Grateful

Well, good morning to everybody, and a special welcome to all of our moms. We honor you today. I honor my own mom who did such a great job of praying mother, honor my daughter-in-law who has given us, with our son, two wonderful grandchildren that I am super grateful for and got to hug and kiss a bunch here earlier today. And thankful to God for my wife, who is the earthly example by which I evaluate godly motherhood. So I heard about a mom who headed into a hospital to give birth, and it was a little bit of a difficult labor, so it was filled with, kind of, you know, all the things that go along with labor. I remember when I was having kids how hard that was. Right? I have no idea what I'm talking about. But it was difficult labor and had potential for trouble, but thankfully, she gave birth to a wonderful, healthy baby boy. And her doctor in this kind of really difficult pregnancy and time of giving birth, her doctor was there with her every single step of the way. And after she was able to finally give birth, and once she kind of was able to kind of, you know, recover a little bit and breathe a little bit, she was having a conversation with the doctor, and she just kept saying, "I am so grateful. I am so grateful. I am so grateful to you." And he's like, "Well, you know, listen, it's just my job." She's like, "You know, you don't understand. I am so grateful, super grateful, in fact, that you've cared for me like you've cared for me and that you did such a great job." And he's like, "Really, it was just my job." She's like, "No, no, no, you don't understand. I am so grateful that I plan on naming my baby boy after you." And he was like, "Whoa. Like, that's super gracious of you. Thank you so much." And she went, "Yeah, you don't know how grateful, by the way, Doctor, what is your first name?" And he said, "Thorndyke." And she paused for a second and she says, "You have a middle name?" Sometimes our gratitude isn't as gratitude-y as we might think that it actually is, right? How grateful are we really? Like, if we just kind of paused and thought about that, how grateful are we really? I think we're gonna see, as we open Paul's letter to the church at Colossae that we call Colossians in your Bibles, I think that you're gonna find that gratitude is foundational to our Christian life and existence. And though Mother's Day gives us a really good opportunity to be able to do that and to kind of apply that idea of gratitude, gratitude's something that we should embrace in our everyday living. And hopefully, we'll see why through Paul's opening of the letter that we're gonna be covering as we start this series in the book of Colossians. Now, as you open your Bibles to this letter, it's in kind of the back half of your Bible, the back portion of your Bible, let me give you a quick orientation as to the Church of Colossae, just so that we know, kind of, who's being written to and where they are. Colossae is a city that was in the Lycus Valley. You're like, okay, so far, so bad, I don't have any idea where the Lycus Valley is. Well, think about, it's in modern day Turkey, okay? And there was three cities that were kind of near one another. You've got Hierapolis, Laodicea, and Colossae that were all right there in the Lycus Valley. You know, at one point, Colossae was a super influential city, and maybe it still was at the time of Paul's writing. It depends on how we date the letter here written to Colossae. But one of the things that happened to them is that they suffered a major earthquake in Colossae. And now I'm not particularly sure, neither are scholars, whether the earthquake, and it was massive, like, destruction-of-the-city kind of massive. I'm not sure if it happened right before Paul had written this letter to the church or if it was right after Paul had written this letter to the church. But either way, there were a bunch of people that were living in Colossae, and many of them, by the way, were Jews, interestingly enough. They had been transported from Babylon by Antiochus the Great a couple of hundred years earlier. And now there was a good, you know, some have argued maybe 50,000-ish that were in Colossae, but the majority of the people who made up that place were Roman citizens who were what we call Gentiles, non-Jews, and they were either native Phrygians, kind of native to that area, or they were Syrians, or they were Greeks. Now, here's the thing, it was a melting pot of people that were in Colossae, and with this melting pot of people and melting pot of backgrounds, it also brought with it kind of what we would call a syncretism of religions that happened in Colossae. In other words, they all kind of started morphing together a little bit, and it made for some really weird stuff because you had the Phrygians bringing theirs and the Greeks bringing theirs and the Syrians bringing theirs, and you've got Jews who were there. And so all of this kind of started to run together. Now, you may have remembered that at this time in the existence of Colossae, there was an emperor ruling Rome, and his name was Nero. Nero, not a good guy, right? And so he made it difficult often on the Christians. And Paul actually had never been to Colossae. He's writing, and when you're reading the Book of Colossians, you hear this phrase, "We heard, we heard," right, because he hasn't been there. But Paul's