God Is Happy to Be With You

Life lesson series if you guys enjoyed the series has helped you it's the common theme has been these are simple not easy But simple overlooked things that really can change your life if you put them into practice and today will be no different We'll be in first Thessalonians 5 we'll get to that in just a second if you want to go and open up your Bible So week nine next week our founding pastor will be George will be here to close out our series on life lessons And then the week after that pastor wit will be back to start a series through the book of Colossians that we're calling Jesus over Everything now you guys that have been at church in the mood for a while You know this if you haven't what we tend to do around here is study through books of the Bible every once in a while We pause like we have during life lessons when we feel like the Lord is directing us to talk about a certain topic But we love to go through books of the Bible who loves to go through a good book of the Bible We won't have enough time to go through every verse of Colossians This will be a five-week series and then we'll be in in Advent even though it's 90 degrees today Advent's come and y'all I can't believe it. Yeah, so you got your Bible open first Thessalonians 5 16 through 18 is where we'll be the think of this like part two From a couple of weeks ago pastor what talked about the life lesson of praying without ceasing a pretty audacious thing for the apostle Paul to say And it's not the only odd day audacious thing. He says in this passage. So here is our text for it today Paul says to the Thessalonians and to us rejoice always Pray constantly give thanks in everything for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus This is the word of the Lord and we all said thanks be to God Anyone in here looking for the will of God Anybody okay, well, let me just very simply tell you it is to rejoice always To pray without ceasing and to give thanks in everything literally all of the time there you go You're welcome. You are dismissed. That is the will of God sounds so simple But we know that that's not the same thing as it being easy and pastor it talked about this idea of praying constantly You're praying without ceasing a pretty audacious thing to say today We're gonna talk about something that I think is even more audacious Rejoice always everybody say rejoice always That is our life lesson and you might be thinking okay He told that to the Thessalonians. Maybe that was just a lesson they needed to learn. No, let's look at what he says to the Philippians Rejoice in the Lord always and then like a parent with a toddler He says I will say it again, and then say it with me rejoice

What does it mean to rejoice? One of the first memory verses maybe for you for me was this is the day the Lord has made I will rejoice and be glad in it. What does that mean? Does that mean to put on a happy face is God telling us just be happy? I think about when you're trying to take family pictures with young kids and they just aren't having it and you're looking at them going Would you just be happy for crying out loud is that what God is doing here through the Apostle Paul looking at Christians going? Would you just be happy for crying out loud? No, that's not at all what God is saying through the Apostle Paul, but make no mistake about it. This is a command Joy is a fruit of the spirit, but rejoicing here. This is a command This is an imperative. What do I mean by that? It means that when we aren't doing this for disobeying And I'm gonna be hard to hear and I'm gonna unpack what I mean by that because it's not put on a happy face But this is an imperative given to us. We talked last week about how humility is a non-negotiable posture of a disciple of Jesus Do you remember that? In other words, there's no such thing as a proud or prideful or arrogant disciple of Jesus Can I tell you according to the Bible? There should be no such thing as a joyless Christian If you were to observe a group of 10 people, how would you be able to pick out the Christians in that group? You might look for good behavior Maybe no swearing. Maybe they would hold the door open for the other people. They would be kind They would be loving. Can I tell you what the Apostle Paul would be looking for? Who's got the most joy in this group? Who's the joyful person here? Joy is meant to be the mark of a Christian. It is an imperative And you might be thinking Blake man, you don't know my situation. You don't know my circumstance gases for bucks right now Deodorant's 12 bucks right now. My PSO bill is 4,000 bucks right now But listen, I hear you and I think the Apostle Paul would hear you, but can I remind you where he is writing this letter from? Anybody know where Paul is writing this letter from a little place called prison Now if he can tell us and know how to rejoice when he is in prison Then I think you and I have something to learn from this man. So that's what we're gonna do in the rest of our time together What does it mean to rejoice? Always so we're gonna unpack it through three questions if you're taking notes This is how I will frame up my message

