How to Speak God's Love Language

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- Written at the base of Mount Sinai,

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Leviticus is set in between

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the Israelites' rescue from slavery

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and their deliverance into the Promised Land

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God set for them.

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They were literally camping between stops

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on their journey.

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On the surface, Leviticus might look like

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a collection of laws that no longer apply,

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but it's really a story of God pursuing

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His most beloved creation, us.

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Since the beginning, God has always wanted

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a relationship with his people,

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but they consistently turn their backs on Him,

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just like us.

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To make matters worse, their beliefs

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about God's character were being hijacked

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by the popular culture surrounding them,

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just like us.

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Today, like the Israelites, everyone is moving

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from something and towards something else.

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It's easy to look at the strictness

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of the Old Testament, the rules, wars,

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and the brutality and think

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that God is different than the one we worship.

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Leviticus actually proves the opposite.

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If God is anything,

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He's consistent in His pursuit of his people.

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Leviticus helps bring the Old Testament

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and New Testament together as it holds some of

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the deepest revelations about God's character

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and His intense pursuit of us.

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- Well, good morning. How are you all doing today?

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[audience respondes]

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- Awesome if we've not met, I'm Chuck.

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I'm one of the teaching pastors around here at Crossroads

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and I'm excited today to talk about gratitude

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and what gratitude teaches us about the character of God

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and also what it teaches us about what God wants for us.

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But before I get into the message,

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I want to just give you all kind of

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a state of the state of Crossroads

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specifically in one area.

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So good news, God's bringing new people

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to our church at every site.

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God's bringing new people, new families are coming.

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You know, a lot of churches are graying

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and getting older.

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Our church is actually getting younger.

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God is bringing young people back to church,

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young families, and with them, they bring kids. Right?

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And so I want to just first start by saying

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thank you to all the amazing Kids' Club volunteers,

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whether you're in a service or serving with our kids.

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Right now kids are having an experience

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that is specifically designed for them,

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age appropriate to help them connect to God.

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And so the good news is we're growing.

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The challenge with that growth is right now

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across our sites, every weekend,

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we're turning away not 10s, not 20s,

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but hundreds of kids are being turned away

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from Kids' Club because we don't have enough volunteers

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to meet them there.

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And I want to ask you to fill that gap.

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I want to ask you to step in and fill that gap.

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So what does that mean?

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First of all, for every one person who says,

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"You know what, I'll step up, I'll serve in Kids' Club,"

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there are ten other kids who get to experience

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Jesus according to their age

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and in a way that they can understand.

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That's 10 to 20 parents that get to come

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into the auditorium and have an hour

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to just really connect with God.

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But I will also tell you from talking to volunteers

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over my many years here at Crossroads,

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there are folks who have served in Kids' Club

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who tell me, "You know what, I grew up in a church

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where I didn't get a lot of exposure to the Bible,

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and I'm actually learning more about Jesus

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from Kids' Club than I think I learned

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in my church growing up."

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And so it's not just for kids.

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This is an opportunity for you, but we need people

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to step in to actually make that possible.

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So across all of our sites, I'm asking you to right now

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think about what would it look like for you

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to just take this one step to find out more

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about where you could be helpful in Kids' Club?

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So we're going to do that right now together.

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We're going to put the lights up

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and I'm going to take off, take out my phone.

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I want you to go to Crossroads.net/kids,

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Crossroads.net/kids.

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I'm going to go there as well.

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And through the fancy schmancy technology we have,

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you're going to see my journey to get there.

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Although only Green Room Oakley is showing up

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for me right now, so maybe you won't see my journey

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to get there, but I'm going to go there with you.

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Crossroads.net/kids.

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If you go to crossroads.net/kids,

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there's some information that you can put in.

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Let's see, it's still not letting me project,

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so I'm going to do it.

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First thing it asks for is your first and last name.

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So I'm going to put my name.

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Most of you, like me, probably have phones

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that autofill your name when you go to a website like that.

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And then it's asking for your Crossroads site.

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I am in Oakley, so I'm going to put Oakley.

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Preferred method of contact, I'm going to put email.

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And I'm actually going to put for my email,

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you might want to put this too Brian.Tome. [laughter]

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Yeah, I'm going to do that for my email.

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Make sure that gets to me.

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And then there's a button you can click that says,

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Contact me about serving in Kids' Club

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and then hit, submit, hit, submit.

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So you're not committing to anything in this moment,

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but you are committing to learn more about at your site,

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where are the needs, what service times

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and what age groups?

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And I just want to encourage you to think about,

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even if this is something that you were doing

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once or twice a month, you're going to make it possible

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for families and kids to experience God

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and to experience what He has for them in this place.

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So, I'm looking forward to you learning more

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and to many of you stepping in to help fill that gap.

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In fact, it's going to be a couple of weeks

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before I'm back up to teach, and I would love

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to come back and say, "Hey, remember when we talked

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about that Kids' Club thing?

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That has been resolved because many of you

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have stepped in to serve in Kids' Club."

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So let's do that together and be a team in that way.

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Awesome.

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Well, speaking of kids, I actually have

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a bit of show and tell from my kids up here.

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We're talking about gratitude today,

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and I'm sure I'm not the only parent who's like this.

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I love all the little tchotchke things my kids

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have given me over the years as their dad. Right?

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I love them.

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And my wife, we're the same way.

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So I've got one right here. Here's one of my faves.

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My son Samuel made this work of art,

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and if you can't see it, it says Best Dad.

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And then he has me standing on top of the house

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with a cape on my back, and he's even penciled in

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my goatee in his drawing.

