Ever wonder why we're quick to transition from Thanksgiving's gratitude to the frantic rush of Black Friday deals? This episode takes a hard look at this cultural paradox, casting a new light on the true essence of Thanksgiving. Join us as we celebrate our podcast's first anniversary and reflect on our mission of scriptural teaching, congregational singing, discipleship, prayer, and fellowship with a year of God's unwavering faithfulness. We'll also dig into the heart of Thanksgiving and the importance of not just giving thanks, but acknowledging to whom we are thankful.
Do you feel the power of gratitude is often lost in today's fast-paced society? We tackle this issue head-on, sharing a poignant story of a teacher's unexpected pizza delivery, which prompts us to contemplate our own direction of thankfulness. We discuss the pitfalls of an ungrateful society and its negative traits, then lighten the mood with an inspiring story of a woman who battles her physical limitations with a spirit of gratitude, proving that this attitude indeed overcomes bitterness.
We dive deeper into the conversation, discussing how to respond to brokenness with love and forgiveness. It's not always easy, but with God's guidance, we can become agents of healing in our communities. We draw upon the wisdom of Ephesians 5:15, emphasizing the importance of continuous gratitude to God for every blessing, big or small. As we wrap up, we reflect on our success and express our gratitude to you, our listeners, for your support. We also chat about the importance of financial support for ministries and podcasts like ours, and how you can get involved. So tune in, and let's explore the transformative power of gratitude together.
Ever wonder why we're quick to transition from Thanksgiving's gratitude to the frantic rush of Black Friday deals? This episode takes a hard look at this cultural paradox, casting a new light on the true essence of Thanksgiving. Join us as we celebrate our podcast's first anniversary and reflect on our mission of scriptural teaching, congregational singing, discipleship, prayer, and fellowship with a year of God's unwavering faithfulness. We'll also dig into the heart of Thanksgiving and the importance of not just giving thanks, but acknowledging to whom we are thankful.
Do you feel the power of gratitude is often lost in today's fast-paced society? We tackle this issue head-on, sharing a poignant story of a teacher's unexpected pizza delivery, which prompts us to contemplate our own direction of thankfulness. We discuss the pitfalls of an ungrateful society and its negative traits, then lighten the mood with an inspiring story of a woman who battles her physical limitations with a spirit of gratitude, proving that this attitude indeed overcomes bitterness.
We dive deeper into the conversation, discussing how to respond to brokenness with love and forgiveness. It's not always easy, but with God's guidance, we can become agents of healing in our communities. We draw upon the wisdom of Ephesians 5:15, emphasizing the importance of continuous gratitude to God for every blessing, big or small. As we wrap up, we reflect on our success and express our gratitude to you, our listeners, for your support. We also chat about the importance of financial support for ministries and podcasts like ours, and how you can get involved. So tune in, and let's explore the transformative power of gratitude together.
I don't know if you noticed, but in verse 19 it says addressing one another and Psalms and hymns. So from this point on I'm gonna sing the whole sermon. No, I'm not, but when he was reading this he just kind of stood out to me. But anyway, I wanted to spend some time just talking about Thanksgiving and we just celebrated our first year doing Eloi, our prayers, our services, and man God has been faithful to us and people have been asking me like so do you think you guys are successful? And I'm like I wonder what you mean by success. Because if you mean success that we have a lot of money, we don't. If you mean success that we have our own building, we don't. Not that we need that or whatever. If you mean that we grew like crazy numbers, we don't. We didn't. Right, we set out to do five things. Really, if I could sort of shorten everything that we sort of stand for, we wanted to teach from scripture, so scriptural teaching we wanted. So I think we've been faithful when it comes to that. We've been going through First John, we've been going through the book of Mark, we've been going through chapters preaching the word. If you've been here for the last 20 minutes, I could hear you singing. The second thing we wanted to do is for people to sing together. This is not a concert. There was actually a lady that walked in about an hour before this and she's like I'm looking for the concert, I'm like that's not it. It's not here, it's probably in a different building Filled it actually. So do we have to go? But this is not a concert. This is a place we come together and we worship together. So the first one was scriptural teaching. The second one was congregational singing. The third one is discipleship, and if you've been going to Pavel's small group, you know that that is happening. He showed me some messages last night. He couldn't actually be here tonight, but he sent me some messages last night of people sending him about how much of a difference God has made in their lives, but by attending small group. So we are doing discipleship.
