Chosen by God: The Foundation of a Thankful Heart

True thanksgiving begins long before we count our blessings. It begins by recognizing that God has chosen us, shown us mercy, and welcomed us into His family through Jesus Christ. In this message from 1 Peter, Pastor Chris Teien explains how understanding our identity in Christ produces a life marked by gratitude, worship, and faithful service.

Thankfulness is more than a holiday tradition or a response to favorable circumstances. It is the natural overflow of a heart that knows God's grace. As we remember His love, embrace our identity as His people, and faithfully live out His purposes, gratitude becomes a daily way of life.

In This Message: 

1. Be Thankful That God Chose You

Our salvation began with God's gracious initiative, not our own efforts. Before we ever sought Him, God pursued us, called us to Himself, and welcomed us into His family through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 1:1-2; Ephesians 1:4-5; John 15:16)

2. Be Thankful That You Belong to God's Family

Believers are not meant to follow Christ alone. God has made us His people, united us in His church, and called us to encourage, serve, and strengthen one another. (1 Peter 2:9-10; Ephesians 2:19; Romans 12:5)

3. Be Thankful That God Has a Purpose for Your Life

God has chosen every believer to declare His praises and serve Him faithfully. He equips us with gifts, opportunities, and relationships so we can glorify Christ and make an eternal difference. (1 Peter 2:9; Ephesians 2:10; 1 Peter 2:21)

4. Express Your Gratitude Through Worship and Obedience

A thankful heart is demonstrated by more than words. Gratitude is expressed through worship, prayer, faithful obedience, and a life that continually points others to Jesus Christ. (Colossians 3:15-17; 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18)

Takeaway

Remember who you are in Christ and whose you are. As you reflect on God's grace and His purpose for your life, let gratitude shape your worship, your service, and your witness every day.

Illustrations

• Thanksgiving traditions remind us to pause and intentionally remember God's blessings instead of rushing on to the next event.

• The adoption of the pastor's son beautifully illustrates God's gracious initiative in adopting believers into His eternal family.

• The lives of Abraham, Moses, David, Esther, Paul, and other biblical figures demonstrate that God chooses ordinary people to accomplish extraordinary purposes.

Key Quotes

"Gratitude grows when we remember who we are and whose we are in Christ."

"God chose you before you ever chose Him."

"A thankful heart is the natural response to God's amazing grace."

Search Topics

1 Peter, chosen by God, thanksgiving, gratitude, election, adoption, identity in Christ, Christian living, God's grace, Pastor Chris Teien

Full Episode & Transcript:

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2285086/episodes/18239546

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Helping you apply God's Word and follow Jesus in everyday life. Learn more at ChrisTeien.com and Rockwell.church  Find episode transcripts at Well.faith 

