Gratitude Series Pt. 1 - Pastor Greg Addison - November 2, 2025

Ministering to the heart of Western Arkansas's River Valley for over 165 years.

Welcome to Chapter and First, the Bible Teaching Ministry of Fort Smith's First Baptist Church.

You'll find sermons and teachings from Pastor Greg, our ministry staff, and guest speakers.

Thank you for listening.

That is a beautiful song that expresses the heart of what we're going to be talking about through the month of November.

We're going to start a series today.

I'm entitled Gratitude.

And I want to show you this morning that gratitude is so much more, it's so much deeper a concept than we normally think of that word.

It is more than just saying thank you.

And so as we go into this study, I thought it was another great month for us to do our brew studies together.

So if you didn't pick one up on the way in, we have some brew booklets for you.

We'll do this the same way we did in September, where uh each Sunday you will get a booklet that has sort of a brew exercise through it, building off of what we preached on in the sermon.

If you're new with us, this is an exercise that we enjoy doing as a church.

It's just a simple, shorthand way of meditating on a scripture.

And you can do this at no matter age or whatever.

This is just an easy, simple process.

A few weeks ago, I taught a brew lesson in our businessmen's luncheon on Tuesday, and one of the guys from another church, we have a number of guys from different churches that come and fellowship with us on Tuesday, and so it's it's a great time on Tuesday.

So one of the guys came up after when he said, I want to thank you for that brew deal.

He said, I teach elementary age Sunday school class at our church, and I want you to know I teach them brew every week.

I use that as the model teach.

So this is an incredible, easy, but powerful way for you to take a verse of scripture, meditate on it, and break it apart.

And so each day you'll have a verse to brew along this theme.

It means believe.

That means you start off and you say, Lord, I believe you have something to teach me today.

Then the verse of today, you read and repeat that over and over and over, seven, eight, ten, twelve times.

So it begins to get to be familiar with you.

It begins to sort of get a ring to it.

You're comfortable with that verse.

And then you're going to take each word and you're going to break them down and just go word by word.

And so it's not hard.

You just work through it.

I will even give you one word in each day that I just sort of wrote out what it was so you can see how simple and easy it is.

And as you take a verse and you slow down and you read it carefully, and you brew each word and you work through that, it's just like brewing a cup of coffee.

It just is the longer you go, it just gets richer and better and fuller, and you really get a chance to let God speak to you through that verse, and then you just write down what God spoke to you.

And I'll have a little bit of thought about that later on.

But let's go ahead and look at this first week as we begin to unpack this concept of gratitude.

Now, here's the thing.

I need to apologize to you as a church, because I have not taught this enough.

And the more that I've studied this idea of gratitude, the more I've been convicted in my own life about what this means, how profound a spiritual concept it is, and I've also been convicted about, you know, I just hadn't taught our people enough.

I need to, I need this is an incredible study, and I hope it challenges you and grows you like it has me in preparing for it.

What I want you to see in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 is that gratitude is not just something you say, thank you for or whatever.

1 Thessalonians 5 · chapter mention

It is actually the character trait that God is building in our lives as his children.

It is literally his design for who we become as he makes us become more like Christ.

Now, I want you to read with me in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.

1 Thessalonians 5 · chapter mention

We're going to read some extra verses before we focus on our one verse because I think the overall concept of this really is powerful.

Now, Paul is writing a letter to the Christians in churches in a city called Thessalonica.

And so he has been teaching them about church and walking with the Lord and all that, and he is now closing the letter, and so he wraps up this picture of what it means to look like a believer, what it means to walk with the Lord, what it means to be a part of the church here at the ending passage of this letter.

And so we'll start in verse 12 to get the context.

Now we ask you, brothers, to give recognition to those who labor among you and lead you in the Lord and admonish you, and to regard them very highly in love because of their work.

Now there he's talking about church leaders and pastors and that sort of thing.

Then he says, Be at peace among yourselves.