Speaker 1:Another thing that we wanted to do is prayer. You know we've been doing services in prayer. We encourage you to come here for prayer Every other Sunday night. We usually meet by the fireplace right there. And the last one is fellowship, and I know we were doing fellowship right, cause some of you guys, I have to turn off the lights to just kick you out, because you guys do stay here a lot after and I love that and I know that if you go to Paul's house then Paul has to turn off the lights and kick you out. We're Ferris house, right? So those are the things that we set out to do is scriptural teaching. We wanted to make sure that people sing in congregation. We want to make sure that there's prayer, there's discipleship and then there's fellowship. Those are the things that we set out to do and I think we have been doing them. Have we done them perfectly? And not really, but that's what our heart is. That's what we want to do is to teach the word, sing together, have fellowship together, pray together and discipleship being discipled and disciples others, and I'm so thankful that the Lord has been so faithful when it comes to that.
Speaker 1:When I think of the day Thanksgiving, it's amazing the kind of culture that we live in. Have you thought about what a conundrum, what a weird, weak Thanksgiving is? You sit together with your whole family, with a massive turkey, with all kinds of food in front of you, and you ask someone to pray, give thanks to God because he's been faithful to us and we're so thankful that we just can't wait to get up from the table and start planning for Black Friday. Right, we're so thankful for all the things that we have that we just can't wait, as a society, to storm into stores, trample people, right, so we can get that 55 inch screen TV except this year, because everyone's broke. But right, have you thought about that? Does that make sense? In any world that we're part of, Like? Only in a world that is broken that makes sense. Thanksgiving is a massive. I spend the whole week thinking about this. What is Thanksgiving really? Have you thought about what is Thanksgiving in terms of our spiritual walk with the Lord? Well, if you thought the Thanksgiving is about just giving thanks, it's not just about giving thanks. It's also about who do you give that thanks to. You might have a perfect thanks, wrapped up with a bow tie, with a note, but you might have the wrong address.
Speaker 1:On Wednesday night I got a message from one of my previous students from last year and he said hey, are you home? And I'm like, are you in Bellevue? Like, why are you asking me if I'm home? So I had some students that graduated, they went to college and then now they're back for Thanksgiving and they're like, well, not exactly, we just send a pizza to your house. I'm like that's not a thing to do and I'm not home. I'm like about an hour away and I'm like, okay, thanks. They're like, well, we just thought of you and we decided to send you a pizza with a lovely note on it from your favorite students. And I'm like, well, debatable, but no, they are. They're great the fact that they flew from whatever college they're at and they thought to send me a pizza.
Speaker 1:And I wasn't really hungry for pizza. But that whole drive home it took me about an hour to get home. I was really getting. I was like I wonder if it's pepperoni, I wonder if it's like it has pineapple on it, and I'm getting hungry just thinking about it, right, and I'm just driving home looking forward to having my pizza, right, and I get home there's no pizza and I'm very, very disappointed. I'm like, okay, obviously hasn't arrived. And then he didn't arrive for 10 minutes and then for another 20 minutes and then about after two hours into it, I'm like it should be here by now. Pizza never arrived. To say that my hopes are dashed, yeah, and I just fell asleep because I was hungry.
Speaker 1:The next morning I messaged them. I'm like did you send it to the right address? Turns out my pizza went to somebody else. Hopefully they enjoyed it. I'm sure they didn't take the no-dos for them. But here you can have a great gift, but if it's sent to the wrong address, right, it's kind of pointless, unless I'm guessing those people would enjoy it. I don't know if they would eat it or not, but Right.
Speaker 1:So a lot of times when we talk about being thankful, we have an attitude of gratitude like remember the cliche Okay, yeah, you're thankful, but who are you thanking? Is it your strength? Is it your wit? Is it your talent that got you here? The very fact that they were breathing right tells us that the very fact that we're allowed to breathe because God sustains our every single breath, every single talent, every single second that we get, is a gift from Him, right?
