Transcription
And we begin our message with excerpts from a Diary of a dog.
8:00 a.m. Oh boy, dog food, my favorite.
9:30 a.m. Oh boy, a car ride, my favorite.
9:40 a.m. Oh boy, a walk, my favorite.
10:30 a.m. Oh boy, another car ride, my favorite.
11:30 a.m. Oh boy, more dog food, my favorite.
12 a.m. Oh boy, the kids, my favorite.
1 p.m. Oh boy, the yard, my favorite.
4:00 p.m. Oh boy, the kids again, my favorite.
5:00 p.m. Oh boy, dog food again, my favorite.
5:30 p.m. Oh boy, Mom, my favorite.
6:00 p.m. Oh boy, playing ball, my favorite.
Favorite.
8:30 p.m. Oh boy, sleeping in my Master's bed, my favorite.
Now excerpts from the Diary of a cat.
I've not said anything [Laughter] yet. Day 283 of my [Applause] captivity. My captives continue to haunt me with bizarre little dangling objects. They dine lavishly on fresh meat while I'm forced to eat dry cereal. I'm sustained by the hope of escape and the mild satisfaction I derive from ruining a few pieces of furniture. Tomorrow, I may eat another house plant. I attempted to kill my captors this morning by weaving through their walking feet. Nearly succeeded. Must try this strategy at the top of the stairs. During a gathering of their accomplice, they placed me in solitary confinement. I overheard that my confinement was due to my power of allergies. Must learn what this means and how to use it to my advantage. I am convinced that the other household captives are flunkies, perhaps snitches. The dog is routinely released and seems naively happy to return. He is no doubt a half-wit. The bird speaks with humans regularly. Must be an informant. I am certain he reports my every move. Due to his current placement in the metal cage, his safety is assured, but I can wait. It's only a matter of time.
The day of a dog and the day of a cat. One content, the other conniving. One at peace, the other at war. War. One grateful, the other grumpy. Same house, same circumstances, same Master, yet two entirely different attitudes. Which diary reads more like yours? Were your private thoughts made public? How often would we read the phrase, "Oh boy, my favorite"? "Oh boy, son up, my favorite." "Oh boy, breakfast, my favorite." "Oh boy, traffic jam, my favorite." "Oh boy, vacuuming, my favorite." "Oh boy, root canal." My no, no, nobody does that. Wouldn't we relish more gratitude in our day? Might it be possible that Thanksgiving is not just a holiday, but a lifestyle? That by God's Grace, our days of gripes and groans could become gratitude?
Gratitude is the firstborn child of Grace. The firstborn child of Grace, the appropriate response of the Blessed. So appropriate, in fact, that its absence surprises Jesus. We know this because of the 10 men and He healed. I'm reading from Luke, chapter 17. It happened that as Jesus made His way toward Jerusalem, He crossed over the border between Samaria and Galilee. And as He entered a village, 10 men, all lepers, met Him. And they kept their distance, but raised their voices calling out, "Jesus, Master, have mercy on us." Lepers, a huddle of half-draped faces and bent bodies where one begins and the other stops, it's hard to tell because they move in a mass. They lean on each other so. But upon whom else could they lean? People were repulsed by them. The lepers had bumps on their nose, on their forehead, head, on their cheeks, on their mouths. They had no hair on their eyebrows, rendering their eyes hollow glares. Ulcerated vocal cords turned their voices into a raspy "weee." Muscles atrophied and and and tendons contracted until their hands looked like claws. People avoided lepers, but not Jesus. He had compassion on them. Taking a good look at them, He said, "Go and show yourselves to the priests." And they went. And while they were still on their way, became clean.
