The Weary World Rejoices: Part 2

The Weary World Rejoices: Part 2

Isaiah 7, Matthew 1:22-23

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

I'm excited for today. Today is going to be fun. We're doing our Christmas Sweater Sunday. It's just for the fun of it and we have some enjoyment with each other. I want to continue in our Christmas series today. We've been in now week two of the series called The Weary World Rejoices. Say that 12 times fast, right? I'm excited because this is a little bit of a different take on Christmas maybe than what you might be used to or what you might seem as a regular Advent series. But we wanted to take a moment and to really focus in on and look through the four aspects of what Jesus fulfills when he came as a baby all those years ago. And Pastor Andre started us off last week and we began to walk through of understanding who the fulfillment of Jesus is. And I love this because sometimes we think about Christmas and it's just one aspect. We just see like baby Jesus in the manger, right? And we think, "Oh, that's so cute. That's so sweet." But there's so much more that came with Jesus' arrival.

And so I got a question for you this morning and that is have you ever found yourself in a place where you needed to be rescued? Maybe it was a situation, maybe it was a tragic moment. Maybe it was an accident, a car accident or something. Maybe it was more of a situation that was financial. Maybe it was an illness or a health crisis that you walked through. Maybe it was a relationship, maybe your marriage. Maybe you lost your job or you were trying to find a job. Maybe it was a family hardship or a depression or an addiction. And sometimes, especially when we think about and being in a place of that tragedy, Christmas and the holidays are an even greater weight. But what if I told you that what you might see as a burden in the holidays in the midst of your situation or whatever you're going through is actually exactly what you needed to be rescued? In this season that we call Advent, it's a quiet buildup to Christmas where we read specific scriptures, we celebrate special moments, we sing songs that we only sing during this season about a baby who changed absolutely everything. But I want to cut through the tinsel a little bit and Christmas isn't the story about a big guy in a red suit. Sorry to bust the news there for you, but it's about a savior showing up for the very first time to rescue the mess that we're in.

And from the very first pages of the Bible, Genesis in the beginning, we see about this humanity that's been crying out to be saved or ignoring the cry within their souls. And the reality of the deliverance needed from sin, death, and the chaos that the world finds themselves in. And yet either we hide from it or we try to fight it. We bury our head in the sand or we think that we've got this. This is where today's message starts, talking about Jesus as our savior. If you would with me, let's pray before we continue moving on. Jesus, we recognize who you are. You are our savior. And God, we celebrate the fact that that very first Christmas you showed up in a super unconventional way on this earth to walk a humble path, to live a life as a servant, and to show us that Jesus, what it ultimately means to love one another. So God, this morning I pray that our hearts would be open, we'd be recognizing of who you are and you with the title of savior in our lives, Jesus. Open our eyes, show us the need that we need to be rescued. In Jesus' name, amen. There's a myth in this world that's been around since the garden. And that myth is that we can provide ourself salvation, that we can take care of it, that we can be the one that's got it all under control. Picture this, ain't nobody but a sharp guy, takes big risks and bam, he makes it. He built his career from scratch, no handouts, just hustle, all him. We love those stories, right? How many Hollywood stories and movies have we seen of that being the case? A theatrical storytelling of somebody who came from nothing to everything, right? And yet though in the middle of that, the lone ranger who pulls himself up or the one who conquers the dragon solo, it's the dream that we chase, it's the real that we scroll until one day, cracks begin to show, sleepless nights come, they begin to snap at the ones that they love, wondering why this quote, self-made life feels so empty. But the gospel tells a different story. It says that no one is the hero in this fight. Not you, not me, only one person.

And it all began when it went sideways in the garden back in Genesis chapter three. And he says this starting in verse six, "When a woman saw the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it. And the eyes of both of them were open and they realized they were naked. So they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves." One choice, one moment, paradise broken. They grab for wisdom, for control, thinking that they could save themselves from whatever better looked like. And yet, it left them feeling exposed, hiding from God, stitching up shame with leaves that wouldn't hold together. It's this myth that we inherit. We'll just cover it up. We'll figure it out. I'll be fine. Fake it till I make it, right? That's the world tells us. That's what they say. Just fake it till you make it, you'll be all right. But that's not true. An advent flips this on its head and it's God's rescue mission launched into our broken world. Think about it. The prophets were told, the stars announced, and the teenage couple treads to a stable because of it. Jesus didn't just come to applaud our bootstraps. He came to carry our load. So here's a question I have for you to think about for a little bit. What do you really need saving from? You probably all have something in our mind right now, right? Of something that we need to be rescued from. Maybe it's a grudge, you're nursing. Maybe it's that anxiety that wakes you up at 3 a.m. Maybe it's the sin that sneaks in and steals your joy during the holidays. Think about that for a moment. Because I think if we're honest, we don't want to face it, right? We don't like what it shows deep down inside of us. But too often, we just skip it and we chase something else completely different. We go after something that helps us forget what's truly going on inside.

And I call this the me syndrome. It's what we want instead. It's our perverse deep desire down inside of us that we can't just overlook rescue. We want to rewrite the script. Maybe we say, "I can be my own savior." It's that inner voice whispering to us, "Just try harder. Just plan better. Just work your way out." But remember Adam and Eve? That fruit grab was the original DIY kit, the do-it-yourself kit, where they thought they knew better. They thought they could figure it out better than God had set up paradise to be. And it echoes within us to this day. As it says, Paul, he writes in Romans 3:23, he says, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." Or maybe we think of it like this. I'll be somebody else's savior, the hero complex. We pour ourselves into maybe fixing our spouse or our kids or our friends. It's noble, sure, yeah, but it dodges our own mirror deep down inside. The mom running herself ragged playing hero at home, but inside shame eats her alive. She fixes everyone else's lunch but forgets her own hunger for grace. Or maybe you're the, "I'll decide how God will save me." We pray for the promotion. You think about it, "If I could just have this, everything will be good. God, I need fill in the blank." We have our own timeline, our own schedule. We're the director of our own life movie. Isaiah, it throws cold water on that when it says the world is waiting for a flashy sign, a big, strong, manly warrior of a king, but God gives a quiet promise of a child. It's not our script. It's His story. Or maybe you're the, "I don't need saving. I'm all right. I'm fine." This is pride's cruelest lie to us. We scroll past the news and we're convinced that our perfect, tidy little life just proves that we're fine. But deep down inside, we know that's not true. These desires that twist us up because it's not freedom. They're actual chains that hold us down. And as Roman puts it, "We all fall short of the glory." There's no exceptions. Think of it this way. You're caught in a riptide out in the water. The waves are crashing around you. You're doing everything you can to keep your head above water. Your lungs are burning. You need to be rescued. And Jesus comes up in a tiny, little tired, weathered rowboat. And He says, "Hop in." But we're so focused on how we think we're gonna be rescued. It's gonna be a helicopter. It's gonna be the SEAL Team 6 coming in hot. It's gonna be everything, this flashy, big boom of a moment of how we're gonna be lifted out of the water and rescued. But Jesus is right there offering rescue. But it's not the way that we planned. It's just too basic. It's too not enough. So we wave off Jesus and we sit there and continue to struggle. So here's the thing about God's rescue plan. It arrives on His terms, not ours.

And my friends, that's where the trouble lies, is that we will forever be lost until we see our true need. And what we actually need is God's provision. What we're starving for isn't control or applause, but it's truly a rescue from evil, sin, and death. It's the three that kicked off in Genesis when it all broke. See, sin just isn't like this oops moment in our life from time to time, but it's a root poisoning everything within us, turning neighbors into enemies, hearts and horrendous pits of selfishness. We need deliverance from chaos and this inner turmoil that spins us like laundry in a dryer over and over and over and over again. Life's just not these random breakdowns. It's a world groaning under fracture and our souls that feel it first, right? We're restless, we're divided, and we chase peace in all the wrong places. The world gives us these promises of if you just had this, right? Every commercial on TV right now is trying to sell you on the next best thing that will give you peace, it will give you happiness, it'll fulfill your life, it'll give you everything that you need if you just buy blank. We make wish lists out of it. We ask for gifts from friends and family and parents because we think if we could just have that, everything will be right. And yet, next Christmas, we think if I just had that, and we do it over and over and over. There's guilt and there's shame or these like silent chains and they whisper to us that we're too far gone, that we're too broken to fix. And we lug them around in our backpacks full of weights, slowing every single one of our steps. I love what David says, King David, he writes this in Psalm 51. He says, "Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love, according to your great compassion, blot out my transgressions, wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from sin, for I know my transgressions and my sin is always before me." If we were to get real in here, we all have a raw egg deep down inside of us, similar to King David here. That just because he was one of the big three kings of the Old Testament, that he was still a person. He was still a human. He was still someone like you and me struggling in life, crying out for cleansing. And this true salvation that David longed for, the kind that actually sticks, is nothing that we can manufacture. No amount of good deeds or therapy sessions can touch what it actually is. It's got to come from outside of us. It's only from the one who knit us together in our mother's womb.

In this Advent, we see this in Mary and Joseph, who for fleeting rumors and dodging Herod and birthing hope outside in a stall made for livestock, God's provision shows up in the ordinary way, providing he knows our mess better than we do. And it's not these temporary fixes that we hope for, but it is a true, full freedom if we'll receive it. And so who steps into this? Jesus. Jesus steps in as our Savior, our perfect rescue. Plain and simple. There was a Savior figure or character from the Old Testament that kind of foreshadowed Jesus coming himself, but there was a guy by the name of Joseph. And his life plays like a movie. He was one of 12 sons. He was the great-grandson of Father Abraham. And he was betrayed by his family. Maybe some of you have had that happen to you. He was thrown into a pit. He was sold into slavery. He was accused falsely. He was forgotten in jail. And yet he rises to save Egypt and the region from a famine. And years later, after Joseph had been sold, he gets an opportunity to show up in Pharaoh's court and he gives an interpretation of a dream from God of what is to come and how they are to prepare for the famine that will be a long time. And so Joseph oversees a collection of food, of storage, of backups to have when this famine hits. And the famine comes and Egypt is good. They don't have any problems. They've got plenty of food. They've got it stored up. They've got reserves. They're set. But who doesn't have reserves? Joseph's family. And so they hear about Egypt and this guy over there who's got food. And so they travel all the way to Egypt and they show up before Joseph, not knowing it's Joseph Joseph, thinking that their brother is long gone, dead, forgotten, somewhere else, maybe six feet under the ground. And they humbly approach and ask to have food to feed their family. And Joseph recognizes them. And he helps his brother. He saves his family by providing rescue through food. And amazed and humbled, his brothers bow down before him to honor and to show their gratitude. And Joseph weeping, tears running down his face, he says, "Brothers, it's me, Joseph. What you meant for evil, God meant for good." Does that sound familiar? Jesus sold for silver, nailed to a wooden cross, dies for our sins, rises from death, comes out of the grave, saves us from our eternal famine and destruction, the starvation of our soul without God.

Fast forward from that story in Joseph to Isaiah, we hear the prophet proclaim that therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. The virgin will conceive and give birth to his son and they will call him Emmanuel. Matthew, all of this took place for what the Lord had said through the prophet, the virgin will conceive and give birth to his son, they will call him Emmanuel, which means God with us. This isn't a vague hope or a patchwork to just be a temporary. This is flesh and blood rescue from heaven. God crashing down into our lives and our chaos as Emmanuel. God is with us in the dirt, in our doubt, in our darkness. I'm reminded of the life of John Newton. He was a rough dude. He was a slave ship captain and he was hardened by the trade. One night, 1748, he's out at sea and a storm comes along and begins to tear apart his ship. They can see Ireland in the horizon but they know that they can't make it there. The crew's panicking, the ship begins to fail and death is staring them down. Newton himself, he's no saint, he's no Jesus follower, he's no Christian. But he cries out to God anyway and he says, "Lord, have mercy." And the storm begins to let up and the ship limps into port and he starts reading the Bible and he starts wrestling with this life that he's living and the life that he's seeing Jesus calling him to in scripture. And years later, he writes this song that is sung in churches all over the world for generations. It's a song called "Amazing Grace." There's a line in there that says, "For I once was lost but now I'm found." From a chaotic life to a rescued musician. Newton's rowboat in the middle of the night, a plea to God in the midst of winded waves. And Jesus met him there, not in a throne room but in the midst of his rack. That's salvation's reach. It finds us in the middle of life's storm.

Jesus writes, "My command is this, love one another as I have loved you. Your love has no one than this, to lay down one life for one's friends. You are my friends and if you do what I command, I no longer call you servants because a servant doesn't know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends for everything that I learned from my father I have made known to you." Jesus doesn't whisper advice from afar. He swims the riptide with us. And he's betrayed, he's beaten, he's buried, but he comes out from the grave. Isaiah further writes, "Surely he," being Jesus, "took up our pain and bore our suffering. Yet we considered him punished by God, stricken by him and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that was brought us peace was on him. And by his wounds we are healed. We all sheep have gone astray. Each of us have turned our own way and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all." From the lowly manger to the humble cross to the heavenly throne, Jesus is that thread that redeems all of humanity as the Savior. So Jesus paddles up, the boat's ready, but do we climb in? Do we drop our act? Do we first acknowledge the reality of our life and the sin that so entangles us? Not sugarcoating anything. It's real. It's life. It's like the prodigal son hitting rock bottom. But that's where grace floods into our lives. Ephesians says, "For it is by grace you have been saved through faith and it is not from yourselves. It is a gift of God, not by works so that no one can boast." It's not us. It's a gift. It's faith that says, "I can't, but Jesus, you can.”

Maybe you need to stop minimizing the chaos in your life. Maybe you just need to receive Jesus today. Knowing that you're not going to fix whatever you're walking through. Knowing that you can't figure it out, you don't need another self-help book, you don't need another podcast, you don't need another YouTube training series. What you need is Jesus. This Christmas, Jesus comes like he does every single year and shows up and says, "I'm here for you. I want to save you. I want to rescue you. I have a better plan for you than the one that you've been trying to write for your life." David Paul Tripp writes this. He says, "Because we minimize our sin, seeing ourselves as righteous, we don't cry out for the rescuing grace that is ours in Christ." We can't save ourselves. Not even halfway, not even a little bit, not at all. Jesus came that very first Christmas to save completely, start to finish, top to bottom. It may look different than what we had planned, but it is the salvation and the Savior that we all need. So this Christmas, may you pray, "Jesus, Savior, I need you. Pull me close. I say yes to you today. Let me tell you, you'll watch the waves and the wind of your life part, just like Jesus did for the Israelites in the Red Sea. He'll part the waters for you.”

This morning, we're going to be taking communion together to kind of wrap up this reminder of Jesus as our Savior. But maybe for some of us, we've never had that opportunity to accept Jesus as our Savior. And so we're going to put a salvation prayer on the screen, and maybe this morning, as you were thinking, as I was talking, and you go, "Chris, I need rescue. I got turmoil in my life. I got things that aren't right. I got depression. I got anxiety. I got all of these things that are coming at me. Life's hit me hard, and you're talking about a rescue for me. I need that." And there's a lot of us in this room that at some point before, we have accepted Christ into our lives, and it's changed us. And so I want to encourage you this morning, maybe you would want to say, "I need this Jesus, Chris. I want to pray a prayer. I want to invite Him in. I want to climb into His rowboat. I'm drowning." And so I want to read the prayer on screen, and if that is you, would you pray that in your heart? And after that, if that was you and you have accepted that, we celebrate that with you, and we want you to join us in having communed together as a church family. But first, I want to pray. Jesus, we thank you for today. God, we thank you for you who are our Savior. You are our redemption. You are our salvation. And so God, this morning, I pray for someone maybe in this room who would say, "I don't have that Savior Jesus in my life. And I want to accept Him. I want to climb into the rowboat. I want to accept His rescue in my life." And so if that would be you, then I would, as I read this prayer, follow along, pray this in your heart to Jesus. He's there to rescue you.

Pray along. Pray, "Father in heaven, I know that I have lived for myself instead of you. I have sinned against you, but I believe that Jesus died for my sin. So I confess my sin and ask you to forgive me. I bow to you as Lord and leader of my life. Help me to live for you from this day forward. In Jesus' name." God, we thank you for your salvation and your rescue. And God, as the elements come forward and we continue in this posture of prayer, God, I pray that you would be with these elements, God, that as they're passed out, as we accept them and receive them, Jesus, that we would be reminded of the sacrifice on the cross for you as our Savior. Jesus, we thank you for another incredible, amazing Sunday to gather together to worship. Jesus, we continue to worship through communion today. And so as the ushers pass out the elements, I want us to be reminded of Jesus, our Savior. Jesus who came that very first Christmas as a gift, a salvation for our lives. And so as they pass out the elements, take a moment and have a little bit of a conversation with God. We give to him what you need rescue from today. Take a moment, ponder in your heart the rescue that Jesus provides for us. We'll be back in a moment to take the elements together. Thanks for listening. And if you would, please take a moment to subscribe and leave an encouraging review to help others find our podcasts on whatever platform you are listening on. We hope you have a wonderful day. We'll catch you next week. week.

