Elevate - Live Greatful

The speaker encourages having an attitude of gratitude towards God, regardless of the circumstances. They discuss the importance of being thankful and having a proper perspective, highlighting four things that can rob us of gratitude: pride, a critical spirit, carelessness, and entitlement. The speaker emphasizes the need for a shift in perspective and finding things to be thankful for in all situations. Listen, you have to have this attitude. If God never did one more thing for me in this life, He's still giving me everything. I'll still serve Him. I'll still love Him. I will still try to expand His kingdom. If I have nothing, if I don't have two nickels to rub together, if my life is never comfortable or convenient from this day forward, if God never did one more thing for me, He's already done enough, and I will serve Him. Welcome to Elevate, from Authentic Life Church in Mobile, Alabama, with Pastor John DiQuatro. We hope it builds your faith and helps you to live a life for God that you've always wanted to live. We hope it inspires you to be a fully devoted, authentic follower of Jesus Christ. Enjoy the message, and welcome to Elevate. Thanksgiving is this week, and sadly, Thanksgiving brings up more thoughts of food, two days off of work, Black Friday shopping. It brings up those things a lot more than it brings up thankfulness for so many. Sometimes it's hard. I understand it's hard to be thankful when you're in the midst of record inflation, gas prices going up, everyone feels the pinch right now. Life has become a little bit more difficult. We struggle to trust our government. We're uncertain about the future. And so during this season, sometimes it can be hard to be thankful. But I believe that we can be thankful, and I believe that as God's children, He wants us to live in a thankful way. So we're going to look to see what the Word has to say about Thanksgiving. 1 Thessalonians 5, 16-18 says this, Rejoice always. Pray continually. Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. You know, we love this Scripture, right? It's one of those ones that many have memorized, and we quote it. But it's a tall order. It's a challenge, this Scripture. Look what Paul's telling us in this verse. To always give thanks to God for everything. Rejoice always. Pray continually. Give thanks in all circumstances. And this is not just talking about a nice thing that we can do, or the way that we should behave in church. It's talking about a lifestyle in a way that we relate to the Lord. It's a posture. It's an attitude of heart. It's an always kind of an attitude that we live in this way, where we can rejoice always. We can pray continually, and we can give thanks in all things. So, how do we get to this place in our hearts? Well, I think it has to do with a perspective shift. I think we need a perspective shift about what being thankful is, what thanksgiving is, and what it means. A perspective shift. One young lady wrote home from college, Dear mom, sorry I haven't written sooner. My arm really has been broken. I broke it, and my left leg when I jumped from the second floor of my dorm when we had the fire. We were lucky. A young service station attendant saw the blaze and called the fire department. They were there in minutes. I was in the hospital for a few days. Paul, the service station attendant, came to see me every day, and because it was taking so long to get our dormitory livable again, I just moved in with him. He's been so nice. I must admit that I'm pregnant. Paul and I plan to get married just as soon as he can get a divorce. I hope things are fine at home. I'm doing fine and will write more when I get the chance. Love, your daughter Susie. P.S. None of the above is true. But I did get a C in sociology and chemistry. I just wanted you to receive this news in its proper perspective. Proper perspective. It helps us to be thankful, to have a proper perspective of God, to have a proper perspective of the circumstances that we face, to have a proper perspective of life and a proper perspective of our struggles. And we can learn, if we have the right perspective, to be thankful in all circumstances. And so we're talking about that perspective shift today. And I want to quickly look at four things that I believe will rob us of our gratitude, and then we're going to look at how we can fulfill this Scripture that the Lord gave us. One of the first things that robs us of our ability to have gratitude is pride. Thinking a little bit more of yourself than you ought to. I worked hard for this. We have no one to thank but ourselves. 