Gratitude

Thank you. My name is Mark. I'm one of the pastors and I just want to welcome all of you. So glad that you're part of church. It's been an amazing first 15-20 minutes already. I want to welcome not only those of you in this room but next door in venue or tuning in on Facebook live. Welcome all of you. We're so glad you're here.

I want to begin this morning by giving you yet another 2020 update. Right now our focus is on constructing a college outreach center and coffee house and this past week we trench through the parking lot and laid in all of the utility lines and stuff like that. It was amazing how much work was accomplished. You think it would take me like a lifetime to dig a trench like that and these guys just in a week it was incredible. And so we're just so excited. We're grateful for all the construction workers who are doing such excellent work.

In fact let's just thank and encourage the folks at Bogart and Durden Engineering this past week. It's delightful to work with. So skilled and competent and diligent. We're just grateful for them. Pray for their safety and also if this is all new to you you're like what I know I don't know anything about this. Well you can go to there's a display out in the lobby that looks like what you're seeing on screen right now. 2020 vision talks about this current project and all the other things around it because it's bigger than just this building.

And then also you can go to our website and click on the same banner get the same information. Maybe you'd like to partner with us in this outreach. You know there's 14,000 people right next door at Cabrio in addition to our broader community. We want to send a message of welcome and love and hospitality and have the opportunity hopefully to share the love and grace and gospel of Jesus Christ along the way. So that's what we're doing and we'd love to have more people partnering with us.

Well can you believe that thanksgiving is less than two weeks away? How did that happen? I don't know. But in light of all of this René and I are doing a little two-part series entitled are you ready? Wait for it. Thanksgiving! I know it's amazing the creativity that just comes out of our minds here. It's all about living a life of gratitude and generosity.

Let me begin by asking you this. What if I were what if I told you that there was one thing that you could do that would have this effect? It would make you more hopeful and healthier, improve your sleep quality, increase self-esteem, increase helpfulness and empathy, increase mental and emotional resilience. Would you be interested in knowing what that one thing is? Well those are all just five of the many scientific benefits of gratitude according to this recent article in Newsweek magazine and it's amazing the article cites all sorts of contemporary research going on.

In fact that fifth benefit about having a mental emotional resiliency in that study they looked at Vietnam War veterans and the ones that had higher levels of gratitude consistently had lower levels of post-traumatic stress disorder consistently. One of the researchers they talk about in the article is a professor at UC Davis named Robert A. Emmons. He is perhaps the leading researcher in this field in the entire world and in fact he wrote a book that I read this week called Gratitude Works. It's an excellent book worth reading but let me just share with you some of the statistics that he lays out in this book.

First of all people who just keep a gratitude journal just writing down a couple things each week that you are grateful for, get this, they are 25% happier. They sleep 30 minutes more per evening. Some of you are going to get a head start on that right now during the sermon and I'm just going to tell myself you're not bored, you're grateful so there we go. These very same people they exercise 33% more. They experience up to a 10% drop in their blood pressure and a decrease in dietary fat intake by up to 20% because they practice gratitude.

It is stunning and these are just the personal benefits not to mention the relational and broader benefits to our society when people are practicing gratitude and the good news is this, this is something you can do. This is something that every single one of us can do. Now you may be thinking well Mark this is something that I would like to be able to do but right now it's just not possible, it's not conceivable but because I just said one loss after the other, one heartbreak after the other, maybe someday I will be able to experience gratitude but there's just no way that I could do that right now and if that's you I just want to humbly and respectfully say that gratitude is still your best refuge.

Let me be clear when we talk about gratitude we're not talking about happiness per se, we're not talking about denying feelings of sadness or anger or grief or trauma, what we're talking about is the biblical idea that we can give thanks in all circumstances not for all circumstances, there's things in your life and my life I'm not thankful for those things but I can be thankful in any particular time of life, there are still things that I can be grateful for.

I'll give you a very powerful example you've probably heard of a man named Elie Wiesel, Elie Wiesel survived two concentration camps Auschwitz and Buchenwald, in fact here's a picture of Elie Wiesel, this is just moments after he was liberated along with these fellow Jewish concentration camp victims. When that photo was taken Elie Wiesel had lost his entire family by the time that was taken and yet one thing that Elie Wiesel famously would say in the years following is the one the thing that the Nazis could not take from him even in the concentration camps was his power to choose his attitude and in particular an attitude of gratitude.