As you continue to read, now he begins to unpack more about what it means to be a follower of Christ and a part of the church.

Now we ask you, brothers.

Now, if you go to the next verse, he says, and we exhort you, brothers.

Now that exhort, that's a powerful word.

That's like a coaching, you know, getting in your grill, it's like since it's football season, you grab that guy by the face mask, and you get his attention, and you look him in the eye, and you got to catch that pass on, you've got to make that tackle, you can't let him break that tackle, you gotta get on.

And, you know, he's really getting with them.

We exhort you, brothers.

Warn those who are irresponsible, comfort the discouraged, help the weak, be patient with everyone.

See to it that no one repays evil for evil to anyone.

There's a whole sermon right there, but I'm not ready for that one.

But always pursue what is good for one another and for all.

Rejoice always, pray constantly, and here's our verse that we'll focus on.

Give thanks in everything, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

Don't stifle the Holy Spirit, don't despise prophecies, but test all things.

In other words, that word prophecy is not the word of like this is going to happen in the future.

This is truth speaking.

So when pastor or someone in your life, a brother in Christ, sister in Christ, speaks truth into your life, don't bow up on that.

Test everything, but you know, but pay attention and listen.

God may be speaking to you.

And again, that's a great word for us in church today.

Listen, you don't take stuff just because I said it, alright?

The fact that Greg said it and$4.38 will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.

Alright?

So I'm we're here learning together, and so you're supposed to take what I we're we're studying the Bible together and we're going through this together, and you're supposed to take it and test it against truth.

That's what Scripture says.

You don't take it just because somebody tells you that.

You don't take it just because some preacher that you like to watch on the internet said it.

That doesn't make it true either.

It is true when it is grounded in the Word of God, and so test those things.

Hold on to what is good.

Verse 21.

Verse 22, stay away from every kind of evil.

Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your spirit, soul, and body be kept sound and blameless for the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.

He who calls you is faithful, who also will do it.

And so right there, he puts this, he wraps this thing up.

Lawyers would call this a zipper clause, and he kind of wraps it all up here at the end and ties it all in in this passage of Scripture.

And of a linchpin in this, and the key into this passage from my perspective is this.

When God says, It is his will for you, that is a huge statement.

There are only four times in Scripture when God says, This is God's will for you.

And so that's really important to grab on and understand the significance of that.

And so verse 18 is our key verse, and what he says is, give thanks in everything, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

Now he doesn't say that we're to give thanks for everything.

There's a lot of things that we are not particularly thankful for.

I mean, if we're in a bad spot, you get a bad doctor's report, something goes wrong with your stock portfolio, or your kids do something weird, or whatever it is.

We're not thankful for everything, but we are thankful in everything.

So even if something is not going great, Jesus is still there.

He's still holding on to us, he's still protecting us, he's still guiding us through it, he's still giving us peace in the midst of it.

And so I have always something to be thankful for, even in whatever I'm facing, in everything, I'm giving thanks.

Now, here's kind of a definition that I want to give you for the word gratitude, based on that truth that this is God's will.

This is literally what He's designed for us.

The word gratitude is a big, deep word.

It's so much more than just saying, hey, thanks.

It is having a profound, sincere heart of deep thankfulness for something valuable that was done for you by somebody else that you did not earn or seek.

As a believer, you can see why that ought to be something that we're attached to.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whosoever believes in him will never perish but have everlasting life.

And if God has done that for us, as Jesus has done that for us, that should affect us in every way we think and in everything that we do.

We should have a deep thankfulness for something that he has done for us that has changed our eternity.

And my heart should always be attached to a profound sense of gratitude for Jesus.

I saw this quote this week and I just needed to share it with you.

C.S.

Lewis said this gratitude exclaims.

Don't you like that?

Exclaims.

He chose that word on purpose.

It is something that is so deep it cries out very properly, how good of God to give this to me.

How good of God to save me.