actually writing under Roman imprisonment during this time. This is one of Paul's prison epistles. And so he's being held at Rome, and this is what kind of the orientation of this book is that I want to introduce. Here's how Paul introduces the letter in a very traditional way. It says, "Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, and Timothy our brother, to God's holy people in Colossae, the faithful brothers and sisters in Christ: Grace and peace to you from God, our Father." So this was a standard greeting from Paul that if you've read any of the Bible and you've read any of Paul's letters, you see this as a pretty standard greeting. But note this, Paul said that he wasn't the only one writing. Paul was also joined by Timothy that is introduced right here in the very beginning. Now, Paul often mentions somebody else in the beginning of a letter, but then as you're reading the letter, everything that you see is "I, I, I, I." So you know, it's just Paul really, right? But here, when we begin this letter, you hear, "We, we, we," so Paul and Timothy are together, but Paul's the primary and you figure that out because Paul sometimes goes to saying I when he's writing. So that's what's happening here. I don't know the role that Timothy had in the writing of the letter, probably an amanuensis, which means a copyist. He was probably writing down what was being discussed, but maybe he added some things in there as well. But after this greeting, which was kind of a traditional greeting that was given, after this greeting, Paul says something really profound that I want us to lock in on in verse number three. Here's what it says. He says, "We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you." Listen to that statement again. "We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you." Now, it wasn't uncommon for Paul to note a word of gratitude or a word of thanks at the beginning of his letters, but listen to me. But this wasn't just a formality that Paul engaged in. These weren't just simple pleasantries when Paul says, "We thank God," right? Because for Paul, who is led by the spirit and governed by the Spirit in this moment, he's expressing gratitude to God when he begins this letter. And let me tell you why I believe he's expressing gratitude. A simple statement: Gratitude is the ripple effect of grace. This is why I believe Paul is starting this way because gratitude is the ripple effect of grace that occurs in our lives. And you guys are all familiar with what a ripple effect is, right? I mean, my childhood home, by the way, it was near a creek, and we would go there all day long in the summertime and even in not the summertime. When we'd get off the bus coming back from school, I would look at my friends and I would say, "Hey, I'll meet you at the creek in 45 minutes." And we would go down to the creek, and we would have a blast. And so when you've got a bunch of boys that are near a creek and some of the larger portions of the creek, we just look for stuff to throw in the creek. It's just what we did. If we had rocks, we threw rocks. If we had sticks, we threw sticks. If we didn't have rocks or sticks, we threw each other, right? That's just how it went with boys and a creek. And in some of the still portions of the creek, you know, where it, kind of, where it pools, the water pools a little bit, we would throw a rock into it or we would throw a stick into it, and here's what would happen. There would be waves that ripple outward in concentric circles in every direction and would move the water that was in its path. That's a ripple effect. It's the continuing and spreading results of an initial event or action. That's what a ripple effect is. So what Paul does when he's thanking God, he's thanking God because from God comes grace. In fact, that's what he said in verse two that we just read a moment ago. Grace and peace to you from God, our Father, right? So Paul is captivated by the grace that comes from the Father, and it results in gratitude. Now, here's the question. What is this grace that comes from the Father? I can sum it up for you in one word, Jesus. Jesus is the grace that comes from the Father because here's what grace is. Grace is God giving to us what we hadn't sought after, what we don't deserve, and what we have not earned. In fact, what we have earned as sinners is we've earned the awful and eternally consequential results of our sin, which is separation from God. So here's what God did. God, in an act of unparalleled grace, something that we hadn't sought after, something that we didn't deserve, something that we haven't earned, in an unparalleled act of grace, God sent His perfect, preexisting, sinless Son into the world to save sinners and to reconcile them back to God through His perfect sacrifice for sins. He did that on the cross and through His glorious resurrection to complete the work of redemption. This is what grace is. Paul, in fact, referenced it in so many other places in his writings, like when he wrote to the church at Rome. He wrote this, "For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus." See, this is the grace of God. And most naturally, gratitude is the ripple effect when we really understand grace. We are a grateful people when we realize what God has done for us in Christ. So when Paul opens that way, what is it that Paul thanks God for when