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So I love that. I love this.

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I keep this on my desk here at Crossroads.

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This is my son, Nathan, who who actually

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is quite a bit larger than this right now.

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This is when he was little.

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He made me this cute little daddy frame.

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He's almost as tall as me now.

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So this is going back some years.

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And then my dear daughter Isabelle is an artist.

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She made this abstract snowman art for me

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a couple Christmases ago.

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And I just keep all of these things.

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I'm sure I'm not the only parent like that.

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And so actually, what I'm going to do for

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the rest of our time, I have binders of this stuff.

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I'm just going to go through all of it one by one.

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No, I'm not. I'm not going to do that.

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I'm not going to do that.

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But I love all of these.

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My wife and I, we keep all of these.

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Why do we keep that?

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Why is it so delightful for me?

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I mean, look, I love my kids

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and my kids actually do have artistic ability,

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but this isn't like Banksy level quality stuff.

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I'm not saying it is, but why is it so precious to me?

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Here's the question I want you to think about today.

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Maybe I delight in the ways that my kids recognize me

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and thank me because God is that way toward us,

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because God is that way toward you and I.

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I don't know -- I do know this:

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God does not need your gratitude.

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He's not wringing His hands right now saying,

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"Oh, it's Sunday morning.

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I hope they're going to be people singing

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in church this morning to me."

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No, He doesn't need our gratitude.

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But you know what? He loves your gratitude.

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He loves it when you and I say thank you

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in the same way that a good father loves it

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when their kids recognize them.

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And so today, as we talk about gratitude,

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we want to talk about what does it teach us

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about God's character and what does it teach us

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about how we also get blessed by the act of gratitude?

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Let's pray.

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God, I ask that you would just bring this

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into focus for all of us.

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I believe that all of us, God, have an opportunity

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today to maybe have a surprise,

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to see something surprising about Your heart,

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about who You are

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and the relationship that You want for us.

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And so I'm praying that all of us

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would open that surprise today.

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That You would, through the power of your Holy Spirit,

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show us new truth, show us a picture of who You are

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that's different than what we have right now.

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And I pray that in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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This is a really good book, Five Love Languages.

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And one of the quotes in the book

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is from a psychologist. It says this:

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The need to feel appreciated is so important to all of us.

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And so there's something that we learn about God through that.

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And we're learning it today

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through the lens of the book of Leviticus.

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Leviticus, as you saw in the opening video,

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one of the oldest books in the Bible.

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It's a book that can be complicated.

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It's a book that has a lot of maybe confusing things.

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There's an altar, there's a whole bunch of blood

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about sacrifices in the altar.

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There's all kinds of things in Leviticus

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that can be confusing to us to understand.

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And yet I love what Brian said the first week of this series.

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If you're going to understand Jesus,

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you have to understand Leviticus.

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And every week we're looking at 5 of these altar offerings

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that God instituted through the book of Leviticus

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for the Nation of Israel, because they teach us

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something about God and they also teach us

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something about Jesus.

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And that's definitely true with the offering

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we're going to look at today.

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But the idea today is through this offering,

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the grain offering we're talking about,

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and I don't typically title my messages,

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but I'm titling this one

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How to Speak God's Love Language.

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We're going to learn today

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how to speak God's love language

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and His love language is gratitude.

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His love language is thankfulness.

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Thankfulness is a powerful, powerful reality in our world.

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Just look at some of these statistics.

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This is from Forbes.com.

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That's how important being thanked

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is to us as human beings.

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How about this one?

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It doesn't mean that they may not want more money.

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It doesn't mean that they're leaving

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maybe for another opportunity.

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But 79% say one of the reasons I'm leaving this job

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and going to another job

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is because I don't feel appreciated.

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How about this one?

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Something we need, but something that so many of us

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feel like we're lacking in our lives.

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So, hey, I know we've got some leaders,

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we've got some entrepreneurs, some people who own businesses.

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Maybe you're a principal of a school,

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maybe you manage a team in some other context.

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Hey, I want to help you reduce employee turnover.

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I want to help you on your bottom line.

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This week, in the next seven days,

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just say thank you to the people who work for you.

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And guess what?

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Your boss wants to be thanked, too.

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So if you're not a manager,

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that means you have a manager

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and most of us have a manager.

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Some time in the next seven days,

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just say thank you to the person who you work for.

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The power of thankfulness is really deep.

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And I think it's that way for us

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because it's that way with God.

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And so we see that through this grain offering,

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which shows up in the book of Leviticus chapter two.

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This is what it says in verse one.

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So this is the place where we see the grain offering

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described in the book of Leviticus.

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And I want to teach you a Hebrew word today.

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It's a Hebrew word that the person in front of you

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might not appreciate you saying, because

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we're going to try to pronounce it

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the way it's pronounced in the Hebrew language.

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The word is Mincha. Mincha. M-I-N-C-H-A. Minka.

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So on the count of three, I want all of us

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at all of our sites, if you're watching at home,

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to say the word Mincha, on the count of three.

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One, two, three. AUDIENCE: Mincha.

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- That's right.

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If you felt a little moisture in the back of your head,

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the person behind you did it right.

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Mincha. Mincha.

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This word Mincha is actually the word for offering.

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It means to offer up something in gratitude.

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And often times it was used for a broader sense of offerings.

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But often it was also including

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something that had to do with food.

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And so here's how this Mincha worked.

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Here's how the grain Mincha worked.

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You and I, if we were the people who were bringing the offering,

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we would bring to God the first of our grain,

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the fine flour that we've meshed out of wheat

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that we will use to make bread,

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which was essential to life in the Middle East,

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still is essential to life everywhere in the world.