The first is what is rejoicing and when we talk about what rejoicing is we have to also talk about joy related words Obviously the second question where is rejoicing that's worded? You'll understand what I mean by that when we get to it. And then lastly, how do we rejoice? We'll be all over the Bible. We'll even unpack a little bit of neuroscience. If you're a neuroscientist in the room, you can fact check me on what I'm saying. And then lastly, we're gonna get very practical today. And it just heads up. If you enjoy what I'm sharing, you would love our COTMU Year Two program. Those of you that have done Year Two, you're gonna recognize a lot of this content. If you haven't done Year Two, spoiler alert. Guess what you gotta do first. Year One, we made it very obvious for you that Year One comes before Year Two. So if you haven't done Year One, we'll see you next fall. Does that sound like a plan? Would you please pray with me before we dive in? Father, I thank you already for this time. You are here with your people today is a glorious day. It is a good day to be in the house of the Lord. So we take a moment, Lord, to rejoice. No matter what situation we are in, you are with us. We thank you, Fort Lord. And all God's people said, amen, amen. So what is rejoicing? And in order to talk about rejoicing,

we have to first talk about what is joy. Joy is the noun. Rejoicing is the verb. Do you guys remember basic grammar? I know it's been a minute for some of y'all, but a noun is a person, place, or thing. So joy is that thing. Rejoicing is the verb. It's the action. So let's first talk about what joy is according to the Bible. And joy, if you're to look at it and study where it appears in the Bible, it is always first and foremost connected to the presence of God. Connected to God himself. Can I tell you something crazy? Can I tell you something crazy? God is joyful. Did you guys know that? And I have to say it like that because some of you grew up with an image of God that was anything but joyful. We talk about God's holiness. We talk about his righteousness. We talk about his wrath, his judgment. One thing we don't talk enough about is God's joy. I've heard Dallas Willard say that God is the most joyful being in the universe. So full of joy in and of himself. And this makes perfect sense. Another way of saying that is that God is happy.

He is joyful. He is so happy in and of himself that he wants to share it with his creatures. One of my life verses, I love this verse so much from Psalm 1611. This is David writing, "You make known to me the path of life. In your presence, there is, say this with me, fullness of joy." In other words, there's nothing lacking when it comes to joy in your presence. At your right hand are pleasures forever more. In other words, to enter the presence of this God is to enter fullness of joy itself. And this God is too kind to keep it to himself. He wants to share it. And so we see this guy, Jesus, come on the scene. Have you guys heard of Jesus before? So he comes on the scene. And I've heard it said that in the Gospels, he was always either on his way to a meal, at a meal or on his way back from a meal. Anybody get down with that, Jesus? In fact, he partied and ate so much that he got accused of being a drunkard and a glutton. Because he just, he loved a good party whenever something was lacking at a party, he provided it. And he wanted to share this with his disciples and with us. And so in his farewell discourse in the Gospel of John, we find him talking about so many things with his disciples.

What was to come? He talks to them about the Holy Spirit, whom he would sin to dwell on the inside of them, on the inside of them. And he said that really a way to summon up is that I've told you these things, so that my joy, which is joy to the full, may be in you and your joy may be complete. Did you know this is what's on offer for you and I? Not just getting through life, not just abstaining from sin, but fullness of joy. Can I tell you, if you are full of joy, you will abstain from sin. Some of you are giving in to sin over and over and over again, and you don't need to slap your hand, you need to make yourself joyful in the Lord. To be full of joy, it will give you like a shortcut to bypassing sin, to know the presence of God. Jesus said, I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete. He wants to give us the joy that he has. Joy is relational. This is not something that God doesn't say, go on a corner, buy yourself and just put on a happy face. No, he's saying this is something that you get in the presence of God, is that making sense? Are you seeing the connection here so far? Joy to the presence of God. And the best neuroscience is unpacking this right now that joy is relational.

There's a psychologist and a researcher in the field of neuropsychology at UCLA. His name is Dr. Alan Shor. As far as I understand it, he is not a Christian. And he's studying the way the brain works, the left and the right hemisphere. And as a non-Christian, he has said something really interesting over the past few decades. He said that human beings are meant to run on joy, our brains are meant to run on joy. This is why whenever a baby comes into the world, they're looking for a happy face. And we're totally content to just put our-- to give them as much joy as we possibly can. There are two Christians, Jim Wilder and Michael Hendricks and their book I highly recommend, by the way, called The Other Half of Church. They sum up his study like this as Christians. Joy is what we experience, so not just a feeling, but it is what we experience when we are with someone, get this, who is happy to be with us. Again, like that baby when the mom or dad or grandparent gets that weird smile in their face, it's actually so much joy for them, that they have to look away. Did you know that's why newborns have to look away because it's so much joy their little body's about to explode. So think about that next time. It doesn't mean they don't like you, it just means you're given too much weird energy right now.