Transcript

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Chris T 0:16

Alright, so I want to talk about being chosen to be thankful. And being thankful to be chosen. And so I talked about this passage earlier in October about being chosen with a purpose. And we talked about how we're all living stones built into what God is doing, that Jesus is the cornerstone, and that we are built on that to accomplish God's purposes, to do God's will in the way that we live and the things that we do. And again, 1 Peter 2 9 and 10 says, You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are a people of God. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. When we were going through that, I said there's just so many more things that I could say about that, and maybe I will. And I thought that now would be a really good time to do that as we're preparing for the Thanksgiving week. But anyway, to be chosen. So when we are thankful, often we are momentarily thankful. So we something good happens and we're thankful, or somebody hands us something and we say thank you. And maybe there's been a time in your life when you prayed and prayed and worked through something and it took a long time, and you're like, oh, if I could just get this over with, if I could get this project done, I'd be so thankful. Maybe, like me, constantly contacting the state of Minnesota about the money for the frontage road land and all of that stuff, which is now taken care of. Thankfully, it's done. And I am thankful to God that we got that taken care of. But sometimes you think you're gonna be so much more thankful than you are. An exuberant joy is what you think, and then it happens, and you're like, okay, good. All right, thanks, God, and you move on to the next thing because you're busy or whatever. But our country has given us all a day off on Thursday to be thankful, to think about how God has. Well, I think the original intention was to think about how God has blessed us and how we're thankful. So I don't think the intention is to help you get geared up to get out there and get to those Black Friday sales, but it is a time to stop and be thankful. And it's a really cool thing to have Thanksgiving at your house and to pray and to maybe even go around the table and have people share what they're thankful for. Watching the video that we just watched, you saw some people around the table. And so if you really think about the way that the time works and the food works and everything, I think that you should pray and then you should bring out the hot food. Everybody should eat the hot food, and they should stick around and then talk about what they're thankful for, then you can pray again, and then you can all work together to clean up the dishes, and then everybody's thankful, not the poor couple of people that get stuck out in the kitchen doing all the dishes while everybody else is having a good time. But just strategize that. And if it's your house, if it's your house, then you have the opportunity and the responsibility to pray and to be thankful and to thank Jesus and to pray in Jesus' name and all of those things. Sometimes it's weird when you're invited to someone else's house, you don't know what exactly you're allowed to say, but you can still quickly bow your head and close your eyes and pray. And somebody says, What are you doing? Just it's my custom to pray and thank God for the food before I eat or whatever. But those are all good things. But okay, so I've been going through the book of 1 Peter, and repeatedly, every week, I tell you that Peter was written to a group of people that were dispersed, that were all over the Roman Empire, that had come to Jesus and lived in faraway places. They didn't have a big church family to connect with, they were misunderstood by their friends, their neighbor, their family. They were persecuted. Life was hard. They didn't realize that when they gave their life to Jesus, that they were going to go through all of this hard stuff. So Peter is writing to them to encourage them to give them hope. And so he makes it clear in the beginning of 1 Peter that these people were chosen by God. It was a big deal. And our thanksgiving that we have to be thankful to God for what he's doing in our life for our salvation and everything else, is the natural response of a heart that knows it has been chosen by God. Gratitude grows when we remember who we are and whose we are in Christ. It becomes the lived-out rhythm of a heart that understands the grace that came first long before effort. Mercy came first long before repentance. God's choice came first long before our decision. Peter is telling these people in 1 Peter that these people were chosen by God. These people were cared for about God. These people live out their obedience before God, and it is important. So basically, to summarize 1 Peter, he says to them, You are God's elect, you are a chosen people, you are royal priests, you are a holy nation, you are God's very own possession. And so you can listen to the past messages or watch them, and I covered that stuff. And I'll continue in 1 Peter for two more weeks after this. But just this whole idea of I am so thankful to be chosen by God, to know about Christ, to have the opportunity to hear the gospel repeatedly until I responded, until I came to Christ. I am so grateful that God has used me to do certain things. I am so grateful that God is at work in my life. But when you flip that around, so I'm thankful to be