2 Corinthians 10, 17 and 18 says, But let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord. For it is not the one who commends himself who is approved, but the one whom the Lord commends. You know, many of us are very capable people. I know you. I know what you can do. I know what you do for a living. I know what you've done around this church. I know the way that you serve. Very, very capable. But be careful that you don't praise your own efforts for your success. Remember that if you're going to boast, boast in the Lord. Give glory where it's due. Because if you did something with the skills and the gifts that you have, guess what? Those skills and those gifts, they came from the Lord. They came right from God. I love it when folks that have been in Christ for a while and it seems like they just find a way to thank God for everything. And they get that perfect parking spot right at the front of the Walmart, just past all the handicapped spots. They got the first one. My wife calls that princess parking. All right. A lot of you call that princess parking as well. But praise God, I got the spot right at the front of the Walmart. You know what? The perspective is that all good and perfect things come from God. And it doesn't come from ourselves. And so if you're going to boast, boast in the Lord. Pride will rob you of an ability to live a life full of thanksgiving. Another thing that robs us of our ability to be thankful is a critical spirit. A complaining spirit always finding the bad in everything. And if there's a place where I'm going to step on some toes today, it's going to be right here in this section. So pay attention. But do you know people like this? That they seem to find the negative. They seem to complain about everything. Maybe have you been like this? If you were to stop and say, what have the last five conversations that I've had with people, what have they been about, right? And you go, oh yeah, maybe I've been complaining a lot too. An avid duck hunter was in the market for a new bird dog. His search ended when he found a dog that could actually walk on water to retrieve a duck. Shocked by his find, he was sure none of his friends would ever believe him. He decided to try to break the news to a friend of his, a pessimist by nature. And invited him to hunt with him and his new dog. And as they waited by the shore, a flock of ducks flew by. They fired, and a duck fell. The dog responded, jumped into the water. The dog, however, did not sink, but instead walked across the water to retrieve the bird, never getting more than his paws wet. This continued all day long. Each time a duck fell, the dog walked across the surface of the water to retrieve it. And the pessimist watched carefully. He saw everything, but he did not say a single word. On the drive home, the hunter asked his friend, did you notice anything unusual about my new dog? I sure did, responded the pessimist. Your dog can't swim. It's so easy to find the negative in everything in life when we have that critical, complaining spirit. But try this on for size. I'm thankful for the taxes that I pay because it means that I'm employed. I'm thankful for the clothes that fit a little bit too snug because it means that I have enough to eat. I'm thankful for a lawn that needs mowing, windows that need cleaning, and gutters that need fixing because it means that I have a home. I'm thankful for the spot I find at the far end of the parking lot because it means I'm capable of walking. I'm thankful for my huge heating bill because it means that I'm warm. I'm thankful for all of the complaining that I hear about our government because it means that I have freedom of speech. I'm thankful for the lady behind me in church who sings off key because it means that I can hear. I'm thankful for the piles of laundry and ironing because it means my loved ones are nearby. I'm thankful for the alarm that goes off in the early morning hours because it means that I'm alive. I'm thankful for the weariness and aching muscles at the end of the day because it means that I have been productive. You see, it's just a shift in perspective. Rather than complaining about these things, find what it is within these things that we can be thankful for. A third thing that keeps us from being able to be thankful is just simply a careless attitude, carelessness. You know, here in America, we are so used to having the very best of life and even the ones that have the least amount of things and money and resources in America are so much more wealthy than most of the population of the earth. We are so blessed. We have everything that we need. But be careful not to become so accustomed to what you have that you forget to be thankful. God had to warn the Israelites of this when they came into Canaan. And God gave them the ability to drive out the Canaanites. And He said, now when you're living in houses that you didn't build, and when you are harvesting crops that you didn't plant, be careful not to forget the Lord your God that brought you up out of Egypt into this land flowing with milk and honey. We can't be careless about what we have. We can't just expect that all that we have is somehow owed to us. Someone once said that if the stars only came out once a year, we would stay out all night to watch them. But they're there every night, and we have grown accustomed to them. Let's not become accustomed to the blessings that God has given to us each and every day. Amen. And the last thing that I think that really keeps us from being able to be thankful, the first one we said was pride. The second one was a critical spirit. The third one was carelessness. And the fourth one is entitlement. Right? This is my right. I deserve this. I'm getting what I'm due. Can I tell you something? We are not owed anything. God has given us breath. He has offered us salvation. He has taken our