The Weary World Rejoices: Part 1

The Weary World Rejoices: Part 1

Isaiah 9:1-6

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We are very excited for our Advent Series that we're starting this week. I want to give you just a hint of what is to come. In this series we're going to take a deeper look at how the birth of Jesus surpassed all expectations for those who were waiting for His arrival, and how the frameworks for which they thought He would fit into paled in comparison to who He truly was and is. Through Scriptures we'll see how Jesus addresses humanity's desire for stability, rescue, reconciliation, and truth, and each week we're going to look at how humanity's attempts to address these on their own power always falls short. That's why we called our series "The Weary World Rejoices," because of all of our efforts to attain stability, rescue, reconciliation, and truth all on our own. To find those in the world always leaves us tired and weary. The series is all about how Jesus is the fulfillment for what humanity longs for. In Jesus' birth so many answers were provided, so many promises were fulfilled. It's what Advent is all about, remembering. While we wait to celebrate the day of His birth, we remember what Jesus brought to this earth. In the biblical story, preparation for Jesus is synonymous with bringing our hearts and daily lives into alignment with His kingdom. Waiting helps us slow down and become aware of what we're waiting for and just as importantly how we are waiting for it. That's our goal in this series, that you are reminded each week of who you are waiting for, who you're waiting to celebrate, and as we slow down in the waiting that God would work in us. Throughout our series we're going to look at how Jesus is the perfect prophet, priest, king, and savior. And these frameworks that Israel was expecting Him to fulfill did come to pass, but they weren't able to comprehend just how perfect He was in embodying all of these things.

So today we're going to look at Jesus as the perfect king. I want to start by asking, what are we looking for? Advent is often a season where our attention is drawn towards our desires, our needs, our wants. We want a new appliance for the house. Our kids want, and the list can go on and on and on, a new toy, a new Barbie set, new Legos, new Xbox, the Switch 2, there's already a second one I think. Maybe you have some time off work or extra family time so you want to go somewhere, you want, you need, you desire, maybe it's a trip to the mountains or a trip to Disneyland, both of those sound amazing by the way. We constantly have conversations, what do I want? What do I need? Around this time of year. And there's nothing wrong with that, but I think it's also a perfect time to be reminded of what are we searching for in our hearts. Deep down everyone desires one or more of the following in their lives, and these are what motivate us and drive us our deepest desires, and those are security, we want to know that we are safe, we want peace, we want harmony in life, we want provision, we want to know that our needs are going to be met, and we want some kind of order, we don't like the chaos, we want to know that life is going to be structured to some degree, but we all seek these things, we all want and desire these things. And whether we seek these out from someone or something else or we try to create and provide these ourselves, we want these to be true, we want to have them. And when we pursue security, peace, provision, and order in our lives, we often do that by looking for and pursuing success, control, and influence. We think if we have success, then I'll be able to provide for myself. If we have control, then there will be order in my life, if I can control everything. And if I have influence over my environment, then I'll have the security I look for and the peace that I want. But the pursuit of success and control and influence and even acquiring these things, more often than not, just leaves us more restless and empty. So if we know that we can't provide what we truly desire, then we are left to think of someone else providing that for us. And we're looking for someone to bring us peace, security, provision, and order in life.

Almost since the beginning of time, humanity has lived in a world where there is a leader over a people, whether it's a king, a ruler, some sort, and that ruler and king have been responsible to provide these things for their people. The king has to provide the peace and the security and the provision and the order of life. Unfortunately, that has not always gone well. The execution of that plan for earthly leaders to provide those things often falters. It's looked like some benefiting at the expense of others. More often than not, slavery or corruption and greed have played a role in how a ruler has ruled over their people. Every once in a while, a good leader comes along and stands in stark contrast to the rest, but they too ultimately have their shortcomings. The reality for us is that we continue to search for someone who will rule and reign in perfect love and justice and righteousness. So who can rule over us and give us what we truly desire? The other reality that we have to acknowledge is that we don't always want what's best. Our desires can look like the fact that we want a king, but we want a king that serves our agenda. We want control, but we'll disguise it as surrender. I'm giving up, but really, I still want it to go my way. I want control over this situation. Or we want power, but we don't want to submit. We are selfish people. Our desires can be skewed towards what we think is right, what we think is best, but you know the problem with that, right? We are sinners too. We lack perspective. We can't see everything from everyone's perspective, and sometimes what's best for some may end up hurting others. We lack wisdom. We don't always know how to solve every problem that comes up in the best way possible. We don't know how to love well in every situation or speak truth in every situation. We lack empathy. There are limits to our compassion, our love, our kindness. We lack what it takes.

Every human, as hard as they try and as well-suited as they may seem for the job of leading other people, there is no perfect human leader. Again, we are all sinful, and we live in a sinful world. So what do we actually need? Well, we need true, a righteous leader who reigns with perfect justice and love, who defends and protects everyone from the chaos, whether the chaos that the world brings or the chaos that we cause ourselves. We need someone who will provide provision and flourishing, divine opportunities and environments where we don't just exist, but where we truly grow and thrive. And we need provision. We need someone to take care of us, to look after us, to give us what we need to live to the fullest extent. And we need wisdom and peace, someone who will give us that wisdom and peace that we can't provide for ourselves. We need someone who knows all, who sees all, who can speak truth in all situations and bring peace and wisdom to every circumstance. So who can provide all this? Who can do this all the time, perfectly? If you have that Sunday school answer in your head, you'd be correct. But this question is not a new question, it's a very old one and it's one that Israel had for themselves. And they were asking and wondering this, who is going to lead and rule perfectly? They had human rulers that God had helped put in place, the judges, prophets, kings, but these rulers always left them wanting more. And they were waiting and waiting for a true king. And in their waiting, they received many messages of hope from God.

And one of them is found in our passage this morning. So we're going to be in Isaiah 9. You can turn there in your Bibles if you want, it'll be on the screen as well. But this is a message from God as Israel is waiting and they've received message after message of hope, of a future hope, of someone who would bring all these things that they were wanting, that they were desiring. As in verse, starting in verse one, "Nevertheless, there will be no more gloom for those who were in distress. In the past, he humbled the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the future, he will honor Galilee of the nations by way of the sea beyond the Jordan. The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. On those living in the land of deep darkness, a light has dawned. You have enlarged the nation and increased their joy. They rejoice before you as people rejoice at the harvest, as warriors rejoice when dividing the plunder. For as in the day of Midian's defeat, you have shattered the yoke that burdens them, the bar across their shoulders, the rod of their oppressor. Every warrior's boot used in battle and every garment rolled in blood will be destined for burning, will be fuel for the fire. For to us, a child is born. To us, a son is given and the government will be on his shoulders and he will be called a wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace, there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness. From that time on and forever, the zeal of the Lord Almighty will accomplish this.”

Isaiah was a prophet and sent to speak truth, to encourage and to bring hope, to steer God's people back to him, to keep their focus on him and to have them anticipate the culmination of his rescue plan involving a king. Isaiah speaks of this future king in Israel hearing this. They wanted one of their former kings, King David. You see, King David represented the best king in Israel's mind. David defeated his enemies, so in a way he brought peace. David brought provision and enabled the people to flourish in the land. David brought a certain amount of order to the chaos that Israel had been accustomed to. And so, in their minds, David was it. David was the best king that you could get. But it was short-lived. David made plenty of mistakes as well. But still, that's all the people had to go off. So of course, they just wanted another King David. And because they had heard God's promise, great things for David and from David's family, they had this picture that was starting to build of when the Savior would come, when the Messiah would come, it would look like David. There's a verse in 2 Samuel 7:16, it says, "God speaking to David," and he says, "Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me. Your throne will be established forever." So even David's reign was built up by God to say, "This is special. This is different." And the people also hearing that elevated David's reign above all the other kings. And so you imagine hearing this if you're an Israelite, knowing that the king, this future king, is going to come from David's family, from David's descendants. And it starts to frame the image of a king in a certain light. God promised them a king that would lead Israel towards faithfulness and rule over nations forever and ever. But David was not that king, nor was his son Solomon or any of the kings after as it just got worse and worse. And there was a few good ones in there, but Israel kept waiting and waiting. And when we open our Bibles to Isaiah, we're in the part of their history where they are anticipating this promised king from the line of David, who will fulfill all the promises that God made to their forefathers.

And that's the key theme of the book of Isaiah is a future hope in the anticipated king. And so we read our passage today, "For unto us a child is born, to us a son is given, and he will be called a wonderful counselor, mighty God, everlasting father, prince of peace." And you might be tempted to think just as Israel was thinking, "All right, David 2.0, a little fewer mistakes, but bring back this David figure and we'll have another great leader. So usher in another great time for the people of Israel." But they didn't get it. They didn't get that just imagining David 2.0 was so short and just a glimpse of who Jesus actually was as king. It's like, it'd be like this, it'd be like settling for sparkling water when you can have a drink of real fruit juice. Do you guys know these flavors of sparkling water and how like lights they are? They're so grapefruit, mango, orange, blackberry, cucumber, whatever your favorite is. And you've probably heard the jokes that maybe this can of water was canned in a room that had fruit in it. It's just like the lightest hint or that it was a hint of a hint of fruit that's in the can of sparkling water. I Googled some of these, by the way. People have joked that someone just drops a single skittle in every can and that's what you get is just like a little fruit flavoring or someone put a scratch and sniff sticker on the bottom of the can, scratched it and just left it there and that's what you drink. My favorite is these drinks are just like tasting the memory of fruit. It's just water but you read the label and you're like, "Yes, that is somewhat what grapefruit tastes like.”

That's what these Old Testament kings were. They were just a glimpse. They were the best available taste of what a king could be. They didn't have anything else to go off of. But Israel didn't know that there was a better option to come. Imagine having a sparkling water of lemon or lime, those are my favorites, without ever having tasted a real lemon or lime. And you just take the can and you're like, "Great, this is what lemon or lime must taste like, this very faint, barely tastable thing. Love it. This is fantastic." But then you hear that there's actually lemonade or limeade that will be coming soon, this future drink that you're like, "Okay, that's cool. Don't know what that is, but it must be like my sparkling water 2.0, just a little bit more." You can't know what lemonade will taste like fully. You just have to base it off your sparkling water. And you just imagine it just a little bit more. So imagine how blown away you would be if you had a lifetime of sparkling water and one day you get a cold glass of lemonade. You would flip your lid. That would be amazing. Your taste buds would explode. It'd be incredible. And this is, I'd share all that, that very long metaphor, to say that's what Israel was like with Jesus. And they kind of missed it, but that's who Jesus was. They could not imagine the king that Jesus would be. Whatever flavor you can imagine, those were the kings of Israel's past, some of them good, some of them bad. Even the greatest king of all time, King David, was just a hint, a glimpse, a shadow of the king that Jesus would be. And so what our passage this morning is telling Israel and is also telling us is that Jesus is the real deal. This is the real fruit juice, not just sparkling water. Jesus as king is better than any king that has ever existed. Even the best one that you can imagine, he's better. He is worth waiting for. Jesus is the true king and he's the heavenly king that the world needs. And the prophets try to help people understand over and over again, there is more to come. There is better ahead. Do not settle for what you have right now. It says in verse two of our passage, "The people walking in darkness have seen a great light on those living in the land of deep darkness. A light has dawned." Speaking of the hope that will be in Christ, the prophet is saying, "This is the one that you'll have been searching for. This is the one.”

And in verse six, it says, "For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders and he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." Isaiah is describing a ruler, a king who will provide counsel, order and direction, who will provide peace, who will provide, who will give provision and security like a father for his family does. Isaiah is trying to paint the picture. God is giving words to help Israel understand and connect the dots. That Jesus as king does more, is more, will reign and will not have shortcomings. His reign will not come to an end. Verse seven says, "Of the greatness of his government and peace, there will be no end. He will reign on David's throne and over his kingdom, establishing and upholding it with justice and righteousness." Remember from 2 Samuel 7, Jesus will be the fulfillment of that prophecy from the line of David. And he will reign forever and ever, upholding his kingdom with justice and righteousness. Jesus will be the perfect king, ruling and reigning like no human could. Jesus will not only provide all this in his heavenly kingdom, as he teaches over and over again in his ministry, but he does this for us individually even now. He rules and brings order to our inner chaos. He brings peace to our divided hearts. Under him and through him, we can have provision and we can flourish. We can be who God intended us to be. And in him is found the truest and deepest wisdom and peace. And he also brings one more thing that I didn't mention at the beginning, but I know that we all desire this. On top of security, peace, provision and order, we all desire to be loved. And Jesus came to love us. A kingly love, a royal love where we are seen and known. There's an Advent meditation out there from Practicing the Way and it says this, "For some of us, it's easier to believe that God is coming to establish his rule and restore creation than it is to believe that he is coming to be near to us. But it's true. God is after more than behavior change or earnest activity for his kingdom. His name is Emmanuel, God with us. And so it may be that the most important thing we can do in preparing for the king is to open our hearts to him with vulnerability and trust. The king comes with unexpected kindness, healing and affection and we are invited to submit to this love. The way of this king, the way of Jesus is unlike any other king. And his name, Emmanuel, God with us, speaks so much to his purpose that he wants to come live with us. Not just reign over us and be from afar, but he wants to walk every day with us. What kind of king do you know that would do that? And with all of us individually, take the time and the intention to say, "I want to be in your life." Through his personal presence in our lives, he wants to then also bring the peace and the provision and security and the order. But he wants us ultimately to know that we are loved by him. Jesus as our king is the answer to what we truly desire. And it comes by submitting to him and surrendering to him. Not out of fear, not out of some nationalistic loyalty, not out of selfish greed for what we stand to gain, but out of love and adoration for the king of kings. This is the king that we need. And this is the king our hearts should be fixed on this Advent season.

So I want to take some time to ask some questions of us as we reflect on Jesus being king over our lives. And so that question, what are you desiring this Advent season? And to help us acknowledge that we truly need Jesus as king, I want to first reflect on Jesus as our kingly provider. I want to ask this question of you. If you have an answer, great, don't say it out loud. But if you need this week, I would say think on this. What is a gift that Jesus has provided for you? What's something good that God has given you? And you've seen, you've experienced his kingly provision in your life. I would even encourage you to spend time talking about this question with community, whether it's your family around the dinner table or a group of friends. And simply ponder a gift from God, however big or maybe however small it was. But share that with someone this week. This is a gift that God had given me recently in the past, big, small, and spend time together thanking God for that gift. But it's important this Christmas season to see that Jesus is our kingly provider.

Next I want to reflect on Jesus as our kingly peacemaker. How has Jesus brought you peace in your life? Same similar question, whether now, recently, or in the past. But think of a moment that you were in chaos, that life was hectic, the busyness, the stress, anxiety, brokenness, and Jesus brought peace. You may also be in a place where you need the peace of Jesus right now. And I would ask you to think of this. Think of if you are leaning heavily on forms of peace, however good they may be, that actually fall short of the peace of Christ. When I say forms of peace, maybe that's coping with something, and you have a coping mechanism that maybe it's good. Maybe you go for walks, and maybe you have quiet time, but it's not with God. And so it falls short from the peace that God truly provides. But what are you doing? You are in need of peace right now. Are you getting that peace from Jesus? And then I'd ask, where might the Spirit be inviting you to surrender the self-directed strategies for peace and say, "I need to stop doing this. This is how I'm trying to give myself peace. This is how I'm trying to do it. But God, I need to give this up, and I need to rely on you." This Advent season can be full of joy, but can also be full of things that rob us of that joy and peace. So how can Jesus be the source of peace this Advent season for you?

And then lastly, I want to ask, I want us to reflect on Jesus as our kingly protector and counselor. How can you seek Jesus for wisdom and security? And I would encourage you this week, again, to take some extended time of quiet with God and offer yourself in surrender. Find a distraction-free place and just wait in God's presence and ask, "Father, what do I need to do to surrender to you?" And write down whatever comes to mind, whatever the Spirit reveals to you and says, "This is the thing that is keeping you from getting closer to God to receiving his wisdom and security." And ask that God would help release those things into his gentle care and that you would receive his protection and wisdom. We have to, in order to accept God's protection and wisdom, we have to submit, and submitting to him means surrendering to him. We can't have both. We can't say, "God, I'm going to do it my way, but I'm submitting to you, and you can also do it your way." And we can just, sometimes we live like that. We're like, "God, I'm going to try mine. You do yours and we'll see whichever one works out, and we'll just, hopefully in the end, I have peace, or I have provision, or I have protection." And Jesus says, "This doesn't work that way. You can't do your thing and then also expect me to do it. You need to surrender to me. If you want what I have, which is here for the taking, you have to lay down what you are doing to be able to receive what God gives." So if God is saying something to you through the Spirit, and he's saying, "Hey, I'm here. I have the wisdom. I have security. You can be secure in me, but your hands are full right now with your efforts." Take some time this week to lay that before God and say, "God, I do surrender. I'm going to rely on you fully." The great thing about this King is that submission to King Jesus leads not to oppression, but to the truest freedom and joy that there is. Subsiding to the King is the only way to true peace, to heavenly provision, to divine order and security. So this Christmas season, if you find yourself weary, take refuge in Christ. Take comfort in Jesus. Rest in Emmanuel, God with you, and worship the King. We'll close with this.