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We would bring that to the tabernacle.

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This kind of soft structure

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is meant to represent the tabernacle,

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the tent of meeting where God dwelled with His people

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and where he gave them the book of Leviticus,

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these instructions.

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So you would bring your grain, your Mincha offering,

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and what you would do is you would give it

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to the priest or to the priests sons because

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their job was to offer the sacrifices

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for the people to God.

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They were kind of the go between.

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And the priests would take from

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whatever you gave them of the grain.

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They'd take a little bit of it and they would,

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you know, offer it on the altar and it would be burned up.

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And then the rest of the offering,

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they would actually get to keep as the priest.

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It was their income. They didn't have a garden.

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They didn't have a place where they were growing crops.

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So the way that the Levites, the priests were fed

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and cared for and their families is from the Mincha,

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the offerings of the people

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after they had offered that small sacrifice to God,

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they got to keep the rest.

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This is the grain offering.

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A couple of other things that

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are important to know about this offering.

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One is that God required this offering

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to be given with some salt.

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I've got to tell you, I love the fact that

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God is saying, "If you're going to bring me some food,

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I want a little seasoning on that."

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I mean, can I get an amen, somebody?

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Like, I want a little flavor in my food.

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I love that God is saying,

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"Don't just give me this bland stuff.

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I want a little salt on the offering."

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We'll talk about why that salt was so important

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a little bit later.

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Another thing is He says

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this cannot be offered with honey or yeast,

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so it had to be unleavened bread.

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And the reason for that is because yeast

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and honey would rot on the altar and it would spoil things.

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So that was the reason for that.

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But here's the other thing

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that I think is interesting about this offering.

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There was no required amount of grain.

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You know, we've talked about, and Brian,

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if you were here a couple of weeks ago,

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he did an offering that was around lambs and goats.

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Well, you can't offer half of a lamb.

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You're either all in or you're all out. Right?

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But in this case, it allowed for people

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who had much to offer their much,

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but people who had little to offer their little.

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And that tells us something about God's heart

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behind instituting this grain offering.

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You could say this: the grain offering

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was really about reminding people

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and for people to say to God,

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"I recognize that You are my ultimate source for everything."

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And so out of what you have given Me,

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I am giving back to you."

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You could say the grain offering

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is a sacrifice of gratitude.

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It's a sacrifice of gratitude.

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And in this sacrifice, the way that God describes it

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and instructs the people to do it,

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we learn three things about how to say thank you to God.

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Number one, we learn that God wants our best.

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God wants our best. Think about it.

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Grain was unspeakably valuable to people who lived in a desert.

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Grain, wheat, what they needed to make bread,

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unspeakably valuable to them.

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And so for them to offer that to God was for them

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to literally offer the source of life to God.

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It was them giving God their very, very best.

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And it took remarkable trust to do this.

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I mean, I'm sure in a room this size

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we've got some green thumbs.

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Raise your hand if you're a green thumb,

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like, you can grow anything.

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You can bring plants back to life.

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I mean, yeah, there are people like that in this room.

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That is not me. That is not me.

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I have plants and I kill plants.

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That's what I do.

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I have them and then I kill them.

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And so my wife is a green thumb.

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I am not.

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And so, but here's the thing.

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All the plants that I have killed,

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and there have been many, sadly, there have been many.

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My sustenance didn't depend on any of those plants.

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So yeah, I was bummed that the plant didn't live,

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but it wasn't like I wasn't going to eat.

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Can you imagine living in a desert, raising grain?

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And if it doesn't work out for you,

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if you don't have a green thumb,

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if you don't figure out how to coax those stalks

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out of that soil and how to make sure

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that you water it enough appropriately,

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how to make sure that you keep it away

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from all of the other things

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that would want to take it from you.

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If you don't figure that out,

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your family's life is on the line.

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So to give God grain was to literally give God your best.

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And so when the people offered it to God,

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they were saying, "God, You're worthy of our best.

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You're worthy of our sacrifice."

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I mean, remember, this is a society

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where, you know, we get upset about rain.

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We get upset that it's March

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and we still have snow in the forecast.

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I get upset that we're still in March

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and there's snow in the forecast. Right?

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But they celebrated all kinds of precipitation

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because they desperately needed it.

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They didn't have Kroger. Right?

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They didn't have Target.

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They couldn't just go and get a loaf of bread.

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They didn't have whole paycheck, I mean, Whole Foods.

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So they couldn't go and do that either, right?

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Like, so these are people who were dependent

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on what came out of the ground.

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And so if they wanted it, they had to work for it.

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And so to give it to God was basically saying,

00:18:19

"God, we're saying you are more important

00:18:21

than the source of our life, and in fact,

00:18:23

you are the ultimate source of our life."

00:18:25

So it was a way for them to symbolize

00:18:27

God wants our best and we're giving our best to God.

00:18:29

Second thing we learn, though, is that God wants our hearts.

00:18:33

God wants our hearts in generosity.

00:18:36

I think that's why it didn't matter what the amount was,

00:18:38

because God wasn't He wasn't after something

00:18:41

in terms of, like, you've got to give me this much.

00:18:43

This wasn't transactional for God.

00:18:45

I believe it was relational.

00:18:46

In the same way that I don't care

00:18:49

what my kids use to create something for me.

00:18:52

I don't -- I don't care if they use ceramics

00:18:55

or if they bought it from a store

00:18:57

or if they made it with their hands.

00:18:58

What I care about is the fact

00:19:00

that my kid was thinking about me

00:19:03

and they took the time to get something

00:19:05

so they could communicate, "Dad, I'm thinking about you."