Many years later he would say this in an interview, he says a person can almost be defined by his or her attitude toward gratitude, so the question is how will I be defined by our gratitude or our lack thereof. Now I'm pretty sure we all want to be grateful people, it's the how right, how do I get from the want to to the actual and so I want to take you to a passage in scripture today with the confidence that God's word and spirit and not only inform us but actually transform us and that scripture is Psalm 103 you might want to turn to it if you have a bible or look it up on your phone it's also the first five verses which is all we're really going to look at today they're listed in their notes which by the way are very extensive today you might have noticed that those of you who you're not really into they'll fill in the blank type outlines you can be grateful for today's notes and those of you who really like the the fill in the blanks because it helps you you'll pay attention you can be grateful because they'll be back next week so here we're off to a great start we're all grateful for something today and I think it's going to build.

Psalm 103 is attributed to David but we have no idea when he wrote it in his life we have no idea what his circumstances are most scholars think he wrote this later in life reflecting on his past but we really don't know and it really doesn't matter because again the point is we can practice gratitude regardless of our circumstances and please follow along as I begin at verse one Psalm 103 where David says bless the Lord oh my soul and all that is within me bless his holy name bless the Lord oh my soul and forget none of his benefits.

Now let's just pause there for a moment what does it mean to bless the Lord I mean how do we bless the God of the universe I thought he's like the blessor we're the blessees right how do you bless God? We bless the Lord by praising God by expressing his goodness his grace his greatness and glory that's how we bless the Lord and in the next three verses David's going to focus in particular on God's goodness and his grace but I want us to notice something here in verses one and two because there's something David there's something that he does here that that we all need to do if we are ever going to practice gratitude and you'll notice that David doesn't begin with a prayer he doesn't begin with a request in fact he doesn't request anything of God in this entire psalm he begins by calling himself to praise.

He says bless the Lord oh my soul all that is within me in every fiber of my being bless his holy name because David knows he's not going to just stumble into gratitude you know it's it's he has to summon himself he he literally commands himself commands himself to praise to bless the Lord which demonstrates the first thing about gratitude if you want to write down some notes the first thing I would recommend to you is this number one gratitude is a choice it is a conscious choice like I said he commands himself the verb bless there is an imperative he's like you bless oh my soul and if you've been with us for the past two months as we've been in this series chasing David you know that if indeed David was writing this in the latter part of his life then he could look back at all the disasters all his regrets and he could just stew in misery over those things.

And there are some psalms where he does express just all of his feelings he just kind of pours out his guts and yet David has a way of circling around you'll notice this in so many of his psalms where yeah he's very honest in about what's going on what's going on in his life and yet he circles around to God's goodness and God's provision and God's grace he chooses in other words gratitude.

Now it raises an interesting question because is it possible that you know David was just kind of born an optimist like you know he it was easy for him to choose that because that's just the way he was wired in his temperament and in Emmons book Gratitude Works he actually addresses this objection because some will say well I have personality traits or you know my just kind of genetically the the genes I was given are just naturally slanted in the other direction and so is that a factor when it comes to gratitude well again they studied this and I want to do a little study here just to see if this bears out let's just say let me ask you this raise your hand if you are kind of a natural optimist like you just you see the positive you see that the glass is half well it's okay church you can confess this now there's a few of us we need to inform our face of all the positivity inside but for the most part I've seen it you're like yeah this um that's me you know you're happy to answer that question.

How about the rest of us maybe you see a little bit more than negative the glass a little more half empty it's okay you it's your realest okay raise your hand it's church it's good for you it's all right we're not going to take a picture see right even right now you're just like man this whole exercise is a bummer why did he make us do that right well I'm going to save you the price of the book because what the research says is that while personality traits or personality type have some influence it's not a significant influence bottom line is we all have the power to choose in fact we must choose because Emmons and others go on to say that our brains are actually wired to notice negative things more readily than positive things that's why the the evening news follows the same script night after night right if it if it bleeds it leads that's what we notice.

In fact a neuroscientist named Rick Hansen explains it this way he says our minds are velcro for negative information but teflon for positive that's a great way of putting it you know the negative stuff it just sticks which means we have we all have this built-in bias in our brain to remember the bad and forget the good but as David brings to mind who God is bless the Lord of my soul bless his holy name my God is holy and perfect and wondrous as he he starts to think about who God his his mind naturally turns to what God has done for him and in verse two he says bless the Lord oh my soul and forget none of his benefits and this is huge because the second thing we could say about gratitude is that gratitude is remembering.