We notice that we sing many songs that speak of Jesus as our King. We sung some of them this morning, and they have lines that mention the royalty of Jesus, like "O come all ye faithful, come and behold Him, born the King of angels." Charles Wesley wrote one of my favorites, which is "Come thou long expected Jesus." It's an old hymn. I want to read it for you, and it'll be up on the screens. As you read this and hear this, I want you to notice the kingly tones, the royal words, and see how this hymn captures Jesus as the King that we need, as the King that we're waiting for, waiting to celebrate this Christmas. So it goes like this. It says, "Come thou long expected Jesus, born to set thy people free. From our fears and sins release us. Let us find our rest in thee. Israel's strength and consolation, hope of all the earth thou art, dear desire of every nation, joy of every longing heart. Born thy people to deliver, born a child and yet a King, born to reign in us forever, now thy gracious kingdom bring. By thine own eternal spirit rule in all our hearts alone. By thine all sufficient merit raise us to thy glorious throne." We the weary world church can rejoice in Christ our King this Christmas.

Let's go ahead and pray. God, we praise you for sending your son to be born into this world, to enter the story. And as we enter into Advent season where we wait to celebrate the birth of Jesus, I pray that we would remember who Jesus is, and he is our King. And God, I pray that through your spirit, you would work in our hearts to submit to God, to submit to Jesus if we need to, if we are struggling because we're trying to live life on our own. I pray that you would help us to surrender and to submit. God, I pray that we would seek you for our provision, our security, for order and for peace, and that we would be able to see that all the things in this earth that say and advertise that they provide any of those things ultimately fall short of you. God, we pray that you would reign in us and over us. And as a response to that, God, that we would praise you with everything that we have. So be with us this Advent season, be with us this week, and may we see and rest and rejoice in the fact that you are King in our lives. Amen.

Rhythms of Thanks: Part 4

Rhythms of Thanks: Part 4

Colossians 3:15-17

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Well, Pastor Chris and I, we love doing this. We get to co-preach to you today. We are wrapping up our Rhythms of Thanks series. So this is a part four of a four-part series. And so far we've covered week one, which is why we give thanks about who God is and what He does. That is the reason why it's not our circumstances. It's not just when we find ourselves in a good season that we praise God for that. It is all the time. And for who He is and what He does. Week two, Pastor Lauren preached on practical rhythms that we can weave into our lives. And just some more habits that we can have of constantly giving thanks. Again, not just when we feel like it, but constantly doing it so that even when we don't, we are still praising God. And then last week we talked about giving thanks in the midst of trials. Some of the hardest things to do is not just giving thanks when things are good, but having that rhythm when things get hard and we have challenges when we suffer, that we are still giving thanks, not for being in hard times, but again, for who He is and that He is with us.

And today we kind of want it as we wrap up our series to focus in more as a corporate togetherness. Because when I look at Scripture, specifically Colossians 3, starting in verse 15, it says this. It says, "Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you are called to peace and be thankful. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, through psalms, hymns, songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. And whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.”

We did this this morning. You guys catch that? We did that this morning in our singing of songs. Sometimes as a pastor you get asked, "Why do we do karaoke at church?" You've probably never thought of it that way before. But it's group karaoke, right? And we're here all singing together. Why? Because we are to give thanks together. It's a worshiping all collectively. We are all members of one body, as the Scripture says. We don't live life in isolation. We are created for community. We are created for relationships. We are created to live with one another. And I think one of the greatest lies from Satan is that he tells people, "You can do this Christianity thing on your own." It's one of the strongest lies from the pit of hell. That you can do this whole Jesus thing on your own. You can listen to podcasts. You can listen to a sermon online. You can have your little personal Spotify playlist of worship. And yes, there are elements of that as we worship together, or we worship individually, and we grow in our relationship with Christ. There's another level that God desires for each of us as we step into living this life out in community. We're not created to live life alone. And gospel community is the glue that holds our Christianity walked together. And when we step outside of that, we lose a beautiful gift that God has given to us. We truly do. I love what it says in verse 16. It says, "Let the message of Christ dwell in you richly, as you teach and admonish one another in all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts." You can't do that by yourself. You can't. You just can't do that by yourself. It is one of the main reasons why we gather each and every week to encourage each other, to worship with one another, to give thanks in community as we enter into the pinnacle of our earthly relationships. This is a beautiful gift that God has given us this side of heaven. And when we live life without that, we don't have a full picture of the life that Jesus Christ desires for us to live.

So we were prepping this week. We asked the question, "So where in Scripture do we see this? Where in Scripture is it supported that this is a community event, this giving thanks and this rhythm of thanks?" And so I did some studying this week, and I found three aspects of communal thanksgiving that stand out and inform us of how we should live today. So the first one is that communal thanksgiving stemmed from a communal experience. Communal thanksgiving stemmed from a communal experience. I think of in the Old Testament, Exodus 15, after Israel had gone through the parted Red Sea, it was something they all did. And on the other side, they all give thanks. So it's something they all experienced, and they all praise God. Or I think of 1 Chronicles 16, where David is leading the people in thanksgiving because the Ark of the Covenant has returned. And it says in verse 34, "Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His love endures forever." I'm sure you guys are familiar with that. It's been put into many songs that we sing. But again, that is all of Israel experiencing something, and then they are all giving thanks together. Number two, communal thanksgiving occurred around community practices. We talk about rhythms and seasons that we experience together as a church. Well, Israel, too, had rhythms and seasons and instituted feast days that they would practice. And so they had built-in calendar communal thanksgiving rituals and feasts that God ordained and said, "This is going to be important in your life, that you need to regularly give praise." And so I'm going to put it in, and it's going to be around food. Much of what we're doing today, we're going to be around food, and we're going to be giving thanks.

Another one of those practices was singing, as Pastor Chris said. So many songs are individual songs that the author wrote to say, "This is how I feel." But there are also songs that were made to be sung by the whole of Israel altogether. Psalm 95, 100, 107, 118 are just some of them. But all these songs were meant to be sung by the congregation, almost like songs that we used to have. If you grew up in church and you used to sing a song in the round where the men would sing one part and the women would sing one part, you can't do that by yourself. You need other people to sing that with you. That's how these songs were meant to be sung. So to have community practices involved in our rhythms is important. The third thing is communal thanksgiving was a witness to the world. There's a time in the Old Testament when Israel is returning to land, and they're building up the walls in Ezra and Nehemiah, and they're rebuilding everything. And as different phases get completed, they stop and they sing and they praise God. And it says, "With praise and thanksgiving," this is Ezra 3, "they sang to the Lord, 'He is good, his love toward Israel endures forever.' And all the people gave a great shout of praise to the Lord, and the sound was heard far away." Or in Nehemiah it says, "The sound of rejoicing in Jerusalem could be heard far away." The people beyond the walls of Israel, beyond Israel, could hear Israel praising God, whether through song or shouting praises. Also in Acts 2, when we get to the New Testament and the early church, it says in Acts 2:42, "They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people, and the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved." And there is no doubt that this is how the gospel spreads so quickly, is that the people outside of those gatherings were starting to hear and wonder, "What is happening over there?" The world around the church, around believers, saw praise and thanksgiving. They saw these rhythms being practiced. So scripture is full of insight of having communal rhythms of thanks and praise.

So then we ask the question, "What does that look like for us today?" What is this kind of like, we read from the Old Testament and the New Testament, we see that example, what does that mean today? 2025, Spring Valley Church, Rocklin, Roseville, Northern California, what does that look like? Well, we see this modeling as a church is this amazing gift that communal thanksgiving is actually a gift to the next generation. We have multiple generations in this room gathered together, and we're going to have, when we move to baptism, actually the kids are going to come back in with us because we want to celebrate together as a gift with one another. And I love what it says in Psalm 79. It says, "Then we, your people, the sheep of your pasture, will thank you forever. We will declare your praise to generation after generation." Communal thanksgiving is an echo into eternity. This isn't something that is just here right now in this moment, but it is a gift that we can pass on. Again, we don't do this in isolation. This isn't just a singular moment, but it is a rippling effect. You ever throw a rock into a lake or a body of water? Those ripples, they continue to go out and go out and go out and go out. That is how our communal praise goes forward. Just like Andre said, it is a witness to the world. And today we get to celebrate with those being baptized, celebrating and seeing their thankful hearts for the salvation that they have accepted and received through Jesus Christ. Baptism is a thanksgiving party that we all get to experience together. And here's the reality for us as Christ followers. We are going to give thanks in eternity forever. You guys ever think about that? It says this in Revelation 19:6-7. It says, "Then I heard something that sounded like a vast multitude, like the boom of many pounding waves, like the roar of mighty peals of thunder, saying, 'Hallelujah! For the Lord your God, the Almighty, the omnipotent, ruler of all reigns, let us rejoice and shout for joy. Let us give thanks or give Him glory and honor.'" This is the image that John receives of eternity, of everybody gathering around the throne in heaven praising God. See, our communal thanksgiving is actually practice. It's our practice for what we are going to do for all of eternity. Our hearts of gratitude and praise here on earth is practice. Practice makes—okay, let me try that again. Let me try that again. You weren't ready for it. You weren't—no, it's okay. It's okay. Practice makes— perfect! We have just a short time to learn how to give thanks and praise and gratitude in community so that when we get to heaven, we're ready to praise God. Practice.

So as we wrap up this Rhythm of Thanks series, hope you guys have enjoyed. I hope you've used these gratitude calendars each day, risen up to the challenge to read a Scripture and write something down that you're thankful for. But we need to ask ourselves individually, but also collectively, as will we be individuals together, a community marked by gratitude? Will we be a church that when people come and see us and interact with us, maybe visit on a Sunday morning, maybe run into us at Bel Air or at the mall shopping, they go, "Don't you go to that little church that's in the back of that business complex behind Primo's Pizza? Aren't you behind Edwin's?" Like, "Yeah, I am." He's like, "You guys are always so grateful. You always have glad and sincere and gratitude in your heart. Why?" And as we live that out, we show to the world around us who Jesus is. Because communal thanksgiving begins in our own hearts. We have to individually commit and say daily, "I am going to be grateful for today." That no matter what comes, I'm not going to complain. We sang a song about that last week. That we will live out our gratitude every single day. Will people see us living on the daily a rhythm of gratitude and thankfulness? Or will they see angry, bitter, hard-hearted people? Will they see people who just can find the worst in the world at any single moment? If it was up for me, I would make the choice for everybody. I would say I'd rather be grateful. Because bitterness in our heart left unchecked takes us to a real bad place. So which community would you rather be a part of? A bitter, hard-hearted, or a grateful, thankful community of believers? So how can we further step into gratitude each and every day, acknowledging who God is and giving witness to the world around us, and practicing our thankful praise before we get to heaven for eternity? That's what we have to answer.

Let's go ahead and pray one more time. God, thank you for your word that encourages us, that exhorts us to live a life of gratitude. God, thank you for the examples that we see of giving thanks as a community. Yes, we individually want to be people who are grateful to you and praising you, but we also want that to be true of our church, of this body of believers. That that would be one of our core values, our strongest characteristics that people see, even outside these walls, that that would be known of us. That we are a church that praises you and gives thanks. So God, I pray that you would do the work through your spirit in us to make that true, continue to transform us, make us more like you. And as you do that individually, that you would transform this church as a whole, to be a church that glorifies you in all situations, that praises you no matter what is happening, and gives thanks in all seasons of life. We pray this in your name. Amen.

Rhythms of Thanks: Part 3

Rhythms of Thanks: Part 3

James 1:2-4

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

We are in our Rhythm of Thanks series and I hope that you have been following along and this is week three. I really appreciate Lauren's sermon last week which was very practical in encouraging us to have some habits and rhythms that we can implement in daily life to exercise that muscle of gratitude. I hope you've been using the gratitude calendars. If you're just joining us, you can take one of those calendars, use it for the next, you know, rest of the month and just write something down that you're grateful for.

Today we're going to be shifting gears a little bit and we're going to be talking about what happens when life gets difficult. What do we do when trials come, when trauma, pain, misfortune arise and what happens to our rhythm of thanks at that point? We know that these are realities of life, suffering, facing trials, challenges and there are different kinds of trials. There are things that maybe what I would say external things that happen to us, outer circumstances like natural disasters or losing a job or some kind of car accident. There's internal things, our own mental health, psychological trauma, emotional unhealth. Maybe there's family hurt, generational sin, trauma, tragedy, also physical health, physical trials like sickness, cancer, diseases and maybe even we're not the ones that are directly affected by those things but we are in close proximity. Maybe a loved one has those and so while we may not be in facing it directly, we still feel the weight of those challenges in people's life. What do we do then?

Well, the Bible tells us that suffering and trials go hand in hand with our faith. Some are surprised by this. They think that once God is a part of our lives, we no longer deal with hardships. As believers, if you've been walking with God, you can kind of chuckle at that. That is not true. Jesus' words are very clear to us in 1 Peter 4:12, it says, "Dear friends, do not be surprised at the fiery ordeal that has come on you to test you as though something strange was happening to you." Don't be surprised. Thankfully, the Bible doesn't just tell us that it's a part of our life but it also tells us how we are to continue worshiping God. What do we do when we fall on hard moments? Just a quick Google search about suffering in the Bible will lead you to some stories that you're probably familiar with. You can think of Job, who was a famous story in the Old Testament who lost everything. You can think of the life of Paul, who after coming to believe in Jesus was shipwrecked, he was imprisoned. You can even think, obviously, of Jesus, right, who was wrongfully accused, beaten, crucified. And I can summarize all of those in relation to our series in this way, that the Bible says that we don't stop giving thanks. We don't stop giving thanks. In the midst of whatever is happening, we continue to give thanks to God.

Today we're going to be in the New Testament book of James. If you'd like to turn there in your own Bibles, we'll have it on the screen. But we're going to be in James 1:2-4, which read this, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." I don't know how recently all of you have been through something challenging, a trial in your life. For some of you, it may seem like a never-ending slew of just one thing after another, hardship after hardship. For others, maybe you have to think back to the beginning of this year or last year sometime for the last serious difficulty that you faced. But whenever it was, I want you to spend a couple moments reflecting here. I want you to think of your emotions in the midst of that trial. What were some of the most common emotional stages that you were in, feelings that you felt? I want you to think of your mental headspace in that point. What were you feeling most often during that trial, that hardship? I even want you to think of your body's physical reaction. And would you say that there was any joy as one of the most common things that you felt through any of that? Was there any joy in your emotions? Were you feeling good mentally? Was your body feeling great, best it's ever felt? Adventure to say, probably not. No more naturally, we are prone to stress, to anxiety. Our bodies even get tense. Our minds are fraught. We can become short with other people. Just all of us, all of who we are is affected by a trial and a challenge that we go through. Trials and hardships more commonly elicit a negative reaction rather than joy. And if that's the case, then why does the Bible say consider it pure joy? What is God wanting from us in order that we have a response of joy and thanksgiving in the midst of suffering? Is God tone deaf? Is he like, "Hey, I know it sucks, but suck it up and just be happy." No, he's not. If that's what you thought, I'm here to really... That's not what God is saying. But in order to consider it pure joy, we may need to do a couple of things.

And first, if you're taking notes, the first thing is we may need to reframe the trial or the challenge that we are going through. It says, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds." That joy comes through perspective, not denial. We don't just ignore and force ourselves to be happy. That's not healthy. God isn't calling us to white-knuckle our way through hardships. Suffering is a part of our fallen world. And while most everyone can agree with that, the difference lies within our perspective of suffering. Secular modernity would say that suffering is a meaningless disruption. It's an annoyance. It gets in the way. It's something to work through and move past as quickly as possible. Eastern thought would believe in karma. It's deserved for some reason. You must have done something. Or it's an illusion that can be thought away. Christianity says that suffering is real, but it's not ultimate. It's painful, but it's capable of redemption.

Tim Keller, a former pastor, great author, says this, "While other worldviews lead us to sit in the midst of life's joys, foreseeing the coming sorrows, Christianity empowers its people to sit in the midst of the world's sorrows, tasting the coming joy." We have to reframe the way we understand and experience the trials that we face. Not as a nuisance or a meaningless experience, but to be willing to sit in them with Jesus and be curious about what He might be transforming inside of us through what's happening. And we do that with a foundation of hope that this world isn't where things end, but we have a glorious future with Him in eternity. We have to reframe the trial. Part of reframing the trial is also being okay with not knowing why it's happening. It's easy to reframe a hardship or a pain once we see some redemptive quality to the suffering. Sometimes, not always, we can see what God might be doing and we're thankful. We're like, "Hey, God, I know that this is hard right now, but I see what you're doing and I praise you for that." And maybe elsewhere in life, you see this in working out, and it hurts to work out. You're sore afterwards, but you understand that that is necessary to be fit, to be healthy, so you're like, "Hey, that's worth it. That pain, that suffering, that is worth it.”