punishment. He has already stood in judgment on our behalf. He has given us everything. He has given us eternal life. And on top of that, He has given us so many earthly blessings. But the moment that we think that we deserve these things, or that they are owed to us, we stop being thankful, and we start being spoiled. We can learn a lesson from the Israelites. If we remember when they were going through the wilderness, as they were traveling toward the promised land, they were grumbling at Moses because they had no food. And so God miraculously sends them manna to cover the ground each day. Now just imagine this. You have nothing to eat, but every morning when you wake up, there is food laid out for you. That you don't have to work for. It's miraculous that God was providing this manna to the Israelites. But you know what they did? They began to grumble because it was the same thing every day. They had a miracle straight from God every day, but were no longer satisfied because they felt entitled. They felt like, well, you know, I deserve something else. We are not owed anything. Listen, you have to have this attitude. If God never did one more thing for me in this life, He's still given me everything. I'll still serve Him. I'll still love Him. I will still try to expand His kingdom. If I have nothing, if I don't have two nickels to rub together, if my life is never comfortable or convenient from this day forward, and God never did one more thing for me, He's already done enough, and I will serve Him. So because of pride, because of carelessness, or a critical spirit, or a sense of entitlement, it's hard for us to be truly thankful for all that God has given us. There was a writer named Rudyard Kipling. He was a great writer and a poet whose writings that many have enjoyed throughout the years. And unlike many old authors, Kipling was one of the few who had the opportunity to actually enjoy his success while he lived. He also made a great deal of money in his trade. And one time a newspaper reporter came to him and said, Mr. Kipling, I just read that somebody calculated that the money you make from your writings amounts to over $100 a word. Mr. Kipling raised his eyebrows and said, Really? I certainly wasn't aware of that. The reporter cynically reached down into his pocket and pulled out a $100 bill and gave it to Kipling and said, Here's a $100 bill, Mr. Kipling. Now you give me one of your $100 words. Mr. Kipling looked at that $100 bill for a moment, took it, folded it up, put it in his pocket and said, Thanks. But he's right. Thanks. It's a $100 word. In fact, I think it's more like a million dollar word. It's a word that is too seldom heard, too rarely spoken, too often forgotten. If we would all adopt an attitude of thanksgiving into our lives, our lives would be changed. I got a text this morning. It says an attitude of gratitude increases your altitude. I've heard that before, but I was reminded of it this morning. It's like this is it. We need to adopt this attitude of thanksgiving into our lives. So let's go back to the Scripture that we began reading in the beginning. 1 Thessalonians 5 Rejoice always. Rejoice continually. Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Listen, our thanksgiving to God ought to be expressed. Verse 16 tells us to rejoice always. Rejoicing is not something that you do in private, just you, just by yourself. That's not how we rejoice. When we rejoice, we express that joy, we express that thanksgiving and that gratitude. Psalm 100 verse 4 says, Enter His gates with thanksgiving, and His courts with praise. Give thanks to Him and praise His name. And I know we like to use this Scripture as being about an attitude of when we come to church, that we enter in with thanksgiving, and it should be, right? We should express thanksgiving in our worship. Absolutely. But do you realize that you are the temple of the Holy Spirit, that His presence is always with you, that you carry the very presence of God in the form of the Holy Spirit that dwells within you every single place that you go. That means that even more so than in David's day, we should always be thankful. Enter His gates with thanksgiving in your heart as you come into His presence, each and every day as you wake up in the morning. There ought to be thanksgiving on your lips. You can try this if you want. This is free. There's a habit that I've gotten into. When I get up in the morning and I hop in the shower, and that hot water begins to flow over me, and I just say, Lord, thank You that I have hot water. Because you know what? There are millions and millions and millions of people that don't have the opportunity to have hot water. Thank You for the blessing of being able to get clean. I don't have to scrub myself with sand in order to get the dirt off, right? I've got soap, and I've got body wash, and I've got shampoo, right? Thank You for these blessings, God, that I enjoy every day. It puts me in a place in the morning of just being thankful to God even for something that we all take for granted, hot water coming out of the shower head. Let's thank Him. It's a really great way to start the day. Give it a shot. That's if you shower. If you don't shower, it can't help you. You've got to find something else to be thankful for. Sometimes we are thankful, but we forget to express it. The Word of God tells us to offer praise, to offer thanksgiving to God. It is to be expressed. Our thanksgiving must be expressed. Luke 17, it's a familiar story about ten lepers. And Jesus has pity on these ten lepers. They were outcasts in their society, and so He sends them to go to show themselves to the priests, and in that, they find healing. On their way to go show themselves to the priests, their leprosy was healed. But look, in the latter part of the story, in verse 15, it says, 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, were not all ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? 