Speaker 1:So where do we address our thanksgiving to? If you have ever prayed with someone who is a, really for whatever reason, there are some people that when you pray for food, they decide to pray for the whole world right before food and you look at the gravy and there's a film over it and they're still praying for things and it's like no, when you pray for food, you just need to give thanks, because that's what Jesus was doing, like when he would pray for food. He would just bless it and thank God, right for the food, right. So where do we send our thanksgiving? But that's not the kind of world we live in.
Speaker 1:Not only we don't thank God, we are living in a society that is extremely ungrateful. I think Black Friday is a microchasm that shows us that people are extremely ungrateful. We live in a society filled with people that are entitled, they're ungrateful, they're mean and they will tremble, they will literally beat someone just to get their TV. That's the world that we live in, and this is not that far off from what the Bible describes a godless society. This is a good indication of a godless society, and 2 Timothy 3, chapter 3, verse 1 through 5, says this. So look at what the word ungrateful is surrounded by. Look at the words ungrateful as best friends, the homies they come with. Right, he says remember that people will be proud and arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control. This is what normally resolves where it comes from being ungrateful. Being ungrateful causes bitterness. Being ungrateful, causes to be jealous, causes envy.
Speaker 1:I heard this story that is so powerful, at least to me this woman who was older and she had some kind of degenerate disease where she would lose certain functions of her body. This student would come to visit her and she lost the use of her legs. So she was in the wheelchair and the student came in and they started to sing together. She's like I'm just so thankful that I can move. Yeah, I don't have my legs, but I'm so thankful that I'm able to sing. I'm able to do all of this. The next time the student came, after a couple of months, she no longer could actually be in a wheelchair. She had to be in bed because she couldn't use her hands. She's like I'm just so grateful I can move my neck, I can still look around, I can still sing. Then she comes a few months later and she can move her neck. She says I'm just grateful that I can see, that I can still hear. The student just can't hold it anymore and asked what happens when you can't do that anymore? She says I'll be grateful knowing that you come to visit me Now. I think you understand.
Speaker 1:This is a powerful story of someone who chooses to be grateful, but I don't think you realize the deeper meaning of this. You see, this woman had one enemy. The enemy was this disease that was destroying her body, but when she chose to be grateful, this enemy lost any kind of power it had over her. This enemy, this disease, lost the power that it had over her just by her having a grateful attitude and saying I will give thanks, regardless how I feel in this situation, how much more us as Christians. I've said this story one more time, but I remember one time I was really anxious and I was really nervous and I was just like everything, do you know, in the modern world that we live in, I hope you're not doing this, because I do this and I need to stop doing this but when you wake up in the morning and you check Twitter and you see the news, and by the time you're actually driving to work, you're already riled up. I can't believe they would do that. You know, and it's just, you're so already triggered by everything that you've seen online.
Speaker 1:Right, and it was one of those moments and as I'm driving, it was on 520, I had my favorite cookie from Starbucks, which you know, starbucks or coffee and coffee. And I'm like man. I'm driving a car that takes me places. I feel good. I have a cookie in my hand, I'm drinking my favorite coffee, like, where is what am I complaining about? What am I riled up about? What the heck am I doing? Like, what am I doing? Right? Somebody came and walked Right.
Speaker 1:So having this heart of gratefulness is massive in the spiritual life, and it's not because I say it, but because I will show you places that shows this. But first I want to ask you have you had these moments? Do you love yourself more than others In a world that always is about you know, you just need to love yourself. That goes contrary to what the scripture says. The scripture says do you love others more than yourself? Do you love money? What's the root of all evil? Not money, right, the love of money, right, I mean, we all need money. You don't go to the grocery store and you're like you know what? Today I'm going to pay with love. You need money, right, like you need money. But do you love money to the point that that's all you think about? Do you skip church? Do you skip ministry? Do you skip ministering to others just to work overtime. Right?