But you have experienced this as an adult, how many of you have gone to an event here at the church, maybe a networking event, and for you, a networking event is already your own personal hell, and you gotta like psych yourself up to go there, anybody. And what's killing you is that you don't think there's gonna be anybody there that you know. I just hope I know at least one person there, how many of you daughters did or something like that? You show up though, and you see that person you know, and then what happens, their eyes light up, your eyes light up, you feel as if you've been rescued out of darkness and you have been saved in that moment. Thank you, I know somebody that I can sit with. Your brain is telling you, yeah, you were meant to run off of this. I feel this whenever I walk through the door, after coming home from work, when my 27 kids come to me and they say, I don't have 27, just for it. And honestly right now, there's really just two of them doing this, the older two are getting a little too old for it. Sad to my daddy heart, but what do the younger ones do? Daddy's home, their eyes light up. Now, I'm sure would say that joy is communicated through the face. The eyes light up, it's communicated through the voice, and so their eyes light up, my eyes light up, my brain is literally telling me more of this please. We need this as human beings to be in the presence of someone

and think about how traumatic it is and some of you know this. When you grew up in the presence of parents who were never happy to be with you, went to a church and people weren't happy to see you, that's traumatic 'cause you're suffering alone. So get this friends with Christian joy and if I could grab this and drive it into your soul, I would, Christian joy then is first and foremost grounded in the fact that we serve a God who is happy to be with us. I'm gonna say that again. Christian joy is grounded in the fact that we serve a God who is actually happy to be with us and I don't think Christians believe this enough. You actually practice that idea and you rehearse it to yourself whether you know it or not in the blessing that we say at the end of service every single week, we're gonna say this together and see if you can already pick up on some new details in light of what I've just said, so let's say this together. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace. What is this getting at? It's getting at the wonderful, remarkable, mind-blowing idea that when we show up, God is happy to be with us. The creator of the world, the Alpha and the Omega,

the Lord of the cosmos is happy to be with little O you. He loves you and He likes you. Again, I don't think we believe this and I'll hear it. Whenever I hear Christians use the whole where two or more gathered thing as if to obligate Jesus in order to be with us. And I know I've done this too. You know what I'm talking about? You'll hear some Christians praying. Lord, you said that wherever two or more gathered, there you would be in the middle of them. You have to come now, gotcha. And as if Jesus is up in heaven looking at the Father and the Spirit going, they got two or more again. Guess I better go be with my people. (congregation laughing) Guys, we know more have to convince God to be in the presence of His kids than I have to be convinced to be in the presence of mine. You were His idea. You weren't your parents' idea. Scripture says that when you were in your mother's womb, God was knitting you together. Like making a wonderful dish, throwing in ingredients. So I'm gonna make her a little extra spicy. I'm gonna make this person a little joyful. Everything about you in that way is from Him. So why wouldn't He enjoy being with you? That's what joy is.

Joy is the experience when we're in the presence of somebody who is glad to be with us on the highs, but also in the lows. Are you starting to see why this is key to rejoicing always? Because if there are moments in your life when you don't believe God is present, then rejoicing always will feel impossible. So what is rejoicing? Well, it's being in the presence of a God who is happy to be with us. That's the starting place. And it leads to this next question. Where is rejoicing? I told you it was worded oddly on purpose, but now you may know the answer In your circumstance, in your situation? No, in the Lord while you're in your circumstance or your situation. Paul is in prison, but guess where he is first? In the Lord. The Philippians are in the heart of the Roman Empire, but guess where they are first? In the Lord, you'll pick up on this eventually. You may be in whatever situation you are in, but guess where you are first? In the Lord, therefore it is possible to obey this command because you are with the God who is happy to be with you. I don't think you guys are getting this,