Or maybe financially, you have to not buy some things, and that's hard because you're like, "I really want that, but I'm not going to." But you understand it's to be wise financially. It's helping you get out of debt. You understand that suffering that you're in in that moment. Maybe something tougher. Maybe it's the pain of letting a friendship go is better for your soul and your overall well-being because without their negativity, their gossip, whatever it is about that friendship, you understand that you're going to be better able to live the way that God has called you to live. Those are still tough things. Those are still sufferings and trials that we go through, but they're easier when we know why we experience the pain and the suffering. But what if we don't know? What if we don't understand any good in that moment? How are we to reframe the trial then? How are we to consider it, as our passage says, "pure joy" whenever you face these trials? Something that we need to work to understand, maybe one of the biggest reframings that we need to have, is that God doesn't often give explanations, but he always gives himself. He doesn't always give an explanation to us, but he always gives himself to us. We can be so desperate for an explanation, for a reason, for the why, that we miss God giving himself and his presence, which is exactly what we need. He is the source of peace.

Paul writes in Philippians 4:7, "And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus." And he says in verse 9, "And the God of peace will be with you." God often doesn't give explanations, but he always gives himself. C.S. Lewis wrote, "God cannot give us happiness and peace apart from himself, because it is not there. There is no such thing." Yet so often, we find ourselves looking for those things outside of God, in the world around us. This is especially humbling and challenging for me. I'm preaching to myself. I have sought reasons in the midst of trials. I've sought the why. I've asked God why, and I've done it for a long time, and I've done it to the point where I'm bordering becoming bitter at God, because I'm not getting the why. And maybe you've been there too. And I miss at times that he's right there with me, and that is the greater gift.

I was having a conversation with John Thomas, who helps out with youth. He was a former youth student. Now he's helping out with youth, and we were having a conversation recently about the hardest times in our life. We're just going back and forth. What a great conversation, right? Like, what's the hardest thing you've ever gone through? And then he asked me, and I said, probably the year 2020, as it was hard for so many of you. For me, in that time you heard some of the story before, it was the beginning of our church closing, the church that I worked at, that I grew up in, the church that I was a pastor at for eight years. We began the process of closing. And I was a church family, much like this church family, that I had come to love and adore. Most of that church was at my wedding. We brought Kinsley home to that church family. And so I was losing a job, my income. I was losing a church family, and I was entering into the unknown. And I kept asking God why. I did not understand. And most of my prayers were, I was just frustrated. I didn't get it. And in time, in the years that followed, and yes, it took me years to process all that, I began to see that God may be wanting me more than to have an intellectual understanding of why. He wanted me to experience deep relational intimacy and inner transformation, as I learned to trust the person and character of God, even when I couldn't find a trace of his plan in my life. None of the things made sense to me, but I had to learn to trust him. That was a reframing of the entire situation. It didn't give answers, but it reframed my expectations in the midst of my trial. And so maybe more important than us understanding what's happening, God wants us to experience deep relational intimacy with him and wants us to learn to trust him, simply based on who he is, not always just for what he does. Sometimes we don't understand that it's him doing it, and we just think, "God, are you even there?" And he's sitting there saying, "Are you still going to trust me? I'm right here with you. Are you going to trust me?" Tim Keller again says, "When we stop demanding to understand and start trusting the one who does, thanksgiving becomes possible again." That's obviously easier said than done, but it's so true and so good. So that's the first adjustment. We may need to reframe the trials that we go through, may need to reframe our mind and our heart as we enter into those trials and struggles and pains. We'll be one step closer if we do that to considering it pure joy and to keeping a rhythm of thanks in our life.

The second thing is to recognize the process. Verse three says, "Because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance." Recognize the process. Testing and trials refine our faith. We often want the process to be deny the pain, move past it as quickly as possible, avoid pain at all costs. Let's just get past this, get back to the good times. We tend to think of trials and pains as opposites of praise and gratitude, that they don't occur at the same time. "God, I want to praise you, but I'm in this hard time, so I can't. If you were to just deliver me from this, then I would praise you for being in a good place again." But the Bible shares and encourages us to hold lament and praise together. The Bible project actually says, "Lament is not the opposite of praise, it's the pathway to it." Sometimes the process of us getting to the place where we can praise God and be in His presence fully is going through the trial and through the pain, not around it, not avoiding it. And really, if you were to look at so many of the biblical characters, they go through different hardships and trials, and oftentimes they are closer to God in the midst of that trial than even after it, when God is right there for them. The truth is, honest grief and deep gratitude can coexist together. Honest grief or sorrow, mourning, whatever you're feeling about the hardship you're going through, and deep gratitude can coexist together. And when they do, when we are holding both of those things before God and just saying, "I'm feeling these things, God, this is who I am right now," the process of our hearts being refined is at maximum efficiency. That's where God is working in our hearts the most, when we're honest with Him about what we're feeling.

In fact, biblical lament is an act of faith and gratitude. To echo the writers of the Psalter, in the midst of pain and suffering, Psalm 13, the author wrote, "How long, O God, this crying out for, how long must I suffer?" Cries out in pain and agony, but also he cries out in faith because crying out, "How long, O God," means it assumes that God is still there. It assumes that God is still listening. It assumes that God can do something about the pain and the trial. So there is faith in crying out. That's why the Psalms of Lament always turn towards praising God and trust. That Psalm 13 that starts with, "How long, O God," ends with, "But I trust in your unfailing love. My heart rejoices in your salvation. I will sing the Lord's praises for he has been good to me." Psalm 22, which is another lament, which begins with the famous line that Jesus quotes while dying on the cross, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" That is a Psalm of deep and dark agony. And the Psalm ends with many verses acknowledging God is Lord over all. Verse 29 of that Psalm says, "All will feast and will worship and will kneel before him." Psalm 44, which is a communal lament, ends with a cry for help that calls upon God's unfailing love. They turn from lament in the midst of suffering towards praising God, not because their feelings have changed and they're suddenly happy and they're like, "Oh, just writing this was all I needed. Everything's different now." Their circumstances haven't even changed, but because they are remembering who God is and his faithfulness to them, they rest in that. And they're present in that thought of, "I know God. I know who he is. I know how good he is. I know what he can do. I know what he has done. And he is good.”

We need to recognize that the process of enduring trials, of being tested, is important. It has its place in our life. It's how we are refined. You have to go through fire to be refined. And when you go through fire, you get burned a little bit. So we need to reframe the trial. We need to recognize the process. So then we need to remain through perseverance. Verse four says, "Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." Let God finish his work. As we've said, we tend to be adverse to pain and trials. We don't like it. We want it to end as quickly as possible. But we need to remain with God through the fire and through the trials. This is often the hardest part, to remain in something faithful. This is counter to our natural reaction, right? If you're in the kitchen, you touch a hot pan or pot on the stove, you flinch, you withdraw. You don't go back to it and be like, "Oh, that's probably good for me. Let me just keep my hand there." No. But the Bible says if trials refine us and they help mature our faith, then we need to get that full experience. Let's not stunt our spiritual growth by just begging God the entire time and being fixated on God as soon as this can end. This would be great. Now, I do want to say this. This doesn't mean that we don't pray for hard things to end. God is very much, church hear me in saying this, God is very much in the business of healing, of restoration, of redemption. We can pray those prayers. We should pray those prayers. But it also means that we should strive to have a certain endurance. Understanding that until God relieves whatever it is we're going through, it doesn't mean that he's not listening. It doesn't mean that what we're going through doesn't have a purpose. And so we need to be attentive to what he's doing within us in the midst of that suffering. We continue to pray, God, please heal, please restore, please take this, whatever it is away. But while I'm in it, God, also do your work. As we remain in the process, letting God finish his work in us, we realize that the most important thing is that God is with us. And when we do that, it's only then that we can realize that the most important thing of God being with us is also that he's the only thing that we really need. When we can get to the point that no matter how the trial ends or when it ends, we are thankful for God's presence with us. That is a beautiful place. You can never learn that Christ is all you need until Christ is all you have.

That was Corrie Ten Boom. If you don't know Corrie Ten Boom, she was a Dutch woman, a daughter of a watchmaker in World War II. Her and her family decided to help hide Jews who were trying to escape from the Holocaust. Their family famously put up a false wall in their house and had a system of helping hide Jews who were trying to flee with the Dutch resistance. During this time, food was in short supply and there were ration cards that everyone had to have to get food. And she knew the civil servant who was in charge of the distribution of these ration cards. She had done work with the man's daughter who was mentally disabled. And when she went to him to ask for ration cards that she needed, she writes in her book, The Hiding Place, "I opened my mouth to say five, but the number that unexpectedly and astonishingly came out instead was 100." And he gave them to her. And she provided cards to every Jew that she met, helping them be able to eat during this time. Someone informed the Gestapo about the Ten Booms work and the entire family was arrested. The father died in prison shortly thereafter. Cory was held in solitary confinement for three months before her first hearing. At her trial, Cory Ten Boom spoke about her work with people with mental and physical disabilities and the Nazis who were at the time killing anyone with a mental and physical disability. They scoffed at her. And Ten Boom defended her work by saying that in the eyes of God, a mentally disabled person might have more value than a watchmaker, and then looked at them and said, "Or a lieutenant in the army." Well, Cory and her sister, Betsy, were sent to a political concentration camp, then a women's labor camp in Germany, where they began holding worship services with a Bible that they smuggled in. And many prisoners came to believe in Jesus. Betsy, her sister, however, died on December 16th, 1944. But before she died, she said to her sister, "There is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still." Twelve days later, Cory was released. It wasn't until afterwards, sometime later, she found out that she was only released because of a clerical error, and that all the women in her age group one week later were sent to the gas chamber. And she writes, "You can never learn that Christ is all you need until Christ is all you have." There is so much freedom to be found in the place where Christ is all you have. And you know that He is all you need. And I think in our time, in our lives, that's very hard. We're surrounded with a consumerist world that says, "The more you have, the happier you are. The more you don't, you're not happy until you have this. Your life is not complete." But the truth is, Christ is all we need.

Once we realize that Christ is all we need and that He is with us, this is where gratitude can really come to the forefront of our beings. We need to respond with gratitude. We thank God not for the pain, but for His presence and purpose within it. Thank God that you are not alone in whatever you are going through. You can thank God that He is the power to redeem and rescue you. Furthermore, gratitude and suffering happens when we realize that God suffers with us. And that His suffering on the cross through His Son Jesus changes the meaning of our suffering. If we see that God brought the greatest good through the most unjust, the worst suffering and unfair suffering a person has ever endured in Christ, He can surely do the same in ours. Tim Keller again says, "Giving thanks doesn't trivialize our pain. It honors the one who entered it and will one day undo it." We have to understand that without the cross, there would be no thanksgiving and suffering. It would just mean suffering to suffer, pain for pain's sake. And thankfully, praise God, that is not the case for us. Actually, when we give thanks in the midst of trials, a couple things are happening. One, it's a spiritual act of defiance against despair, fighting against the victim mentality. It says, "My pain is real, but my redeemer is greater." Gratitude becomes a form of hope, believing that everything sad will come untrue.

Gratitude is an act of defiance against despair. It also does this, gratitude is a way of joining God's story of restoration before it's fully realized. It anticipates the resurrection and new life that Jesus brings. As believers, we have hope of eternity with Him, where there is no more suffering. Revelation 21:4 says, "He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away." Bible Project says, "Hope is not naive optimism, it is confidence in what is already underway through the power of Jesus." We can appreciate God for giving us that hope and for the promise of the future that we have, and we can respond with gratitude.

As we wrap up our time this morning, we're going to have some table discussions. Hopefully these questions will help you as you figure out your rhythm of things in the midst of whatever trial you're going through. So I just want to walk through these really quickly. Number one is, how can you differently define your trials in light of scripture? Are you defining your trials correctly? Remember God giving thanks in trials is not about denying them, but looking at them from the right perspective. So do you need to reframe your approach to whatever you're experiencing, that struggle, that challenge, the trial? Do you need to reframe your expectations of God? Do you need to reframe how the trial you are in is an opportunity to grow closer to Him? Number two, what would it look like personally to recognize and remain in God's refining process? Do you see that what you are going through can mature you and grow you deeper in your faith? And instead of holding only two options out in front of you and before God saying, "God, it's either this trial or no trial or pain or no pain, suffering or no suffering," and demanding that God answer you in the way that you deem best, can you hold it all before God and simply ask, "How do I glorify you in this season with what I'm going through?" Remain in the process. We can feel and experience various emotions, even seemingly contrasting emotions at the same time, grief and joy, mourning and thanksgiving. Recognizing that you are in a refining process, and while it might be painful, it would be helpful because it helps to see that the Godly work that is happening within us. So don't become so fixated on getting past the hardship and the struggle that you miss what God is trying to do within you. And then number three, how can you increase your gratitude toward God in the midst of your trials? It might start with, are you even giving thanks at all when you are in a hard time? Are you fighting despair with gratitude? Are you thankful for the joy that comes from suffering? Not joy from what suffering takes from us, but what God gives us in the midst of that suffering. Endurance, wisdom, Christ-likeness, intimacy with God. So go ahead right now, whatever question you're feeling, maybe all three of them, but we'll just give you a few minutes and then we'll circle back up in a few minutes here.

All right, I hope those discussions have been good and sorry to interrupt you at this time and feel free to continue afterwards after church ends, but I also want to say this very important thing that I mentioned that you guys, that God is with you in the midst of whatever you're facing. Maybe you feel that, maybe you don't. And I think oftentimes we feel God's presence through other believers that we know that we're not alone through God, through our church community. And so I just want to remind you of that, that you are not alone and that you don't have to face anything that you are going through alone. And I know that maybe being vulnerable is hard, but this church is a place where you can be free and safe and to share whatever you are going through and we are here for you. As pastors too, I want to make sure that you know that you can always call, email, text. Part of our job is to care for our congregation. And so we walk through all of you in whatever you're going through in life, the joys, but also the hardships. So please take advantage of that and never feel alone, but you can always call and there's always someone here at this church that is going to be there for you.

Last, I just want to say this. I was listening to a song this week, "Come Thou Fount," maybe you know it, an old hymn. And I love the line that says, "Tune my heart to sing thy praise." And I think that's our prayer, that in whatever season we find ourselves in, whether a joyful one and we're praising God or in the midst of a turbulent season, and that idea of tuning, it's just a little adjustment. And maybe we were in a season that was good and now we're in a different season, so we just need to be tuned a little bit. And when God tunes us, then we can sing his praises again. It doesn't mean that the circumstance changed, but our heart is in a place where we can worship God. So let's go ahead and pray right now.

God, that is our prayer, that you would tune our hearts to sing your praises. We want to thank you, God, that we do not walk down this road of life alone, but that this journey toward eternity and towards your heart has been from the very beginning ordained by you. And therefore we praise you, even in our sadness, knowing that the sorrows we steward in this life will be redeemed. God, we ask that you would use our pain and suffering in the trials as tools in your hand, shaping our hearts into a truer imitation of Christ. God, we pray that you would help reframe our minds this week. If that's what's needed, that we would just have a different perspective and be seeking to know not necessarily why it's happening, but just how you are with us to be present with you. And God, that you would use whatever we're going through as a process to refine us. And that when it's hard, that we would remain, until you have restored and redeemed and rescued us God, that we would remain with perseverance in that just sitting with you. And God, I pray that you would help us to learn how to give thanks in the midst of trials. And ultimately give thanks because you are with us in them. Help us Lord. And we do pray. We pray right now for all of us are going through different things. We pray that you would be working to relieve us of that. And we know that you can, and we know that you will in your timing and in your perfect way. And so we pray that that would come true as well. And so God, we pray this. We pray that you would illuminate our way, that you would kindle our hope, that you would be our healing, that you would grant us peace, that you would be our righteousness, be our salvation and be our God. Amen.

Rhythms of Thanks: Part 2

Rhythms of Thanks: Part 2

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Well, we're so glad to be here with you and continuing our Thanks, our Rhythms and Thanks series. So we're gonna keep diving into that and we're gonna keep talking about it. But the reality is with Thanksgiving, that's not necessarily something that should just be done one month out of the year or one day. It's a rhythm that we wanna have and that we wanna implement in our lives regularly. It's so much bigger than just a season. We use this time of the year to help us remember that, to bring attention to this topic and that's great. And I think that's really important and that's why we're having this series. But the whole idea of calling it Rhythms of Thanks and helping us to create that rhythm is so that it will go beyond the season. It will go beyond the one day that we really acknowledge it in the year. Because the Bible talks about Thanksgiving and has talked about this long before we ever had a national holiday about it. So we want to create these habits and these rhythms in our lives that will allow us to continue this practice on beyond just November or Thanksgiving Day.