Speaker 1:Are you proud and arrogant? Are you abusive or disobedient? I was trying to put those two combined but it didn't work. Are you abusive or disobedient, right? Are you ungrateful, unholy, heartless, reckless, swollen with conceit? Do you love pleasure more than God? This is how you know. You love pleasure more than God If your comfort is what your priority is, if your belly is your God. Right, do you love your comfort more than God? Do you have an appearance of godliness? Because this is what he comes down to. Right. People like that. They have an appearance of godliness, but because they're ungrateful, unholy, heartless, abusive, deceitful, right, they pretend to be godly but they deny the power.
Speaker 1:One thing that Chip said that just sort of like really stood on my mind about marriage. If you guys remember that sermon on divorce and Chip said how can I tell the world that Jesus can fix any problem and I just divorced my wife because I couldn't make it work with my wife and for whatever reason? That quote, really, and I'm sure I'm butchering it. I'm sorry, chip, if I'm butchering that, but like the idea that here we tell the world that the world can change a person, yet we walk around still carrying all of this baggage and still being ungrateful, still being reckless and full of conceit, and all of that.
Speaker 1:Now, here's the thing it's so easy for us to take things that don't work and throw away. We live in a society like this that we I mean I, I have this love hate relationship with Akia. Akia, you can get some good stuff on it at the store, but then you bring it home and in three months the whole thing just goes, you know, and it just falls apart in front of you. Right, because it's built for or fast fashion, right, like when you go buy stuff from H&M, and it just rips within, you know, a couple months. Right, and we are so trained to consume and get a new thing, a new thing. Right, we're not so trained like the older generation to fix the things that are broken. Right, furniture, they're like it's missing a leg, and you're like you know what that's gonna be my project for today. Right, I'm gonna fix that broken thing. Because here's the thing you can go buy a hundred different watches, but if you find that one watch, you have so many memories with it where maybe someone gave you a watch and it wasn't working, but you fixed it, and now it's not just a watch. To you. It means so much because it was given to you as a gift, and when this watch was broken, you fixed it.
Speaker 1:I remember we were so poor in Moldova that we had to fix our own shoes and you know my stitching was not on par with my brothers, but I remember going to school with my shoes that were stitched by me and I was like, actually they don't look pretty bad, like they don't look bad at all. I think I can do this and I felt this like accomplishment, that I had shoes that were falling apart and I stitched them together. I actually like sewed them together, and I felt so accomplished. Right Now, the point of the sermon is not to go to tell you to go and find broken things and fix them. I just want to tell you that that's what God does. When God sees brokenness, he doesn't discard, he fixes that, and maybe one of the reasons we feel so good about fixing something that is broken is because we saw something that was falling apart right, and we had a hand and bringing that back to its glory days, right. I want you to think about that Again.
Speaker 1:This is more of an analogy. This is not me encouraging you to go and start fixing everything around. I mean, if you can, if you want to, that's great. But what I'm telling you is we live in a society when something is broken, we discard it Instead of saying, okay, I will be thankful for this, I will see if I can fix it. Sometimes those things are so worthless that, like it's easier to just sell it I mean, give it away or throw it away and buy a new thing, right? And because of that, I think we have a generation of people that when we see something that is broken, we discard it, and then that makes its way.
Speaker 1:And how we deal with other people, how we deal with the church we go to. You thought I'm going to stop with the shoes. A relationship that doesn't work. I'm just going to ignore my parents. Who cares? It's not like they gave you literally birth and provided for you, right Friends that you're committed to, and now they're living in sin and you're like you know what? I just blocked them and I don't have anything to deal with. Do you understand? That's not the heart of God To discard relationships. Oh, I went to this church. I just yeah, you know, I just don't like it anymore.
Speaker 1:It doesn't sit with me, never mind the fact that, like when you went to that church, people went to church because they looked forward not just to service, but they looked forward to seeing you, for you also to minister to them and they would minister to you. Right, like prideful people are ungrateful. A prideful person cannot be grateful. I want you to think about that. When you see something that is broken, do you allow the Holy Spirit to speak to you and say Lord, how can I be an agent of change here? How can I bring healing? Or do you just say you know what, it's not my problem, you know what. I'm not going to just deal with it. I can go make new friends, I can have a different family. Maybe I get married into a different family, right. And then we wonder why so many times our relationships are so shallow Because you haven't learned how to work on those relationships.