00:19:07

That's all that I care about.

00:19:09

And I think the same way, that's what God cared about in this.

00:19:12

Which means we all have grain to share.

00:19:15

This isn't something that's reserved for the uber wealthy.

00:19:18

This isn't something that's cut off

00:19:20

from those who don't have much.

00:19:21

We all have grain to share.

00:19:23

And gratitude in some ways is us offering our grain to God.

00:19:27

Now, I will say this.

00:19:28

I know that for many of us, me included,

00:19:30

sometimes it's hard to be thankful

00:19:32

or sometimes it's hard to produce that gratitude,

00:19:35

to produce that grain for God

00:19:37

when things are going hard, when things are difficult.

00:19:40

Sometimes it's easy, right? Things are going well.

00:19:43

You just got something new.

00:19:44

You just got a promotion.

00:19:45

It's easy to then in those moments say,

00:19:47

"Oh, I'm thankful to God,"

00:19:48

and rattle off the goodness in your life.

00:19:49

But when things are hard, it's harder to bring that grain.

00:19:52

But even in the most difficult days of my life,

00:19:54

I have learned there is still grain to offer to God.

00:19:59

When I lost my father, I was surrounded by friendship

00:20:05

and community like you couldn't imagine.

00:20:07

So even in the midst of that loss,

00:20:09

there was the grain of gratitude

00:20:10

that I am not grieving alone.

00:20:12

When I've had illness or other things impact me

00:20:15

or other people in my family, there have been

00:20:18

these moments of recognizing, "You know what?

00:20:19

This is putting into perspective

00:20:21

how important this person is in my life.

00:20:22

And so even though we're not in a good place right now

00:20:25

and I want to see them healed,

00:20:26

God, I am thankful for every minute, every year,

00:20:29

every memory that I've had with this person."

00:20:31

Because there's grain and gratitude,

00:20:33

even on the hardest days of our lives.

00:20:35

May not be easy to give it,

00:20:37

but there's always grain to give to God.

00:20:40

And what God wants is our hearts.

00:20:43

I also said that God wanted this to be a salty offering.

00:20:47

He wanted to be a salty offering.

00:20:50

In Leviticus 2:2 God says When you offer this this way,

00:20:54

it actually is a pleasing aroma to my nostrils,

00:20:58

is what God says.

00:20:59

Now, here's what's interesting about that.

00:21:02

God is a spirit, and spirits don't have noses.

00:21:07

So why is God saying in this moment,

00:21:09

"When you offer this and your whole heart,

00:21:12

it's a pleasing aroma to me"?

00:21:14

I think it's this, God was trying to communicate

00:21:16

in human terms a supernatural reality

00:21:20

that even though we are created beings,

00:21:22

we have the ability to delight our creator.

00:21:27

We have the ability to make the creator of the universe

00:21:31

smile in the same way that when I see

00:21:34

what my kids have given me, it makes me smile.

00:21:37

God wants your heart.

00:21:39

And when you give your heart to Him in gratitude,

00:21:41

He smiles, He rejoices, He delights in that.

00:21:46

It's a beautiful aspect of who He is.

00:21:49

But there's another meaning to this salt,

00:21:51

and it's actually why He smiles when you are grateful.

00:21:54

The salt, or salt in general in those days,

00:21:57

was a preservative, right?

00:21:58

It was meant to help things last.

00:22:01

And so in this description of Leviticus 2

00:22:04

and the grain offering, God uses this phrase.

00:22:07

He says when you put the salt on it,

00:22:09

it's a reminder of the salt of the covenant.

00:22:12

See, God created a relationship

00:22:14

with the Nation of Israel that was

00:22:16

an unconditional love relationship, very much like

00:22:19

the relationship between a parent and a child,

00:22:21

very much like the relationship between

00:22:23

a committed spouse to another.

00:22:25

It was a covenant relationship.

00:22:27

It was a always and forever, never stopping,

00:22:29

not going to give up kind of relationship.

00:22:32

And so God wanted a little bit of salt

00:22:34

on the grain offering so that the giver of the offering

00:22:37

would be reminded that just like this salt preserves,

00:22:40

God's love for you will preserve,

00:22:43

that you'll never do anything that will cause

00:22:46

the Father of the Universe once you have come back

00:22:48

into relationship with Him through Jesus

00:22:50

and you're in that covenant relationship,

00:22:51

He will never leave you, He will never forsake you,

00:22:54

He will never abandon you.

00:22:56

He wants you to know that that salt of the covenant

00:22:59

is true of His love for you and for me.

00:23:01

It's beautiful.

00:23:02

So God is giving all of these pictures to the people

00:23:05

as they give this grain offering to Him.

00:23:07

Because God wants our heart and God wants our best.

00:23:13

But the third thing is this: God wants gratitude for you

00:23:18

far more than He needs it from you.

00:23:22

He wants it for you and for me.

00:23:24

Notice this.

00:23:26

God says there's two parts to the grain offering.

00:23:30

There's the part that's called the memorial part

00:23:32

that gets burned on the altar. Right?

00:23:34

And after that, it has no other useful life.

00:23:36

It's burnt.

00:23:37

Like that's all that that was meant to do.

00:23:39

But He says the most holy part of the offering,

00:23:42

actually the greater part of the offering,

00:23:44

the better part of the offering is the 90%, the 95%,

00:23:48

whatever it is of the offering

00:23:49

that the priest actually gets to enjoy.

00:23:53

Even in giving to God, God is giving to us.

00:23:58

Even the sacrifice that He requires from us

00:24:02

is actually something He wants for us.