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. Does this mean the other nine lost their healing? No, I don't think so. But I believe that there was a deeper healing in the one that was willing to express his thanksgiving. I don't doubt that the other nine were very, very grateful that they no longer had leprosy. They no longer had a death sentence. They no longer were relegated to the outside of the city where they could just beg for scraps of food, right? I'm sure that they were thankful, but it's the one that expressed his thanksgiving that caught Jesus' attention. Listen, don't just be quietly thankful in your heart. I'm telling you, rejoice always. Thank You, Lord. Whatever it is, thank You, God. I know this car right now is a gas guzzler. Or I know this car seems to break down at the worst times, but God, thank You that I have a car. Thank You, God. I know these shoes are wearing out, but thank You, Lord, that I've got shoes on my feet. Express that thanksgiving. Every time you get your paycheck direct deposited in your account or you get a check in your hand, don't just be like, well, I work for this. Then express that thanksgiving. Thank You, Lord, that I'm gainfully employed, that my needs are met, that my family is taken care of. Believe that we are cleansed and we are healed inwardly when we have a heart of thanksgiving. Express your thanksgiving. Don't take it. Say it. Find things to be thankful for. Amen? Our thanksgiving should be expansive. Verse 18 says, Give thanks in all circumstances. All circumstances. Now, you know, I like to tell you this. I'm a Greek scholar. You know this. And the Greek word that we translate as the word all means this. All. It means all. Give thanks in all circumstances. Sometimes it's easy to be thankful. There are times where things do seem to be going right. My job's going well. My bills are paid. My health is fine. Maybe even some extra blessings have recently come your way. You got a new job, a new relationship, a new child or a new grandchild is born or you've won the lottery, whatever it is. I love it when those are the circumstances that are in my life. Right? Because thanksgiving is easy. It's natural. I can sit around the table at thanksgiving time. And when somebody says, Name one thing that you're thankful for. I can rattle off a whole bunch of stuff because things are going well. I don't have to stretch to find something to be thankful for. But what about when things are not going so well? We're still instructed to give thanks in all circumstances. And sometimes our thanksgiving is not going to come quite as naturally. Right? When the kids are driving us crazy. When the house is a mess. When the car breaks down. When our health or someone we love's health is failing. And I'll be honest with you. I'm not thankful when my car breaks down. Or when my bank account is short. And I can't pay my bills. But this scripture doesn't tell us to be thankful for all circumstances. It tells us to be thankful in all circumstances. There's a difference. I don't have to like what's happening. But I can still learn to be thankful in every circumstance. Because I know that the Bible promises me that things will work together for my good. So I know God is working this out for me. I can still remain thankful in the midst of the circumstance. I know that God continues to be faithful even when times are tough. I can remain thankful to Jesus for my salvation. For the righteousness I have through this blood. My car breaking down cannot take that away from me. The money being short one month and leaving some bills unpaid cannot take the blood of Jesus away from my life that forgives my sins. It promises me eternity. It can't be stolen. I can always be thankful for that. I can continue to be thankful for the breath of life in my lungs. For the family that I've been given. For the wonderful church family that I'm a part of. Listen, life is tough, but you can only be thankful if you can only be thankful when everything is going well. Then you will be miserable. Because I don't know about you, but it seems like things are not going well a lot more than things are going well. There's just always something. It's life. It's just life. But if we can't be thankful when things aren't going well, we turn into that person we talked about that complains. But the reality is there's always a struggle in your life. Just unexpected expenses. They happen. People get sick sometimes. You become stressful. People will hurt your feelings or be mean to you. But don't let these