Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] You're listening to a live recording from Westside Church in Bend, Oregon. Thanks for joining us.
[00:00:06] This is a prequel to our Advent series, which starts next week. And we're going to talk about growing our gratitude, growing our thankfulness, and what that means to ourselves individually, what it means to our own health, what it means to our faith, and what it means to the world around us. Now, gratitude is not just simply a thank you, although that can be a piece of it. It's really more than that. It's a posture of the heart. It's how we hold ourselves. It's how we carry ourselves in and out of our daily lives with our families, public facing, and then of course, with our relationship individually with God. The Apostle Paul writes in Thessalonians, first Thessalonians, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Give thanks in all circumstances. So that tells us that gratitude is not about having the right thing at the right moment. It's not about our circumst answer, our current position. Instead, it's about an intentional effort to find gratitude in every circumstance. It's a response to God's goodness that we believe is always with us and transforms our perspective and deepens our faith. And there's a story about gratitude In Luke chapter 17 that involves Jesus, of course. And it says in verse 11 of Luke 17, it says, as Jesus continued on toward Jerusalem, he reached the border between Galilee and Samaria. And as he entered a village there, 10 men with leprosy stood at a distance crying out, jesus, master, have mercy on us.
[00:01:33] And he looked at them and said, go show yourself to the priests. And as they went, they were cleansed with their leprosy. Now one of them, when he saw that he was healed, came back to Jesus shouting, praise God. And he fell to the ground at Jesus feet, thanking him for what he has done. And this man not only had been a leper, but of course course was a Samaritan.
[00:01:54] And Jesus asked, didn't I heal 10 men? Now I know Jesus is a very serious person. I think this is just me. Jesus likes sarcasm a little bit.
[00:02:07] This guy comes to him, thank you so much. And Jesus goes, huh, I'll be darned. Could have swore there was 10 of you back there. And yet only one of you comes back to give thanks. Where are the other nine?
[00:02:22] Has no one returned to give glory to God except this foreigner.
[00:02:26] And Jesus said to the man, stand up, go. Your faith has healed you.
[00:02:33] It's funny that Jesus would say again that your Faith has healed you. That's why the leper was there. He knows that faith has healed him, and it healed nine others as well. So what's Jesus referring to in this second go around of you have been healed? He's referring to this greater concept of healing, and that is the concept of wholeness.
[00:02:55] Now, this is what we're after as people that follow after Jesus as best we can. Healing is wonderful, and it happens often through the ministry of Jesus in the line of scripture. But notice that nobody that was healed in these ancient biblical times still exists today. They're all dead.
[00:03:12] Which leads me to believe and understand that Jesus was after something greater. That while these healings are beautiful and powerful and they exist, they're just a shadow of something more.
[00:03:22] And that is the wholeness that we believe that Jesus brings when we follow after him. We worship him, and we allow ourselves to feel gratitude to others and to Jesus. And so if you find yourself in church today, maybe wondering again what the point is and why we're even here, and you continue to go through with maybe what is just come down to a simple tradition for you, what we're after together as we worship and we sing, we get into the Word, we get into community, what we're after is this sense of wholeness that we believe that only Jesus can bring. And I believe that gratitude brings this wholeness to us.
[00:03:56] He's not just healed, he's been made whole.
[00:04:00] Now, the difficult thing with gratitude is that it is not just, again, a practice. It's not just a recitation of words. It's not just thank you. It's actually a vulnerable practice. When we express gratitude to someone or something, we are then telling that someone or something that we needed help. We needed someone to come in and enter the equation from outside of our own individual selves. And we needed them to give us aid.
[00:04:28] My son's baseball coach insists that all of the boys on the team go and thank whoever brought them to practice for. To thank them for bringing them to practice that day.
[00:04:40] And my son is terrible at this.
[00:04:44] I'm standing right there, I'm hearing the coach say, and now you need to go immediately after we break this huddle, and you need to go and you need to thank whoever brought you. And he comes up to me and he kind of looks at me, and then he turns his back to me and he's like, thank you.
[00:05:00] Thank you.
[00:05:02] What was that?
[00:05:05] Thanks for bringing me my son, especially. Just, he's so much cooler than I ever was. He's got a mullet he wears his hat that barely touches his head on the top. He's got big glasses. He's got a $5 gold chain from Amazon, you know? And this kid, when you watch him with his friends, he does not need anyone. He's owning the space. He's a leader. He's, you know, whatever. And then sometimes I love it when he realizes how terrible he is at so many things.