00:24:06

I think about this as a father.

00:24:08

On Father's Day we have a tradition in my family,

00:24:11

and often times for the last several years

00:24:13

we've been in Naples, Florida, for Father's Day.

00:24:15

And so one of the things we always do

00:24:17

is we go to the same restaurant there, Pinchers,

00:24:19

and we go out to dinner for Father's Day.

00:24:20

And it's an opportunity for me

00:24:22

to be with my family on Father's Day.

00:24:24

And I love it. We get dressed up.

00:24:26

The kids have given me little cards.

00:24:27

You know, Maria has done her thing,

00:24:29

Like, it's beautiful. I love it.

00:24:30

But guess what? And dads are with me on this.

00:24:33

At the end of that meal,

00:24:34

when the server comes and brings the check,

00:24:37

guess who they bring the check to?

00:24:41

The same person who pays the check

00:24:43

every other time we go out to dinner.

00:24:45

I get the check, right?

00:24:46

My kids are celebrating me,

00:24:48

but I'm paying for it, right?

00:24:51

Can I get an amen

00:24:52

from the parents in the house on that one? Right.

00:24:54

Same with Christmas.

00:24:55

Like, my kids, they blow my mind on Christmas

00:24:58

because they'll think of, like, little things

00:24:59

I haven't thought about but they've been noticing

00:25:02

that I need that maybe need replaced or whatever.

00:25:04

And so their gifts are always really thoughtful

00:25:07

and really special.

00:25:08

But if you follow the money trail on those gifts,

00:25:10

it's going to go back to not their W-2,

00:25:13

it's not going to go back to their paycheck.

00:25:15

It's going to go back to my paycheck. Right?

00:25:18

I'm paying for the gifts that my kids give me.

00:25:20

But can I tell you something?

00:25:22

I don't care. I don't care.

00:25:24

I will pay for my kids to celebrate me at dinner.

00:25:28

I will pay for my kids to give me gifts

00:25:30

because I love my kids and I love it

00:25:33

that my kids want to celebrate me.

00:25:35

And I want you to know God is the same way with you.

00:25:38

Everything you offer to God, He gave to you first.

00:25:41

Everything.

00:25:42

Your words, your voice, your time,

00:25:44

your presence, your talents.

00:25:46

But God does not care that He was the giver of it.

00:25:49

When you give it back to him in gratitude,

00:25:51

He loves it, y'all. He loves it.

00:25:54

He loves it. [cheers and applause]

00:25:58

You can't outgive God.

00:26:02

But you don't have to because God loves it

00:26:06

when his kids recognize Him.

00:26:08

And so isn't it interesting that even gratitude,

00:26:11

even the act of gratitude, does way more for you

00:26:15

than it does for God?

00:26:16

You guys have seen the science on this.

00:26:18

Let me just remind you,

00:26:19

gratitude can decrease depression, anxiety,

00:26:23

difficulties with chronic pain and risk of disease.

00:26:26

I found an article from a PhD. He said this:

00:26:31

He goes on to say:

00:26:51

And I love this line. This was the punch line for me.

00:26:57

Isn't that true?

00:26:59

If you could get from a pill

00:27:02

what you can get from being thankful to God,

00:27:04

you'd be beating down the door of your physician to get it.

00:27:07

Isn't God good

00:27:09

that even in giving you the command to be grateful,

00:27:12

He is giving you something that is far better for you

00:27:15

than what He needs from you.

00:27:18

Gratitude is for us.

00:27:21

You know, if someone were to ask me

00:27:23

what's your biggest vision for your kids?

00:27:27

What's your greatest desire for your kids?

00:27:30

I often use this verse to answer that question.

00:27:33

There's a small letter in the New Testament, 3 John.

00:27:35

And 3 John 4 says this:

00:27:42

And as a father, that's what I want

00:27:44

more than anything else for my kids.

00:27:46

I have no greater joy than knowing that

00:27:48

Nathan, Isabelle and Samuel are walking in the truth.

00:27:52

And here's what I want you to know.

00:27:53

When you and I are walking in gratitude toward God,

00:27:56

we are walking in the truth.

00:27:58

We are walking in the truth.

00:28:00

We're walking in the truth that God is good to us.

00:28:03

We're seeing God rightly.

00:28:04

We're seeing His kindness, rightly.

00:28:06

We're seeing His mercy rightly.

00:28:07

We're seeing His love rightly.

00:28:09

We're seeing His forgiveness rightly.

00:28:11

We're seeing His generosity rightly

00:28:13

when we are walking in gratitude.

00:28:16

And not only are we seeing God rightly when we do that,

00:28:19

we're seeing ourselves rightly too.

00:28:22

We're seeing that we are the objects of His love.

00:28:24

We're seeing that we are the objects of His mercy,

00:28:27

that we're the objects of His kindness,

00:28:28

that He has forgiven us.

00:28:30

So I have no greater joy

00:28:31

and I believe God has no greater joy than knowing

00:28:34

that his children are walking in gratitude

00:28:36

because when we walk in gratitude

00:28:37

we're walking in the truth.

00:28:40

And here's why.

00:28:42

Because our gratitude is how God knows

00:28:45

we understand the gravity of His kindness toward us.

00:28:49

I told you that everything that we see in Leviticus

00:28:52

points to Jesus in some way.

00:28:54

I want to show you the beautiful connection

00:28:57

of what God instituted thousands of years ago

00:28:59

in a tent for the Nation of Israel

00:29:01

and how it connects to Jesus today.