so let me unpack this a little bit more. God's presence is constant. It is unending and therefore access to joy is unending and always available. That's what this line is symbolic of. We could call it the joy line. This is awesome. Access to fullness of joy is always available, so why don't we experience it so easily? Well, you know this to be true. Life sometimes brings you close to that joy line where God's presence feels so tangibly accessible, but also there are moments when God's presence and therefore his joy feels a million miles away. When you are here, and I just wanna talk to you for a second when you are here, because some of you, how many of you during worship felt like you were about to explode? Can I just tell you, like there are commands in the Bible, things to do when you feel that way, and it's to actually rejoice, to do what you do at a P-We football game? In church, the Psalms say this, clap your hands all you peoples. Shout to God with a jubilant cry. I think a lot of Christians read this and think, "What a lovely metaphor." To metaphorically clap your hands. To metaphorically shout to God with a jubilant cry. There's so much of this throughout the Psalms, you guys.

Let the whole earth shout joyfully to God. If the earth is shouting joyfully to God, I think his image bears ought to shout joyfully to God. Sing about the glory of his name, make his praise. Glory is Psalm 27, six, then my head will be high above my enemies around me. I will offer sacrifices in his tent with shouts of joy. This is something David literally did. I will sing and make music to the Lord. Some of you will hear Micah call you to raise your hands and you're like, who does this guy think he is? Can I tell you who he is? He's a worship leader. Do you know what his job is to do? It's to bring out of you what is in there if you will listen to it. But actually sometimes you gotta talk to it. The call to worship, David is talking to his soul. Some of you need to talk to your soul and say, "Hey, it's okay to raise your hands." I know some of you grew up in a church where things got crazy if hands went above the shoulders. (congregation laughing) Some of you grew up in maybe the exact opposite kind of church. But can I tell you if you feel this, actually go for it. You would expand your capacity for joy if you actually shouted for joy during a worship service. I don't know, you're terrified 'cause you're thinking everybody's looking at me.

No, you are shouting to the Lord. If people looked at you anyways, it wouldn't matter. It's for him. Some of you need to tell yourself, "Hey, soul, we're at church. "It's time to worship. "To clap your hands, to raise your hands again. "If you're doing it at a P-Wee football game, "you can do it at church. "Can I get an amen?" (congregation laughing and clapping) I appreciate your clapping, but we don't live here. Sometimes we're here. I know you fans approximately 24 hours ago. (congregation laughing) You were right here. You may feel like you're right here, but you know what's coming. (congregation laughing) OSU fans, it feels nice to be like right here, doesn't it, after a couple years of despair? No, there are moments in your life when you're here in God's presence and therefore His joy feels so impossible. Some of you know, part of sitting nice story of losing a baby at 21 weeks, back in 2020. This is the most hellish thing we've ever gone through. It's still birth, going to a hospital to deliver a baby that we will not bring home.

There's a daughter named Lucy. And if I could draw you outside of the TV, that's where we were. We had been through some stuff, but that was like the Valley of the Valley. And you might be in one of those spots today. And I want to say to you very gently, and I don't mean this in an inconsiderate or insensitive way. Guys, the command still applies. Rejoice in the Lord, not some of the time, not when you're only on the mountain and you feel like it, but always I will say it. Again, rejoice. So how do you do that? And again, it has everything to do with what we've unpacked so far. And that's why I hope you've been tracking with me. What have we unpacked so far? That you have access to God's presence, which means you have access to fullness, Some of you live like you're rejoicing, yet always sorrowful. But the command of what Paul says is possible is to be sorrowful, yet always rejoicing. How do we do this then, especially if you're at the bottom? I want to go back to 1 Thessalonians 5, because I think the key is here. Rejoice always, Paul says. Pray constantly. Give thanks in everything for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. When I sat with this passage this week, I started to think about how these are not three separate things. In other words, you don't rejoice always and then move into praying without ceasing. And then you move into giving thanks in everything. I think these are overlapping in a pretty significant way. And I think the key to entering all of that is found in the last imperative, giving thanks in everything. Giving thanks in everything. Think of it like the ignition