[00:05:42] I want to look at Joel and go, look, you're amazing, man. You're a great ballplayer. You don't even know how to drive.
[00:05:50] Pathetic.
[00:05:52] I have to bring you to your bracket, you know? And he's sometimes he's reminded that he's 10, right? And in his own little world, he can create this idea that I'm sufficient, that I've got it all together. I can do whatever I need to do. I can do whatever I want to do. I'm passionate about these things. And then he runs into a wall that is. You cannot do everything on your own.
[00:06:14] Someone is still paying your mortgage. Someone is still cooking your meals.
[00:06:20] You still need to be put to bed every night. You are in need of something. And so this thank you, this gratitude moment is a reminder to him that he needs help, that his life would be incomplete without someone else.
[00:06:39] And it's funny. I make fun of my son. I am the same way.
[00:06:44] I don't want to give thank yous because then I will let somebody in on the secret that I need them in my life.
[00:06:52] And I fancy myself to be very independent, someone that doesn't need a lot of help.
[00:06:58] And yet all the people in my life would raise their hand right now and go, this is not true. Okay?
[00:07:07] I believe that this is one of the greatest antidotes for one of the biggest problems in our world today. And that is what I would term to be an outrage addiction.
[00:07:17] We love to be incensed and frustrated and angry about things in our world today. It's funny if you go back into the history of the world, things like public shaming, right? The guillotine drew crowds when bodies would be mutilated. Somebody would be drawn out into the streets, and it would be broadcasted to everyone around. The shame that exists in this person's life, and we still love to do so today. We want to be outraged. We want to shame people. We want to come against something. We want to fight. We want to fight, and we want to fight. And I wonder sometimes it's as a result of our lack of gratitude that instead of doing the work that it takes to unwire this difficult and dark thing that we want to participate in.
[00:08:03] We continue to run down this road instead of saying, we're going to unwire this and become a people that are a grateful people.
[00:08:12] But I believe that we all know that there's a whisper of this understanding that how we function today in our anxiety and our outrage is just not quite the way that our bodies and our minds and our souls were meant to live.
[00:08:25] But it's a little bit of a helpless feeling because we feel like everyone's doing it. They're mad about this. I'm mad about this. Those people are mad about that. And this is kind of how we need to do life. It takes someone special. It takes a different kind of way of living. It takes an understanding, I believe, of Jesus Christ and the sacrifice that he has made for us in order to put our foot in the ground and say, I refuse to live in such a way.
[00:08:49] I refuse to allow people to profit off of my own fear, real or manufactured.
[00:08:55] I refuse to live in a state of outrage, impermanence. I did sports talk radio at a couple different places. One in Grants Pass, and then I had a show down in Klamath Falls. All 10 listeners thought it was fantastic.
[00:09:10] And I remember one of my bosses saying, because I had come from this newspaper world where we're reporting straight news, this is supposed to be fact, and you're giving details into those facts. And then I would jump into the radio booth and my boss would say, you need to have an opinion.
[00:09:29] And I would say, I don't have an opinion about this. And he would go, you do now, you better find one, and it better be a strong one. It better be one that we can argue and we can fight about.
[00:09:41] And this is how the entire sports talk world works, right? You've watched on espn. Sometimes people are screaming at each other at. At a volume level that you have never screamed at, and they are arguing about who should be the sixth or seventh player, the first person to come off the bench for the Philadelphia 76ers. And it looks like the world is coming to an end.
[00:10:00] Why? Because outrage, our opinion, these things sell. The thing that doesn't sell is a humility that requires us to go to people, to go to places, and to present ourselves humble and thankful for what we have been given and what we've experienced in our lives. Instead of participating in this game, in our world today, of who can paint a darker picture about the people on the other side of the line, we should embrace gratitude for the sake of our souls, for the sake of our longevity, and I would say, even for the sake of our health, we can participate in this un common gratitude. So I'm gonna give you a few things that actually science has proved about gratitude. All right? So I'm gonna take you out of just purely the biblical realm and I'm gonna take you into some things that science understands about gratitude. All right? We know that gratitude actually helps increase improved heart health.
[00:11:00] Gratitude's been linked to reduced blood pressure and improved heart rate variability, which are indicators of good cardiovascular health.
[00:11:08] People who practice gratitude consistently may experience reduced risks of heart disease. All right, good. Good start. This is fantastic.
[00:11:18] Strong immune system gratitude can lower stress hormones like cortisol, which suppresses immune function. Increased optimism and positive emotions associated with gratitude may enhance the body's ability to fight off illness.
