Gratitude | Week 2

Have you ever noticed how a simple shift in perspective can change everything? Picture this: you're caught in a downpour without an umbrella and you're cursing your luck. But then, instead of focusing on the inconvenience, you remember the sweet, earthy smell of rain on a hot day and suddenly, the rain isn't so bad after all. That's the power of gratitude. In our podcast, we share our personal experiences and demonstrate the transformative effects of maintaining an attitude of gratitude, even when the going gets tough. We touch on the pitfalls of comparison, and highlight the importance of appreciating what we have rather than longing for what we don't.

Ever heard the phrase "count your blessings"? It may sound clichéd but it can be a powerful tool in times of difficulty. We reveal how, through our own personal stories, changing our perspective helped us find gratitude even in the most challenging circumstances. We don't just focus on the big things. We talk about the little blessings that we often overlook and how acknowledging them can enhance our overall wellbeing. This isn't just about making lemonade when life gives you lemons. It's about savoring the sweetness of the lemonade and being thankful for it. So, tune in and join us as we explore the power of gratitude in transforming our lives.

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Transcript

Pastor Angus MAcLeod: 0:00

Yes, well, good morning church. How are you today? Okay, Good morning church. How are you today. Just because Pastor Jay isn't in the building doesn't mean that we can sleep, okay. So, by the way, pastor Jay and his family, they are at a fire Bible event and so they miss you and they say wish you happy Thanksgiving and they will be back next week. So until their return, you get me. So I'm so excited I get to come and bring a word today. Thank you Well, welcome to Cornerstone. If this is your first time or you're new to us, welcome I am Angus. Pastor Angus, I'm the family pastor here at Cornerstone, so I'm over things from nursery to graduation. I oversee our kids ministry team, which is an amazing team, and I'm so thankful and grateful for them and their sacrifice to come and be here early and teach each of our children.

Pastor Angus MAcLeod: 0:57

So we are coming out of Missions Convention. For those of you who aren't aware what Missions Convention is, it's a time that we set aside to seek the Lord and ask what he would have us give to missions. Now, this is above the tides and offerings that we typically do, and this is for missions giving. And so this year, the body of Cornerstone has pledged $109,900. That's amazing. Yes, praise God. What that means is that, above the tides that we bring, which belongs to the Lord, that first 10% above that, the Lord has put on the hearts of Cornerstone $109,000 to give above and beyond. For some of us, that's money that we don't know where it's going to come from, but when it comes and when it's given to, given to the Lord man, it will have such an impact on the kingdom. So, on behalf of Cornerstone and the people that will be receiving this love, thank you on their behalf.

Pastor Angus MAcLeod: 2:01

Well, at Cornerstone, one of our goals here is to be more like Jesus, and we use this image all the time of us walking with Jesus or the disciples walking with Jesus, and I like to picture myself in there, because the thing about these guys who are walking with him is that they have not arrived. They still are in process, they still have things that they need to learn, they still have some habits that Jesus needs to talk to them about, and so I find myself in this picture as well, and so I would hope that you do the same, that you recognize that it's okay if you're not perfect yet. None of us are, we're still all in process, and so one of the ways that we help that process along here at Cornerstone is through our life groups, where you can connect, grow and serve. We just ended our most recent semester of life groups. It was phenomenal. We had great connections, we had a lot of people involved, and so we take a break during this holiday season so as not to overwhelm everybody, and then we will start back in the spring. So if you have not joined a life group, I encourage you, pre-decide now that you're going to join one and then, when the catalog comes out, decide which one it's going to be Gratitude.

Pastor Angus MAcLeod: 3:20

See, last week Pastor Jay got a chance. He spoke on gratitude, and now it's my turn. How many of you would say you're grateful people? Would you say you're a grateful person? I'd say, overall, I'm a pretty grateful person, I'm a pretty positive person and I'm usually very thankful for gifts that I receive. In fact, I'm always very thankful for gifts that we receive. And so, once again, thank you all for all the love that you poured out during Pastor Appreciation on behalf of all the pastors. We are so thankful for everything. So how many of you I'm curious had a discman when you were growing up?

Pastor Angus MAcLeod: 4:01

That's a portable CD player that you could walk around with. Well, you couldn't walk around with it. You had to stay still, otherwise it would skip. See, if you blew on one of these discmen just hard enough because I tried it you could actually blow on one and you could get it to skip. And so eventually they came out with something called ESP for the discmans. How many people had ESP on their discman? Oh yeah. So if you don't know what that is, what that means is that you could. This was mine. Okay, you could mess around for 10 whole seconds, like you could dance for 10 seconds and your music wouldn't skip, but then you had to stop and wait for it to catch up and then you could dance a little more. You see, when I found out about ESP, I started this campaign with my parents to try and get one, and so all year I was talking about how much I wanted this, this discman with ESP. And so Christmas arrives, I opened it up and this is what I feasted my eyes on. It was a CD player, a discman, with 10 seconds of ESP. Do you know what can be done in 10 seconds when you have that music playing and you don't have to stop dancing. It's glorious.