chosen. But what's even more amazing about this, about God choosing us, is that we were chosen to be thankful. So that's not just God's like, okay, I'm gonna force you to thank me, to praise me, to worship me. But no, I'm going to choose you as my own. I am going to adopt you into my family. I am going to show you care and blessing. You, as you follow me, will have opportunities and experiences and answers to prayer and all sorts of things that you would not have had any other way. And because God chose us, we have an opportunity to have all these experiences that make us thankful. Thankful that we are guaranteed eternal life. Thankful that we have the Holy Spirit to help us live the Christian life and to understand Scripture and to share our faith and all of these other things. Thankful to have opportunities to serve God. Now, some people think that, oh, what kind of God needs servants? Doesn't He have angels to be servants? But I find great delight and joy when I get to serve God. I find great delight and joy when God uses me to help someone come to Jesus. God uses me to help someone grow in their faith. God uses me to help equip someone else for ministry to be a pastor. I definitely can't take credit for anyone, but I did have an opportunity to have a few pastoral interns and give them opportunities to preach and to do ministry and to teach them how to visit in hospitals and to give them skills they wouldn't have maybe gotten at Bible college and opportunities during the time with them. And I look at that and that's wonderful. I wish we'd live closer to a Bible college here so we get some more of those interns. Actually, we can get some interns, but if they came up here, we would have to pay a lot more. We'd have to pay for them to have a place to live and everything else so they could live up here among us. So someday, if we have the resources or funds, maybe we can get a pastoral intern up here. It's really fun when you have them. Sometimes they are they delight you. Some one, I had one. I had one that he preached a really high pressure sermon and it was really long. And a family in the church said they were never coming back. And I had to go and tell them, hey, he's new. He's just starting out. So give him a second chance. Oh, he's new? He's just okay, we'll come back. Okay. And it's like, okay, you can't say in conclusion. I told this to the intern. I said, you can't say in conclusion and then have five more high-pressure points that go in another 20 minutes. The parents with the teenager didn't respond well to that. He's like, oh, sorry. And now that I say that, I've probably done that too. But nonetheless, we push on and we are thankful. We are thankful. I thought about, you know, maybe this would be a great time to talk about the doctrine of election and predestination, and we could talk about Calvinism and Arminianism, and we could talk about covenant theology and dispensationalist, dispensationalism, and everything. And I, as I was praying about it, I don't think that's what the message God has for me today is. I think it is just to repeatedly say that we are to be thankful that God has chosen us, God has given us the opportunity, and out of that experience, we overflow with thanksgiving. It wasn't forced upon us. We didn't have to be thankful in worship because that's what God demands, but it's what we've experienced, and it's the joy that we have in us. And that doesn't mean that everything in your life was perfect. And like Peter's crowd here, they found out that following Jesus actually made their life more difficult. So the people thought they were suspicious of them, they didn't worship the false gods of the Romans, they weren't loyal to the uh to Caesar, to the Emperor, and said they were saying Jesus is Lord, and all these things created kind of a mess, but they had the joy of the Lord in them, and the Holy Spirit gets you through, and that can be a good thing. So again, thankful to be chosen to know the Father's love. Thankful to be chosen to know the Father's love. How amazing is it that the God who created all of this stuff, the God who created us, the God who could wipe us out and recreate again, the God who's given us scripture, wants to know us, wants to be involved in our lives, wants to show love upon us. Pretty awesome. So Peter starts out his letter, and we've already covered this, but he says, Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ, to God's elect, exile, scattered throughout the provinces of Pontius, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia. So Peter knows he's an apostle and to God's elect, two gods chosen, those people that are chosen by God, God's elect. So God in his foreknowledge, it wasn't like God just could look into the time, look on the timeline and say, okay, here's a guy, here girl, a woman, a man. And so it looks like, okay, so they're gonna respond to the gospel message and they're gonna follow and they're gonna serve Jesus and it's gonna be good. So yeah, so that's one of the in my foreknowledge, that's one of the elect ones right there. No, it's not that. It's not that God looks in the timeline and see who to choose who chose him. It's God looks in the into the future and knows you before He even created the world, knows you and said, I chose him or her to know me, and I'm gonna do everything I can to make it possible for them to experience my love, to follow my love. And so it gets mysterious as to those who are chosen and aren't chosen and all of that, and