Wouldn't you have loved to have witnessed that miracle? While they were on their way, pow, they became clean. All of a sudden, the hoods came back, the backs straightened up, 20 crutches were cast to the side, just like that. No treatment, no medicine, no therapy. Open source, closing energy pulsating through veins. Open sores that were ulcerated, instantly healed. And a massive misery becomes this leaping and and jumping and celebrating chorus of health. Can you imagine how they felt? If you are in Christ, you can. What He did for the lepers physically, He's done for you and me spiritually. Sin makes lepers out of us all, turns us into spiritual corpses. This agree? Well, take it up with the Apostle Paul. He told the Ephesians, "You were dead in your transgressions and sins." Chapter 2 and verse one. The unsaved, Paul argues, live in the futility of their thinking. They are darkened in their understanding. They're separated from the life of God. Could one render a gloomier assessment? Dead in transgressions, feudal in thinking, darkened in understanding, separated from God. Coroners give brighter reports. But Paul isn't finished. Apart from Christ, we are, he says, without hope and without God. We are ruled by the sinful nature. We are held captive by Satan. What Jesus saw in the lepers' skin, He sees in the sinner's soul, and that is utter devastation. But what He did for them, He does for the willing heart. Because of His great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ, even though we were dead in our transgressions. Those open wounds of our heart, so infected by bitterness and guilt or greed, He closes those wounds and heals them. Those narrow limbs of our inner being, He straightens them out, and He swaps sin rags for righteous robes. He did for them, He does for us. He still heals, and He still looks for gratitude.
When one of them saw that he was healed, he went back, back to Jesus, praising God in a loud voice. Then he bowed down at Jesus's feet and thanked Him. And this man was a Samaritan. Jesus said, "Three, four, weren't 10 men healed? Where are the other nine? Is this Samaritan the only one who came back to thank God?" What a question. Where are the other nine? Even Jesus is astonished. Why didn't they return? What could have possibly held them back? What could have possibly been more important? You'd think that neither fire nor hail would have kept them from rushing back and falling at Jesus's feet. Where are the other nine? Why did 90%? Nine out of 10 not take time to come back and say, "Thank you, Lord"? That's the question. Where are the other nine?
It's easy to speculate. A few answers. Well, some are just too busy to be thankful. Just too busy. I mean, they got to get home, they got to hug their puppy, they got to find their friends, they got to see if their business is still afloat, they got to pet their parakeet. They've got things to do and people to see. They're too busy. They intend to someday, at some point, when they have a minute, to come back and find Him, but they're just so busy. Others are too cautious to be thankful. They have learned that what's too good to be true usually is. They don't want to go back. Jesus might want something in return. He might want some, you know, a donation, or there might be some fine print. They're a little cautious. Don't want to overdo it. Guard your optimism. Others are simply too self-centered to be thankful. Now they got to get a job. Now they got to go to work. I mean, it was a pretty good deal, you know, making a living as a as a, you know, a beggar. Now they got to be responsible again. They're too self-centered. Others are maybe too arrogant to be thankful. "I wasn't really that sick. I mean, eventually I would have figured this out. I I would have found a way. I mean, I didn't really." Besides, if if you're thankful, that means you admit that you needed help, and well, some people just don't want to do that when you have an image to protect.
To busy, too cautious, too self-centered, too arrogant. Too close to home? Would you find company in the one who returned or the nine who didn't? Here's what this story teaches us, and that is God notices the grateful heart. He does. And He notices the ungrateful heart, but He takes note of the grateful heart. That returning leper caught the attention of Christ. So did the poor widow who gave one coin, the only coin she had. And remember that boy who had that basket of bread and fish? How he brought them up when no one else brought anything? Jesus took note of the women at the foot of the cross. God notices the grateful heart. Why? Does He have some type of ego problem? No, but we do. We do. And gratitude lifts our eyes off of the puny accomplishments of our lives onto the wonderful accomplishment of God. Over the things that we don't have, onto the things that we do. Gratitude is healthy for the heart. It's that great virtue that, you know, studies have linked gratitude to empathy, forgiveness. People who keep a gratitude journal are going to have less envy, less materialism, less self-centeredness. If it came in a pill form, one psychiatrist said that gratitude would be the miracle cure. It's no wonder then that God's therapy for this tough life in which we live includes a delightful dollop of gratitude.