Pastor Angus MAcLeod: 5:22

I was so excited because everything that I had wanted was now in my hands and I couldn't wait to go and show it to the rest of the family. See, we would do our immediate family would get together for Christmas and we would open gifts and then we'd go to the extended family. And so I couldn't wait to get to grandma and grandpa's house because I was going to show off my new 10 second ESP Discman. We get there and I'm carrying it like it's the greatest prize it's ever been won. My cousin, who's younger than me, walks out of the house, out of grandma's house, and she shows me she also got a discman, but her discman, you'll see, had 60 second ESP, sixty whole seconds that she could dance and skip and jump. That was 50 more seconds than I had. We already know what I can do in 10 seconds. What could I do with 50 extra seconds of music?

Pastor Angus MAcLeod: 6:35

As soon as I saw her discman, mine was trash. As soon as I saw it, I was no longer grateful for mine. I was looking at mine going what is this piece of junk? I only got 10 seconds. You see, my perspective on it was completely wrong. So that's my first question for you today is what's your perspective? You see, it wasn't that the gift had changed at all, it was my perspective of the gift. You see and this is a little side note, this is a little bonus point here for you, that's not necessarily part of the message, but don't allow comparison to rob you. Don't allow comparison to rob you of the things in your life that maybe you were once grateful for, like a CD player, and then you see somebody else's CD player and you go, never mind. Don't let that comparison steal from you what God has given you.

Pastor Angus MAcLeod: 7:39

First, thessalonians says this in 516. It says rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Father, I thank you so much for your word. We thank you for this message and, god, though I have notes, you have the word. So, holy Spirit, I ask that you would come and breathe life onto this message, that you would open our ears and minds and situations to what it is, that you would speak to us today. Lord, we pray all this in the mighty name of Jesus Christ, amen. So, after that scripture, my question to you is this are you grateful in all circumstances. Are you grateful in all circumstances?

Pastor Angus MAcLeod: 8:29

Now, before we move on, it's kind of important that we all have a similar understanding of what gratitude is, because we all may think of it as meaning something different. So gratitude is the state of being grateful, or thankfulness. Gratefulness is a feeling of appreciation by a recipient of another's kindness. See, with gratitude, I look at it kind of this way. I look at it as if you have a great attitude, it's easier to have gratitude. So I look at it as having a great attitude towards things, and if you have a great attitude, it's far more easy to be gracious and to be thankful for it. Would you agree? You see, it says in Proverbs 17-22 that a joyful heart is good medicine, but a broken spirit dries up the bones. You know what's so cool about the Bible? It's how far ahead of science it was. You see, science is just now beginning to catch up with this Scripture.

Pastor Angus MAcLeod: 9:32

Over these last few decades they've done research to find out what the benefits are of gratitude. Did you know that gratitude can make you more healthy? So here are some of the benefits. These are just some of the benefits.

Pastor Angus MAcLeod: 9:49

Gratitude can lower anxiety. So if you're anxious, start being more grateful. It can help you be less materialistic. It can actually increase your amount of happiness. It reduces burnout and it can improve sleep. How many of you have a hard time going to sleep and staying asleep? Maybe we should just work on some gratitude to see how that works. Maybe that'll help us. I don't know. It can also strengthen relationships. You see, it's hard to continue to stay mad at somebody when they're grateful to you, and it's hard to stay mad at them when you're grateful towards them, even though some people it's hard to be grateful for them. We're going to talk about it and maybe you'll gain a little bit of perspective by the end of today's service.

Pastor Angus MAcLeod: 10:40

See Philippians 4-6 says this Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. So again I ask you are you grateful in all circumstances? See, I want to share a story with you about a time when I was horribly ungrateful. It was about 10 years ago, and I know it was 10 years ago because it was marked by the birth of my daughter Quinn, my third-born. You see, when Annie was pregnant with Quinn, I had a horrible attitude Horrible, doesn't even describe it. I was downright nasty, and the reason was because of me. It was because I had a lack of faith. You see, we had two kids already and money was tight. Those of you who are parents you know kids are expensive, and so I knew the expense of two kids, and now I'm calculating the cost of a third and the math doesn't work out. And so I started to get very angry. I was nasty to my wife. I wasn't talking to God very much. It was a bad situation.