Speaker 1:I was talking to Chip yesterday and the best analogy I can give you of the church is the church is this shaker. If you know what a shaker is. You put rocks in there, right. You put rocks that are really raggedy and edges and you put oil in there and you let it shake for about a month and these smooth rocks come out. The church is that, all of us, we have these rough edges right and God puts us all together and he pours the Holy Spirit. And as we bump into each other, the Holy Spirit coats our wounds and little by little, we become the shiny rocks that he wants us to be. That's the power of allowing brokenness and the oil of the Holy Spirit to heal.
Speaker 1:So my encouragement to you is when you see something broken, is that your immediate response would be Lord, what are you teaching me in this moment? Lord? Teach me how to forgive. Lord, teach me how to love this person, how to lift this person up. Lord, how can I make a change in my church or my small group? Lord, how can I lead? How can I disciple? How can I intercede? How can I pray? How can I proclaim the gospel? How can I do what you call me to do and be an agent of healing in this whole process? How can I allow the Holy Spirit to work through me and be your hands and your feet and your mouth, and how I encourage and how I lift up and how I run towards someone who is in trouble, because this is the heart of God, the heart of God, gave everything.
Speaker 1:I don't know if you thought about that. He gave us everything and he gives the best gifts. God wasn't lonely. He didn't have to create you and me. Actually, I asked my students. I was like so why do you guys think that God created us? And they're like he was probably lonely. And I'm like no, that's not what I was looking for. He wasn't lonely, he had the Trinity, he was Father, son, the Holy Spirit. Then he had the angels right. He created you because he loved you. He did that out of love. He didn't have to give you life, but he gave that. He gave you the gift of life, the very fact that we're breathing. That is a gift, that is a present.
Speaker 1:And then when Adam fell and the whole humanity was plunged into sin and depravity and wickedness, when that happened, god didn't have to redeem us. He didn't have to send Jesus to die for us, but he did that. So when I tell you that God only gives the best of gifts, that's what I'm talking about. He gave you life. And then, when we sinned, he sent us a redeemer, a deliverer. He sent Jesus to restore us back and not only give us forgiveness, but also an eternity with him, chance of life eternal. That's the kind of gifts that God gives.
Speaker 1:And then, when Jesus left, I mean what could possibly be better than Jesus walking with us? I mean I would love to be in Jesus's small group. Now, of course, I understand that even Jesus's small group had Judas, but when Peter and like all of these other guys who had different motives and everything like that kind of dysfunctional but right, like he didn't have to, after he left, you remember he said it's better that I go, because if I don't, what's going to happen? You won't receive the Holy Spirit. So it's better than Jesus being here. It's the Holy Spirit living inside of us, right. So God didn't have to give us life, but he did. He didn't have to give us redemption, he did do that. He didn't have to give us the Holy Spirit, but he gave us the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1:It dwells inside of us that every single time I'm doing something really, really stupid, the Holy Spirit is like Nope, nope, nope, don't do that, don't do that. I called you to something different, don't do that, you should do this. That's constantly guiding us. And the Holy Spirit is the is. The scripture says that he's the seal for our redemption. So who will be saved is is is is the people who have the seal of the Holy Spirit. If you're in dwellings with the Holy Spirit, you will be saved. Jesus will come after his church and his church is everyone that has the Holy Spirit inside of them. That is the seal you know.
Speaker 1:For me, like it's interesting because I taught a class on revelations and you know the whole 666, like the whole mark of the beast, right Like, everyone's trying to figure out what the mark of the beast is. And they're like, well, it's going to be a tattoo. And like you better not get that tattoo. Because what if you're sleeping and somebody comes where they knock you out, right Like, and they put that tattoo on you. Now you belong to the Satan and you're not saved. And like you, you need to like withstand. And I'm like what a bunch of nonsense. Listen, if you have the Holy Spirit, that is the mark that you belong to him and the tattoo is not going to change that, especially tattoo that you didn't want to get to begin with, which I think most tattoos are stupid, but that's besides the point. I'd say most, not all, but right.