he prays for the Colossians? I'm gonna tick through these pretty quickly so that you'll see them, and then we'll make some application right after that. The first that he prayed and thanked God for was their faith in Christ Jesus. He thanked God for the Colossians' faith in Christ Jesus. Look with me, if you're following along in your scripture, as I hope you're doing. In verse number three, it says this, "We always thank God, the father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus." Now, remember this, Paul hasn't been there. Paul's getting updates on what's happening in the lives of these believers, and he's being encouraged by the fact that they are walking by faith and trusting God by faith and putting their faith in His son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And so he thanks God for that. You know what else he thanks God for? He thanks God for their love for all of God's people. He's grateful for that. Verse number four tells us, he says, "Because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of the love you have for all God's people." You see, Paul realized that love was the outflowing of what a life in Christ is. God is love, and God is the manufacturer of love. And when we receive that love, we can be distributors of that love. And so he knew that that was happening there, and he thanked God for it. He also thanked God for their hope that was stored up in Heaven. Do you see it, by the way, kind of the trifecta that's right here? Paul, many times, goes to this triad of faith and love and hope. He does that over and over in the passages that he writes. But he thanks God for their faith, their hope stored up in Heaven. And here's what he says in verse number five, "The faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you in Heaven and about which you have already heard in the true message of the gospel that has come to you." We'll talk about that in just a second. The fourth thing that he's thanking God for as the letter opens is he thanks God that the gospel is growing in the world. This we can see in verse number six, the second part of verse six. It says, "In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God's grace." So Paul's grateful not only that the gospel's had effect in Colossae, but he's grateful that the gospel is actually having a ripple effect in all of the world. But then he thanks God finally for this. He thanks God for the faithfulness of a Epaphras. He's very specific here. Here's what it says in verse seven and eight. You learned this gospel, "You learned it from Epaphras, our dear fellow servant, who is a faithful minister of Christ on our behalf, and who also told us of your love in the Spirit." So he's grateful for how God has used Epaphras to evangelize, to begin the church in Colossae and all that. So I tell you all of that because that's how the book opens. But for Paul, listen to this, Paul's gratitude, his thanking God for all of these things, it wasn't formulaic. This wasn't just the template for how you write letters to people. This meant something because God's grace truly and actually made Paul grateful. It's as if Paul naturally knew something about the life of grace in Christ and how it impacts human beings who've actually been affected by grace. It makes them grateful. When we really have understood grace, when we really have understood what God has done for us in Christ, we are a grateful people. And Paul is actually putting that on display. By the way, it's not that Paul is specifically teaching that our response should be gratitude. He does teach that in other places, by the way, but he's not here. What he's doing is he's modeling a life of gratitude as he writes this letter to the church in Colossae. And the reason he's modeling a life of gratitude is because of how impacted he's been by the grace of God in Jesus Christ. Now, it seems like, in the world that we live in, that the world is actually just catching up to the power of gratitude. In a lot of places that I look, whether it's social media, and by the way, I'm not on there, but I can still see things, I can see everything. I see all of your stuff. Just keep that in mind. The Lord sees everything, and He lets me see most everything, all right? So just keep that in mind. Kidding. But when I see, whether it's online or, you know, on television or whatever, in our kind of media-saturated world, it's kind of like the world is catching up to understanding the power of gratitude. Gratitude is a really powerful human experience, and I think that God's wired it into us. Paul knew that it was a ripple effect of grace. That's what he knew. He knew that grace in our lives would actually result in being deeply, deeply grateful and thankful to God. But now even scientific studies are bearing that out in our modern culture. Now, they may not have intended it, but I was looking at kind of a defining of what gratitude was by a couple of social scientists, psychologists, actually, psychology professors. They're out in California, US San Diego and UC Davis, and their last names are Emmons and McCullough. And they wrote something in 2004, and they were talking about the idea of gratitude. Watch how they defined this. Watch this. "Gratitude is associated with a personal benefit that was not intentionally sought after or deserved or earned." Are you seeing this? "Gratitude is associated