Pastor Angus MAcLeod: 12:16

There was one Sunday I was sitting right over there in that chair. It was during worship. I had my hands raised and so clearly inside of my being, inside of my head, I heard how dare you put my hands down? And it arrested me. I stopped, I had to sit down. Then I heard it again how dare you? So I pressed innocent Lord what do you mean? What's this about? I said I have given you this child to be a blessing and you have turned her into a curse. Have I not provided for your other two children? Will I not provide for this one?

Pastor Angus MAcLeod: 13:15

I was so ashamed of my own behavior, my own attitude, my own lack of faith. And I recognize in that moment God was absolutely right, that he had provided everything, even amidst impossible circumstances, up to this point, and so, praise God, there was one song left. I ran to the altar, I said, god, I'm so sorry, you're right, I have turned this blessing into a curse and I apologize, please forgive me. And then I had to go and make things right with my wife. But after that, see, god showed me. What I didn't know is that, shortly after Quinn, this little girl right here, who's smile it lights up a room, I didn't know that, shortly after she was born, my dad would pass away and that she would be an incredible ray of light in our house and in our family. This was the blessing that I had turned into a curse, see, because my perspective was all messed up.

Pastor Angus MAcLeod: 14:34

Second Corinthians 415 says this all this is for your benefit, so that the grace that is reaching more and more people may cause Thanksgiving to overflow to the glory of God. See, our gratitude has a lot to do with our perspective. So I ask you this question are you ready to change your perspective? Do you have something going on in your life that, on the surface, is absolutely horrible, that just downright sucks, but maybe God is allowing it in your life so that you can be grateful for something. You see, god wants his kids to be strong. As a father, I understand this. Now it would be very easy for me to come, and when my kids have hard times and troubles and things that they don't want to face, I could come and I could rescue them from it and I could just pull them straight from it. But what does that do? Does it teach them how to solve problems? Do they grow in it? No, and so sometimes the Lord allows things in our lives to strengthen us.

Pastor Angus MAcLeod: 15:56

Not many of us are thankful for our trainer at the gym when they're yelling at you to do five more, ten more, one more, whatever it is, one more rep, but we're thankful for them because they're helping us grow and be better. We don't always take that perspective with God. He brings something into our lives or allows something to come into our lives, or we've brought something into our lives and he allows us to deal with it, and what happens is he allows us to struggle with it, but see, he doesn't leave you in those things. He's there with you, which is another thing that we can be grateful for. So my question to you is what are you grateful for? What are you thankful for?

Pastor Angus MAcLeod: 16:53

It's easy to be thankful for the good things. It's very easy to be thankful for the good things, but far more difficult to be thankful for the not so good things. Maybe you've got somebody in your life, in your workplace, who God has sent them there specifically to give you patience. And if that person is there specifically to give you patience, that God has brought and has allowed that person to work and operate in proximity to you, do you think you should complain about them or should you thank God for them? I'll tell you, it's hard to thank God for them, but if you do and you continue to have that proper perspective towards that person, maybe things will change.

Pastor Angus MAcLeod: 17:56

See, I had a co-worker once. That man she was one of the most negative people I'd ever met. She wasn't very grateful person. There was one time somebody bought her lunch. I said oh, that's very cool, you got somebody bought you lunch. She goes yeah, but it'll probably give me diarrhea. There are people like that, see, in those kind of people they have the ability to rub you just a little raw. Those are not the kind of people that, on the surface, you're grateful for, but see later on down the road.

Pastor Angus MAcLeod: 18:36

Maybe you require some patience in a situation and if it hadn't been for that co-worker who taught you patience, maybe you'd lose it with somebody. You see, we need to learn to count our blessings. We need to count our blessings, the good ones, but we also need to count the ones that we're not so thankful for, the ones that we maybe don't see as a blessing. Like that co-worker, we all came from Thanksgiving. Maybe there was a family member that you need to be a little more grateful for.

Pastor Angus MAcLeod: 19:24

If you can't be grateful for the big things, if you're having a hard time being grateful for the things that are tough, maybe your situation is so big that you're like there's nothing good here. I just can't see it. There's nothing to be grateful here for. Then I want to encourage you to go to Psalm 118, verse 24. It says this is the day the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. If for no other reason, if for no other thankful, no other thing to be thankful for, god gave you one more day. We have one more day to face that situation, to face that person. We have one more day to be grateful for that difficult situation. We've got one more day to thank Him for all that he's done. So if you can't be thankful for the big things, just be thankful that you've got one more day, one more day with a loved one, one more day that you have to repair that relationship. And maybe once that relationship is repaired, then you can see the benefits and you can see how grateful you can be.

Pastor Angus MAcLeod: 20:58

So my question to you is are you thankful for your trials? Are you thankful that God allows these things to come into your life so that he can walk through with you? And if you are thankful, are you showing it? Are you showing the Lord that you're thankful? Because it's okay to say God, I'm having a really hard time with this, but thank you for being my God, thank you that you are with me through this. It doesn't have to be everything all at once. Sometimes it's the little steps, it's the little things that helps us to build that heart and attitude of gratitude.