I don't have time to talk about that, but let me just go to verse two here who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father through the sanctifying work of the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood. Grace and peace be yours in abundance. So here we have the whole Trinity here. We have the Father, the Spirit, and Jesus Christ. And a word study on the word chosen said Peter uses this word chosen. It means selected, picked out, or marked out from among others. The verb form behind this word means to select out a larger group for a specific relationship and purpose. In Scripture, the emphasis is never on the greatness of the ones chosen, but on the greatness of the one who chooses. Israel was often called God's chosen people, not because they were strong or impressive, but because God placed his love upon them. When Peter writes to the scattered believers, facing pressures and misunderstanding, calling them chosen, it's an identity statement. He's reminding them that their value does not come from Rome culture or circumstances. It comes from God's initiative. They may feel forgotten by the world, but they are known, wanted, and selected by the Father. The word also carries the idea of being chosen for a purpose. God does not simply choose people to rescue them from something, but to call them into something. Peter goes on to say the believers are chosen so that they may declare the praises of God and reflect his light. Election is never presented as a privilege without responsibility, it is a calling filled with purpose. And the broad story of Scripture, chosen confirms that salvation begins with God's initiative. And so the single word carries out the entire weight of God's love, God's pursuit, and God's purpose. So to just think about that and to think about that if you are in Christ, to know that you are chosen, that he chose you, and he wants, he chose he picked you to be in his family. He picked you to be on his team, he picked you so that you would have an opportunity to know him and declare his praises, to have that experience to declare his praises. That's Paul reinforces that again in Ephesians 1 4. For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love, he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ in accordance with his pleasure and will. So before creation, in love for adoption, the Father started looking for you way before you started looking for him. The Father's love for you began before the world began. It's because he wanted you in his family. So your salvation wasn't your decision about God, it was God's decision about you. So it'd be fun if we could sit down and have a discussion and you were to share your salvation experience. But I bet you did not start seeking God first. I bet he started seeking you first. And eventually you responded. You responded by repenting of your sin and receiving Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, and you started to have a new life experience, a new creation experience. And your testimony, I'm sure that it has to do with other people around you or influences, or somehow God got your attention, somehow God got a hold of you, somehow the Spirit moved you, called you, helped you to understand God. We had an opportunity, or we wanted, let me back up just a little bit. So when we came up here the last time, so some 20 years ago, when we were moving up to the Iron Range for the first time, we had a couple of kids and we always wanted to adopt a child. And so that was something that we'd prayed about, something from the beginning before we even got married. We wanted to have a couple of kids and adopt. And so we were doing foster care up here and praying that God might give us an opportunity to adopt a child or children in need. And we would have different kids at our house doing foster care. And I remember one of the one of the leaders at the local furniture store over there in Chisholm gave me a recliner. One day he said, Chris, pick out any recliner, just not the expensive leather massage one because that's too expensive. So I picked out a rocking recliner. And there I was in my new recliner, rocking this little baby girl. And I was praying, God, if you gave me the opportunity, it was middle of the night. God, if you give me the opportunity to adopt this child, I will treat this child as my very own. And Lord, if it be your just like you have adopted me into your family, give me an opportunity to adopt. And it wasn't this little girl, but it was another little boy that came along and we were able to adopt him. And that child did not make the decision that he wanted to be adopted into our family. Instead, we looked into the opportunity. The social worker said there's an opportunity. They brought us the child. We said, yes, we'd like to adopt this child. We went through all the steps and did everything that we needed to do to pursue the adoption. And then once it got through all the court stuff, we raised that child and into a young man. And God does the same thing for you. He acted first. It wasn't you, it wasn't you that convinced God, hey, I'm really somebody that you need in your family, but instead, God adopted you, God paid the price, Jesus paid the price and brought you home. And that is such a wonderful thing to be thankful for, thankful about. Jesus says in John 15, 16, you did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so you might go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, and so that whatever