How good of God to give Jesus to me.

How good of God to give me the peace which passes all understanding.

How good of God it is to give me access to Him and to worship Him and to be able to come into His presence in every moment, in every circumstance.

Giving thanks in everything.

How good of God to give this to me.

Now let me kind of walk you through three concepts that this month will be built on.

Three concepts you need to understand about gratitude.

Again, we're talking about this is God's design for our character, and so that means certain deeper truths.

First of all, it's God's will for us.

Second of all, it is a transformation process to develop a heart of gratitude.

When you give your life to Christ, I gave my life to Jesus as a nine and a half-year-old boy.

I've shared my testimony with you many times.

You come to Jesus and you realize I'm a sinner, my sin's going to be punished, and there's nothing I can do about it.

I'm going to pay the price for my sin.

And then you understand that Jesus loved you so much that he stepped out of heaven and he went to the cross and he paid the price of our sin for us.

And you take your life, everything you've been, everything you are, everything you ever will be, and you give that all to Jesus in gratitude for what he's done for you, in faith, trusting him to save you, and you surrender your life to him.

It is no longer your life, it is his.

And so when you take everything you've been, you are, and you ever will be, and you give that all to Jesus, that is literally what it means to confess Jesus as Lord, and it is his life to do with what he will.

Now, as a nine and a half-year-old boy, there was only this much of what I was before I got saved, and a whole lot more after I got saved.

But everybody's journey is different.

And whether you get saved young, you get saved in the middle of life, or you get saved towards the end of your life, there is a, this is who I was before Jesus, this is how I met Jesus, and this is who I am afterwards.

And after that part where you're saved, and the afterward part that begins a journey where God is literally working in your life to transform you, to be a reflection of the person of Jesus Christ.

He is taking things out that don't look like Jesus, He is putting character traits in that look like Jesus, and He is constantly working to transform us to Jesus.

And as that happens, our attitude should reflect Jesus' attitude, and that's why there should be a growing heart of gratitude as we become more like Jesus.

It is the result of that transformation process.

And then finally, it is a spiritual barometer of our progress.

It is a spiritual barometer of where I am in that transformation journey.

So let's break those down now and look at those concepts.

The first concept I want you to see is what the Bible says clearly.

This is the statement of Scripture.

This is God's will for us in Christ Jesus.

His will.

That means it is something that He has designed on purpose.

It is intentional and he is working to accomplish it.

Gratitude is not something that you just walk up and you just say, thank you, and man, somebody did that.

Makes you feel good and you're blessed and whatever.

It is literally God's intentional design.

When he has a checklist for you to become more like Jesus, on that checklist is a heart of gratitude for who he is and what he's done.

Now, people, one of the most common questions that people ask us is, Pastor, is Pastor, how do I know God's will?

How do I know God's will?

So it's important for us to understand what that question means and define it.

If Scripture says this is God's will for you, then we need to know what that word means, what that concept is.

And so here's what God's will is for us as believers it is his intentional design and desire for you.

He purposes it, he wants it to happen.

It's part of what Jesus is doing in our life.

It is his intentional design and desire for you as his child.

That's what his will is.

First, in your transformation to the image of Jesus, and second, as to the decisions that you make.

So we think God's will, should I take this job?

Should I marry this person?

Should I not marry this person?

Should I do this with my kids?

Should I make this gift to the church?

Should I invest in this stock?

Should I do what the doctor says here?

Should I have that surgery?

All these kind of questions we have about.

We are focused on the second thing because we're looking at the practical things of life, but Jesus looks first at our transformation to his image.

And so the first question we should always ask about what is God's will in this circumstance is how does it affect my transformation?

What is God trying to do in my life?

Is he trying to, will this grow me to be more like Christ?

Will this be a distraction from my walk with Christ?

How does this work?

And what is it, what is its impact on my life being transformed to like Jesus?

And then the second decision is in this moment, what will I do?