[00:11:31] Better sleep. Practicing gratitude, such as keeping a gratitude journal, has been shown to improve sleep quality and duration. Elbow somebody that is sleeping well in your life right now.
[00:11:43] Oh my gosh, you guys. Sleep is the place where all of my anxiety loves to come and provide an assault. Have you ever woken up at one in the morning and for a moment you feel like you're not anxious? Then you go, but it's all coming, all those thoughts, they're right there. And then you're off on an anxiety wave.
[00:12:04] I wonder if we can replace the wave of anxiety with some gratitude in these moments.
[00:12:13] Lower stress levels. Gratitude reduces stress by activating brain regions associated with pleasure and emotional regulation. It helps decrease the psychological defects of stress, such as muscle tension and elevated cortisol. Now here's the best one. Check this out. I'm no scientist, but I really, really, truly believe this one. There are no negative side effects associated with gratitude.
[00:12:41] Oh my goodness. Fantastic.
[00:12:45] You wondered if you were reading the bottle there for just a second and it was like some negative side effects. Diarrhea, vomiting, cancer, these all may be side effects of the. Gratitude actually allows us to receive physical health benefits as well as spiritual ones. I believe that it allows us to be more whole inside of the healing that Jesus brings. And there is no actual downside.
[00:13:08] You may experience closeness in relationships that you've never had before. You might experience a practice of vulnerability that you can hand off to the people around you and to your children and your children's children.
[00:13:19] You might experience a way of living that is less cynical, less isolated, less dark, less hateful, less prone to outrage, and a lot more prone to peace and love and kindness and understanding by practicing gratitude.
[00:13:35] This is not just a self help thing, it's a Spiritual and holistic and physical change that we can embrace by embracing gratitude.
[00:13:49] So how do we do this? How do we. How do we actually do this? Pastor? So let me. Again, I'll go ahead and put on my cynical hat for you.
[00:13:57] This whole thing sounds great. When it's in a platform and it's under giant snowflakes and it's well lit, in a second, the keyboardist is gonna come up and gratitude's gonna sound even better. And then you're gonna walk out and it's gonna be 27 degrees and you're gonna be reminded of why you were angry in the first place. Okay, I understand all these things now. The fix for this isn't I'm gonna be a really positive person.
[00:14:24] And I'm gonna be a really positive person right now and right now and right now and right now, because that kind of just repetitious thinking and over and over and over again. I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try. I'm gonna try. I'm gonna use willpower that goes away the first moment you feel like the barista isn't working hard enough in the drive through line at Starbucks. Okay, that's got no longevity.
[00:14:45] But we actually see a blueprint for gratitude in the Psalms.
[00:14:51] The blueprint for gratitude that we see in the works of David, as well as other psalmists, is this formula accusing God is number one.
[00:15:00] God, how dare you.
[00:15:02] I'm alone and I'm angry and I'm persecuted and I'm suffering and this is your fault.
[00:15:13] That's how so many of the Psalms begin.
[00:15:17] There's one psalm, I believe it's Psalm 2 that David writes, where David is extremely descriptive about the pain that he is in. He accuses God and then he says, I'm laying down on my couch and I am soaking the fabric with my tears.
[00:15:34] Sounds a little dramatic. Until you're the person that's in that kind of suffering and pain. You know what it's like.
[00:15:43] This is not touchy feely. David curses God. He is absolutely, openly angry enough to write all of these things down.
[00:15:51] And then he follows it up with a request.
[00:15:54] So, God, this is your fault. And now this is my request for you to change it. This is what I need from you.
[00:16:04] And then he follows it up with deep lament that he's found himself in this condition, in this place, in this amount of suffering. And then finally, the last act is an act of thankfulness and praise and gratitude. Gratitude is not eternal optimism.
[00:16:24] Sometimes gratitude starts with accusing God, moves into a request. It goes into a lament, and then it shows up as gratitude.
[00:16:34] So I want to make space for you today if you find yourselves in suffering. And by the way, I've read many of the prayer cards, if not all the prayer cards, on that prayer wall over there. And I understand that you're going through separation, you're going through cancer diagnosis, you're going through divorce.
[00:16:49] You have questions and hopes and dreams about your children.
[00:16:55] You have things going on in your body or in your life that feel incredibly unknown, that cause a lot of stress about wondering what might be around the next corner. What I know from that wall over there is that what we are going through is very real, difficult life.
[00:17:11] And so I want to encourage you today, Accuse and be frustrated and scream at God, make all of your requests, no matter how audacious, feel free to lament and grieve and mourn and weep at the feet of God, and then express gratitude even in the middle of all of those things.