you ask in my name, the Father will give you. So when we're on mission, when we're in God's plan, when we're doing God's will, then we can ask. We should pray and ask God to provide our needs. Answer those prayer requests. Sometimes, Charles Stanley had a great message on this one time. He said something about how many things was God ready to give you, to provide for you if you would have prayed for it? How many unanswered prayers went on in your life that God was willing, but he wanted you in faith to ask for it in Jesus' name, and he would have provided, but you did not ask, so you did not receive. That's a really interesting thing to think about. I know that God showers blessing on us more than we ever deserve, but how many unanswered prayers are our fault because we did not trust God. We did not pray it through. So choosing, choosing. Throughout Scripture, we see how God had moved and chose. I made a list, how God had moved to choose people. Abraham was chosen when God called him out of Ur and invited him into a covenant that would bless the entire world. Abraham's story reminds us that God often begins his great greatest work in the lives of those who are simply willing to follow. So Abraham just like, all right, God, you want me to want me to follow you to an unknown place? Alright, let me grab my wife. Moses was chosen when God met him at the burning bush and called him by name. Though insecure and hesitant, Moses became the leader who delivered Israel from Egypt. Moses shows us that God does not wait for ability. God calls us in our weakness so that his strength is seen in us. Moses is somebody who told God to find somebody else. He literally said, No, no, no, no, you got the wrong guy. Send someone else back to Egypt. It's not going to be me. And God's like, no, no, no, I got the right guy. I want you. And I'm even going to send you a helper. Joshua was chosen when Moses placed his hands on him and commissioned him to lead. He stepped into impossible shoes and brought Israel into the promised land. Joshua must have been really afraid, because at the beginning of Joshua, like Joshua 1.8, it repeatedly, God repeatedly says, Do not be terrified, be strong and courageous. So there must have been something about Joshua, probably trying to fill in for Moses, who would go up the mountain and spend time with God and come back with his face glowing with the Shekinah glory of God. And so Joshua was faithful to show up. You'll remember Gideon. He was chosen while hiding in fear, trying to survive. He said, He's from the smallest tribe. You can't use me. But God called him a mighty warrior and used him with only 300 men to defeat Midian. So sometimes God chooses to use you not because you're the most likely to succeed or the strongest. Sometimes he's just looking for somebody to be faithful. So David was chosen when everyone else overlooked him. Samuel anointed a shepherd boy, whom God saw as a king. David's calling shows us that God does not see as a man sees, he looks at the heart and chooses those who trust him. David's life wasn't perfect. David was called a man after God's own heart. He is famous for one particular sin. But throughout his lifetime, he would fall down and get back up and continue to pursue God during his lifetime. So even Esther was chosen when God placed her in a palace for such a time as this. Her courage saved her people. Esther reminds us that God often places us in specific positions for reasons far bigger than we know. I love reading the stories from like the Christian athletes site and sports spectrum and stuff of young men and women who are really successful in sports right now. And they're coming out and saying, I'm thankful to God for the opportunity, I'm thankful to God for the skills, I'm thankful for the strength, for the victory, and I want to use my platform to proclaim my faith in Jesus that's more important to me than anything else. I keep seeing more and more of these young athletes, these people who have opportunity to say, I don't care what the world thinks. And I also know that I might be on top, I might be the champion today and not tomorrow. But I want to use the opportunity I have in this moment to proclaim my faith in Jesus, who means everything to me. And I don't know what platform you have. Maybe you're in a place at work, maybe you're a place of influence, maybe there's you're connected to somebody, and God is giving you an opportunity to influence a bunch of people that other I wouldn't be able to influence, that other people couldn't influence for such a time as this. Husband, he didn't know what was going on, but an angel came in a dream and he obeyed, he responded, he did what was right, and God used him. One more. Paul, the apostle Paul, who gave us much of the New Testament, he was actually doing everything he thought was right to protect God under the old covenant. Didn't understand that Jesus had issued in a new covenant until Jesus literally showed up and told them, Paul, you got to quit persecuting me. This isn't working out. Struck him with blindness. And then eventually Paul was able to change sides and become the apostle to the Gentiles. God chose him. How might God choose you today? God still chooses people. God can choose us. God chooses us through his word. He prompts us to serve. He chooses us through opportunities, placing us where we are for a divine reason. He chooses us through burdens, putting certain people or needs on our hearts. He chooses us through gifts, equipping