00:29:04

Right now we're celebrating the season of Lent

00:29:07

in the calendar of the church,

00:29:09

the 40 days leading up to Easter,

00:29:12

the 38 days, if you will, leading up to Good Friday,

00:29:16

where we remember Jesus dying on a Cross for us,

00:29:19

sacrificing Himself for us,

00:29:21

and then ultimately looking forward to Easter

00:29:23

when He rose and beat death and offered us a life

00:29:27

that we couldn't have without His power.

00:29:30

And so as we're thinking about this Lenten period,

00:29:33

this Lenten season, it was interesting to review

00:29:35

this grain offering in Leviticus.

00:29:39

Jesus gives Himself many names in the Scriptures.

00:29:42

One of the names that He gives Himself is He says,

00:29:45

"I am the Bread of Life."

00:29:47

The grain offering was an offering of the Bread of Life.

00:29:52

And interestingly, the grain offering was an offering,

00:29:56

the Mincha had to be offered at a certain time of the day,

00:29:59

the ninth hour.

00:30:02

The ninth hour in the way that the Jewish people

00:30:05

looked at time, the first hour was 6 a.m.,

00:30:08

so the ninth hour would have been 3 p.m. in the afternoon.

00:30:11

So when you were bringing your Mincha,

00:30:13

that wasn't an offering for the morning.

00:30:15

Your Mincha wasn't an offering for the evening.

00:30:17

The Mincha offering, the grain offering,

00:30:20

was offered at 3 p.m. in the afternoon.

00:30:23

Interestingly, not coincidentally, the Bible

00:30:27

was very clear in all four accounts of

00:30:28

the four gospels of Jesus's crucifixion

00:30:31

that it was at the ninth hour

00:30:32

when Jesus breathed His last breath.

00:30:34

It was the ninth hour when Jesus became

00:30:38

the ultimate Mincha sacrifice of God.

00:30:41

God gave us His best in sacrificing Jesus for us.

00:30:45

God gave us His heart in sacrificing Jesus for us.

00:30:48

And He did that for us

00:30:49

more than He needed anything from us

00:30:52

because Jesus was God's ultimate Mincha

00:30:54

so we would know how much our Father loves us.

00:30:58

Powerful connection to who Jesus is.

00:31:02

So every time they were burning this offering,

00:31:05

every time they were doing this,

00:31:06

they were preparing their hearts for the time

00:31:08

when God would make the ultimate Mincha,

00:31:10

the ultimate sacrifice of the Bread of Life.

00:31:14

And so Paul is reflecting on this

00:31:16

as he's writing to people in the New Testament.

00:31:18

And in Ephesians 5:2 he says this:

00:31:29

There's that sweet smelling aroma.

00:31:31

This is all connected to who Jesus is.

00:31:34

It's all connected to what Jesus did for us.

00:31:37

Then Paul says how do we respond? Romans 12:1 he says:

00:31:41

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters,

00:31:43

by the mercies of God, in view of God's Mincha --

00:31:46

in view of God's sacrifice,

00:31:48

to present your bodies a living Minka.

00:31:51

It's the same word, living sacrifice,

00:31:53

holy and acceptable to God,

00:31:55

which is your spiritual act of worship.

00:31:58

It might be that the greatest indicator

00:32:02

that you actually are a follower of Jesus,

00:32:05

even more than your love for other people,

00:32:08

might be your gratitude toward God.

00:32:12

One author put it this way:

00:32:22

God wants to make a home in a grateful heart.

00:32:26

He wants to make a home in the heart who's willing

00:32:30

to offer gratitude, Minka sacrifice to Him.

00:32:33

And so may we be those people,

00:32:35

may we be people whose hearts are so moved to gratitude

00:32:38

because of the kindness of our Father toward us

00:32:41

that we say in return, "God, we give you our lives

00:32:45

as an ultimate sacrifice."

00:32:47

Recently I had a conversation with Justin Mosteller,

00:32:50

who's on the worship team here at Crossroads.

00:32:53

And he was telling me a story.

00:32:54

And it so resonated with this theme

00:32:56

that I asked him if he'd be willing to come and share.

00:32:58

So Justin's coming up now.

00:33:00

Let's give it up for Justin Mosteller

00:33:02

as he comes and joins me up here.

00:33:07

- Hey. Hey, y'all. Thanks for having me, buddy.

00:33:08

- Absolutely, man. - Yeah, man.

00:33:10

- So thinking back, I think this was

00:33:12

a hallway conversation during the Super Bowl service.

00:33:14

- That's right.

00:33:15

We see less of each other these days.

00:33:17

I know.

00:33:18

So Super Bowl we got to catch up.

00:33:20

- And you were talking to me about a bunch of things,

00:33:23

but specifically, you were talking to me

00:33:24

about your mother-in-law and how she's living this out.

00:33:27

So introduce us to your mother-in-law.

00:33:29

- That's right.

00:33:30

Well, there is -- I told Chuck this a few weeks ago.

00:33:33

There is no one in my life right now

00:33:36

who's giving God the sacrifice of gratitude

00:33:38

like my mother-in-law is.

00:33:39

And so I'm going to tell you some of her story,

00:33:41

with her full permission, mind you.

00:33:43

- Yes.

00:33:44

- But I want to introduce you to her.

00:33:45

So this is my mother-in-law, Sherri Covert,

00:33:48

and that's my wife and her sister, Becky.

00:33:50

They also have another sister not in that photo,

00:33:52

but that is my rock star mother-in-law.

00:33:55

I don't call her Sherri. I call her Grammy.

00:33:57

And you can, too.

00:33:59

So she is an amazing grandmother to my four kids.