Would you like to have a grateful heart? You can. Just a couple of ideas on how to find one. First, no more looking for weeds. No more looking for weeds. So easy to be obsessed with the downside of life, the disappointments, the difficulties. It's so easy to make the same mistake that Scott Simpson's caddy made. You golf folks would recognize the name of Scott Simpson. Many years on the PGA Tour, won the U.S. Open, super successful career. That took him many times to Augusta National to play in the spring classic, the Masters. There is no more beautiful golf course on our good Lord's planet than the one in Augusta. It's like an oil painting. Those who groom those fairways and greens do so with the care of somebody grooming a a bride for her wedding. There's no more beautiful place. Scott had a new caddy on one particular year who had never walked onto the grounds at Augusta National. And Scott just kind of made a throwaway comment to him earlier in the week. He said, "You're going to walk these grounds all week, you won't find one single weed." They played Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. Finally, on the back nine of the last day, Scott heard his caddy say as they were walking down a fairway, "I found one." And when Scott shared that story, he said, "I wonder how much beauty he missed because he was looking for a weed." You look long enough and hard enough, you can find a weed in the most beautiful setting. You can. Here we are, surrounded by magnolias and azaleas and the bluest sky on the planet, but there's always somebody that's going to find something to belly ache about or complain about. You don't be among those. Quit looking for weeds. You'll always find one if you look. Lift your eyes up, make in the beauty and the grace of God.
And also, measure the gifts of God. Collect your blessings. Collect them. Catalog His kindnesses. Assemble your reasons for gratitude and recite them over and over again. Always be joyful. Always be joyful. Pray continually. And look at this, and give thanks whatever happens. This is what God wants for you in Christ Jesus. Always be joyful and give thanks whatever happens. Look at the totality of those words. Always be joyful, pray continually, give thanks whatever happens. Gratitude is always an option. Not a shallow, naive gratitude that pretends that the world is perfect. No, but a heartfelt gratitude that is saying, "There's got to be something good in this." The kind of gratitude that Courtney Canel told me about. Courtney and Kimberly are wonderful members of your Gateway family now. We sent them up here from San Antonio to reform them. They're not quite where we can take them back yet, but we we love Courtney and Canel. And before he was a member here, he was a member of our church in San Antonio, served for many years on our security team. And I remember one day Courtney telling me about his daughter Sydney and her bike. Her brand new bicycle was stolen. And she called her dad with the bad news. He expected her to be upset, but Sydney wasn't crying. She was honored. "Dad, of all the bikes they could have taken, they chose mine." Gratitude is always an option. Matthew Henry made it his. When the famous scholar was accosted by thieves and robbed of his purse, he wrote this in his diary: "Let me be thankful first because I was never robbed before. Second, because although they took my purse, they did not take my life. Third, because although they took my all, it was not much. And fourth, because it was I who was robbed, not I who robbed my friend."
Jerry has taught me much about the value of gratitude. He's over 80 years of age now, a retired dentist. He and his beautiful wife, Ginger, expected to retire from his career and and travel. But soon after his retirement, she was diagnosed with Parkinson's, and that led to many hospital stays, many trips to the doctor, much time, all the time at home. Jerry, always by her side. I met Jerry through golf. That's two golf stories tonight, isn't it? Jerry, um, again, 80 years old, always shoots better than his age on the golf course. If I ever do that, I'll have to live to be a hundred. And Jerry never complains. Never, never. I've never heard him complain. Ginger has passed on into heaven now, but back in the days when it was rare for him to be able to sneak out of the house and and meet us on the golf course, always had an upbeat attitude, always thankful. All you would have thought that he had won some lottery or something. Always the happiest guy. And one day I asked him, I said, "Jerry, how do you do it? I've seen people who have far fewer burdens complain more than you, but you live like you have only but blessings." He said, "Well, that's how we do it." He said, "Every morning when I help Ginger get up out of bed, she sits on the side of the bed, and I sit beside her, and she'll always say, 'Jerry, let's sing a hymn.' And I'll say, 'What?' And I know what she's going to say. Every morning, she'll say, 'Let's sing Count Your Many Blessings.'" And they do. And because their blessings are big, then God is big. And because they minimize their burdens and focus on their blessings, they are able to face the challenges of life.