switch to everything else here. If you begin to give thanks in everything, you will begin and it won't be long before you begin to rejoice. It won't, you will find yourself praying constantly if you learn how to live in a state of gratitude. Did I come all this way, talk about joy, this high-level concept to just get to the ground level to talk about gratitude? You bet I did. A simple, overlooked practice that can change your life if you'll let it. And I know you know you need to be doing this. This is one of those things that doesn't surprise us to hear that we should be grateful. It's all throughout the Bible. Give thanks to the Lord for he is good, his faithful love endures forever. Psalm 100 verse 4, "Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise. Give thanks to him and bless his name." God wove verses and Psalms like this. He baked it into the liturgy of Israel because he wanted them to see the world the way that he saw the world. And the way that God saw the world is that even it's even as broken as it is, there are gifts. If you have eyes to see them, there are gifts. There is grace everywhere. Gratitude. So three points on gratitude here. The first that you need to know, if you begin to practice this and adopt it, you will begin to see the world differently. Grateful people see the world differently than the rest of us. Gratitude changes the way that you see the world. Jesus was a grateful person. If you read throughout the Gospels, you'll see him give thanks to the Father whenever he breaks the fish and the loaves. You see him give thanks to the Father before he raises Lazarus from the dead. We see him give thanks to the Father at the Last Supper. He was a very grateful person, unlike the first human beings in the garden. We know that God told Adam and Eve not to eat from that tree and don't eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. We're familiar with thou, shall, not. But did you know before that God gives them a thou, shall. He says, hey, eat all the rest of these trees. Enjoy all of this. I love that about our God. That the first command given to humans in the gardens is enjoy everything. But you parents with young kids know how this works. If you give your kids all of the best toys in the world and you place one toy in there that is off limits and you say, don't go near that toy. What do their eyes do? They go straight for the off limits toy. This is the way that the serpent works. He gets your eyes off of everything that God has given you and onto the one thing that God hasn't and he starts whispering in your ear the same life from the beginning. God's holding out on you. Why would he not give you that? And all of a sudden you begin, you're consumed with the thing you don't have instead of all the stuff, the people, the beauty that God has given you. I think about Israel in the wilderness. God provided miracle

donuts for them every single morning. Crispy creams just out there on the ground out of nowhere. And what do we find the Israelites doing? Man, that stew in Egypt was so good. And God's like, are crispy creams not enough for you guys? Like, do you need sprinkles? What do you need on them? But then I think about us. We look down on them, but how many of us begin to complain about something that in a previous season was a gift from God. Sitting, I have caught ourselves doing this with our house. Last year we moved into a new house, loved this house, but there was a stretch of a few months where we had a water leak on the lower level. Had to replace all the floors out of the house for a full month. We had a sprinkler thing break down. Our fence posts started falling down. We began to say things like, I hate this house. Have you found yourself here? Maybe parents with young kids? Have you found yourself maybe talking a certain way about these kids that did not choose to be in this world? But all of a sudden you're ungrateful for them. Most of us are unhappy and it's not because we don't have what we want. It's because we aren't enjoying what we have. I did a wedding for some friends a few weeks back. I married off their daughter for them and they gave me this watch actually as a gift. It's a nicer watch, not crazy. I'm notorious though for not really caring about material, like clothing, items, anything cool I have is because of Sydney. When we got married, she started throwing stuff away in my closet. She told me, "You aren't a dad yet, "so are you dressing like one?" One of the things she threw away were pleated pants, but I guess those are back in style now, so I need to get my pleated pants back. Don't care about that stuff, but I do like watches, and so I've been looking at this watch and joining this watch, but do you know what else I've started to think about? I made all those other watches I could have. So I start to look online, Instagram is happy to send me.

Ad, anybody, ad after ad about all these watches that I don't have way beyond my budget, all of a sudden I find myself daydreaming about a Rolex. I'm not condemning anybody in here if you have a Rolex. For me, if I bought one right now, I would be sinning against my family. It would be a sin. But this is what the enemy loves to do. Hey, get your eyes off of everything that you have, and look at the thing that you don't have. And all of a sudden, you start to develop a bitter and resentful heart against God because he gave other people that stuff when you don't have it. Do you think God looks down on a person like that and says they look like a trustworthy vessel, I'm gonna give them more? No, he's watching to see, will they enjoy and be grateful for the gift that I gave them in a previous season? So I just wanna ask you, do you know what you have? Or are you just taking stock of what you don't have? And I'm not just talking here about material possessions. We're at different levels here. Some of you have more material possessions than others. I'm not saying to wait until you have stuff to be grateful, let me tell you. If all you have to go off of is what you have in Christ, you have everything. You need to tell yourself, man, I've been adopted. Some of you need to tell your face that you're saved.