us to build up the body of Christ. And he chooses us through moments when he places us exactly where someone needs his love, grace, and truth. So you might be able to encourage somebody. You might be able to help finish out a project that needs to be done. So when I years ago when I lived up here, I met a man who had a bunch of, he like collected heavy equipment. He's like, Yeah, I got a bulldozer and an excavator in a backhoe, and I just like to collect the stuff. Know anybody that needs some work done? The guy was literally looking for places to do some work. And that'd be great. Man, if I knew somebody that liked to cut down trees and had all that stuff, I'd be like, well, if you got the time and the equipment, it'd be really cool to take a pile of those trees and put in like a baseball field or something for the church, some big grassy area if you want. Or different skills. People have different skills and to use those skills for God's glory. What is it that you have? What is it that you can do that you can use for God's glory? You can help God's light shine in a dark place. You can help someone who feels forgotten. You can help to serve, to lead, to help people grow in Christ. Number two, thankful to be chosen to belong to God's people. To belong to God's people. That means that God did not choose us to just be by ourselves, but we're supposed to be in a family. We're supposed to be in a local church. We're supposed to serve together. We're supposed to know one another. We're supposed to do life together. And like the sign says, this is a church for people of all ages. Sometimes people for churches in certain like bigger cities or whatever, they say, okay, we're going to be a church for people that are between 24 and 34 with between one and three kids, you know, and they they segregate their global marketing and they say, This is who we're for. And we're for everybody. We're for people of all ages. And I think there's a lot of value to people of all ages. Sometimes the younger people gain a lot of wisdom from the people that are older, and often the older people get a lot of encouragement from the younger people that are serving Jesus. But 1 Peter 2 9 again, I read this in the beginning. But you are a chosen people, so that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness. Do you praise Jesus? Do you declare the praises of Jesus? Do you let people know that you are a Christ follower? And again, it says, Once you are not a people, but now you are the people of God. And so together, the church, the people of God, we get together, we worship, we encourage each other, we build each other up, we pray for one another, we look for opportunities to help people find Jesus and to grow in Ephesians 2.19. So now you Gentiles are no longer strangers and foreigners. You are citizens with all of God's holy people. You are members of God's family. God has called us to be a family. You are not a guest in God's house, you are not a visitor in God's kingdom, you are a family member. You have full rights of sons and daughters in God's kingdom. And Romans 12, 5 says, In Christ, we, though many, form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. That's pretty exciting to be able to be a family of God, and God can do wonderful things with the family of God. God can do so many things to work through us. God can do so many things to help us experience things that we would have never had on our own. It is also good that we go through this life and not being lonely. When the church is persecuted, we're really gonna need one another. When times happen, difficult things happen, you really need to call out and let us know what you're going through so we can share that with others, so we can all be praying for you and showing care. Number three, thankful to be chosen to live out God's purposes in my life. Are you thankful to live out God's purposes in your life? So, 1 Peter, again, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful life. You figure out what it is that you can do, what works for you, and then you do everything you can to praise God and proclaim God in that way. All of us have different skills, different opportunities, different things that we find are working, and so we do everything we can to proclaim Jesus. So I've tried numerous things over the years, from putting Christian stuff on my vehicle and really big letters, so all could see, to just sharing Jesus with whoever I could find anywhere, anytime, to dropping tracks, Bible tracts everywhere, all sorts of different things. I try for spiritual fishing, and I'd be interested to hear what you do for spiritual fishing. This you were called because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his steps. So it's not going to be easy. Actually, I think it glorifies God more when it's not easy, when it's difficult, when it's hard, when we're watching football. I don't know if you watch football, I don't watch a lot of football anymore, but when we watch football and we see these amazing plays where they tried to do everything they could to tackle the guy, but he just kept running and he was throwing people left and right, and there was so much opposition, but he just kept pursuing the goal. We're like, yeah, that's awesome. That's the best play ever. And Jesus sees us, and there's so much opposition and there's so much difficulty, but we keep pushing through, we keep proclaiming, we keep advancing the gospel football, we keep living for Jesus. Verse 10, chapter 