00:34:02

And so I call her Grammy.

00:34:04

She's been a part of this church for several years,

00:34:06

in fact, she used to sit right down here in front.

00:34:09

And for the last several years,

00:34:10

she joins us every weekend from home.

00:34:13

And so I know she's watching now. So. Hi, Grammy.

00:34:16

Everybody join me. Say hi, Grammy.

00:34:18

Good morning. I love you.

00:34:19

Yeah. So that's my that's my Grammy.

00:34:21

Grammy. - Yeah.

00:34:22

And and the reason that she resonates with you

00:34:25

in terms of gratitude is because

00:34:26

she's been going through a really difficult time.

00:34:28

So talk about what her journey has been

00:34:30

in the last 4 or 5 years.

00:34:32

- Yeah, I mean, you said it earlier,

00:34:33

we have grain to give on the worst days of our life.

00:34:36

And you'll be tempted as you hear Grammy's story,

00:34:39

to think, "Well, these aren't the worst days of my life."

00:34:41

But here's what I want you to hear is

00:34:43

a challenge to each one of us:

00:34:45

What's the grain that we have

00:34:47

in the best days or worst days?

00:34:49

- That's good. - Her days have been hard.

00:34:50

In the last five years her life completely changed.

00:34:54

In February of 2018, she was diagnosed

00:34:57

with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

00:35:00

If you're like me, you didn't know exactly what that was.

00:35:03

But it's a lung disease.

00:35:04

And specifically it's the same lung disease

00:35:07

that her father passed away from

00:35:09

and that her sister was passing away from.

00:35:12

She was -- Grammy was diagnosed in February.

00:35:15

Her sister was passing away from it

00:35:17

and passed away in May with Grammy right by her side.

00:35:21

Her life completely changed that year

00:35:24

because Grammy was active, like,

00:35:25

Grammy was a nurse for 45 years of her life.

00:35:29

She was a NICU nurse down at UC Hospital

00:35:31

for 30 years of her life.

00:35:33

Incredible grandmother, all these things.

00:35:35

She thought she had plenty of active years ahead of her.

00:35:38

And yet after retirement, this is the hand she was dealt.

00:35:43

And for the last five years, what I would say is --

00:35:45

I talked to her this week and said,

00:35:47

we were just prepping for this.

00:35:48

And she said, "I want everybody to know there have been

00:35:51

dark days and bright days in the last five years."

00:35:54

She stands in gratitude today,

00:35:55

but that hasn't always been the case

00:35:57

in her journey through this because

00:36:00

she's mourned and grieved and lost.

00:36:02

And what I've seen from her is she could have chosen anger,

00:36:07

she could have chosen bitterness,

00:36:09

and all of us would have said,

00:36:10

"You've got every right to, Grammy.

00:36:12

You've got every right to be bitter and angry."

00:36:14

And yet she's continued to practice gratitude.

00:36:18

Like, her smile today lights up the whole room.

00:36:21

The hugs she gives my kids

00:36:22

are better than any gifts they could ask Grammy for.

00:36:25

She's chosen gratitude,

00:36:28

and I've seen her continually choose love

00:36:30

and be loved by God and love others, to choose trust

00:36:34

and to choose to worship God

00:36:36

right in the midst of her circumstances.

00:36:38

- That's powerful. - Yeah.

00:36:39

- That's powerful, man.

00:36:40

And actually, you had her in mind when you

00:36:45

and the music team wrote the song

00:36:47

that we sung that opened our time today, Grateful.

00:36:49

So talk about that. How did that connection happen?

00:36:52

- Yeah, well we started several months ago last year

00:36:56

just starting to write songs for our church.

00:36:58

And she was just in my mind.

00:37:00

I wanted to just see if we could write

00:37:02

the song that Grammy lives out every day.

00:37:05

Like, she just has motivated me, inspired me so much.

00:37:08

And so it was with her in mind that we started

00:37:10

to write this song called Grateful.

00:37:12

- Yeah. - And I remember finishing it

00:37:14

and you finish something and you're like,

00:37:16

"I don't know if there's anything here,"

00:37:17

but it was meaningful to me.

00:37:19

And so I sent it to her from Nashville that morning.

00:37:21

I sent it to her on a voice memo,

00:37:23

and she declared right then and there,

00:37:24

"This is my song."

00:37:26

So you may think it's your song.

00:37:28

I'm here to tell you Grammy disagrees,

00:37:30

and I'm not going to disagree with her.

00:37:32

- Don't argue with Grammy. - This is her song.

00:37:34

And she has continually carried this song since then.

00:37:38

And I'll tell you this.

00:37:39

Here's what I asked Grammy this week.

00:37:42

I said, "Grammy, what would you tell our church

00:37:45

about the sacrifice of gratitude?"

00:37:48

Here's her answer:

00:37:50

It is a continuous commitment

00:37:52

that has grown in me over the years.

00:37:54

It feels more natural with frequent repetition.

00:37:57

And that's what it is.

00:37:59

She gets reps in it every day and she takes them.

00:38:02

And then she says these words:

00:38:08

I'm a little afraid of dying, the not knowing.

00:38:14

She was diagnosed five years ago

00:38:16

and we didn't know if it was a year or two years.

00:38:18

Every Christmas and every Thanksgiving

00:38:20

has been this may be the last one.

00:38:22

And yet five years later, she's still with us

00:38:26

and she says this:

00:38:28

I'm a little afraid of dying and the not knowing,

00:38:30

but this far into my disease, I can say

00:38:32

I'm not more afraid than at any other time in my life.

00:38:36

I feel I have had a lot of heaven here on earth.