things steal your thankfulness. Remain thankful in all circumstances. You don't have to be thankful for it, but be thankful in it. And continue to praise God. Continue to thank Him for all that He has done for you. I love what Mark Batterson said in his book. His book called All In. He says, you take approximately 23,000 breaths every day. But when was the last time you thanked God for one of them? The process of inhaling oxygen and exhaling carbon dioxide is a complicated respiratory task that requires physiological precision. We tend to thank God for the things that take our breath away. And that's fine, but maybe we should thank Him for every other breath too. Powerful words. And the third thing I believe that the Scripture is telling us is that our thanksgiving is expected. Right? Our thanksgiving should be expressed and our thanksgiving should be expansive. But this tells us that our thanksgiving is expected. In the latter part of verse 18, it says, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. Rejoice always. Pray continually. Give thanks in all circumstances. For this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. This is what God wants from us. We expect it from the people around us, right? We expect thankfulness from our kids. We expect it from our boss. You know, give me an attaboy once in a while, would you? But God certainly expects thanksgiving from us. And there are so many ways that we can express our gratitude toward God. We should give of our time with a thankful heart. We should give of our finances out of a thankful heart. We should pray for others out of a heart of thanksgiving. We should be an encouragement to those around us with a thankful attitude. We should be a light shining in a dark place because we are thankful for the fact that we are no longer in a dark place. This is God's will for us in Christ Jesus. He expects us to grow in this way. That out of a thankful heart will flow so much expression of love and praise and service to God and others that there will be no question as to who we belong to. The title of this sermon is Live Grateful. I know that it's misspelled. I'm aware of that. In front of the grammar police sitting in the... I spelled great like this on purpose. G-R-E-A-T Because I believe that when we live our lives with a thankful heart, expressing our thanksgiving in a variety of ways, being thankful in all circumstances, and becoming a giving person, I believe that we make His name great. We are representing the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. We're the ones that have Jesus on our lips. We're the ones that claim salvation. We call ourselves Christians. But if we walk around complaining and being miserable and never being thankful for anything, what are we showing anybody? Why would anybody want to have the same faith that we have? If we walk around with an entitled attitude and a prideful attitude about all of my exploits and everything that I've done, people are going to say, how are you different than anybody else in this world? But when we truly live thankful, when we truly live grateful, when we truly can look at the things that we have and be able to just freely give and freely share and freely love and freely serve because we know that we're not responsible for any of this. It all has come from the Lord. When we do that, we make His name great. It's all about His glory anyway. Henry Frost served for many years as a missionary to China. And in his journal, he wrote of a very difficult time in his life. And he says, I had received sad news from home and deep shadows had covered my soul. I prayed, but the darkness did not vanish. I summoned myself to endure, but the darkness only deepened. Then I went to an inland station and saw on the wall of the mission home these words, Try Thanksgiving. And so I did. And in a moment, every shadow was gone, not to return. You know, the psalmist was right. It is good to give thanks to the Lord. You've heard that Scripture. It is a good thing to give thanks to the Lord. Have you been going through some difficult times? Is this not the easiest of situations that your life has been in as you enter into the holidays? Have you prayed, but things don't seem to be changing? Have you told yourself to keep on going, and that one day it would just disappear, but it just seems to get worse and worse and worse? Then why not try Thanksgiving? Just try it. Learn every day to offer thanks to God. Every day that you're alive, God, thank you. Thank you for my salvation. Thank you for my blessing. Thank you for my family, for my friends. Thank you for my church. Thank you. Thank you, God. Thank you for listening to Elevate. We hope this message encouraged, inspired, and challenged you. Authentic Life Church is located at 3750 Michael Boulevard in Mobile, Alabama. Visit our website, authenticlife.tv, for more information about Authentic Life Church, to find out what we have going on, or to make a donation. You can also find us on Facebook. We'd love for you to join us on Sundays at 10 a.m. for our weekend service. We have excellent children's, nursery, and youth programs, so bring the family. For Pastor John DeQuatro, I'm Scott Chestnut. Thanks again for listening, and God bless you.