with a personal benefit that was not intentionally sought after, deserved, or earned, but rather, it's because of the good intentions of another person." I'm not sure that I can define grace much better than that. And these psychology professors in California are now actually defining it in a way that makes super good sense to those of us who understand what grace looks like. There's so much research on the psychological and social and physical benefits of gratitude. For instance, on the neuroscientific side, UCLA research says that gratitude actually changes the neural pathways of our brains and helps, at a neurochemical level, to manage stress and anxiety. What good news for a world like we live in, right, that gratitude actually, from a neuroscientific standpoint, actually changes the game for us. In fact, Dr. Alex Korb, who wrote a book called "Grateful Brain" in 2012, he said this: What we found scientifically is that you cannot be fully grateful and fully anxious at the same time. He said your brain doesn't work that way. So if you are truly grateful, you're not anxious. If you're truly anxious, you can't be grateful. He said your brain actually functions that way. I think that this powerful force called gratitude has been hardwired into us by a loving creator. Remember, friends, we are made by God, and we are made for God. And when we begin to understand the incredible grace we have been shown by a holy God, who, through His gracious work in Christ, has given sinful people who are undeserving, who have not sought after, who have not earned His favor, but instead have rebelled against Him, when we actually understand this, the natural ripple effect of receiving the grace of God is gratitude. It's why believers, of all people, believers can live lives that are not full of anxiety. I'm not suggesting that in the world that we live in, that anxiety doesn't show up and come and haunt us all. It does, including the guy you're looking at. It does. But we have something in the power of the Spirit of God living inside of us that gives us an ability not to have to live in the throes of anxiety all the time because we begin to understand the grace that God has poured out to us, and the natural ripple effect of grace is gratitude. And where gratitude exists, anxiety doesn't. It's not how our brains work, right? I don't know about you, but I am so, so grateful for Jesus. I am so grateful for Jesus. Like Paul, I thank God for Jesus. Like Paul, I came to the realization that I was among the worst of sinners. You could have asked anybody around me, and they would've confirmed this, by the way. This wasn't just me up here talking, like being falsely humble at the age of 19. Like, oh, man, he's just kind of saying stuff. Whatever. No, no, no, I'm not saying things. I'm talking about people around me would've gone, "Dude's messed up." That guy, don't want to hang around with. Like Paul, I understood that I was among the worst of sinners, that I was an enemy of God, that I deserved darkness and alienation from God and the consequential spiritual death that resulted from my sins. But also like Paul, I was shown mercy. I was shown grace. So that, in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display His immense patience as an example for those who would believe and receive eternal life. Listen, ask people that I went to high school and early college with, and they will be stunned that I'm a pastor, out of their minds. If we would've taken a vote, I would've lost by a million votes most likely not to be a pastor, that guy. This is what grace does. This is how grace operates. It is transformative. And so that's why I'm grateful to God for the truth that Paul was talking about in verses five, in the beginning of verse six. He says, "The faith and love that spring from the hope stored up for you, the hope stored up for you in Heaven, and about which you've already heard in the true message of the gospel that has come to you." Friends, listen to me. The hope stored up for us in Heaven. When we hear that, we normally think about stuff. My house is gonna be sweet, right? I'm gonna have some cool things that are gonna be there. Listen to me. We have this beautiful inheritance. We are going to have all of these beautiful benefits. All of those things are true. But listen carefully to me, Heaven is not mostly about a place, it's about a person. Listen, there is no Heaven without Jesus. Jesus is our great hope. The hope stored up for us in Heaven is about a person, the one who is the beginning and the end, the one who is the light of the world that gives life to all mankind, the one who is the sacrificial lamb slain before the foundation of the world, the one who is the source of our joy, the foundation of the world, the satisfaction of our longings, the fulfillment of our hopes, the outcome of our faith, and the object and the source of our love. This is who we are focused our attention on. I am so grateful for Jesus, and it's because of the grace that God has shown me in Him, and His grace ripples into every arena of my life to make me grateful. Grateful. Gratitude is the natural result. It's the ripple effect of God's grace. So you see, when you truly experience God's grace, you'll be a grateful person. We'll be grateful people. And what might we be grateful for because of God's grace? Well, let me apply this text