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.