But it again is captive to that first process.

What am I being transformed to look like?

And so God's will for us is a design and a purpose that He has, and it includes a heart of gratitude.

Now, if you think about that, shouldn't that be an understandable thought?

That if Jesus died for me on the cross, he paid the price for my sins.

He gave up his holiness for me.

And not because I asked him to, but the Bible says in 1 John, not that we loved him, but he first loved us and gave himself to be the payment for our sin.

I didn't deserve to be saved.

I can't do anything to earn that salvation.

Jesus loved me and loved you enough that he stepped out of heaven and died on the cross to pay the price for our sins.

Jesus sacrificed his holiness by putting our sins on himself and taking the full wrath and punishment of God for our sin.

And then he rose again, conquering death and sin.

Now, if we shouldn't be grateful, what should we be?

Every decision we make should be based on the gratitude for what Jesus has done for us.

If you think about all the things going on in life, as I'm driving here from Chaffee this morning, I drove past ball field after ball field.

I drove past a number of churches and they had a handful of cars, and I drove past ball fields, and there were hundreds of people out there.

Let me ask you a question.

What comes first in your life?

Walmart parking lot was packed this morning.

It was packed.

I remember one time when I was working for the Arkansas Baptist Convention, I was preaching at this church and I was doing the triangle illustration.

Y'all seen that, you see it in a minute, and I forgot my, sometimes I do that with yard sticks, and I forgot my yard sticks.

So I was on my way to church and I pulled in a Walmart to buy some yard sticks before I got to church to preach that morning.

And the parking lot was packed.

On a Sunday morning when everybody should have been in church, I was standing in line at Walmart.

I come out in the parking lot, I've got these three things, and I'm kind of tapping them on my leg like you do when you're walking.

I'm walking in my truck, and these three old boys come out of their big old Arkansas, four-wheel drive, muddy, beat up, you know, Arkansas truck, right?

Arkansas pickup truck.

I'm working hard to turn my truck into one of those.

I'm bumping in stuff, I'm driving through mud, don't ever wash it.

I'm trying hard to make my truck meet the Arkansas standard of a pickup truck, right?

So I'm walking there and these old boys come out, they got cigarettes, and they go on and they said, Hey man, you a teacher?

You about to whoop somebody with those yardsticks?

Their language was a little worse than that.

But I cleaned it up for church.

And I said, No, I'm a pastor, and you boys ought to be in church, or I might just whoop y'all.

One guy laughed, one guy choked on his cigarette.

I thought, I don't, I don't know if that was Jesus-like or not, but it was fun.

There are people everywhere.

And you think about in church life today, how many times, man, we treat church as one of many things that we should do?

Or we treat our quiet time as, do I have time this morning or not?

Did I get up late or not?

Have I planned my quiet time or not?

And these kinds of basic things, what a Christian ought to be, how dare us not be committed to them when Jesus died for us on the cross and gave his holiness for us so that we could be saved.

We ought to be growing in our commitment to Christ, not just working it into all the other stuff in life.

Where's the sense of gratitude that understands God did this for me because he loves me and he has a plan for me, and I'm going to begin to act with like I owe you for this.

I am grateful for this.

I have a deep, heartsfelt, profound sense of I would have died and gone to hell if Jesus hadn't saved me.

And that should drive our lives.

It is the purpose of what God is doing in our lives.

Every time I grow in the Lord, every time I learn something, every time a spiritual light bulb goes off, God was doing that in purpose on my life.

He was transforming to be like Jesus, and I should be overwhelmed with God's grace.

And just as C.S.

Lewis said, exclaim loudly, how good of God to do that for me.

It is God's design for us.

It is so much more than saying thank you.

It is having a character transformed that motivates everything we do because of a sense of gratitude of who God is.

That brings us to concept number two.

That makes it an incredible spiritual barometer for us.

How am I doing?

Am I functioning out of a heart of gratitude?