a little bit for us in real ways. What might we be grateful for because of God's grace? Here's the first. We'd be grateful for the faith and love of God's people. Paul was, and we should be as well. Listen to this, so many of my fellow believers at The Chapel give me a glimpse of God by their faith. So many of my fellow believers at The Chapel help me to smell the aroma of Christ by their love. This is why, friends. This is why there is no such thing, really, as church that just exists on a computer screen. I'm grateful to God, by the way, super grateful that we stream all of our stuff. Sometimes people can track with us in other parts of the country, in other parts of the world, some that are deployed, some that are on vacation, some that are sick, some that are infirmed and have to stay home. We're grateful to God, and that's why we do it. But listen carefully. If you think that the practice of church can happen long-term with just you sitting in your house in your PJs and your coffee, let me tell you why that can't happen, because you can't practice the one-anothers of scripture when there aren't any others. Sometimes people can track with us in other parts of the country, in other parts of the world, some that are deployed, some that are on vacation, some that are sick, some that are infirmed and have to stay home. We're grateful to God, and that's why we do it. But listen carefully. If you think that the practice of church can happen long-term with just you sitting in your house in your PJs and your coffee, let me tell you why that can't happen, because you can't practice the one-anothers of scripture when there aren't any others. We bear one another's burdens. We forgive one another. We serve one another. We lift one another up. We encourage one another. Listen, I'm so grateful to be in community, in the body of Christ with real flesh-and-blood people who are walking after Jesus, who are showing their faith in God in the midst of a horrific, sometimes, circumstances. Let me say this, there are sometimes where your faith is so gone, not gone completely, but just so small and so feeble, and you're in a really difficult place. And do you know what you're doing? You are leaning into the faith of other people around you in those moments. In some sense, you're borrowing from their faith. You're living vicariously through their faith until their faith starts to lift you. And your faith now is exercised in the person of Jesus Christ. Or when you experience the love that comes in the body of Christ, these are things that we should be so grateful for, the faith and the love of God's people. I mean, I was talking with a woman who attended our church a few decades ago, who's back in town today. I won't embarrass her today. Her name's Donna, but I won't embarrass her today. She's in here. And we were catching up. And she came by, and I said, "Donna." And she's like, "You remember." And I'm like, "Yeah, I remember." She was on the pastor search team that brought me here. That's why I remember, because those people were people filled with faith, because I was 32. 32! What did I know? And yet here I came, and the people of God grew with me in these moments. I thank God for the faith and the love of God's people, and you should too. Secondly, we should thank God for the growth of the gospel fruit in the world. You know, it's interesting because it seems that sometimes we get so myopic that we can't see the incredible ripple effects of God's grace in Jesus, of the powerful effects of the gospel. Here's why, because we hear the bad news so often. And the truth is, it is true here in North America and in Europe, there are two continents on which the receptivity to the gospel is declined and the impact of the church has declined, and that's North America and Europe. Every other continent that has people living there, I'm not talking about Antarctica, I don't know anything about that place. It's like a deal. I just don't know what's going on there. Maybe there's people, polar bears, they don't get saved. I don't know what's going on. Every other continent with people living there, the gospel of Jesus is flourishing, it's growing. And we get sometimes stuck, right, because we're like, yeah, you know, things in North America and for my Canadian friends that are watching, you know, you experience this too. In the US, in Canada, and even in Europe. And we're like, yeah, there's kind of been a decline. Yes, yes, true, it's true, but there's also some stirring that's happening in North America right now. And I see it. We're doing work in many places in the US through our Christ Together network, and we're hearing reports and stories, just as Paul heard reports from Epaphras, we're hearing stories of the faith that God is working in the lives of people and the power of the gospel. And even more so, we're hearing that in a younger generation. College campuses all over the place are exploding with the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. And we're seeing many, many college young adults that are coming to faith in Jesus. This is a remarkable thing, but there's gospel fruit that's happening all over the world. I mean, I've been in China. I've worshiped in house churches in China where they're checking, whenever the door is knocked upon, that they're trying to ask around, "Do you know who that is?" Because sometimes