[00:17:37] I used to think of it as one of my least favorite scriptures, where the Apostle Paul talks about that we should count it as joy when we face trials, because I thought that's a really difficult and broken way for Christians to look at the world, to think about the frustrations that we've had, the abuses that many of us have encountered personally, to walk through so many things that we've walked through and look at these things and say, I am so thankful for that thing to happen in my life. But then I understood that that's not the Apostle Paul's goal.
[00:18:10] It's not to say, I'm so thankful that I've been hurt and beat up. It's to say, I am grateful for what I am to become, even in the middle of these difficult things.
[00:18:22] I do believe that despite the brokenness of the world, that God will shape me into something that is even more beautiful than who I am at this moment.
[00:18:35] And so a few different ways that we can express gratitude.
[00:18:38] The first thing is gratitude is recognition.
[00:18:42] Gratitude begins with recognizing that there's the source of all blessing, and that is Jesus. James 1 says, Every good and perfect gift is from above.
[00:18:52] God's provision, whether we see them or not, are constant.
[00:18:57] The second thing is gratitude is worship. Psalm 100 exhorts us to enter his gates into thanksgiving with his courts, into his courts with praise. Gratitude fuels our worship. So these moments that we have here together in the mornings, on Sundays, where we sing songs, it's not just kind of this artistic expression of scripture. Instead, it's an opportunity for us to present ourselves with gratitude.
[00:19:21] As we sing, we align our hearts with God and we allow his joy to overflow our lives.
[00:19:30] Again, gratitude in trials is the third way. So the first thing is gratitude is recognition. We recognize where all the good things come from. Gratitude is worship, then gratitude in trials. Gratitude is most powerful in adversity.
[00:19:43] Paul and Silas were imprisoned, beaten, and then they sang hymns to God in Acts 16 Thanksgiving. Again, it wasn't for the pain that they had suffered, but it was an opportunity to glorify God.
[00:19:56] Gratitude shifts our focus from our problems to God's promises and then finally gratitude and action. Gratitude leads to action in Hebrews 13 don't forget to do good and to share with others, for with sacrifices such as God is pleased.
[00:20:15] Thankful hearts give generously, they serve selflessly, they love unconditionally, and they reflect powerfully God's grace.
[00:20:27] Gratitude is a choice and a command, which makes it one of those interesting pieces of scripture.
[00:20:34] I want to encourage you that it's not rooted in what we have, but it's rooted in who God is.
[00:20:42] As we cultivate gratitude, we experience peace, deepen our trust in God, and reflect his glory.
[00:20:49] Can we live each day full of gratitude?
[00:20:53] Echoing Psalm 107 that says, we give thanks to the Lord, for He is good and his love endures forever.
[00:21:11] I want to attempt to provide some encouragement today.
[00:21:18] Again, I want to be sensitive to the fact that even this scripture, as short and simple as it is, is so incredibly difficult.
[00:21:26] We give thanks to the Lord. Why? For he is good. Is he good?
[00:21:35] Maybe your own personal experience might yield a different result.
[00:21:42] For he is complicated.
[00:21:46] For he is vengeful. For he is confusing. For he is unknown.
[00:21:51] And again, I want to give you permission to experience and feel and understand as best you can all those things.
[00:21:58] But I do believe and want to encourage you to say in faith today that he is good, that God's love endures. It's come through generation after generation, pain and suffering after suffering and victory after victory.
[00:22:14] But I do believe that he is good.
[00:22:18] He is good in the midst of divorce. He is good in the midst of wandering and wondering. He is good in the midst of your darkest of days.
[00:22:32] So I want to encourage you this week, reach out in gratitude to someone.
[00:22:38] Maybe it's an old coach or teacher. Maybe it's a parent or a family member.
[00:22:43] Maybe it's someone that would be completely shocked to know that you feel a sense of gratitude for them.
[00:22:51] And then I want to encourage you to give thanks to God again, for he is good and he has given us everything.
[00:23:03] Why don't you stand with me? And we're going to close this time together with some communion and some worship.
[00:23:21] What have we been given? Well, again, this is a good time to remember what we have been given.
[00:23:29] Isaiah, chapter 9, verse 2 says this says to the people walking in darkness, they have seen a great light on those living in the land of deep darkness. A light has dawned.
[00:23:44] For to us a child is born. To us a son is given. And the government will be on his shoulders. He will be called a wonderful counselor. Mighty God, everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