Does my attitude reflect a gratefulness for God's grace?

And do I function with the grace of Jesus because I'm being transformed like him?

Pastor, where I grew up, Dr.

Rogers used to tell us all the time, y'all have heard the concept of somebody who lights up a room when they walk in.

A lot of people light up a room when they leave the room.

We know those people, right?

And sometimes it's us, right?

We on those kind of days.

You know, and inherently you know what I'm talking about.

You know a person who is grateful or a person who takes everything for granted.

Isn't that right?

Don't you know what that looks like?

We know if someone Is functioning from a place of selfishness or a place of serving others because Jesus served us.

We know if someone speaks with gratitude, we know if someone is grateful, we know if someone blesses people around them because they've been blessed, and we know of people who either are driven by a victim mentality or they live for drama and they create drama around them all the time because they want to be the center of the drama and all that.

Man, don't those people drive you up the wall.

Listen, that is not what a Christian's life is.

We are to have a spirit of gratitude that changes who we are and how we function.

That's why it's so important that you get the concept, the context of this passage of scripture.

Look what he says.

Just look at all these things and see how all these character traits and all these behaviors they flow from someone who is thankful and grateful for what God is doing at all times and everything.

Look what he says.

Now we ask you, brothers, to give recognition to those who labor among you and lead you in the Lord and admonish you and to regard them very highly in love because of their work.

That's how mount.

Pastors and spiritual leaders in the church.

How many times do you hear stuff like this?

Well, they didn't do this for me.

They didn't do that for me.

I don't get fed at that church.

All that kind of stuff.

Listen, if somebody took out the word of God and y'all sat there with it together, you have a feast.

It's your fault if you don't eat.

We should be grateful for the church.

We should come in the church and be so excited about what God is doing.

We are so blessed.

We're thrilled.

It was awesome this morning.

We showed the baptism from last week and announced we're scheduling our first baptism in Chaffee Deal, and everybody there cheered and applauded.

It was awesome.

Grateful for what God's doing.

That's what believers look like.

But people who are not grateful, they come to the church and say, What can the church do for me rather than how I bless people at the church?

They gripe and gossip about who did this and who did that and all that kind of stuff rather than understanding that God saved us and he gave us his grace and we should be gracious with others.

That's why he says, be at peace among yourselves.

This drama business and get in the middle of all that and all the other.

That's not peace.

Look at what he says in verse 23.

May the God of peace himself sanctify you completely.

If the God of peace is the one transferring us to be like Jesus, and Jesus told us in John that peace I give you, not as the world gives, but my peace I give to you.

And then he says, be at peace with all people.

What do you think that means?

It means I'm grateful for what Jesus has done for me, and so I'm grateful for you.

And I'm grateful for Jesus' grace for me.

And if you need grace, I'm gonna give grace to you.

I'm grateful that Jesus served me on the cross and he blessed me and walked with me, and I'm gonna do that with you.

And we're gonna be at peace with each other because I have a heart of gratitude that drives what I do.

Look at all this other stuff he says.

He says, Exhort you, brothers, warn those who are irresponsible.

Now, I love this right here.

Another version says, idleness.

I love this right here.

Man, you hear people complain about churches that people are critical and judgmental in church.

And I and there are times like that.

Sometimes church people can be the meanest people on the planet.

Most of the time they're great.

I think some of that's overstated, but sometimes there is like this critical spirit and judging people and negative about what they're not doing or whatever.

I heard a guy say one time, old preachers used to say all the time, we're the only tribe that shoots its wounded.

And sometimes that's true.

But here's what should happen: He says, warn those who are irresponsible.

What does that mean?

That means that Jesus saved me, and I am in awe of what he's done in my life.

And you profess Christ, and so I should believe what God wants to do in your life.

And I should love you enough to step in and talk to you and say, listen, brother, sister, God has a plan for you.

Listen, he's got more for you than this.

Listen, how can I walk with you?

How can we work in your life?