Man, I used to be in the pit of darkness, the domain of darkness, but God rescued me out of that. He set my feet on a rock. He crowned me with dignity, worth, and honor. I'm a son of the most high king. You need to talk to yourself. If you have the Lord, you have everything. And I'm not making light of your situation, but think about Paul in a prison cell. Knew that one day, man, they can do what they want to me. I will, in fact, I want them to do that because I will be with the Lord. Andrew Wilson says that as sad as the circumstances may be, if God is present, joy is available. Set a different way, joy is available because God is available. Can I get an amen? But you still have to make the choice. My second point on gratitude is this, that gratitude is a choice that anyone can make. Everyone in here can obey that command. There is something that you can be grateful for. You have just as much. We've talked a lot in this series about the idea of agency. You guys familiar with that word, Pastor Woods, been talking a lot about this idea of agency. It's your capacity or ability to choose something or to set your mind somewhere. Can I tell you that if you are here,

you have just as much agency as you do here. Just as much, not less. I know it may feel like you have less. It may feel like you are powerless, like you are helpless, but you have just as much agency and willpower. In other words, the ability to set your mind on something as you do here and some of you need to be reminded of that because you're rehearsing in your mind what has been done to you. How powerless you are, but you can in fact set your mind up here. There is a member of our church. I spent time with him this past week, his name is Nathan. Cory Miles and I went over to his house on a Thursday afternoon. Nathan's a member of this church, but he watches online because he's bedridden for 22 hours out of the day. There's an autoimmune thing going on. There's a neurological thing going on. So we're with him, he's lying down. His knee is kind of permanently bent like this right now. He can only get up to go to the bathroom to get a drink of water. So we're talking to this guy. We went to minister to him and can I tell you what happened? This guy ministered to us. It felt like I was in the presence of Jesus the whole time we were with Nathan. Why? Because he had joy.

I said, bro, I wish I would have pressed record when you started talking, brought it up on stage with me this weekend and then hit play. 'Cause I heard Nathan say, hey, people may look at my situation and think, man, I feel bad for this guy. He said, do you know how much time I have to memorize Bible verses? He's got 60 verses memorized and right now he's working on memorizing the entirety of John 15. I thought, dude, this guy, and he said, whenever I get up and some people say this and I don't believe him, I believe Nathan. He said, whenever I go to get a glass of water, I will stop and say, Lord, thank you for this water. When you aren't grateful for something, you're acting as if you've earned it. Nathan knows, even though this water is technically free, I got up to get it, where does all water come from? Lord, he said, Lord, thank you for this potato chip. Why? Because he knows where it originally came from. If you aren't grateful, you're acting... How many of you, let's say you, I don't wanna know if anybody's done this recently, you got your paycheck from HR. How many of you emailed them to say, wow, thank you so much for your generosity. How kind of you, no, HR would report you, we got a butt of the elf over here in this department. What's going on here?

Why aren't you that grateful because in your mind you've earned it? You guys hearing me? When we aren't grateful if we act as if we've earned it. So when we are down here, what I learned from Nathan, in fact, I think he's watching right now on the count of three, can we say hi, Nathan? One, two, three. Hi, Nathan. Awesome. What Nathan understood, a lot of his agency has been stripped from him, except where he puts his mind. You might be here, but you have the ability to set your mind here. And when you set your mind here, you're not traveling up yourself, what you're doing is setting your mind on the gospel truth that God made his way down to you. And he's with you in the valley, everybody as much as he is on the mountain. You have the ability to think about that. Dallas Willard talked about the will this way. He said the will is the capacity to initiate courses of reality or action. It is the place of freedom and creativity and the source of our dignity. That is what makes us priceless and unique. Moreover, it is this inner yes or no

