it and he said, this is my

body which is given for you. Do this to remember me.

As you eat this bread right now, I want you

to say, Jesus, I am so grateful that you died

for me. Eat it and say that in your mind. Jesus,

I am so grateful. that you died for me. Tell

him how grateful you are that he did what you

can't do for yourself. The Bible says in the same

way that Jesus took the cup of the new covenant.

He said, this is the cup of the new covenant

representing my blood. And he said, I want you to

do this to remember me. He said, as often as

you drink it, do this to remember me. As you

drink this little cup right now, I want you in

your own words to express your gratitude to God for

Jesus saving you. Just say it in any way in

your heart that you want to say it. Just say,

thank you, God, for saving me when I could not

save myself. And drink that cup. I hope you're gonna

make these three habits, the habit of singing back to God,

giving back to God, our tithe, and communion with God

through the elements, a regular part of your Christian life.

Colossians 3.17 sums up everything I've been trying to teach

you this weekend. It says this, so now, everything you do,

circle word everything, everything you do or say should be

done in the name of our Lord Jesus with thanksgiving.

Circle that, with thanksgiving to God the Father. So take

out the garbage with thanksgiving. Wash the dishes with thanksgiving.

Pick up the kids with thanksgiving. Go to bed with thanksgiving.

Do everything. Take a shower with everything. God wants thanksgiving

to be the habit of living. It is a mindset,

not simply saying thank you every once in a while. Now,

since that's what that scripture says, let me ask you,

will you commit? Will you personally commit from this day

forward for the rest of your life? Since you know

that God wants everything to be done with gratitude, will

you commit to regularly expressing your gratitude to God by

singing back to him, by giving back to him through

tithing and by taking communion? If so, I want you

to drive a stake in the ground today that you

never forget it. I want you to let me know

of your decision. I want you to pull out a

card in your program and I want you to write

your name and your address on it. Okay, these are

going to come directly to me and I want you

to write two words. I'm thankful. Write your name and

your address and the phrase or email and the phrase

I'm thankful It means you're committing to these habits for

the rest of your life Now if you're not thankful

do nothing Do nothing if you're not thankful But if

you are thankful and you want to thank God in

the ways He likes to be thanked the most in

his love language He did everything for you. You owe

him everything your own life your salvation all those things

we looked at if you if you are a Thankful.

Get out a card, write your name and contact information

on it and write the phrase, I'm thankful. That's it.

The phrase, I'm thankful. Now, as we close, I just

have to mention one more way to show God's gratitude.

And here it is. By telling other people the good news.

By telling other people the good news. When you witness,

when you invite people to church, When you share a book,

when you tell other people about the Lord, you share

a testimony. That is the representation of gratitude. Isaiah 12

verse four says this, thank the Lord, praise his name

and tell the world what he's done. They all go together.

You thank the Lord and you praise his name by

telling the world he has done. Who have you told

about Jesus? Who have you told about the good news?

When was the last time you talked to anybody about

the good news. 2 Corinthians 4.15 says this. This is

a verse that's been a theme verse of Saddleback for

42 years. 2 Corinthians 4.15, the grace that is reaching

more and more people will cause thanksgiving to overflow to

the glory of God. Why do we keep growing? Why

do we keep reaching out? Why do all our campus

keep moving and getting in bigger buildings and better locations?

Because as more and more people experience the grace of God,

it will cause thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God.

Anytime you invite somebody to come with you to church,

it is an expression of gratitude to God. We're getting

ready to start Christmas season. Next week, we start Christmas

season together. More people are likely to come at Christmas

than any other time. Why don't you plan to bring

somebody with you next weekend for the next part in

our series? I love you. I'm praying for you. And

I thank God for you. I'll see you next weekend.