Listen, how does God want to do?

Listen, if God worked in my life, he wants to work in your life.

And we encourage and we call out things and all that, but we do it from a place that we believe God has a plan for you, and we know God's grace in our own lives.

And I want to come to you and I want to encourage you and I want to build you up.

And I may even need to point out something in your life, but I'm doing it from a place of gratefulness because I believe what God has for you.

I believe in the Jesus in you, and I believe in the plan that he has for you.

And this business about chopping people down because you didn't do this and you didn't do this and you didn't do this, that's not what Jesus does in our lives, and that's not what he's talking about.

What he's talking about, if you're supposed to be at peace with everyone and then warn those who are irresponsible, those have to work together.

And the way that works together is I am grateful for God's grace in my life, and I know what he's done, and I want you to experience the same thing.

So I'm going to step into your life with love and I'm going to encourage you and show you what Jesus wants to do in your life.

Sometimes our staff were talking, especially with some of our younger folks, and they'll get frustrated.

Did y'all know that sometimes you're a little frustrated?

And so what I'll tell them is look, we're here to encourage people.

Are they having a rough day?

What's God doing in their life?

How's it go?

We're here to build and encourage.

And you guys are the same way.

And most of the time, we have a great fellowship in our church.

And it really happens, and we see this happen.

And it happens because as we are becoming like Christ and God is working in our midst, we have a spirit of gratitude that drives how we do what we do.

Look what he says.

Comfort the discouraged.

How do you comfort someone who's discouraged?

Listen, I know where you are, but God's grace is so powerful.

Here's what he's done in my life.

Man, I was where I was there, and this is him, and he never leaves us alone.

And I want to pray for you, and I want to walk with you, and I want to encourage you because I am so grateful for what God has done in my life.

And when he encouraged me when I was down, and brother, sister, I want to walk through this with you, and I want you to know that Jesus loves you and I'm gonna build you up.

Is that in our lives?

Is that happening?

If it's not, there's a part of our character that God still wants to work on for us to become grateful and to view others with a sense of gratefulness of what Jesus does in our lives.

And if you go on every one of these character traits, it is a spiritual barometer of whether we are giving thanks in everything in the way that God wills it in our lives.

As you read this week, there are two things I want you to do with your booklet.

I want you to commit to walk through those verses.

Ten minutes a day, it's all take.

Whatever.

Just do it with everybody.

I just want you to commit to do it and get before the Lord and let him work on this heart of gratefulness.

Man, if you'll spend some time with the Lord, you'll find out like I have that there's a lot of areas where I'm not grateful like I should be.

And it shows up in my attitudes, my actions, my commitment level.

And the second thing I want you to do is I want you to just listen for God to point out in your life.

Just let it be a spiritual barometer as you read through the Word of God.

Let the Holy Spirit speak to you.

As the scripture says, don't stifle the Holy Spirit.

Let him speak to you through his word.

And this week, just ask the Lord, where am I?

You'll find, like most of us, there are some areas you're doing pretty well, and there are some areas he puts his finger on because that's a place he wants to work.

And just let it be a spiritual barometer and get a sense of where you are in that process.

And then number three, the final concept.

Spiritual transformation happens through obedience.

Now we teach this sort of idea a lot through what we call the transformation triangle.

So what happens is God steps into your life and he has a choice of faith he wants you to make, or he brings a command from Scripture into your life, and he places it there for a reason.

He's not trying to do something terrible in your life, excuse me.

He's not trying to press you down or whatever kind of a thing.

It is a classroom in the transformation process.

And he puts this in front of you, and he wants you to listen, he wants you to trust him, he wants you to take a step of faith and obey that command or obey that thing he's asking you to do.

Remember what Jesus told us.

He it is who loves me, who keeps my commandments.

This is a relationship deal, and he says, I want you to do this, and he commands us to do it, and we step out in faith and we do it.