Look at your blessings. As you look at your blessings, what do you see? Every so often, I'll do this. If you ever come to me, you know, for a pastoral visit, and you're just downright cranky, which we pastors tend to meet every so often, not very many, I know there's none at Gateway. I at one or two in San Antonio. But if somebody comes, they they're just world is dark and and and and and guy's sky is perpetually gloomy. I'll listen to their belly aching for a bit, and then I'll reach over and I'll take a tablet and I'll hand them a pencil. I say, "Before you go any further, would you, would you list, I don't know, let's just say 10 blessings for me." And they'll look at me like I have yanked their hair out by the roots. They don't want to talk talk about their blessings, they want to focus on their heartaches and headaches. And I say, "No, no, no, no. We're not going any further until you make a list of 10 good things that are happening in your life." And I'll just sit there because I know what's about to happen. It's the most exciting thing. I'll kind of cross my arms and I'll smile. "No, I don't want to do it." And they'll see I'm serious and I'm not going to let them leave the office until they they do so. So finally, begrudgingly, "All right, I've got. Well, I got good health. I can pay my bills. I'm driving a good car. Um, my folks are still living." And you can see it happen. You can see their countenance begin to change. You can see the heaviness begin to lift. You can see their shoulders begin to straighten because sadness and gratitude refuse to share the same heart. Sadness and gratitude refuse to share the same heart. And when gratitude walks in, you'll see sadness reach over and grab a grimy duffel bag and walk out. The quickest way to overcome the grumps is gratitude. But you got to choose to do it. You got to choose to do it. And that's a tough decision. Sometimes we get addicted to being grumpy. We kind of like being grumpy. We like these parties called pity parties, but they take us into the pit, and you do not want to stay there long, do you? Want to get out? Count your blessings.
And underline this truth: What you have in Christ is far greater than anything you don't have in life. Amen. What you have in Christ is far greater than anything you don't have in life. Dear child of God, your name is written in the Book of Life, not in pencil, but in ink. You have a secure place. You are destined for a Heavenly Home. You are indwelt by the power of the Holy Spirit who will give you whatever you need whenever you request it. You have an audience with the King of Kings at any moment, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. Eternal life for you, dear friend, is just a few quick heartbeats away, where you will have a perfect body in a perfect universe in a perfect relationship in which everything that you have ever gone through will make perfect sense. That's how good God has been to you. Don't you tell me you don't have a reason to be grateful. You do. He has given you a happiness that can never be taken, a Grace that will never expire, a wisdom that will ever increase. He is the Fountain of hope that will never be exhausted. You make gratitude your default emotion, and you know what? You'll find yourself even giving thanks for the problems of life.
I love this paragraph. Comes out of a business book by Robert Updegraff. "You ought to be glad for the troubles on your job because they provide about half of your income. If it were not for the things that go wrong, the difficult people with whom you deal, and the problems of your working day, someone could be found to handle your job for half of what you're being paid. So start looking for more troubles. Learn to handle them cheerfully and with good judgment as opportunities rather than irritations, and you will find yourself getting ahead at surprising rate, for there are plenty of big jobs waiting from for people who are not afraid of troubles." Right? All the employers and supervisors are wanting me to send them that paragraph so you can distribute it to your teams, aren't you? You need spice in your day? Then you you thank God for every problem that comes your way.
You know, some of the greatest challenges of life are dealt with just through gratitude. For many years, I was a part of an organization called Women of Faith. I know I'm of the wrong gender, but I had the opportunity to minister with this wonderful organization that filled stadiums with women and filled women with hope. The president, Mary Graham, has gone in to Paradise. I remember she told me about one particular weekend in which a shortage of chairs tested everyone's patience. They had 150 too few chairs on the floor. Someone had miscalculated. They had sold 150 tickets too many, and they needed 150 more places. So someone came up with the idea of using narrow chairs. As a result, everybody had a place to sit, but it was cozy. Complaints contaminated like feedlot fragrance, and Mary didn't know what to do. One of the speakers at that particular weekend conference was Joni Eareckson Tada. Wow. Mary asked Joni if she could calm the crowd. Mary knew that Joni was perfectly qualified to do so because Joni had been left, as a result of a childhood diving accident, all of her life in a wheelchair. The attendance rolled her onto the platform, handed her the microphone, and Joni said, "I understand that some of you don't like the chair in which you're sitting. Neither do I. And I have about a thousand handicapped friends who would gladly trade places with you in an instant." The grumbling ceased. Yours can too.
Stop counting weeds. Ponder the great grace of God. Measure the gifts of God. And who knows what you may be writing in your journal? Mondays, oh boy, my favorite. Tax days, oh boy, my favorite. Year in review, oh boy. Grant that we can be more grateful, Father. Just more grateful. We thank You. We trust You. We love You. And we thank You. In Jesus' name, amen.