in response to situations that decide the eventual character of a person. And then he sums it up like this. The primary freedom we have is always the choice of where we will place our minds. Can I tell you, if you are here, you can set your mind on here because you are radically in charge of your perspective. No one is in charge of your perspective, but you. Not your boss, not your spouse, parents with toddlers, you're toddlers. Some of you need to be told this. You're a toddler is not in charge of your perspective. Can I get an amen? I got that down. I don't need that, that's for y'all. It's not for me. We are in charge of our own perspective. It doesn't mean ignore what's going on. This is why Paul, over and over again, would say set your mind on things above, practicing gratitude, and you will begin to see something that it is impossible to be grateful and bitter at the same time. When you practice bitterness, guess what you get really good at? Bitterness. When you practice resentment, guess what you get really good at?

Resentment. To practice gratitude. And this is my last point. Gratitude is a practice. This is something that you have to do over and over and over again. It does not get its power by you doing this one time. Some of you have tried this just for a short season. You're like, I don't get that whole gratitude thing. It's because you haven't seen this as a way of life. To see yourself first as a grateful person, then begin to practice this. This is something that we must choose over and over and over again. So three invitations. Three ideas that I am practicing and learning to practice in my life. This is not an exhaustive list. Some of you have terrific gratitude exercises. If you want, send them to me after the service. Tell me about them. I'd love to share them. But three things that have worked for me, and again, this is so easy. It's so overlooked, but I don't want you to overlook it. The first is this. Keep a gratitude journal. Now, some of you maybe even men, you think this is like something for moms

or this is something just not for who you are. Let me just ask you, how are you practicing gratitude? I would encourage you to start with this. In my planner, there's a spot every single day just to write down one thing I am grateful for. It might be that I slept well. Sometimes you got to go on a hunt for the good if you know what I'm saying. If it's not apparent to you, just think of man, am I grateful that it rained last night and I have a roof over my head? Am I grateful for the coffee in my hand? In that season when we lost Lucy, I saw Sydney begin to practice this. She had a journal, place for her to list out three things she was grateful for and guys more often than not, it was something very, very small. Because when you're in the pit, sometimes all you have to go with is the coffee in your hand, but can I tell you if that's what you got, be grateful for it. If you are grateful for the little things you will start to see God at work. It will change the way that you see the world. Let me tell you this, the person who can give thanks in everything, will see God at work everywhere and the person that can see God at work everywhere

will get through anything. If you start with the little stuff, the coffee in my hand, these little, you will begin to see, oh my gosh, I've heard it said that God is always doing 10,000 things in your life, but you might be aware of three of those things. Gratitude is a way that we begin to see how God is at work. Next one is this. Pray before every single meal. Every time you eat food, because this came, we believe from the Father that gives good gifts. We do this as a family at dinner, we thank God, I'm not as good whenever I'm by myself, either getting lunch in a rush. but what if we paused? And you had guaranteed times during your day when you were thanking the Lord for the food. You're tracing, as C.S. Lewis would say, you're learning to trace the sun beams back to the sun. You got your hands on a gift, you're eating a gift, and you're saying, "Lord, I recognize that this is from you. "This is not from the universe. "This is not from myself. "This is not from Chick-fil-A, "although God is very present in Chick-fil-A. "This is ultimately from you. "You are training yourself."

So just think about those as like anchor points. If you forgot, because we forget, our hearts wander during mid-morning, during mid-afternoon, come to a mealtime Lord, thank you that you have given me daily bread again. And then lastly, have a gratitude bank. What do I mean by gratitude bank? I mean, like when you're at the valley and God's presence seems a million miles away, do you have memories that you can go to? When it feels like you knew without a shadow of it, what the Lord was there, I would encourage you this week. Come up with five to 10 memories. When you knew, where you knew that the Lord was present with you, and when you're in the pit and God's presence feels a million miles away, what I would encourage you to do is to fully enter that memory. Imagine what you were seeing. Feel what you were feeling. One of those is when the Lord called me into ministry. I still remember talking to you on the phone, Brian. Walk in the streets of downtown. It felt like me, Brian, and God were on the phone. I enter that memory often. Meeting Sydney was one of those for me. Everything changed as a result of meeting Sydney. And this is biblical. The Apostle Paul, do you think that he revisited his memory of the Damascus road experience a time or two?