And as God works in our lives, he transforms us, spiritual light bulbs go off, we trust his faithfulness.

All these spiritual things happen in our relationship, and it's just incredible, and it draws us closer to him.

Transformation happens through obedience, through God's speaking to us.

So this is a shorthand way.

Sometimes at church, we talk about the spiritual chemistry of how someone grows.

And it's perfect to understand in this transformation process.

If you think about it, it's an equilateral triangle.

And in an equilateral triangle, all the legs grow together in the same time and same length.

And these three things all work in concert together.

You see them all illustrated in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.

1 Thessalonians 5 · chapter mention

First of all, our identity.

So if Christ is your Savior, that also means you're a member of the body of Christ.

If the command for us is to honor those who are leading you and encourage those who are discouraged and help the weak and be at peace with everybody and step into the lives of someone who's irresponsible to help them grow to be like Christ, that means your relationship with Christ and your relationship and the body of Christ are inextricably linked.

To be a believer, you have to be with believers.

Then our relationship leg, that's exactly what I've just described.

That's prayer, Bible study, and faith choices.

So what happens is you get your brew book, you start asking the Lord, teach me from this verse, you're studying that.

Holy Spirit puts a finger on some area of your life.

Ah, son, I'm so glad you asked.

Let's work on this in your life.

And he puts in front of you a choice of faith that you have to step out in faith and obey.

And as you do, you are confirmed, oh, that really was God that spoke to me.

That really was real.

Oh, this spiritual light bulb went off.

Thank you for teaching me that.

It bears fruit in the deal.

I learn and grow through this.

All those things happen, and my relationship with Jesus grows.

And then ministry, serving others.

You cannot be a Christian without serving others.

If Jesus died for us on the cross, then how in the world are we going to be selfish and not serve?

It's impossible.

If Jesus is washing the feet of his disciples and teaching us what love is, and he says, greater love at no man this, and man laid down his life for his friends, and he says, Greater works than I do, you're going to do, and you put all that together, you've got to serve other people in the church for that to happen.

It is a spiritual barometer of the gratefulness of what God has done in your life.

If you are going to warn those irresponsible, comfort the discouraged, help the weak, be patient with everyone, pursue what is good for one another and for all.

How can you do that if you're not serving others?

And so that's a picture of our spiritual life.

And so God puts these things in front of us and He pushes and exerts pressure on one of those legs, and as we're obedience, we grow.

And gratitude happens through that transformation process.

You're not going to wake up one morning and just automatically have a spirit of gratitude.

It is a change process that God does in our lives.

Told you this story before.

When I was called in the ministry, I've been practicing law and all that sort of stuff.

But I was a deacon, I was a Sunday school teacher, I was doing all those things.

I thought I was doing okay.

I mean, I thought I was serving people, I thought I was growing.

God called me in the ministry, so we went down and sat down with my parents to tell them what had happened.

And we began to talk through that with my parents.

I'm explaining to them, God said this, God said this, like I believe God's doing this.

And immediately, as soon as I'm finished, my mother, my sweet little old five foot three mother, who sugar melts in her mouth, right?

I mean, she's just this sweet.

She looks at me and she says, Son, you are not cut out to be a pastor.

You don't have the attitude for it.

You don't like people, you miss God.

Go back and pray more.

She literally said that.

And when she watches this sermon, I'm going to get a lecture about, I told you to quit telling that story.

But she did.

I mean, I was not that guy.

I was not, I was not wired that way.

I'm not spiritually wired to be that way.

I mean, I went, I was a lawyer for a reason.

I mean, it was, you know, I'd fit there, and my mom was not wrong.

But what happens is God prunes and shapes and works and transforms.

And it just changes, he changes us as we move forward.

And it happens in every person's life.

And now I tell folks, listen, the fact that I'm a pastor, God did this just to take away your excuse.

No one can ever say, God cannot use me.

If God can use me to do this, then he can use you to do anything.

Paul said that in his letter to Timothy.