It's remembering God’s many gifts and benefits and when we do this in the process watch this we go from taking things for granted and we begin to see them as granted as gifts as given to us by the Lord and think about it does it take any effort to be ungrateful take any effort to be forgetful of the good things or or even to to fall into self-pity does that take any effort no not at all but do you want to be defined by those things I don't think so fascinating there's a book in the old testament called Lamentations you might be familiar with it I was written by the prophet Jeremiah during a really bad time in Israel's history and so it comes by its name honestly Lamentations I mean he does not hold anything back chapter three starting at verse 19 Jeremiah says I remember my affliction and my wandering the bitterness and the gall it's like he could taste it on his tongue I remember them and my soul is downcast within me and if you read this book he actually runs through the Hebrew alphabet chapter after chapter like you know a is for agony and b is for bitter you know and c is for confused I mean he literally does this in fact in chapter three he does it three times in every verse.

I mean it's just like a a like this amazing lament everything that's wrong going on in his life in the life of his countrymen but watch this shift so by the way there's nothing Pollyanna about this he's not denying his feelings in any shape or form but again starting at verse 21 yet this I call to mind in other words I remember this and therefore I have hope because of the Lord's great love we are not consumed for his compassion never fail they are new every morning great is your faithfulness.

I will remember that in the midst of even my misery he says so let me ask you what can you call to mind this morning what can you remember about God’s goodness perhaps his love love that none of us deserve love that we could never earn or how about his compassion that he's mindful of our weakness and later in this this psalm he'll say he knows that we're just like dust you know his expectations for us are unrealistic he knows our stuff how about just getting on a very basic level how about clean water we'll be grateful for that clothing shelter food as we heard earlier today one of four kids insecure anxious about having enough food how about having food in your refrigerator right now?

How about having a refrigerator in this last power outage our refrigerator was damaged beyond repair and so yesterday three weeks later our new fridge finally arrived it was such a glorious moment I was like I just I wanted to hug it and kiss it and name it like a child it's like welcome to our home my precious but hey David says forget none of his benefits right it starts when I choose gratitude and it involves remembering God’s goodness and his grace and third gratitude is specific.

Okay gratitude isn't just this vague sentiment like everyone everyone ever have someone say to you hey you know thanks for being alive okay you're welcome thanks for being you there's no punch to that watch how David lays out five very specific benefits here in these next three verses because he says I will bless God because he is the one who pardons all your iniquities who heals all your diseases who redeems your life from the pit who crowns you with loving kindness and compassion who satisfies your years with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle.

I mean wow let's just review those five benefits for a moment first of all he says God pardons all your iniquities now let me ask you where would we be if that wasn't true where would we be without God's pardon me what if God had looked down on this planet and said you know what you made the mess you fix it you clean it up can you even imagine that can you imagine a world in which Jesus does not enter into that there is no Christmas that there is no cross that there is no redemption there is no pardon there is no hope.

I mean what an immeasurable blessing to know that God in Christ has pardoned all of our iniquities and not just some all and perhaps God brought you here today for no other reason for then for then for you to hear this all means all all the thing that that you you think of from time to time maybe you think about it daily maybe you're thinking about it right now something in your past where man you really blew it you did something that just fills you with shame and self-loathing and you failed as either a parent or a child or a friend or a human being and I want to remind you that all means all that that thought may dog you it may haunt you but it does not come from God.

God says you are pardoned your sins are gone in fact David will say later at verse 12 he says as far as the east is from the west so far has he removed our transgressions from us east and west are not points on a map they are opposing directions the span is infinite and can you thank God for that truth today twin lakes church can we be grateful for that it's it's it's stunning when you start to think about it and not only that that's just the beginning because because he then says he's the God who heals all your diseases and to that you want to say wait wait wait time out David I can just let's rattle off all sorts of people he did not heal their diseases.

Now obviously David knows this he lives in the same world we do so what is he getting at how are we to understand this? I want to suggest two possibilities neither of them have to do with this idea that if you just have enough faith God's going to heal you every single time like he's obligated to because that is just a bogus read of scripture and it is cruel to saints who have more faith in their little finger than I have in my whole body and yet they died as a result of a disease and it was for no lack of faith so we can just push that one aside.

But what David may be saying in this moment is that you know he's looking back on his life when there were times he was sick but his health was restored and so he can simply say Lord you have healed all my diseases it could be as simple as that we could say the same thing if you're enjoying great health today you might look back at a time where you were ill and you can now say Lord thank you you healed all my diseases I praise you for that or the second possibility is that David is is taking a more expansive view of things and it's not only those things in the past but he's looking forward into that day when God will take him home and all his diseases whether even he dies of some disease it will be healed in that moment when he looks into the face of his God and I think that there's some plausibility to this because of what David says in Psalm 16:10 he says this you will not abandon me to the grave nor will you let your holy one see decay.