00:38:40

I'm living in the presence of God,

00:38:42

a sense of sitting on His knee.

00:38:44

I am perfectly content knowing that I'm loved by Him.

00:38:48

I believe -- these are strong right here.

00:38:52

I believe that I will still have

00:38:54

pulmonary fibrosis when I die.

00:38:56

But I also believe that God has healed me completely.

00:39:00

He's brought me so much peace and wisdom

00:39:02

through the journey of my disease

00:39:03

that I feel healed and whole today.

00:39:06

Friends, that is what gratitude sounds like.

00:39:09

- Sacrifice of gratitude. Yeah. [applause]

00:39:12

- Can I show you a photo? - Yes.

00:39:14

- I want to show you another photo.

00:39:15

This is my favorite picture of Grammy

00:39:17

that she showed to me this week.

00:39:20

This is her standing in this auditorium

00:39:22

just a few months ago

00:39:23

on the night of our Thanksgiving Eve service.

00:39:26

She came.

00:39:27

She never thought she'd get to come back

00:39:29

to this auditorium, but she came

00:39:30

and sat right down here in front.

00:39:31

That's her standing connected to her oxygen,

00:39:35

standing out of her wheelchair with hands lifted high,

00:39:38

singing her song Grateful.

00:39:41

That is what gratitude looks like.

00:39:43

- Amen. - Yeah.

00:39:45

- Amen. Amen. Wow, brother, thank you for sharing that.

00:39:49

- Thank you.

00:39:50

- Offering that to our church. And man, I --

00:39:53

Justin told me that story, and I was like,

00:39:55

you know what? Grammy' leading us.

00:39:57

She's leading us in how to respond,

00:40:00

how to offer our Mincha of gratitude to God.

00:40:03

And so we're going to do something

00:40:05

that we usually don't do.

00:40:07

We usually kind of at this point have

00:40:09

all the different sites kind of have

00:40:10

their own local worship moment.

00:40:12

But we said, you know what?

00:40:13

What an opportunity for us as one church to offer

00:40:16

a sacrifice of gratitude to God together.

00:40:18

So I want to invite you to stand wherever you are,

00:40:20

whatever site you're in.

00:40:23

And maybe, maybe, maybe it's hard for you to offer

00:40:25

the grain of gratitude in this season of your life.

00:40:28

And I want you to be a person of integrity

00:40:30

and know you can be wherever you are

00:40:32

emotionally with God in this moment.

00:40:34

Maybe for you, it's easy to offer that grain.

00:40:36

I do know this, though. I know that gratitude.

00:40:39

Pleases the heart of your good Father.

00:40:42

And I know it does something for your heart

00:40:44

that nothing else can.

00:40:45

So let's sing this song as an act

00:40:48

of that Mincha sacrifice to a good Father together.

00:40:51

Let's sing.

00:40:55

- Sing for every breath.

00:41:02

For every breath that I have breathed

00:41:07

for every gift that I've received

00:41:12

for all the kindness you have so

00:41:17

I am grateful

00:41:29

Sing those words again.

00:41:31

For every breath that I have breathed

00:41:37

for every gift that I've received

00:41:42

for all the kindness you have shown

00:41:47

I am grateful to Jesus.

00:41:54

Jesus, I will sing,

00:41:58

oh, my soul shall ever be

00:42:03

from rising sun to end of day, oh, I am grateful

00:42:20

Gratitude for the work he's done.

00:42:23

For the Cross on which You died

00:42:28

and for the grave from which You rise

00:42:33

that I now stand, set free and saved

00:42:39

Oh, I am grateful

00:42:45

Yes, we are, right here God.

00:42:49

We give him our offering of gratitude.

00:42:51

Oh for the Cross on which you died

00:42:57

and for the grave from which You rise

00:43:02

that I now stand set free and saved

00:43:08

oh, I am grateful

00:43:13

Oh, Jesus, I will sing

00:43:19

and my soul shall ever be

00:43:24

from rising sun to end of day

00:43:29

I am grateful

00:43:34

Lift it up.

00:43:35

oh, Jesus, I will sing

00:43:40

and my soul shall ever be

00:43:45

from rising sun to end of day

00:43:51

I am grateful

00:43:57

I am grateful

00:44:02

I am grateful

00:44:07

[applause]

00:44:18

- God, what an amazing mystery it is

00:44:21

that our words of gratitude actually reach Your heart,

00:44:26

that they're are sweet smelling aroma to You.

00:44:29

God, we just want to leave here with a posture that says

00:44:33

even on the days when it's hard to bring our grain,

00:44:36

help us to find it.

00:44:37

Help us to find it, God.

00:44:39

I think about something that's been a mantra

00:44:40

that I've been using this year.

00:44:42

I wake up every day and say,

00:44:43

"This is the day the Lord has made.

00:44:45

I will be glad.

00:44:46

I will give thanks and be glad in it."

00:44:48

But then there's another part of that mantra

00:44:50

that's been really helpful that I learned from another teacher.

00:44:52

This is the day the Lord has made

00:44:54

and I will rejoice and be glad in it somehow.

00:44:57

Some days we got to put the somehow on that

00:45:00

because it might not be as clear.

00:45:01

But God, if this is a I will rejoice and be glad in a day

00:45:05

or a I will be rejoice and be glad in it somehow day,

00:45:08

in all of that, may it be a sweet smelling savor to You.

00:45:11

Thank You for the way You love us.

00:45:13

Thank You for the way You lead us.

00:45:15

Thank You for what You have given us in Jesus.

00:45:17

And it's in His name, I pray, Amen. Amen.

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