5, verse 10. And the God of all grace, who called you into his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm, and steadfast. Again, it can be difficult, it can be hard, but it also helps us to be thankful. Because when we go through the hard times, when we go through the difficult times, when we've been faithful and we've done what's right and we've honored God, and we look back and maybe we see results. Sometimes missionaries are on the field for a lifetime and they're faithful and they don't see the results they had hoped for, but they're still faithful. They still did what they felt God was calling them to do, and God can reward them. Maybe not even in this life, but in the next life. Always makes me feel sad for those faithful missionaries that were on the field and didn't think they made a difference, and then after they die, then you start to see all the fruits of their labor, and they didn't realize it at the time, but I'm sure that when their life is reviewed by Jesus at the end of their days, that they will know that they made a difference because we are God's handiwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do. Ephesians 2.10, I love that. What is it that God has prepared us to do? What is it that God has us doing? So I didn't just wake up one day and say, Oh, I think I would like to become a pastor and then go to school and jump out of pastor. Instead, it was all these different life experiences and opportunities to serve and volunteer things. And it's been it's been quite a path of God preparing me for me to have the opportunity to be a pastor. But I think that it all starts with all of us being faithful to start to do those good works which God has prepared for us, which God has given us to do, which God can do through us. And so many times it's just us being faithful to show up and say, Yes, I'll serve, yes, I'll do this, yes, I'll help with this vacation Bible school or all these different volunteer things in the past. Pastors are supposed to be equippers, not do all the ministry according to Ephesians 4.11. And it's always good when you've had some experience doing whatever it is you're trying to equip people, and God often uses those people who have been faithful to show up and do those works which God prepared in advance for us to do. And thankful to express my gratitude through words and actions, thankful to express my gratitude through words and actions. So we are chosen to know the Father's love, and we are chosen to belong to God's people, and we are chosen to live out God's purposes. And so we should respond then by telling people, telling God. Gratitude is not silent, gratitude speaks, gratitude sings, gratitude serves, gratitude moves, gratitude becomes a testimony to the world that God has been good to us. Colossians 3 15, let the peace of Christ rule in your heart, since as members of one body you were called to peace and be thankful. Be thankful. It says it right there. So it's not just a season, it's not just a Thursday, it's a lifetime of being thankful. The acts of prayer, adoration, confession, thanksgiving, and supplication. Those are four different areas that you can pray through. So do you see what happened there? So you adore God, you tell him how much you appreciate him, and then you confess any known sin, and then you are thankful. You tell him what you're thankful for. Thank you for answering this prayer. Thank you for helping me to avoid this sin, helping me to do this thing, helping me to not do that thing. I'm thankful. So A C T S supplication. Ask for other people, then ask for yourself. Those are good things. Let the message of Christ dwell among you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom through psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit, singing to God with gratitude in your hearts. So this is your life. You are a life living a life of thankfulness, because you're thankful that God chose you, and God chose you to be thankful. But the message of Christ is on your lips. It's ready to be shared with anybody who will listen. You are quick to share a gospel tract or to hand out a new believer's new testament. And then it says, and whatever you do, whether in word or deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him. And those are such an exciting, wonderful way to live. One more, and then I'll be done. But rejoice always. Pray continually and give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. So to live that way. Next time we get together, we're going to talk about preparing for Jesus' arrival. The picture just happened to have snow, but it might even look like that next week. I don't know. But Lord Jesus, I thank you that we have had this opportunity to be encouraged by your word. I thank you for this passage that Peter gives us that points out that we are chosen, that we are elect, that we are here because God called us to be. Jesus, you called us to be part of your family and you give us this opportunity and the results of you working in our life and us working out our salvation and being your ambassadors for Christ, lead us to joy and to be thankful. So I thank you for it. Help us to be just overflowing in thanks and love for you. Jesus, we pray that you would help that help us to live that out this week. And if there's anybody here that doesn't know you as our Lord and Savior, that they would talk to me or one of us after this service so we can tell them what that's all about. So we thank you in Jesus' name. Amen.