He really I'm gonna die someday something's gonna die of something God’s not gonna heal me just you know add infinite um I will die but you will not abandon me to the grave and then he says something odd nor will you allow your holy one to see decay what in the world does that mean well you have to fast forward a thousand years to the New Testament to Acts 2 Peter is giving his very first sermon and in that sermon he quotes Psalm 16:10 and he says get this David was prophesying about the resurrection of the Messiah when he said that he was talking about the day when Jesus Christ would be resurrected and that that makes your mind spin that that could even be a possibility and yet David says it a thousand years earlier his holy one will not see decay.

Well the only way for that to happen is you have to rise from the dead pretty quickly I might add and because of that he has confidence he's basically saying by the inspiration of the spirit if God is going to raise the Messiah then he's not going to abandon me to the grave my life is secure I have hope in other words death and disease do not get the last word God does and there is a day that that we look forward to when there will be no more crying no more tears no more pain no more death because Christ is risen we affirm that every Easter don't we Christ is risen he is risen indeed and if we die in Christ we will be raised in Christ and David just continues this theme right into the next benefit.

Verse four he says praise God who redeems your life from the pit again he's talking about the grave here and if you have a sense of hope today if you have confidence that you know when you die that is not the end but in fact the beginning of a new and glorious existence do you know how blessed you are to have that kind of hope that kind of confidence because you know not everyone has that kind of hope and trust in Christ as someone who's done more funerals than I can even remember I can tell you that there are some people that I've done their funerals and there's no real assurance that they trusted the Lord in this way.

Now of course I always want to allow for the Lord to do what he does in the heart of a of a human being in ways we're not privy to in his mysterious and loving ways because I don't make any assumptions but it's tough when when you're handed information about someone and it's basically well you know he really loved the 49ers your sheep boy she sure loved her dog well man they really love nature and yet there's nothing about love for the Lord and even even interest in the Lord that's where the rubber meets the road it's not just in this life but the hope that we have in the resurrection that has been assured by the risen Christ and when you have that hope you are blessed beyond measure may we never take that for granted.

And let me just add if you've never placed your hope your trust in Jesus Christ why would you want to wait another day without doing that? Why would you want to wait another hour? He's the one who out of his love and compassion says I will pardon all your sins I will heal all your diseases if not in this life then in the next I will redeem your life from the pit and if that's not enough he says he's the one who crowns you with loving kindness and compassion.

You know the word loving kindness there is this word in Hebrew hesed hesed appears a number of times in the psalm it's throughout the Old Testament it's it's perhaps the biggest word in the Old Testament when it comes to God's love and in his loyalty and his faithfulness you can't really translate it with one word it's just it's too rich I found a great description in a blog by a messianic Jewish woman who says this she said hesed acts out of unswerving loyalty even to the most undeserving hesed is a bone weary father who drives through the night to bail his drug addict son out of jail hesed is a mom who spends day after thankless day spoon feeding and wiping up after her disabled child hesed is a wife whose long suffering cheerful prayers keep her exhausted husband from falling apart at the seams hesed is love that can be counted on decade after decade hesed is about the security of faithfulness and child of God the Lord crowns you with his hesed can you praise God for that today church?

And again it just keeps going because he's and it's not just that it's his compassion in verse eight the Lord is compassionate and gracious slow to anger abounding in love he crowns us with these things adorns us with these things and I don't know what kind of actual crown David actually might have worn as king you know some sort of trinket that he had on his head but I'm pretty sure when he's writing these words he could could not care less about some you know physical crown it's probably off you know collecting dust somewhere because you know God's love his grace his compassion his love those are the real treasures that we receive.

I mean even today I was I found this picture of of Queen Elizabeth she's wearing what's called the imperial state crown this is the crown that she wore at her coronation she wears it just on very few special occasions and I mean no disrespect but look at her face I don't know that it's bringing a whole lot of joy there it just looks heavy in fact it it's very heavy she says she can't tip her head forward and it might snap off the thing is so heavy it puts her in a trance or something I'm not sure she's daydreaming about once she can take it off.

I mean how much more priceless is the loving kindness and compassion of God that's the real crown and after all wouldn't you agree that the best things in life don't have to do with diamonds and jewels and precious metals? I mean David had all that stuff and more more than we can even imagine and yet I get the feeling when he talks about the God who satisfies your years with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle he's talking about simple pleasures he's talking about times around a table he's talking about friendships he's talking about the surprise blessings that that renew us and encourage us and lift us like an eagle.