Yeah, all the time, Lord, I remember, I was in the pit. I was persecuting your church. Yet you pulled me up, you called me your chosen instrument. He rehearsed this to himself enough that he was able to give worship in prison. What he told Timothy, Timothy, remember the lane on of hands. You have to sometimes enter back into these memories to feel as if God was with you. So what five to 10 memories do you have? When you knew the Lord was present with you. Just three quick invitations. There's probably more out there. My main thing that I want to say is where are you practicing this? Gratitude is a way of reigniting that joy. It's remembering that you serve a God that is always happy to be with you, not just on the mountaintop, but in the valley. You have to remind yourself of this. No one's going to do this for you. One of my favorite, I guess you could call characters from church history is a guy named George Mueller. He lived in the 19th century from Germany, landed in Britain, and he oversaw and led and ran an orphanage that over the course of his life, he took care of 10,000 orphans. And he was famous for never asking for money. He never once ran a marketing campaign. He never once told people about his financial plight. The only person he ever talked to about finances was God. And stuff showed up whenever he needed it.

So what did that guy do? How did he begin every day? I love this quote so much. He said, "I saw more clearly than ever "that the first great and primary business "to which I ought to attend every day "was to have my soul happy in the Lord." What if you began to see your quiet time as less checking the box, this obligation, and more? Man, what do I need to do to make my soul happy in the Lord? I might need to turn on a worship song. I might need to think about the goodness of God to set your mind there. No one's gonna do that except you. Ask for his help, Lord. I can't really remember when you were good to me. Would you help me? Would you help me remember that your face is shining down upon me. Make your soul happy in the Lord. And watch what happens. Would you please bow your heads? Lord, I thank you for this time. I thank you for who you are that you are God that is happy to be with your people. I believe that you have been shining down upon us today, smiling, looking at brothers and sisters, praying for one another, worshiping your son, Jesus, listening to the preaching of your word. You are so happy to be with us.

Lord, I ask that you would impress that truth upon the hearts of the people in this room. Those that need to know that you are happy to be with them, reshape through the Holy Spirit who you are right now for them. Lord, I pray for the people that are in the valley that maybe have been complaining. They've been listening to themselves instead of talking to themselves. I ask that you would help them. In fact, if that's you and you feel convicted to almost the right word here is confess. That you have been disobeying that command of rejoicing always. You've been complaining and you know there are some things that you can be grateful for. If you know that's you, can you just raise your hand and hold move? Just confessing to the Lord, Lord, I'm done with this. I wanna rejoice, I wanna find gratitude. Yes, I see hands all over the place. Lord, I pray for these people, Holy Spirit, help them. Give them verses, give them truths. Remind them how much you love them. It is your kindness that leads us to repentance. So we confess, Lord, and we repent. to see the world, the way that he saw the world. Lord, you're so good. We give you thanks and all God's people said, amen. If you need prayer for anything, maybe you're in that valley, you're in the pit, and you're like, I don't even know

what verse there would be, please come and ask for prayer. Talk to our prayer team, they'll have their Bibles up here to show you some truth to look at. And if you are new to this whole thing and you're like, man, that joy stuff sounds great. I don't really know what it means to walk with the Lord. We've got a book for you. It's called, What does it mean to be saved? This is just a primer. This is not an end-all be-all, but it would be a great way to get started on your journey with the Lord. Please come and get prayer before you leave today. Okay, stand your feet. We're gonna say the blessing. Hopefully it hits a little bit different now. So let's say it a little louder. Does that sound like a plan? Okay, I'll say it, please join in. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace. God bless you guys. Have a great rest of the day. - Thank you so much for watching this message from Church on the Move Tosa. We really hope it encouraged you to take a step toward Jesus. Church on the Move is a family of churches in Northeast Oklahoma, each with its own in-person pastor. We love our Bibles, learning in community,

and taking steps toward Jesus. If you live in the area, we would love for you to join us in person. For more information, check out our website at churchonthemove.com, or we've got a few videos we think you might like. Check them out here. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) [BLANK_AUDIO]