So today we're gonna look at some practical ways to re-weave gratitude into our everyday lives. So we want to create a habit and a rhythm that will renew our mind. That's really ultimately what we're going for. We have habits in our lives in order to make changes. There's something we want to change or something we want to be better at or we want it to look different. So we create a habit in our life in order to bring about that change. And the same thing is true with our practice of gratitude. And when we have these habits that renew our minds and create a difference, it is transformational, or it should be. It should transform our hearts. And so gratitude is just a wonderful tool that we use to help us do that. So we're gonna start off today by looking at 1 Thessalonians 5. You can pull it up on your phone or your Bible. We'll also have it on the screens. It's a really short verse, but it's one that's often used on this topic. And so I think it's a really great place for us to start off today. So 1 Thessalonians, so the New Testament written by the Apostle Paul, chapter 5, verse 16 through 18, it says, "Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. "Rejoice always, pray continually, "give thanks in all circumstances." Joy, prayer, and giving thanks, these are all marks of the Christian. These are all marks of a follower of Jesus. And so they should be embedded into our everyday life. But this requires us to have a rhythm of thanksgiving. It requires us to put this in to our everyday to make it a habit. But it's also, I think, important for us to understand, and even maybe helpful just in this practice to remember that it is the Holy Spirit who produces these things in us. There are people who are not followers of Jesus who can be joyful, or maybe they pray to something or someone, and they can even be grateful. They can show gratitude. But when it comes to the spiritual life, when it comes to practicing these things in our Christian walk, it is the Holy Spirit that produces them in us. We don't have to have the gumption to do it. We don't have to figure out how to make these things happen in all situations, in all circumstances, by our own strength, because they are done by the power of the Holy Spirit in us, by His grace. And so we can have gratitude in all circumstances because we have Him in us working in our lives.

Actually, I have a degree in psychology, and so whenever we have some series like this, I'm always so interested on the psychology side of things. So I did a little bit of research for us this week, and there actually have been several studies done on gratitude and the effects and the impact that gratitude and practicing gratitude has on our lives. They found across the board, there's varying degrees of effectiveness, but across the board, researchers found that there was marked and measurable improvement in emotional, mental, relational, and even physical well-being when gratitude was practiced regularly. A 2003 study looked at three groups of people. They divided them up into three groups of people, and they studied the effects of their practices. So one group had a gratitude list. They kept a list of things that they were grateful for. The second group kept a hassles list, so struggles, things, problems that they were facing. They kept track of that. And then the third group had a neutral events list, so just things that happened, neither good nor bad, but kept a running list of those neutral events. And what they found was that people who wrote gratitude lists reported higher well-being, more positive mood, better sleep, and fewer physical complaints compared with other groups. Now, the mental and the positive outlook, the mood boost, that to me seems understandable. Like that doesn't surprise me, but what surprised me was that they had better sleep and fewer physical complaints. Like that's incredible, that this practice that God has given us is not only for our own mental well-being, but it makes us physically better. That is wild to me, I love that.

Another, a 2005 study looked at the impact of positive psychology activities. So a couple of, an example of those would be three good things list, where everyday participants wrote down three good things. Another one was the gratitude visit, where they would write a letter of gratitude and thanks to someone, and then they would deliver that letter to that person. So several of these activities were studied, and they produced reliable increases in happiness and decreased in depressive symptoms. And some of these effects lasted for months. It wasn't just that you felt good in the moment, they had these lasting effects continue on because of choosing to be grateful. I love when science proves scripture. God created both, so it's amazing, and I love being able to see that. The thing is, we know from science and from scripture that we can change the neural pathways in our brain. I'm sure some of you are really familiar with this, but when we have thoughts over and over again, good or bad, it creates pathways, like a divot in a dirt road. When you drive over it, over and over again on the same place, it creates this divot in the road. The same is true with our thoughts. So when we have wrong thinking or negative thinking or we're constantly dwelling on that bad thing, living a life of complaining instead of gratitude, it creates a pathway. But the reverse is also true. When we are focused on positive things, when we are choosing to be grateful, when we are dwelling on things that are good, when we have a daily rhythm, a consistent daily rhythm, it creates a new divot. It creates a new pathway in our brain. This builds us up and gives us better and more positive wellbeing.

I said scripture shows us this, so let's look at a few of those. The apostle Paul writes in Philippians 4:8, "Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things." Paul isn't just encouraging us to live in a fantasy world and only think about the good stuff. The man knows trials, okay? He knows the bad parts of life. But what he's saying here is that you've gotta dwell on what is good because he knew the impact it would have on our lives. Our thoughts create realities. Whether our thoughts are true or not, like objectively true, they still create the realities in our lives. So whatever we choose to dwell on, if we choose to be a complainer or if we choose to be a person of gratefulness, that will create the reality in our life.

Paul also tells us in Romans 12, "Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is, His good, pleasing, and perfect will." We are transformed when our mind is renewed. And our mind is renewed by the power of the Holy Spirit working in us and by thinking on what is true and right and good and pure and lovely. If we want transformation in our lives, and as Christ followers, I think that we do, but if we want transformation and to be made more into the image and likeness of Christ, we have to have that renewed mind. We have to create those new neural pathways and allow the Holy Spirit to transform us through gratitude and by consistently practicing it with a rhythm of thanks. In order to make this a habit, I want us to look at a couple of principles from Scripture that I think help us to better understand kind of the why and the how of practicing gratitude. Why is this really important? We've seen the science of it, but how can we model off of Scripture?

Number one, the first thing is we give thanks because of who God is. Giving thanks is not circumstantial. As we saw in 1 Thessalonians, it says, "Give thanks in all circumstances." Well, all circumstances are not ideal. All circumstances are not good. There are some real, real tough circumstances. So we don't give thanks because of our circumstances. We give thanks in our circumstances. And we can do this even if we're not necessarily grateful for the thing we're going through, for the situation, for the difficult person we're dealing with. We can do this because we can be grateful for who God is despite our circumstances. We can thank God for the promises we know He will keep because He's been faithful to do it before. We can thank Him for His protection or His provision. We can thank Him for His presence. Friends, His presence is good enough. That is enough. That is all we need to be grateful. I think of the story in Acts 16 where the Apostle Paul and his buddy Silas were in prison. It was the middle of the night and they were singing praises and praying to God. I don't think that they were singing praises and praying because they were thankful to be in prison. I don't think that's what they were praising God for. But they were still praising Him in that circumstance because they knew who God is. They knew His character. They knew His goodness. And so they knew they had something to be thankful for. There's a story in the Old Testament that also speaks to this. At this point in, it's in 2 Chronicles 20, the nation of Israel has been divided. And there's Israel and Judah. And King Jehoshaphat, that's easy to say when you're lacking sleep, King Jehoshaphat is the king of Judah. And he's a good king. And he loves the Lord and is seeking Him. And he's given some intel that there is another nation, another army coming to attack Judah. So he seeks the Lord on how to proceed and how to deal with this. And a prophet tells him through a message from the Lord that the Lord says He will fight the battle for them and give them victory. Now, they still had to go to battle. They still had this unfortunate circumstance, this less than ideal situation. They had to go to battle, but they were going to trust God in this. So as they were setting out to fight this army, King Jehoshaphat appointed men to go before the army to praise God. So 2 Chronicles 20:21-22 says, "After consulting the people, Jehoshaphat appointed men to sing to the Lord and to praise Him for the splendor of His holiness. As they went out at the head of the army, saying, 'Give thanks to the Lord for His love endures forever.' As they began to sing and praise, the Lord set ambushes against the men of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, who were invading Judah, and they were defeated.”

They praised and sang to Him because of the splendor of His holiness. They gave thanks because of who God is. They didn't praise God, and they weren't praising Him 'cause they had to go to battle or because they were being invaded by an enemy army. They weren't even necessarily praising God for the victory that He had promised. They were praising Him for His holiness. They knew their God. They knew His character, and they knew that that was all that was required of them to give thanks, regardless of the outcome. They trusted God that He would be good on His word, but regardless of what happened, they knew that they could praise God and give Him thanks.

This first idea really kind of leads us into the second one, and it's that our praise is connected to Thanksgiving. Our praise is connected to our Thanksgiving. If we are going to live our lives as living sacrifices, as Romans 12 says, if we're going to worship God with our being, with our whole selves, if we're gonna live a life that glorifies God, we have to include a practice of gratitude. They go hand in hand. Psalm 145:10 says, "All your works praise you, Lord. Your faithful people extol you." That's the NIV version. In the ESV version, it says, "All your works shall give thanks to you, O Lord, and all your saints shall bless you." So is it, which is it? Is it give praise or give thanks? Yes, it's both. The Hebrew word there is yada. We're gonna yada God. We're gonna give thanks, and we are going to, oops, sorry. We're gonna give thanks, and we're going to praise Him. Yada! They are so closely connected, but that word yada also means confession. When we praise and we give thanks to God, when we yada Him, we are confessing and reminding ourselves, but also confessing to the world His goodness, His love, His redemption. When we have a practice of gratitude, we look different than the world, and we confess through thanksgiving the goodness and the character of our God. We get to point people to Jesus through our praise and confession of thanksgiving. Psalm 107:1 says, "Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His love endures forever." That give thanks is the same word from Psalm 145. We get to praise Him with thanksgiving. It's all connected. They go hand in hand in our practice in life. So as we look, we're gonna look at some practical ways that we can do this, but as we dive into those, I want us to keep in mind and remember that we are giving thanks in our circumstances, not because of them, and because of who God is, and that our praise has to include thanksgiving.

So getting into a little bit of the nitty gritty, some practical things that I hope you can take home with you today to really dive into this practice and create your own rhythm of thanksgiving. Number one is write it down. We are a forgetful people. Y'all, I can tell you the lyrics to several songs from high school, "Can't Tell You What's On My To-Do List Tomorrow." Don't know. But if I write it down, if I tell, "Hey, Siri, add this to my list," I will remember it because I wrote it down. So write it down. We have the calendars on your table. If you don't have one already, take one home with you. It's only the ninth, you can catch up. You can think of nine things to add to the calendar and get back on track. But write it down. Practice gratitude by writing it down. Maybe you would rather keep it in a journal. Maybe you journal regularly and you can just add things that you're grateful for in that journal. Some people will actually have gratitude journals that that is the only thing that's in them. There's an author, Anne Voskamp, who wrote a book called "A Thousand Gifts," and she had set out to write down a thousand things that she was grateful for. And she just had a notebook out on her kitchen counter, and as it came to mind, she would write them down. But she kept track of them so that she could go back and look at them and see what God had done in her life. So maybe that's for you, is just a gratitude journal. Maybe you're a little bit more high tech and you just wanna keep them in a notes app on your phone 'cause we always have our phones. So we can just type it up real quick. Or maybe you text it to a friend. Maybe there's a group of you that for accountability and encouragement, you text each other every day what you're grateful for. Build each other up through this practice and this rhythm. However you decide to do it, be sure to write it down in some shape or way.

The second thing is that we give things first thing in the morning. Start your morning by thanking God for something, anything. Before you get out of bed, before you ask Him for anything, give Him thanks. Thank Him for waking you up for another day. Thank Him for who He is, that He is good. But start your morning off with thanksgiving. The next one is to do it before meals. I think this one can kind of be a little bit of more of a rote practice that we just kind of do without thinking about it. But think about it. When you pray, we give thanks for the provision of the food. But this is a natural thing that many of us already do three times a day. But when we're a little bit more intentional about it, it can help rewire that brain and create those new pathways. Jesus did this often before a meal, before He instituted communion, before He fed the 5,000, before He ate with His disciples, He prayed and gave thanks. So we can model that as well. Next one is to give thanks when we remember. Now I know just that we are just forgetful people. So it's not so much that we remember on our own accord, but when the Holy Spirit brings something to mind for us, we can give thanks. Paul wrote in, Paul is the man of the hour, okay? Paul wrote in Philippians, he says, "I thank my God every time I remember you." When the church was called to Paul's mind, he thanked God for them. So as the Lord brings people or situations or the blessings in your life to mind, thank Him for it. Let them be that trigger for you. Several years ago, I went through this really weird season where every time I looked at the clock, it was the same numbers. So it was either like 12:12, like repeated numbers, or it was all the same, like 2:22. And it happened a weird amount. And so I just started praying every time I saw this happen, it just kind of was a trigger for me to pray for whatever had come to mind in the moment. So whatever that, that's not necessarily in your control, but maybe you find something like putting Post-its around your house, on the mirror, on the fridge, on your car, where it will trigger you to give thanks for something. Perhaps it's associating a person or a thing with a task, with a chore or an activity. So every time you brush your teeth, you give thanks for your spouse. Or every time you do your dishes, you give thanks for your children who probably are the ones who made the dirty dishes. Or maybe every time you're standing and making your coffee, you thank God for coffee, whatever it is. Associate that thing with that activity and it will trigger you to practice gratitude in that moment. It could even be a day of the week. Every Monday you pray and thank God for the same thing. Every Tuesday, it's something different.

But it's creating this habit in this rhythm in your life. This is what they call in the psychology world, habit stacking. You already have the habit of brushing your teeth or taking a shower or making your coffee. So just stack the habit of gratitude on top of it. And it'll create those pathways. It'll create that rhythm in your life. Lastly, we can practice gratitude before we go to bed. End the night by thanking God for something from your day. It is such a peaceful way to prepare for rest. Often at night, our thoughts begin to spiral. We start thinking about anything and everything. We start worrying, stress ramps up, anxiety seeps in to our thoughts. We replay all the bad things that happen from the day or how we should have done it differently. So instead, interrupt that spiral with gratitude. When we give thanks, instead of stressing, it allows our minds to focus on what is good from the day before we go to sleep. And that creates so much restful sleep. Whatever it is, make it work for you. These are rhythms that are supposed to fit into your life. And so you may have to make some tweaks and adjustments, but choose something that will work for you in the season that you're in. Make it a priority because as I said before, gratitude is a mark of a Christ follower. So when we are practicing the way of Jesus, we should be marked by an attitude of gratitude, by giving thanks in all circumstances. We're gonna wrap up our time today by having just a quick discussion question at our table. I want you to just turn to someone at your table and tell them which of these practices you're gonna implement this week. Maybe even tell them how you plan on making that happen. But just turn to your neighbor and talk about a few things and we're gonna have the worship team come up and finish this out.

Rhythms of Thanks: Part 1

Rhythms of Thanks: Part 1

Psalm 100:4-5, Luke 17:11-19

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

I'm excited for this morning. I get so many questions when we put out tables, and it's like, what, what, what I, would I miss something? It's something like what's happening? And we love every now and then mixing it up and throwing you guys just a surprise. And no, but we're gonna be around a series, and we're working through, it's called "Rhythms of Thanks." And so for the next four weeks, we're gonna take the month of November, which is commonly Thanksgiving month, right? Gratitude month, thankfulness month. And we're gonna walk through a four-part series and really begin to try to, as the title says, develop some rhythms of thanks. And I love how November kind of causes us to take a pause before the crazy holidays, right? And to take a moment to maybe reflect on the past year or past months, weeks, and to think about the ways that we are thankful for what God has done in our lives and the people in our lives and the things in our lives. But what sometimes happens is that just ends on November 30th, right? You get through the end of the month, you get through Thanksgiving, and then it's like Christmas, boom. But when we look at Scripture and we look at God's word for our lives, it tells us out of 1 Thessalonians to be thankful in all circumstances. And when I read that, I don't think thankful in November. Right, it doesn't say just thankful in the time of November, but it says thankful in all circumstances, and all circumstances happen all throughout the year. And so it's our hope and our desire through this series and with some tools that you guys are finding on your table that we begin to develop a rhythm or a habit of thankfulness that we can take throughout all the seasons in our life.

And so I wanna ask us a question this morning, and maybe you've noticed this, maybe you haven't, but have you ever noticed that a single simple thank you can light up a room? You ever noticed that before? Maybe you experienced it, maybe somebody gave that thanks to you, or maybe you gave that thanks to somebody else. I see this all the time, specifically within the food industry, the food service industry, excuse me, where a simple thank you, when the hustle and bustle of maybe a restaurant or a fast food place or somewhere else, that a simple thank you, recognizing maybe what somebody is serving you can change the presence of an employee, right?

We try to make it a habit in our house. Saturdays, I kind of rotate through each kid and we go out and we get breakfast. And so it's become kind of a tradition in our house. And yesterday was my son's Oaks, Oakland. It was his turn. And so we usually end up at two places. One, we end up at Starbucks. Let's be honest. You've seen me around here with a Starbucks cup or two. Former employee, what can I say? I love a place. Or two, we end up at a place in our neighborhood called Bad Baker's. I mean, if you guys have heard of them before, they have these crazy donuts, but what we love about them is they're called their Señorita Bread. And these are just like these delicate, just soft, gooey, sweet little like crescent rolls, but it's not like a crescent roll. It's like a baked roll. They're just so good. And so yesterday, Oakland woke up and he's like, Dad, Señorita Bread, we're going. And I was like, all right, let's do it. And so we hopped in the car, drove down, and walked in and they were surprisingly quiet. Usually this place has like a line out the door and we had to just sit there and wait and wait. It was surprisingly quiet. There were a couple of people in front of us. And so we went in there and we were waiting our turn and sometimes they're just, they're out of it. And they have to like bake more fresh, which is like, oh, boo hoo, it's gotta be baked fresh. So we had to wait for a few minutes and kinda some people were coming in and out and they're getting their donuts. And there was this one guy in there, I don't know why, he just, he is the most down to earth bro. He's just like, yeah, man, like, how's it going, dude? Like, so great to see you, welcome back. Like, if you know like the turtle from like Finding Nemo, who's just like, yeah, bro, like this is this guy in real life, it's amazing. And people are coming through and they're getting their stuff and they're like, okay. And then they get their stuff, but nobody's saying thank you. And I'm sitting there and I'm like, I've been writing this sermon, I've been thinking about this on my mind. And I'm like, what is going on? And so we get up there, we put our order in, we wait a few minutes, he brings us in to read about. And I was just like, dude, thank you so much. And he's like, dude, right on bro. But it was like this moment where he just like, he recognized that I said thank you. It was just really cool moment. And he is like, thanks buddy. And like, we took our stuff and we went our way. And like, I don't know if I made the guy's day. I don't know if it changed, but I was like, how easy is that just to give a thank you? And the guy was just like, right on dude, like, thanks man.