I am just an example.

I, Paul, am just an example of God's grace and saving people so that other people who wonder if they can be saved know that Jesus saved.

And every one of us are that.

Every one of us is just an example of what God can do to a life that surrendered to Him.

Because He is the one who transforms us and turns us into the person that He has designed us and called us to be.

And He shapes all of that in our lives when we're obedient, we step out of faith, and we do these things.

And so that's what God is trying to do in us, and the result of that is an incredible, humbling, deep.

I cannot believe that Jesus saved me.

I am so not worthy of what God has done in my life.

But he did it anyway, because that's who he is.

With every fiber in my being, I want to love people.

I want to be an encouragement.

I want to change from what I was to someone who God can use because I want you to know the grace in your life that God put in mine.

And can you imagine what happens when God has a people that every one of them have that heart of gratitude?

And we are filled with a body of people who are saying, I cannot believe what God has done in my life.

And I want him to use me to touch yours so you can experience the same full grace of God that I've experienced in mine.

Man, you put together a collection of people like that, it will change the river valley, it will change the state of Arkansas, it will change the United States of America, and it could change the world.

It is God's design for us.

I want you to bow your heads as we close this morning.

I want to ask you, just start off with this question.

If you held up a mirror and this sermon, this scripture, God's teaching in this scripture is a spiritual barometer, and it's like a mirror.

And I want to ask you to look in the mirror.

Has the Holy Spirit told you you have a heart of gratitude and affirm that?

Has he told you, okay, you were here today because we're going to work on this?

Or maybe he's told you, man, you're doing really well here, but you just knew that area that you knew he wanted to shine a light on and work on.

And you go, okay, I know what this journey is going to be.

He's going to work on that area.

Where are you today?

First of all, if you've never been saved, if you don't have a heart of gratitude for the sacrifice of Jesus, or you've been wondering whether you should be saved, and you should look and understand that to give your life to Christ is an overwhelming choice of faith where you cannot believe what he's done for you, and you just want to say thank you, and you are overwhelmed with his grace, and you give your life to him because he gave his life for you.

Give your life to Jesus this morning.

Start that journey with a heart of gratitude that Jesus saves.

If you're already a brother or sister in Christ, then I just want you to do the two things I've asked you to do.

Commit to spend a few minutes with the Lord each morning.

If you're already in some other deep study or something, don't hijack that.

I'm not trying to get in your way, but you can take a verse and you can brew it for 10 or 12 minutes with the purpose of allowing God to do the second thing.

Are you grateful?

Where are you grateful?

And where do you have some more transformation?

Because God wants to work in your life.

If you've never been saved, I'm going to pray.

Our people are going to stand and sing an invitation.

Man, our pastors will be here.

You come, you come.

If you want us to pray with you, you come.

If you want to pray at the altar, it's open this morning.

Come and pray.

We're free here together to let the Lord work and to give ourselves to Him and His transformation process.

If you need to be saved this morning, I want to invite you to come.

Lord, we love you and we thank you.

This scripture is so incredible.

It says, May the God of peace sanctify us completely.

That's just you working in our lives as we've talked about.

That's that sanctify, that's just that transformation word.

And so we are grateful.

So I pray this morning, Father, if there's someone whose transformation process needs to start today and they need to be saved, I pray you'll give them the freedom, build their faith to come.

I pray for my brothers and sisters in Christ, Lord, draw us together.

Help us to be committed to encourage one another, to walk through this journey together, to do what it said, warn the idle, encourage the discouraged, comfort the weak, strengthen them.

Walk this journey together.

Pursue your purpose in each other's lives for good.

Draw us together in this time.

It is in Jesus' name we pray, and all God's people say.

Please know we want to minister to you and pray for you.

Send an email to contact us at fsfbc.org and let us pray for you and help you in any way we can.

Thank you for listening to chapter and first of the Bible teaching ministry of 40 minutes at the first man of the church.