I’ll close with this earlier this week I watched a message that Chuck Swindoll recently gave at Dallas Theological Seminary. It was a chapel service for faculty and students and you know at Charles Swindoll Chuck Swindoll turned 85 last month 85 but watching this video you'd never know it I mean still master communicator warm funny still laughed louder than anyone else in the room at his own jokes I mean it's like clearly his body is getting older but his soul it seemed almost ageless youthful even and you know what his secret is it's what we talked about today gratitude.

Something that he said was impressed upon him as a young boy by among others his fourth grade teacher because on the day before thanksgiving one year she gathered together the whole class and you could do this in a in a school room back then she gathered them together and they all held hands and then she led them in a prayer of thanksgiving she went around and thanked God for all the kids for their little classroom for how the school year had started but he notices while she's praying there are tears running down her cheeks and it wasn't till he got home and told his parents about it that he learned that she had lost her husband just a few months earlier on a battlefield in Europe it was during World War Two and yet it went pressed upon his little heart my teacher still found things to be grateful for.

And then a number of years later he would enroll at Dallas Theological Seminary his first year as a student he's there with his wife Cynthia living in a tiny tiny little one-bedroom student housing apartment thanksgiving rolls around and even though he grew up in Texas he has family they think why don't we hold thanksgiving here because there's a number of foreign students at that time they were all from Korea this is shortly after the Korean War and these students had no opportunity to go home during their time at seminary in fact they would be there for four years never once would they go home to see their families because it just wasn't financially feasible it took every penny their their families could scrape up to send them to the states to go to seminary.

And so they invite these students thinking a couple of them might show up and turns out over a dozen of them do and they pack in to this tiny tiny little apartment and the first thing that happens when they come through the door they see the turkey they see all the side dishes and they are stunned they are overwhelmed one of them even blurts out oh if we could preserve this food it would sustain a family in Korea for six months talk about a humbling moment.

And so Chuck invites one of the students to give the thanksgiving blessing to pray and to do it in his native language and so the student kind of stands up straight and his chest just kind of swells and he starts to pray and he prays and he prays and he prays Chuck opens an eye and sees that there's a film forming over the gravy as he prays and he prays and he said Cynthia and I we had no idea what he was saying and it didn't understand a single word but you know you don't have to know the words to recognize gratitude it radiated from this man's being it streamed out in tears of joy thinking about someone who came from a war-torn country where families were separated and lost and yet he found ways to choose and reflect gratitude in that moment.

And Chuck Swindoll said he learned a very important lesson that day which is this joy does it make you grateful gratitude makes you joyful see we get this backwards all the time oh when I'm happy I'll be grateful when I'm joyful I'll be grateful no practice gratitude and you will experience joy and so this week don't please don't wait till thanksgiving day to start counting your blessings start today this week maybe even pick up a little a little notepad and jot down a couple things you're grateful for and you don't even have to do it every day don't make a chore out of it make it fun but make it specific if you're thankful for your for your spouse or for someone why are you thankful what do they do what have they done in other words make gratitude a regular part of your life find ways to cultivate it and grow in it and and as you do you will be blessed with joy and so much more amen amen.

Let's pray heavenly father we thank you for your goodness and your grace to us today lord I keep thinking of that song that we sang at the beginning right before the sermon I should say that so beautifully summarized the whole arc of scripture and just a matter of verses and to think that we are a part of that story that we have a place in your family lord we praise you for that today we thank you lord we may we never become jaded or accustomed to the fact that you reached into our lives and you you you pardoned us and you you healed us and you continue to heal us and one day you will fully heal us and that you will redeem our lives even from the grave because you have crowned us with your love with your compassion and even now you satisfy us with sufficient good things lord to keep us renewed to keep us hopeful to keep us encouraged and I'm mindful lord there are people here today they just they just dragged themselves in here today lord there's a heavy burden a difficult situation that they are experiencing right now that they are suffering through whether it's physical emotional relational whatever it is lord would you encourage that person today would you would you bring at least one good thing to their attention maybe it's just the kindness of a friend the empathy of a neighbor whatever it may be give them joy in that moment.

And for those lord that may be with us here in this room or next door in venue or watching on Facebook if there's anyone within the sound of my voice and you have yet to place your faith and trust in Jesus Christ again I invite you to do that today I invite you to say yes to that still small voice that is calling you saying man I sent my son for you he lived the life you could never live he died your death on the cross taking upon himself your sins your cursedness your diseases and now he lives and reigns supreme inviting you to be a part of his glorious kingdom if that's your desire you can simply say lord count me in I don't understand it all but I want to be part of your family I'm going to follow you Jesus show me how to do that from this day forward if you make that your prayer he will be faithful and your church will be here to help you and guide you in that process.

Lord again we praise you we bless you with all that is within us today and we do this in the matchless name of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and all God's people said amen amen.