So we're talking about giving thanks. And today specifically part one, we wanna talk about the why we give thanks. It says in Psalm 100, you probably have heard this before, starting verse four, it says, enter his gates, being God's gates. Enter God's gates with thanksgiving. Enter his courts with praise. Give thanks to him, praise his name for the Lord is good and his love endures forever. His faithfulness continues through all generations. See, I think the reality is, and sometimes we miss this, is that gratitude isn't optional. But gratitude rather is the key that unlocks God's presence, enter his gates. I think of walking up to maybe like a garden or something and the gate is locked. And it's just like, God is calling us to use gratitude as our worshipful entry. Did we have gratitude on our mind when we walked into his presence this morning in worship? Did we enter into church or enter into his courts with praise today? We wouldn't, or you historically wouldn't see, someone just barge into the king's court, right? You enter humbly, you enter in a way of giving reverence to the king. You don't demand something of the king. And see, I think this reminds us that gratitude isn't circumstantial. It's easy to get caught in this place of, oh, thanks for a sunny day, God. But gratitude actually is itself character-driven of who God is. We give thanks to God because he is good, even when clouds gather overhead. Psalm 95, "Come, Lord, let us come before him "with thanksgiving and extol him with music and songs, "for the Lord is great and the great king above all gods." Gratitude echoes the call to worship through thanksgiving, emphasizing God's supremacy in our lives. And it's the foundation of our response. Hebrews 12, 28 says, "Therefore, since we are receiving "a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, "and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe." See, showing gratitude is our reverent entry into the unshakable realm far beyond our fleeting emotions.

One of the things that absolutely drives me nuts, personally, I won't say it for other people, I'll say it for me, is being late to a meeting. It bothers me. And I will do everything I can to be 30 seconds early to a meeting just 'cause I'm trying to show respect to the person I'm meeting with. And I will tell you that for the last five, six years, commuting from Natomas to Rocklin, Roseville is brutal. That I-80 can be a surprise every single day. And it drives me nuts 'cause sometimes, whether it's my own doing or whether it's family or just circumstances that happen, I'll find myself sometimes on the freeway just driving, probably not as safe as I should, because I'm looking at that GPS going, I'm gonna be a minute late, I can't do this. And there's been so many times I've lost count, honestly, I was counting for a while and then I lost count, of times where I was running late and then there was traffic. And I was just like, oh my gosh, like really? Like this again? But then I would come up onto an accident on 80, which happens way too frequently. And I began to, instead of being frustrated and annoyed by the person, that accident, for whatever, I don't know the circumstances, but it's so easy to get annoyed by that. I begin to shift my posture of gratitude. Because maybe if I was on time or early, that might be my car. I might be the one that was in that accident. And I think there's so many things in our life that God blesses us with and gives us in His goodness that sometimes we don't truly take the time to recognize. We don't understand what He is doing.

It says in Psalm 136, give thanks to the Lord, for He is just okay. Give thanks to the Lord, for He is sometimes there. Give thanks, there you go, give thanks to the Lord, for He's a nice guy. No, what does it say? It says give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His love endures forever. If we were to take time and read Psalm 136, we would read 26 times the Psalmist says, the Lord is good. The Lord is good. If you take away anything this morning, be reminded that the Lord is good. Be reminded in your life that God is for you, He's not against you. And that He loves you so much more than you can even begin to comprehend or imagine. The Lord is good. But our default lens in life screams not enough, right? Sometimes it's easy to get so caught up in the bills piling up, or maybe our dreams are delayed, we're missing this, or we're short over here, and we get caught in this scarcity mindset. But gratitude flips the script on that, and it changes that to there is more than enough.

Gratitude shifts our perspective from scarcity to abundance, reflecting how God lavishes His grace on us. Ephesians 3:20 talks about this immeasurably more than we can dream or ask or imagine. Do we live with an immeasurably more mindset in our daily life? 2 Corinthians 9:8 says, "And God is able to bless you abundantly, "so that in all things, at all times, "having all that you need, "you will abound in every good work." This is a beautiful promise, not just to the bare minimum, or just sufficiency, but to overflow. Encouraging us to give thanks is a catalyst for generosity in our own lives. There's a story in the New Testament from John that a crowd would frequently follow Jesus around. And this time there was a really big crowd that gathered around Jesus, and they're all kinda hanging out. It was around the time of the Passover feast, and Jesus gathered with this crowd, kinda turns to disciple Philip, and he says, "Hey, anywhere around here, maybe we can get some bread? "Maybe we could feed these people?" And Jesus, in only the way that Jesus can, right, is kinda testing his disciples. And Peter starts running around, and he comes back. He goes, "Jesus," he goes, "I found, I found lunch." And Jesus is like, "Okay, I got three loaves and two fish." There's a little boy, Mom brought him lunch. But that's not enough. Peter here has this scarcity mindset. There's not enough. And so Jesus, he goes, "I got this." Takes the boy's lunch, gives thanks, breaks the loaves. They put it in baskets. They start passing around, and the disciples are finding that more and more and more and more and more just keeps coming out of these baskets. And in that moment, they end up feeding all 5,000 people of them with baskets of food left over. And I think it's easy for us to see that and go like, "Yeah, Jesus did a miracle." But if we catch something very critical there, it says in John 6:11, "Jesus then took the loaves, gave thanks, "and distributed to those who receded "as much as they wanted." Jesus first gives thanks, and then the miracle happens. Gratitude came before the provision was multiplied. So should it be in our lives too. Psalm 23:5 says, "You prepare a table before me "in the presence of my enemies. "You anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows." Now, how many times I've read this scripture in this week, God gave me a truth that unlocked it. It says, it doesn't say, "You feed me in the presence of my enemies." Does it? No, it says, "You prepare." The table is set. The food hasn't been served. And even in the presence of hostility, God reminds us of his abundance. It's absolutely amazing.

Science echoes this truth of scripture as well. There's hundreds and hundreds and thousands of studies that talk about how gratitude journaling actually rewires the neural pathways for positivity in our own human brain. Gee, I wonder if God was onto something when he created us and gave us generosity. This is another one of the reasons of, if you guys look at your table under the pumpkin you might have there, there's a rhythm of things calendar. And we wanted to give a practical tool and hope that you would take just a few moments every single day to take time to read the scripture provided for the day, and then just to jot down something that you're thankful for. For some of us, we may have a whole list ready to present your two days behind. So I say a day and a half, it's still early on Sunday. So today, after service, we encourage you to take a moment to read the scriptures and write something down. And for some of you, it's gonna be super easy. You're like, "Thank you, God, for this. Thank you, God, for this." For some of us, it's gonna be like, you're gonna have to take a moment. And our hope is that the end of this, you will begin to have a rhythm and maybe even exercise a gratitude muscle that by the end of the month, you would be able to just have things that start coming to you. And it's our prayer that this wouldn't just end in November on the 30th, but that would continue through the holidays into the new year. And maybe you could even think about a year from now, November 2026, you'd have a whole journal of 300 and something odd things that you've been able to be thankful for and you write down. And I'm telling you, we've done this in our family before, and my wife is amazing with this with our kids. When you look back on that journal, when we have some dark days, when there seem to be some clouds over, it's pretty amazing how God, even in the moments, reminds us of what he has done. And we know that he is what? He is good and his love endures forever. Deuteronomy 8:10. When you have eaten and are satisfied, it says, praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. It's about aligning our hearts with the giver, not just the gift that we have received. And we have to remember the source. We have to remember where this comes from, even in the midst of plenty.

Jesus has this great moment in Luke 17, starting in verse 11, it says this, now on his way being Jesus to Jerusalem, he traveled along the border between Samaria and Galilee. And as he was going into a village, 10 men who had leprosy met him. They stood at a distance and called out with a loud voice, "Jesus, Master, have pity on us." When he saw them, he said, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were cleansed. And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, came back, praising God in a loud voice. He threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Jesus asked, "Where are all the 10 that were cleansed? "Where are the other nine? "Has no one returned to give praise to God "except this foreigner?" Then he said to him, "Rise and go. "Your faith has made you well." The story of 10 lepers, each crying out to Jesus for mercy, every single one of them is healed by Jesus, yet only one returns. He bows at Jesus' feet. And with great thanks, he worships God. Jesus replies, "Rise and go. "Your faith has healed you." Another translation says, "Your faith has made you well." This echoes another story from 2 Kings where Naaman, who was a leopard, had gone before Elisha asking for healing. And he said, "Go take a swim in the Jordan River." And so Naaman goes, and as he is slipping into the water, he sees the sores healed before his eyes, and he is cleansed. Because during that day and time, there was no medicine you could just go get. You couldn't run to CVS in Jerusalem and just get an ointment. There was nothing for leprosy. You were banned, you were isolated. You never saw your friends, your family ever again. You had to go live in a colony with other sick people all the time. And by a miracle through Elisha, Naaman is healed. He comes back in 2 Kings 5.15 and says, "Now I know," Naaman says, "that there is no God in the world except in Israel. "Please accept a gift from your servant." We ever thought about gratitude as an offering of thanks as a gift? Have we ever thought about the way that we live our lives, saying thanks back to God as actually a gift from ourselves to God? To offer thanks as a gift. Gratitude illustrates and acknowledges God's unique sovereignty and completes the miracle. See, the nine lepers got physical healing. They got physical relief, but only one got soul deep wholeness for eternity. I know I can so often just take and run, right? You just take it and you run. But I think there's something incredibly profound in returning thanks that deepens our relationship with Christ. Romans 1:21 says, "For although they knew God, "they neither glorified Him as God nor gave thanks to Him, "but their thinking became futile "and their foolish hearts were darkened." See, the opposite of gratitude is ingratitude, and ingratitude leads to spiritual blindness. While on the opposite of that, gratitude illuminates the faith in our lives. I know I can so easily get caught in this forgetting answered prayers just as I'm asking for something of God in the same breath. It's easy to be caught in this, but I question for us, is are we the one that circles back to God after receiving a blessing? Are we the one that returns to Jesus?

Colossians 2:6-7 says, "So then, just as you received Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in Him, rooted and built up in Him, strengthen the faith as you are taught, and overflowing with thankfulness." Overflowing with thankfulness. We talk about here, to see our community saturated with the glory of God, I think that also comes in a way of how we live our lives with gratitude overflowing into the communities that give glory back to God. But worldly entitlement, it says, "You deserve this, "and you deserve this, and you deserve this, "and you deserve this." And then we start saying, "I deserve this, "I deserve this, I deserve this." But that only leads us to bitterness when what we're searching for goes unmet, right? But see, on the contrast of that, God in contentment says to us, "God provides perfectly." We have to have contentment over entitlement. Contentment chooses the godly perspective, or the heavenly perspective, while here on earth. Paul summarizes this perfect, he talks about this in Philippians chapter four. He talks about how, "I know how to live with plenty, "and I know how to live life with less." And he closes this scripture by saying, "I can do all things through Christ "who gives me strength." Having a life of contentment is a struggle. And the reality is that we don't get the strength from us to live a content life. It's not by our strength that we can live content lives over entitled ones, it's by the strength that Christ gives us. Be encouraged by that. There's freedom in that, that we don't have to wage this battle by our own strength, but that God gives us the strength to live that out.

1 Timothy 6:6-8 says, "But godliness with contentment is great grain, for we brought nothing into this world and we can take nothing out of it. But if we have food and clothing, we will be content with that." Contentment is a profound spiritual wealth that pushes back and counters the greed in society. The Israelites had to struggle through this to figure this out. After being delivered from the hands of Pharaoh out of Egypt through the Red Sea, they found themselves in the wilderness with nothing around them, basically the desert. There was nothing there to provide for the giant group of people that was there. I mean, I think we're talking to the millions of people. There was no way that they could have any substantial farming or livestock or anything like that. And so they had to rely upon God to give what they needed every single day. But at the same time, God was kind of giving them a heart check to see where they were. And were they truly gonna have a heart of contentment? Or were they gonna have a heart of entitlement? And unfortunately, probably like us in our lives, they turned provision from God into complaint. See, what God provided for them every single day, what they say is manna, which is bread from heaven, wasn't just bread. It was a daily reminder that God was their faithful provider. It says in Exodus 16:4, "Then the Lord said to Moses, ‘I will rain down bread from heaven for you. "he people are to go out each day and to gather enough just for that day. In this way, I will test them and to see whether they follow my instructions.’" News flash, they didn't. Sorry, I'll spoil the story for you. They got there eventually. But God was giving them a little bit of a heart check to go like, where are you guys with this? Where's your contentment level? And Deuteronomy 8:3 hearkens back to the story saying that, "He, God, humbled you, causing you to hunger and then feeding you with manna. But neither you nor your ancestors had known to teach you that the man does not live by bread alone. But on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

I think there are times in our life where scarcity shows us our true heart. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's not. And sometimes that selfish weakness in us comes out in a not so pretty way. And God provides us as a moment for us to learn, to grow, to teach us that He is our provider. It's not us. God is the provider. And this allows us to deepen our daily dependence on Him. 'Cause contentment isn't passive resignation. I think sometimes it's easy to think about that. I just find God, I just give up. But contentment is an active, living out, vibrant faith, trusting in God that He's got it all taken care of. It's an active trust that when God might say no or wait, that He is still good. And it frees us up from comparison traps in the world around us that we can so easily entangle us. Love what it says in Hebrews 13:5. It's to “Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have.” Why? “Because God has said, never will I leave you, never will I forsake you.” Contentment is deeply rooted in God's unwavering presence. And so this morning we've talked about, we've seen gratitude as the key to God's presence, the lens through which we can turn our scarcity into abundance, the response that completes the healing of the miracle and the choice that builds contentment over entitlement.

I wanna bring this home a little bit. This is where our round tables. So introverts, I know you're freaking out right now. It's okay. I want us to take a few moments and have just a little personal reflection, okay? So we're gonna play a little instrumental music in the back and I wanna take us through a moment here. And I want you just to kinda sit with this for a little bit. To sit, to take a moment and maybe think about one verse, one word, maybe an image or something today that God wants you to take. I want you to let that kinda settle in your heart. Then we're gonna take a moment. I have a couple questions to talk around the table if you're comfortable with that. But just take a moment right now and let one verse or image from today kinda settle into your heart. Maybe you wanna write it down. Maybe this is the thing that you're thankful for. You wanna write down for yesterday so you can still do one today. We're gonna take a few moments. We're gonna play some music and I'll be back up to continue the conversation.

Okay, if you want some more time, write the question down, come back to it later today. I wanna kinda keep us moving here a little bit. But I got two questions for us. And I want you just to pick one of the two. You can write both down and talk about it later. But right now your table's pick one of these two questions. So the first of which, and you're gonna talk about this. So you can gather up a friend, you can talk to the whole table, whatever you feel comfortable with. But what is one specific way God has shown his goodness to you specifically this week? Even if it came in a way that you totally did not expect. Okay, so that's question one. Or where in your life right now is gratitude being crowded out by complaint? And what would it look like to choose thanks or gratitude instead? So we're gonna let the music keep playing. You guys have question, kinda go around the table if you feel comfortable, share. Pick one of the two, or if you got time, you have a small group, go for both, I don't care. We'll be back here in about two minutes.

Genesis: Part 8

Genesis: Part 8

Genesis 12:1-3, 22:15-18

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

It's good to be with you. So glad that you're with us this morning. So excited about what God is doing here at Spring Valley Church and that it includes all of you. I also have to just continue to say that I'm very excited about Operation Christmas Child. Particularly for my daughter, Kinsley, to partake in packing a box. I remember when I did it when I was a kid and getting to write a note and just understanding that I'm sending this box across oceans and across to some other country to a kid I will never meet but to be able to connect in this special way. And so I'm excited for her to be able to do that and to help share that that person is going to open up that box, that kid is going to open up a box and get things which are also really, really fun. But to also hear the Word of God. They're going to get a gospel message when they receive that box and that is just as equally important if not more important. So it's amazing how something so simple can be a part of God's plan to reach the nations. We're just packing shoe boxes, which we all have a lot of shoe boxes. We just pack it full of stuff and we send it and something so simple God can use for His glory. And that's what God's all about, using ordinary people in ordinary moments. We have that on our wall in the everyday stuff of life. And from the very beginning of Scripture, I think that is the plan, that God wants to use ordinary people, nothing special necessarily about them, to partner with Him for His kingdom purposes.