Speaker 1:So the Holy Spirit is the seal for our redemption. So when God gives gifts, he gives the best of gifts, and because we embrace those gifts, we have life, we have redemption, we have the Holy Spirit. We need to extend that and we extend that by being, first and foremost, thankful. Nobody is witnessed by you going around and complaining. And if you wonder, if you wonder, where's my biblical kind of background for this, go read through Exodus. God is not glorified when we go around complaining about everything and everyone. God is glorified when we give Him thanks.
Speaker 1:Here's a few things that show me that thanksgiving is at the core of us as a Christian. Here's how you know that this is true, right so Ephesians 5,15, a brother Philip read that he says look carefully at how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of time because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, okay, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit. Addressing one another in Psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks when, always and for what? Everything To God, the Father, in our name, lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.
Speaker 1:A few things I want to mention here Giving thanks when, always, for what, everything. And the last point of this says that we need to submit onto one another Right, and then, at the beginning of this, tells us be filled with the Spirit, don't be drunk with wine. It doesn't say be drunk with wine, okay. So I want to make that very clear. It doesn't say that. So people acting drunk, saying that's the Holy Spirit, that's not the Holy Spirit. Holy Spirit, being filled with the Holy Spirit is Peter preaching and three, five thousand people come to Christ. That is being filled with the Holy Spirit. I don't know if you've ever seen a drunk person. They're not very confident, and when people look at a drunk person, they're like, yeah, that's so Christ-like. That is just not the case. So don't be drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit.
Speaker 1:And if you are filled with the Holy Spirit, you should be giving thanks when, always and for what Everyone Couple more. If you have the Holy Spirit, you will be thankful. If you have the peace of God, you will be thankful. Colossians 315,. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which, indeed, you were called into one body and be thankful. If you study the Word of God, you will be thankful.
Speaker 1:Let the Word of Christ and Colossians, 316 and 17,. Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with what Thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God, the Father, through him. So in these three verses there's three giving thanks or being thankful. We're with thankfulness. So if you're going to study the Word, that should cause you to realize what a great God that we serve, what he has done for us, and our response should be we are thankful. Because here's why this is important.
Speaker 1:If you're not thankful, you are opening the door for the enemy. If you're not thankful for what you have, the enemy might start to come through the backdoor of jealousy. We're envy. If you are not thankful for who you are, you might start getting bitter. Why am I like this? Why was I born in this family? Why do I have this and I don't have that, and so on, right. So every single time, every single time that we do this. We basically tell God God, you didn't do enough for us.
Speaker 1:Apostle Paul says I learned to be what Content. It doesn't matter if I was beaten or shipwrecked, I learned how to be content. And he's the one I want to know. I mean, he went from persecuting others to being persecuted, from throwing people in prison. Now he's thrown in prison From being the elite to being a nobody. And guess what? Most of the time when he writes these churches and some of these verses that I actually read to you, he's writing this out of prison where he's chained to a Roman soldier. And if you don't think about Roman prisons, some of them were not even your height, they weren't even as tall as you are, so you have to stay in there like this where you just have to sit the whole time. He's writing to the church and says rejoice always, give thanks, paul, what are you talking about? You went from being the elite to being the nobody. You went from persecuting to being persecuted. You want to be. From throwing people in prison to being thrown in prison. He says for the sake of Christ, he's willing to do all of this Right.
Speaker 1:And the last one is this prayer leads to the thanksgiving. Philippians four, six through seven says this do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be known to God, and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. So our prayer a lot of times like this Lord Jesus, I need healing, I need deliverance, my family needs deliverance and we have a whole bunch of things that we request of the Lord. But we need to realize that prayer, part of prayer, needs to be thanksgiving. We need to give God glory, we need to send our thankfulness to the right address, right.