Pastor Angus MAcLeod: 21:50

James 1, verse 2 through 4, says this count it all. Joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, and let the steadfastness have its full effect that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing. After that experience with my thirdborn, we had a fourth that was on the way, and I'm so thankful that the Lord rattled my cage and straightened me out on this issue, because when our fourth child came around, man, I was so excited and so thankful and grateful and it was a completely different experience. But, see, some things in me had to change, mainly my perspective, because if our perspective on God is wrong, if we don't see that he can meet these things, if we don't see that he can do these things in us and through us, we are far less grateful. See, when we talk about gratitude, we don't need to look much further than the cross. The cross is a symbol that used to represent death, but to millions of believers, this is life and we are grateful because someone Jesus chose to die for us, for each and every one of us. I don't know how grateful he was that he had to take the cross for us, but he was willing to do it. We need to have our perspective clear when it comes to our gratitude for what the Lord has done. I'm thankful that the Lord loved me enough to bring me to this place so that my cage could be rattled, so that I could change and become the person that I'm becoming. Because, again, just because I'm up here on the platform does not mean I have arrived either. I'm still in process with that picture of the disciples walking with Jesus, so I'm going to ask the worship team if they would come.

Pastor Angus MAcLeod: 24:31

My question to you, my final question, is have you embraced Jesus? I'm going to ask if you would stand with me. See, if you're in this room and you haven't experienced that freedom, then there's only really a certain level of gratitude I believe that you can come to, because everything up to that point has to deal with earthly things and you could be grateful for earthly things. But see, jesus paid a price that gives me something to be eternally grateful for, and maybe you don't understand exactly what that means. But see, the Lord came and he died for your sins so that you could be reunited with Him in heaven.

Pastor Angus MAcLeod: 25:25

And it says in Romans 10, 9, and 10,. It says because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved, for with the heart one believes and is justified, and with the mouth one confesses and is saved. So if you find yourself here and you recognize that you've never prayed a prayer of salvation, you've never asked the Lord to forgive you and to come be the Lord of your life, I'm going to just ask that every head would be bowed and every eye closed. And if that's you, you've never prayed this prayer, if you've never accepted Jesus to come in and be your Savior, I'd ask that you would just raise your hand, slip it up and then, when I see you, you can put your hand down, just so we know how to pray with you. See that hand, praise God, that one.

Pastor Angus MAcLeod: 26:29

The prayer isn't magical, it's more an attitude of the heart, and so I'm just going to ask, for those of you who are believers, if you would read this along with us and our new brothers and sisters. This prayer goes something like this Lord, thank you for loving me, thank you for sending Jesus. I believe Jesus died on the cross for my sins. I believe he rose again. Forgive me of my sins. I surrender my life to you. In Christ's name, we pray Amen, amen, amen, as we open this altar as the worship team comes. I want to encourage you to come and be thankful to the Lord. Come and tell Him all the things that you're grateful for. Maybe you're in a different boat and you've got some things going on in your life that maybe you don't know how to deal with them, but, most of all, you don't know how to be grateful for it, and so this is the time for you to come, spend some time with the Lord, ask Him how to be grateful for the things in your life and show Him gratitude.

Annie MacLeod: 28:12

Well, what a blessing it is to be in the house of the Lord, where people are not ashamed to tell you the ugly parts of themselves.

Annie MacLeod: 28:22

The fact that we have pastors here, we have leaders here who are willing to tell you their testimony, no matter how bad it makes them look, because it's a blessing. And so we just I'm so thankful there's that word again that we have people who are examples to us, like Pastor Rich has been, of what it is to be a man or a woman of God and to just stand up for what's right. Tonight we are, at five o'clock, coming here and decorating the house of the Lord. We're going to deck the halls with boughs of holly and we're going to stuff our faces with hors d'oeuvres. So we ask if you please come and fellowship and help us decorate. Bring an entree not an entree, an appetizer sorry, I'm always bad at those words or an entree, he's like tamale. So that's what the pastor says and just come and fellowship and decorate and bring in that holiday spirit, that spirit of the Lord, through the beautiful lights and the time together. I'm just asking you to stand right now as we get ready for the blessing.

Pastor Angus MAcLeod: 29:35

As we get ready to go, I just want to pray this quick blessing over us. May 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. Lord, we pray this blessing upon your people, upon your church and upon our community. God, we ask that, as we go out today, that you would just be with us. Help us to be the hands and feet of Christ. We pray all this in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Thank you for coming. We love you very much at Cornerstone. Have a wonderful and blessed week. We'll see you tonight.