Today I want us to look at just that, that God's plan for the nations, how from Genesis to Revelation His heart has always been for all people everywhere to know Him and experience His salvation. We're wrapping up our series in Genesis, which is focused on exploring patterns and introduced in Genesis that echo throughout the rest of the Bible. We've seen how humanity consistently chooses sin, chooses to compromise, chooses to corrupt what is good for their own selfish gain, thinking that they can live without God, and how these patterns reveal God's character in His work to redeem, restore and rescue His people. Just want to quickly recap, this has been eight weeks of Genesis, which is like the shortest series of Genesis you'll ever have because there's so much, there's 50 chapters. But week one we talked about God as Creator making order out of chaos, and we see Him do that over and over and over again in Scripture. We talked about Imago Dei being made in God's image with the purpose of reflecting that image to the rest of the world. We talked about humanity's rebellion, this pattern that humanity shows over and over again of rebelling against God, but God's constant response of grace. We've talked about God's promise of future redemption that He keeps over and over through Scripture. We'll see that He keeps pointing at future redemption, something great is to come. We've talked about God's call to people to live in covenant faithfulness, that throughout Scripture starting here in Genesis there is a call to live faithfully to God. We also talked about wrestling with God and the opportunity for inner transformation. We see it start here in Genesis, we see other characters in the Bible wrestle with God and how they're transformed to be more like Him afterwards. And then last week we talked about God's sovereignty in the midst of human suffering. We learned about God's ability and tendency to redeem difficult seasons for His purpose. We pray that you guys have been encouraged and blessed through this series, and really we're praying that your interaction with Scripture has new depth as you guys get to, when you dive in and you read, that you have new tools to see what God has put in here for us, that you have, you can see the threads in Scripture that run through the entire tapestry of God's truth. While there are so many more themes that we have not covered, we won't get to cover, we want to end our series with God's plan for the nations.

The idea here is this pattern that lifts our focus and eyes to heaven, a future reality that has already begun, which is to see people from all over the world worship God. I want to remind us that if you've read Genesis from beginning to end, and if you haven't yet I'll give you this spoiler, chapters 1 through 11 focus on God's interaction with all of humanity, the entire world, and then chapters 12 through 50, the story focuses in on one family. And a plan, it's the theme of God's plan woven throughout all of that, Genesis 1 through 11, 12 through 50, we talked about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, and following this family that would become a nation. And woven through all of that is God's plan for the nations, a plan that reveals his love and compassion and desire for them to know and worship him. And even though it's just a story of a family, we still hear and we still see God working and having his heart for the nations. This family that turns into a nation is chosen to be a part of his work to reach the world. It's not that God's blessing is confined to one people, but rather he blesses his people to then go forward and bring other people to him so that they can be blessed too. And so we see this heart of God for the nations develop in Genesis, it continues in Exodus and Deuteronomy when he's giving instructions of how Israel is supposed to be a nation. We see it in a time of kings where God desires that people come to his temple to worship him as foreigners and not Israelites. We see it in the prophets as they mourn Israel's failure to be a light to the world, but how they're pointing forward to the light coming into the world. And we definitely see it most clearly from Jesus as his words, which we all know, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only son." And that pattern in the Bible ends with a vision. We go all the way to the end in Revelation and we see a plan come to fruition where people from every tribe, nation, and tongue are praising God. So God's plan for the nations is a clear value of his kingdom. We know his heart is for all people and we see that pattern develop right here in Genesis at the very beginning of Scripture.

So if you guys have your Bibles, you can turn with me to Genesis 12. It'll be up on the screen as well. We have two passages this morning. First is Genesis 12, 1 through 3, which we've covered before in this series. This is when God is calling Abraham. This is that shift from Genesis 1 to 11 in all of humanity. Now chapter 12, it focuses in on one family and God is calling Abraham. So if you guys want to read along, it says, "The Lord had said to Abram, 'Go from your country, your people, and your father's household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you, and I will make your name great and you will be a blessing, and I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you, I will curse.'" And here's the important part for today, "And all peoples on earth will be blessed through you." He promises Abraham three things, right? God will make Abraham into a great nation. God will make Abraham's name great, promises of renown and reputation, but also of material blessing. He's going to be a wealthy guy. And number three, God will bless all people through Abraham. It's in verse three that we see this, God's heart for the nations. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you. Abraham's blessing will be a blessing to all families. It speaks to the hope that God's kingdom will be universal one day, that one day the corruption that sin brings will cease to exist. All brought about through the nation and people of Israel throughout the Old Testament and then ultimately through Jesus in the New Testament. All peoples on earth will be blessed through you. So our theme has begun. This is the start of that thread and you can trace this thread all throughout the Bible.

Let's flip over to Genesis 22, verses 15. This is after Abraham has been tested. He's been found faithful and obedient in the eyes of God, being willing to obey God even to the point of sacrificing his son. Obviously as we know he didn't have to sacrifice his son. God intervenes and provides a ram. But because Abraham showed that he was faithful, God reiterates his blessing. So in verse 15 it says, "The angel of the Lord called to Abraham from heaven a second time and said, 'I swear by myself,' declares the Lord, 'that because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you and make your descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and as the sand on the seashore. Your descendants will take possession of the cities of their enemies, and through your offspring," here we go, "all nations on earth will be blessed because you have obeyed me." Again, we see those three promises. God will make Abraham a father of many. God will give Abraham a land. These people will have a land. And God will bless all nations through Abraham's descendants. If you were to keep reading in Genesis after this, check out what God does. He promises these things in Genesis 22 and chapter 23, Abraham rightfully comes to own a part of the promised land. So you get some of that land. Chapter 24, Isaac, his son, finds a wife so the next generation is promised and secured. And then chapter 25 is Abraham's death. And while Isaac, his son, receives the full inheritance, Abraham is shown giving gifts to his other sons, which will become other nations in the world. And so it's a way of foreshadowing the greater blessing that will eventually come from Abraham's line blessing the entire world. So we see God's promise begin to take shape. Some of it is happening, but much more of it is to come. But it's that verse 18 that again we see God's heart, "through your offspring all nations on earth will be blessed because you have obeyed me." So from these two passages, let's just name what we see.

First we see that God's plan for the nations is that they will be blessed by God's people. Israel is meant to be a vessel of God's covenant blessing to all the nations. And even through God's chooses to work through a specific people for a time in the Old Testament, his heart is that people from all nations would come to worship him. So God's plan for the nations is that they will be blessed by God's people. It's not that the rest of the world couldn't be blessed by God's, that they were meant to be experienced that through blessing through Israel's testimony. Secondly, we see that God's plan for the nations points us to Jesus. Ultimately we know that Israel struggles with this role that they are supposed to carry out. There's supposed to be a witness, there's supposed to be a testimony to God, but more often than not they're seduced by other nations and false gods, and they keep falling away from God, they rebel against God. And so it points us to Jesus, who is God and shares even more explicitly and lives out this plan to reach the nations. Jesus invites and commissions the 12 disciples and all those who follow him, including you and I today, to partner with him in spreading the gospel to all ends of the earth. We are invited to be a part of God's plan for reaching the nations.

Now today we hear, if I were to say we were reaching the nations for God, you probably think of modern day missions, which is good, that's what's happening, that's what missions is all about. And it also makes sense that our minds will be drawn to the words of Jesus in Matthew 28 in the Great Commission, "Go therefore and make disciples of all nations." But today I want us, just to connect some dots, I don't want us to believe that missions and God's heart for missions started at the Great Commission. God's heart for the world started all the way back in Genesis. And so I just want to take a moment, this is going to be rapid fire Bible nerd trivia right here, we're just going to go through all of scripture and name moments where we see God's heart for the nations. You guys okay with that, if I do that really quick? All right, good. I heard no yeses, but I'm going to do it anyways. God repeats this blessing through, so right in Genesis we see Abraham, we see the start of this thread, we'll write after to his son Isaac, God repeats that blessing and says again, "Through you I'm going to bless the entire world." He says it's to Jacob, Isaac's son, so we're getting it generation after generation, God is reinforcing, "Through you, through your people, I'm going to bless the entire world." Well then we get to Exodus and Deuteronomy and in those books of the Bible, God is really forming the nation of Israel. They've become a huge people and he's giving them governance, he's giving them structure, and in that structure of how to be a people, he tells them, "I have a heart for the world and you are going to be my mediator of my love to the rest of the world." He calls them a holy priesthood and the role of priests is to represent God to people. In Deuteronomy, it emphasizes Israel's obedience to God is meant to be a testimony to other nations as other people, as other nations see Israel living righteously according to God's way, that'll be a testimony to that God that they worship. In Deuteronomy 10, we also see that God commands Israel as a nation to take care of foreigners. It's a very practical way of saying, "Hey, I love the people that are outside of Israel." Later in the established kingdom in 1 Kings, we have a moment where this is when Israel is on the top of the world. They're wealthy, they have a solid king, and they're just powerful and fruitful, and it's the wisdom of the rulers and their status as a nation that drew people in. They say, "What is going on with that nation over there? They are succeeding. They are just doing so good, and they worship this God who's clearly blessing them. We got to know more about that." It draws people in. They come to Israel. They travel from across the world to see Israel and say, "How is this happening? How are you guys so amazing? Tell us about the God that you serve." Again, we see God's heart for the nations coming forward in that moment. We also know that Israel falls away. That time of being a kingdom that is on top of the world is so short, and then the kingdom splits, and it just goes downhill from there, and Israel goes into captivity. We come to the time of the prophets, and the prophets talk a lot about Israel's role of being a light to the rest of the world and God's heart for the nations. In Jeremiah, it describes restoration of the covenant blessing through Abraham, that the nations will come to know God, and that nations outside of Israel can be a part of God's family if they live and submit to Yahweh. There's open invitation of Israel. Other nations can come to know God. You were supposed to help them do that, but that's still going to happen. God still has a plan for them. In Ezekiel, it shows how God interacts with Israel. It helps other nations better learn who Yahweh is. Isaiah has a lot to say. 56, 42, 49, all these chapters talk about how foreigners who come to faith have a place in God's family. And again, Israel is meant to be a light to the world, not just a light that shines in the darkness for the sake of shining light into the darkness, but to bring people in the darkness into the light.

There is a purpose behind it. God wants his salvation to reach the ends of the earth. Micah 4 talks about a future vision where people from all over are coming to God to say, "How do we live like you? How do we live in this way of righteousness that you talk about?" Let me also have the wisdom literature, the wisdom portion of Scripture. In Psalm, it also talks about God's heart for the nations. Psalm 67 says, "May God bless us still so that all the ends of the earth will fear him." God blesses his people so that all nations on earth will recognize his power. And Psalm 72 talks about all nations will be blessed through God, and they will call him blessed. Clearly we see that throughout the Old Testament, God is putting before the people the priority that he has for the nations. It's a value to him, and he wanted them to embody it and live it out. But like we said, they struggle with it, and it points us to Jesus, who in the New Testament continues to communicate the heart of God. I already mentioned John 3.16, "For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son." Jesus talks about it in his teachings. Matthew 5 talks about being salt and light to the world. John 4, verses 7 through 42 talk about salvation being offered beyond Israel. We see Jesus live that out when he talks to the Samaritan woman, when he mentions these other nations that are going to be a part of his kingdom. Acts 1 talks about being a witness to the ends of the earth empowered by the Holy Spirit. Then like I mentioned, Revelation 7, 9 through 10 is the culmination of God's plan in heaven. This is the vision that John has about the future. And he says, "And there before me was a great multitude that no one could count from every nation, tribe, people, and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. And they cried out in a loud voice, 'Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne and to the Lamb.’"

God's plan for the nations shows us that God intends to rescue and restore and redeem the lost all around the world. He's a loving, generous, gracious God, and his heart and plan for the nations started all the way at the beginning here in Genesis. Seen throughout the Old Testament, it's expounded upon in the New Testament, and it's a plan that is still in place today. God's plan for the nations is a plan that we have been invited, you and I in this room, have been invited to partake in. There's an invitation to you saying, "Hey, will you help me out with my plan to reach the world?" As Christians, as the big C church all over the world, we are called to reach people. For a few, that means picking up everything we have and going across the world and living there and spreading the gospel in a different place. I say for a few because that is a very specific calling that not many of us have. For most, that means right where you are in the everyday stuff of life to share Jesus with those that he has placed in your life. Pastor Chris framed this in our yearly celebrations just over a month ago when he shared his vision for our church as the 167. It's kind of our theme for this next year. There are 168 hours in the week. You spend about one hour of that week here at Spring Valley Church. So what are you going to do with the rest of your hours for Jesus? How are you going to worship him, partner with him in the 167 hours outside the church?

So my question today is with your 167 hours outside the church, how will you participate in God's mission to bring his blessing of salvation to the nations? How will you participate in God's mission to bring his blessing of salvation to the nations? Some of you may feel the Spirit's prompting to get involved with what he's doing around the world. A small way of doing that is Operation Christmas Child. That's a global thing that's happening. And if you're like, "Hey, I want to partner," that's a great way to do it. We have desires to grow our missions and our outreach here at Spring Valley, but this year, Operation Christmas Child. For others, your participation in God's mission to bring his salvation to the nations starts right where you are. We see it as our responsibility as partners with God to reach people here in Rockland, Roseville, Placer County, wherever you are. And you may be asking yourself, "But Andre, that's not the nations. That's not the nations. That's not the world." Well, let me say this. In the context of the world and world religions, I know that America is considered a Christian nation, but that doesn't mean that we check it off the box and say, "Complete, this nation does not need to be reached. We're good. Let's focus on other nations." No, we need to spread the gospel right here in America. They need to hear God's truth. They need to see it lived out. We have a responsibility to bring the gospel to the people around us. That's our job. So when you're asked, "How will you participate in God's mission to bring his salvation to the nations?" We can think of our neighbors. We can think of the families that we interact with at schools, our co-workers, our own family members, all those people, what God is talking about. God's plans for the nation is clearly a priority in scripture, and it should be a priority for us. I want to give a warning.

Let's not make the same mistake that Israel did, being consumed in our own desires and passions, getting distracted by all the things that are around us in this world, getting distracted or seduced by the world around us, and ultimately we turn away from God. We shirk our responsibilities. We say, "God, I've got a lot going on. I don't have time to do this thing that I know I want to partner with. I know I wanted to, but I just don't have any time." Israel failed in this. They had the invitation. They did it for a while. They did it for some time, but they always failed, and we don't want to be like that. We want to keep this at the forefront of our minds. My job, my utmost priority, is to partner with God, and how do I bring the gospel to the people around me? We want to be a conduit to show people Jesus through the way we live, both in our actions and in our inactions. Sometimes when we don't do anything, that speaks to the God that we serve. Same with our words. Sometimes it's what we say, and sometimes it's when we don't say anything. Through our love and compassion, kindness, when we have peace in the midst of chaos, when we trust God, when the rest of the world is living anxiously, all of that is a testimony to the God that we serve. May we point people to Jesus that we can be a witness for Him. So just one more time, how in this week can you be intentional going forward to partner with God and His plan to reach the world with His good news of salvation? Is there someone in your life that God's putting on your heart to share to have a conversation with? Is there someone at work that you know that when they talk and they get all angry and they get all frustrated, maybe you're supposed to respond not in kind, but in another way that shows God's love? Are you supposed to have an act of service, give a neighbor or someone a meal or do something out of kindness that can show that they are loved by God? We're going to be praying this week together as a church that we would feel the urgency, the priority that it needs to have in our lives to share the love of God with the people around us.

Let's go ahead and pray for that right now, if you guys could bow your heads. God thank you for your word and for this pattern that we see in scripture that you have a heart for everyone in this world, that you love them and that you want them to come into a relationship with you. And God I pray that we would feel as believers and followers of you, we would feel the responsibility that we have to partner with you and to do the work of your kingdom. So God I pray that as we live our lives day to day in the week that we would feel encouraged, we feel empowered, that you would give us the words to say or sometimes God that you would give us the restraints to not say anything, but in all that we do God may we be a conduit to show people the love of God. Help us God, give us what we need, meet us where we're at, may we depend on you for everything and I pray that you would use us greatly for your kingdom. We pray this in your name, Amen.

Genesis: Part 7

Genesis: Part 7

Genesis 50:15-21

SERMON TRANSCRIPT

Happy to be with you guys today. We are in our Genesis series and we are walking through the different patterns or themes that we see throughout scripture but were originally found in Genesis. And it really just helps us to get a broader picture, a more cohesive picture of scripture, how things are repeated, how things happen over and over again as a way for us to see how the story of the Bible is just woven together really beautifully. So we are actually going to be talking today about God's sovereignty in suffering. And I think this is a big one for a lot of us, this is a hard one to wrestle with, but we all, I think at some point, have or will wrestle with this idea of suffering. And if we believe, we question a lot of times that, well if we believe in a God who is sovereign, and we do, then why does He allow suffering? Why does He allow us to suffer? Now first of all, caveat here, this is not the suffering Olympics. We are not trying to compete with who suffers more or who's experienced what suffering because the reality is we all have suffered in some shape or form. We have, even if we've suffered similar things or gone through similar situations, we're all individual and unique people and so we handle those things differently. We deal with them. The Lord processes things with us in different ways. And so it's not about comparing or competing. And the reality is there are people who have suffered more than we have or less than we have. But that is not what we're talking about today. And also as a second caveat, this is not about lessening our suffering. We want to talk about why we suffer today, but I never want that to be a reason for our us to lessen the fact that we do suffer. We're still acknowledging that. This isn't some sort of toxic positivity sermon that we're talking about here. It's acknowledging that we really do suffer. Bad things really do happen. But we're going to get into why we suffer and how God is with us in that.