Speaker 1:And then the last verse that I want to read is from first Thessalonians If you wondered if you came here and you're like man, I just really don't want to know what to do with my life and I really need to know God's will for your life or for my life right. First Thessalonians 5, 18, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. So here's how you know the will of God for your life. While you start, we're starting to be thankful and just rejoicing in who you are in Christ. I know that a lot of times when you see ministries and you see, you know businesses that run well and you want to be part of that and you want to be important and we want to be famous and we want to have money and be rich. Right, we're so tempted by all of this. I want to remind you that when we are there in front of God, he's not going to tell you well done good and famous servant. He's not going to say well done good and rich servant. He's not going to say well done good and, I don't know, powerful servant. You're kind of getting the point here, right. He's not going to say good and well done good and successful servant, right, he's going to say well done good and what Faithful you see.
Speaker 1:Success you can just success is. When I think of success, I think of achieving something. It's a point, right, that you're working towards. Maybe there's a point where you're not famous and now you're famous. Or you're not rich and now you're rich. There's a point of inflection, I guess, where you become from this not being famous to being famous or not being successful. Now you can count yourself successful. Maybe it'll take a year, right, whatever, it could take 20 years, right, but there's a time that you weren't and now you are. You weren't rich, but now you are rich.
Speaker 1:But faithfulness is not like that. Faithfulness is are you faithful the whole time? Are you faithful here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here and here? I don't know you get it, but I'm just gonna drive this point home and here and here and here and here the whole time, Right?
Speaker 1:And I think that also, when it comes to this church, when it comes to ministry in general, it's not about achieving something, being famous or being successful in ministry. It's about being faithful wherever God has you, if it's a small group, if it's a church, if it's a ministry and any of these things that were constantly faithful. We need to be constantly faithful, disciplined in faithfulness. That's what God is gonna say to us. Are you successful or not, are you rich or not? Are you famous or not? Are you faithful? Damn, and thankfulness is part of that.
Speaker 1:By being thankful where you are, you can be faithful in that moment, even if the whole world thinks you're nobody. By being thankful where you're at, you can be faithful where you're at. But if you're not being thankful where you're at, you can't be faithful, because you're like well, I need to be a more head and why am I not there? Why am I here and you're constantly anxious about where you need to be and you're talking to someone you're completely not a part of the conversation because you're like but I gotta do this because this is more important and this and this. No, be faithful in that moment talking to that person in front of you, regardless if they are important or they're not important. Be faithful in the job that you have. Be faithful in the small group that you have. Start being faithful by being thankful in that moment.
Speaker 1:That is my message for tonight that this Thanksgiving shouldn't be just one day that we celebrate. It needs to be an extended version that lasts about a whole year, until next year, right? So every single year, the whole year you're faithful. The whole year you're thankful. The whole year you're constantly walking after Him. That's what we're called to. And when I you know coming here to a close, like when I look at our Lord and Savior, jesus, have you thought about this? Did Jesus just consider those three years of ministry as important? No, there was a time, 30 years before that, where, actually, the 30 years before that, right, he was just being a good son, even though he was the Son of God, and he is the God who created the universe. Jesus that always, who always existed right, became like one of us, squeezed all that glory into being a baby and being faithful in every single step of the life that he had here on earth, and now he is the champion of our faith. He's the one that we'll look to, consistently, faithful and thankful, through the whole process.
Speaker 1:Hey everyone, I wanna take a moment and thank you so much to all of you who have been downloading and listening to these podcasts.
Speaker 1:Recently, a friend of mine called me out of the blue and he said hey, I wanna be part of the ministry that you are doing and I wanna financially support you.
Speaker 1:So I told him that for the last four years I've been paying to host this podcast online, so he decided that he will pay for a year worth of podcast hosting. This nice gesture made me think maybe there are more people that would like to partner up with me in ministry. Oftentimes, when I'm asked to minister at some church, a lot of the churches don't have enough money to cover my travel, my time that I took off at work and the expenses that come with being in a different state, so I created a fund where all the proceeds that come into this fund from the online platforms will be used towards ministry, be it travel expenses or podcast production. We're creating any other form of ministry content you can give through the link in the show notes. However, if you can ask, support me financially. I encourage you to pray and, if you can, rate and review this podcast. Thank you so much again and God bless.