So we are actually going to be in Genesis 50 today. We're going to be talking about the story of Joseph and we actually meet Joseph in Genesis 37, but we're going to pick up in chapter 50. So if you want to go ahead and turn there, it'll be on the screens, but if you have your Bible or your phone, you can turn to Genesis chapter 50. I'm going to give us a little backstory though on Joseph. So for those that don't know or need a little refresher, Joseph was the 11th of 12 sons of Jacob. You all met Jacob last week when Pastor Andre talked about him and how he wrestled with God and God changed his name from Jacob to Israel. So Joseph was his 11th son and he was his favorite son. So Jacob had multiple wives and Joseph was the oldest son of his favorite wife. So Joseph became his favorite. And in fact, he gave him a coat of many colors and this was a huge gift. It was an expensive gift. It was a, a obviously extravagant gift in that time. And his brothers were not happy about it. Joseph also had dreams. God gave him dreams that revealed that his family, his siblings and his parents would bow down to him. And he freely shared those dreams with his family and they were not big fans of that. And so his brothers became so angry that they wanted to kill him. They actually grabbed him and threw him in a pit and made plans to kill him. When one brother tried to save him by suggesting they don't kill him and they just sell him into slavery instead. Like that's somehow better. But they ended up going with that plan. They sold him to some travelers and told their father, Jacob, that he was killed by a wild animal. So he was led, their father was led to believe that he had died and he was very distraught by this. But Joseph was now a slave. He was headed to Egypt. He was away from his family, his culture, his traditions, his, his religion, his belief in God. He was away from everything. And that was just the beginning of his suffering. He became an employee in an Egyptian official's home and was doing quite well actually until the official's wife tempted him. And he, because he feared God, denied her and she got angry and accused him of the very thing she was tempting him of doing. And so he was put into prison where he continued to experience suffering. He was there for many years and he actually interpreted some dreams of some fellow prisoners. Those interpretations ended up becoming true. So again, several years later, Pharaoh, the king of Egypt had some dreams that he wanted interpreted. And Joseph was brought from prison to interpret those dreams. And Pharaoh was so impressed with him that he made him number two in all of Egypt. The dream was regarding seven years of plenty and then seven years of famine. And so Pharaoh put him in charge of taking care of the crops and gathering in excess so that they would survive when the famine came. And he did that. He became extremely powerful, saved Egypt and the surrounding nations from this famine. So much to the point that his brothers in the nearby nation had to come to Egypt to request food. Now, they didn't recognize Joseph at the time. He has been 13 years and he looked different. He sounded Egyptian. He looked Egyptian and he was much older now, but he knew them. He ended up testing them a little bit, see where their hearts were. He was able to convince them to bring their father, Jacob and his younger brother to Egypt as well so that he could see them after several years of being separated. And eventually he revealed who he was. And he did though, his brothers were terrified because not only did he know what they did, but now he was in a position of authority that he could punish or even kill them for what they did. But in a wild turn of events, Joseph forgave them and he moved his family to Egypt and was able to be reunited with them. And then eventually his father, Jacob died.

And that is where we are picking up in chapter 50. That was just the real quick Reader's Digest version for you, but we're gonna pick up in chapter 50 verse 15. When Joseph's brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, "What if Joseph holds a grudge against us and pays us back for all the wrongs we did to him?" So they sent word to Joseph saying, "Your father left these instructions before he died. This is what you are to say to Joseph. I ask you to forgive your brothers the sins and the wrongs they committed in treating you so badly. Now please forgive the sins of the servants of the God of your father." When their message came to him, Joseph wept. His brothers then came and threw themselves down before him. "We are your slaves," they said. But Joseph said to them, "Don't be afraid. Am I in the place of God? You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives. So then don't be afraid. I will provide for you and your children," and he reassured them and spoke kindly to them. So his brothers doubled down by lying, but that's a whole other sermon. We're not going to go into that today. But despite that, despite all that they did to him and then trying to deceive him once again, Joseph forgave them and he wanted them to see God's sovereignty in it all. That God was in control and that Joseph, along with God, forgave them for what they did. The reality is that Joseph suffered a lot. It was 13 years from the time he was sold into slavery to the time he was risen up in his official position in Egypt. 13 years, most of which was caused because of his brother's sin. And yet he forgave them. And he gave God glory for what happened to him and how God used that. That's a powerful testimony of allowing God to use your suffering.

Let's look at verse 21 again. So then don't be afraid. I will provide for you and your children. And he reassured them and spoke kindly to them. I have trouble speaking kindly when my feelings are hurt, let alone when I'm sold into slavery. Right? Like that's crazy to me. He reassured them. He cared for them. He said he would provide for them. That is only done by the grace of God. By the grace that Joseph experienced from God that he was then able to extend to his brothers. I think many of us, we don't think that we should suffer because we don't have a right view of our humanity, of our sinfulness. We think, why should we suffer? If we follow Jesus, if we're good people, why do we suffer? And it's because our view of who we actually are is skewed. We have to have a right view of ourselves and of God in order to have a good theology of suffering. Western theologian R.C. Sprout Jr. says, he addresses the question, why do bad things happen to good people? He says that only happened to one person and he volunteered. There is only one good person. The Bible says that there is no one righteous, not even one, only Jesus Christ. So as good as we think we are, as maybe society would tell us, maybe culturally speaking, we're a good person, we're nothing compared to Jesus. It was only by his grace. He volunteered to suffer for us and he was the only one who didn't deserve to suffer. Even as Christ's followers, Jesus promised that we would suffer. John 16:33 says, I have told you these things so that in me, you may have peace. In this world, you will have trouble, but take heart. I have overcome the world. We are guaranteed suffering, but the beautiful thing is we are also promised that we will never be alone. He says he will never leave us or forsake us. So while we will have to walk through some fires, we won't walk through them alone. Jesus walks through it with us. More often than not, we aren't delivered out of suffering. We're not just pulled out of it and spared it. More often we are delivered through it. We still have to walk through the valley of the shadow of death sometimes, but he is with us. Isaiah 43:2-3 says, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you. And when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned. The flames will not set you ablaze for I am the Lord your God, the Holy one of Israel, your Savior.” We will all suffer, but we will never suffer alone. Even when we feel alone, he is with us. He walks through that with us. I want to look today at why we suffer. We see people throughout scripture who loved God and suffered. They served him. They were submitted to him. They were quote unquote good people, and yet they still experienced suffering.

So I want to look at why that is and how God in his sovereignty can use our suffering. So as we look at each reason, we're also going to look at a person from the Bible who exemplifies that as well. So why do we suffer? Well, for the first one, I believe is that it's for our sanctification. Sanctification is a word that it's kind of a Christian word that means becoming more like Jesus. We are being made more into his image. We are being sanctified or made holy. Our suffering produces holiness in our lives, and it sanctifies us as we navigate through that suffering. James 1:2-4 says, "Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything." We must experience suffering in order to persevere in our faith, and then we become more mature believers. Suffering and walking through that deepens our faith, and it makes us more mature followers of Christ. You will not meet a mature believer who has not experienced suffering. Romans 5, it's talking about being justified through our faith, but in verse 3, it says, "Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance, character, and character hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us." The suffering, it produces perseverance in our faith, and that perseverance produces character, and we have to have the character of Christ.

As we experience the suffering and we build up perseverance in our faith, and our faith deepens, we look more like Jesus. He suffered. If Jesus suffered, why do we think we shouldn't? It makes us more like Him. I think of the story of Job. I think Job is often referred to when we're talking about suffering, because he suffered greatly. He was a righteous man, even at the beginning of his story. He loved God, he was a righteous man, but he was wealthy, he had a family, he was well off, and he lost everything. His children, his wealth, his health, everything. But he never cursed God. Even when his friends and family told him he could or should, he never cursed God, despite being broken and made into nothing. He allowed his suffering to deepen his faith, and we see in Job 42, towards the end of his story, verse 2 says, "I know that you can do all things. No purpose of yours can be thwarted." Even in his suffering, he acknowledged God's sovereignty. He knew that God was in control, that he was still good, and that his purpose and his plan was the best option for him. Later we see in the same chapter that Job was restored. He got back his wealth into good standing, he had more children, and the Lord, it says, "The Lord blessed Job in the latter part of his life greater than in the former." His faith grew, his dependence on God deepened, he became more sanctified through his suffering. That character that only comes through suffering and perseverance was developed in him.

Another reason that we experience suffering is for the spread of the gospel. Revelation 12:11 says, "They triumphed over him, him being Satan, by the blood of the lamb and by the word of their testimony." We triumph over our enemy, over our accuser, by the blood of Jesus and by our testimony. When we experience suffering, our faith is deepened and then we can go testify, we can tell our story of our suffering and God's goodness in that suffering and point people to Jesus. That we then endure this suffering by our own power and strength, it was only by God's goodness that he brought us through. Stephen is the one that comes to mind from the book of Acts. He was a follower of Jesus, a disciple, he preached the way of Jesus unashamedly and he became what the church recognizes as the first martyr, the first one to die for his faith. And his testimony and ultimately his death, which is the ultimate sacrifice and the ultimate form of suffering, spread the gospel far and wide because immediately after Stephen's death, the persecution of the early church became rampant and the disciples and the followers in the early church had to disperse. But Acts 8:4 says, "Those who had been scattered, preached the word wherever they went." The gospel spread out of suffering, out of persecution, out of the martyrdom. So not only was Stephen himself sharing the gospel and his testimony and death spread the gospel, but so did the other disciples who were persecuted and experienced suffering in their own lives. I understand that that is an extreme example of martyrdom, but God's sovereignty is on display and the same is true in our own lives. That when we experience suffering, we can point people to Jesus. It allows us to tell our story, to share our testimony of who God is so that more people can come into his kingdom. Without that persecution and suffering, I wonder how far or fast the gospel would have spread. But because they endured, because they persevered, the gospel spread quickly. Hearts were changed and more people turned to God. Our story, our testimony of our suffering, hopefully will turn others hearts to Jesus.

Lastly, I think we experienced suffering for the benefit of others. This is closely related to the spread of the gospel, but it's different in the sense that it's not only for their salvation, it's also for their edification, for building them up. 2 Corinthians 1:3-4 says, "Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” As the body of Christ, we share in each other's sufferings. We carry each other's burdens. We take them to Jesus and put them at the foot of the cross through prayer and interceding for each other. We bring comfort to those who are suffering because we too have suffered. How many times has someone encouraged you in your time of need or your trouble and your suffering because they've experienced something similarly? Or maybe when was the last time you were able to do that for somebody else? That you could be there for them because of what you have experienced? I believe that in God's sovereignty, He uses our suffering for the benefit of others, to support and build each other up. Edification to edify the body, to build up the church. He uses our suffering for the good and the benefit of others. There's a pastor friend in our network of churches who lost his young life to cancer in May, and he recently wrote on his blog, "God is not wasting this pain. He is repurposing it to help others find joy, to give comfort, and to remind us that faith is not just for the mountain top, it is for the valley too." He's using his pain, he's allowing God to use his experience and his suffering to bring comfort and encouragement and faith to his congregation. He could quit. He could say, "I'm done." He could wallow in his suffering, and there's time for grief and mourning to be sure, but he also knows that God is bigger than an all, and he wants God to use that suffering to encourage and build up the body of Christ.

We mentioned earlier that Jesus walks with us through the fire, and the image that I like to have is that because of God's sovereignty, as we walk out of the fire, he allows us to carry buckets of water to take to other people who are walking through the fire themselves. We get to carry hope and encouragement and the gospel to other people who are experiencing suffering too. This reminds me of the apostle Paul. He did spread the gospel to be sure, so he could have been on the last point as well, but he experienced so much suffering during his ministry. He was shipwrecked, imprisoned, beaten, bitten by a snake. So many things that he dealt with and suffered through, but he turned so many people to Jesus. He wrote most of the New Testament. We are benefiting from him to this day and from the suffering that he endured. Philippians 1:7, which he wrote, says, "It is right for me to feel this way about all of you, since I have you in my heart, and whether I am in chains or defending and confirming the gospel, all of you share in God's grace with me." Because he endured the change, because he went and defended the gospel to people who hated him for it, we all are experiencing God's grace and see that in our lives. 2 Thessalonians 1:4, again, Paul's words says, "Therefore, among God's churches, we boast about your perseverance and faith in all the persecutions and trials you are enduring." He was trying to encourage the believers at the church of Thessalonica because he knew what he had written that we read earlier in Romans, that their perseverance through the persecution would develop their faith and perseverance and character. He knew that that was true. And so he wanted to encourage them and build them up and say, "Y'all, I've been there. I've been persecuted too. I know what it's like, but God is good. He is sovereign and he will use it for your good and his glory.”

Paul wrote in Romans as well, Romans chapter 8, "And we know that in all things, God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose." We know that in all things, how many things? All of them, not some of them. In all things, God works for the good of those who love him. We don't always get to see the good that comes from our suffering. We don't always get to see how the Lord uses it, but he does and he promises that he will. There's several other instances in the Bible where we see suffering and God's sovereignty. Just a few that come to mind are the woman in Mark 5 who suffered the affliction of blood and Jesus healed her. She touched the hem of his robe and he healed her. And he could have just kept on walking and nobody would have known except her, but he stopped. And not only did he acknowledge her faith, but he allowed everyone else to know that she was healed as well. And so her suffering that she endured for 12 years and her ultimate healing was able to build up the other followers of Jesus, to encourage them, to point people to him and say, "That is the one, he is the Messiah." King David, he suffered a lot, usually at the hands of friends or family, but he endured a lot and he made his own mistakes to be sure, but he suffered a lot. But God acknowledged him and credited his faith to him and said that he was a man after God's own heart. Despite all the trouble and drama and suffering that he endured, he still worshiped God and gave him glory. Pretty much every prophet in the Old Testament experienced suffering on some level. And often it was because they were experiencing suffering along with the nation of Israel that came on them because of their own sin. So much of their suffering wasn't even their own fault. They were experiencing suffering, but God used that in a mighty way and he was able to use them to speak truth to the nation and draw the nation of Israel back to himself. We see this pattern over and over and over again. As I said, we don't always know why we suffer or the good that we're promised will come from it.

I think a lot of us, if we can manage, we'll have a lot of questions for God when we get there. We want to know why. We may not care once we get to heaven, but right now we want to know why. But as we've seen through these examples and through Joseph, his experience and his suffering, that while we will experience suffering, we can trust that God is good and he is sovereign through it all. Even the story of Joseph, I think exemplifies these three things really well. He grew in his sanctification over those 13 years from a cocky teenager to a man full of grace and forgiveness. Although the gospel didn't exist yet, the gospel of Jesus, because Jesus hadn't come to earth, but he still was pointing people to God and his redemption and his forgiveness. His obedience and his suffering allowed for the nation of Israel to grow, which led ultimately to God's redemption plan. And thirdly, his suffering led to the benefit of others. He literally saved millions of lives, both in Egypt and in surrounding nations and specifically his own family. It said he was going to care for them and provide for them. Friends, God wastes nothing, even our suffering. He will not waste anything and he is good, not only despite our suffering, but because of it. I know that it's hard to reconcile a good God with the suffering that we see or experience in this life. I know it is. I struggle with it myself, but we see over and over again how God uses our suffering to grow his kingdom, to make us more like Jesus, to spread the gospel around the world. And just to benefit and build up his body, the church.

So I want to leave us with this question. How has God used suffering in the past to sanctify you, spread the gospel and or benefit others? When we identify this answer and we can point to that, I believe it will help us in future suffering because we will remember that he was faithful. He was in control. He was sovereign. And again, we may not always see the good that comes from it, but when was a time that you did so that you can remember that God is still sovereign, he still provides comfort. He still walks with us through the dark, through the fire. So you can draw from that when you are experiencing any future suffering. We serve a good father who has good for us. And despite all the suffering and all the pain, both in our own lives and in the world, our King reigns. He is still on the throne. He is not surprised. And if nothing else, we can celebrate and find comfort in that truth today.

Let's pray. Jesus, we thank you for your goodness, for your sovereignty. That while we will have troubles, we can have peace that comes from you. We can take heart because we know the end of the story. We know that you win. But even right here and right now, in our heart right now, there are still growth. There is sanctification. There's good. Use our heart. Use our suffering. Use our struggles, Lord, to bring glory to yourself and bring good to us and those around us. We thank you for your sovereignty in all of this. And when we cannot reconcile your good with the ugliness of the world, God, bring us comfort. Bring us your peace. We love you and praise you in your name. Amen.