the government wants to come in on that stuff. But we've seen, over the last three decades, the flourishing of the gospel in those contexts, even in the midst of what is atheistic communism as a government religion. In India over the last 35 years, missiologically, we've probably seen the greatest harvest of souls in any nation in the history of Christian history. I said history twice. I don't care. In the history of Christian history. It's been that remarkable. One of my missiologist friends said this, if Heaven had a majority ethnic face, it would probably be Indian. There are probably more Indian Christians than any other types of Christians in the entire world. That is a remarkable thing. And some of them are getting persecuted and killed as a result of this. There's so many other places we could, do you know where the fastest growing church in the world is right now, proportionately, per capita? Fastest growing church right now, Iran. Iran. you're like, wait, what? Yes. And do you know why? Listen to me, women, moms, listen to me, mostly because, not completely, but in large part due to women and moms who are talking their faith unafraid. They're just talking their faith, sharing their testimony of a life transformed. And now many people are coming to faith in Christ. It is a remarkable thing. The growth of the gospel in the world is incredible, and we should thank God for it and not be so myopic that we lose sight of it. Thirdly, thirdly, we should thank God for people that live faithful to Jesus, people that live faithful to Jesus. Listen, for Paul, he was thanking God for Epaphras's ministry, right? Epaphras had walked faithfully. Paul hadn't been to Colossae, but there's a church there. Why is there a church there? 'Cause Epaphras has been evangelizing, he's been preaching the gospel. He's now been helping to teach them the apostles' doctrine. Paul's thanking God for that. We should remember, listen, we should remember the people in our lives who have walked faithfully with Jesus and made an impact for the sake of the gospel in our life and the life of other people. What you should do, maybe, upon leaving today is maybe considering, as an application point, shooting some texts, throwing some emails out there, jotting a little handwritten note about some people in your world who have impacted your life for the sake of the gospel of Jesus Christ because they've walked faithfully with Christ and they've done that. I mean, for you, it might be a friend or a family member. Maybe your mom's had a significant impact, hmm? Mine has, I thank God for a praying mom who prayed when I was an idiot, who prayed before I was an idiot, when I was an idiot, and when, hopefully, after. Like, there's a pre, a during, and a post-idiot phase for my life, and she just prayed and modeled. And I thank God for that. And you know what I bet, because Timothy wrote this with Paul, right, we know that from the introduction, don't we? Timothy was Paul's protege, and do you know who I bet that Timothy was thinking about when he was thinking about those who've lived faithful to Jesus? I bet he was thinking about his mom and his grandmother. You say, why do you say that? Because Paul would remind him of that when he wrote to Timothy. 2 Timothy 1, listen to this. Paul says to Timothy, "I'm reminded of your sincere faith, Timothy, which first lived in your grandmother Lois and in your mother Eunice and, I am persuaded, now lives in you also." You know the the largest effect in Timothy's life came because of a mom and a grandmother who walked with Jesus, who received the gospel, and modeled that in his presence. Let me give you a fourth area that we can thank God for: hardship. Some of you're like, "Well, message was going super good until here." Listen to me. here's why I'm making this application. Paul is writing from Roman imprisonment. Nero is the cruel emperor of Rome when Paul's writing from Roman imprisonment. And how does Paul begin? With gratitude. It's remarkable to me. Paul is grateful because of grace. Listen, friends, listen to me carefully. When grace exists in our lives, circumstances don't condition gratitude. So regardless of your circumstances, when you experience the power of the grace of God and you understand the power of the grace of God, you're gonna be grateful whatever the circumstance is. Maybe you read this book before from a number of years back, it's called "The Hiding Place." It was the story of Betsie and Corrie ten Boom, who were Dutch Christians. And they, along with their parents, would hide so many of the Jews that were being slaughtered and killed in World War II when the Nazis were coming for them. And so they told the story of how they were found out that they were harboring Jews to save their lives, and they were arrested. And then Betsie and Corrie were sent to the Ravensbruck concentration camp. And Corrie, who's writing the story, tells the story that when they arrived, the place where they were staying, kind of, the area where they were was so infested with fleas, that it was unbearable, fleas that are in your hair, in your eyes, going up your nose, going in your mouth when you talk, all over your body. It was awful. And Corrie said that she would relentlessly complain about all the fleas. But her sister, Betsie, kept turning her attention to what the scripture says that Paul wrote in 1 Thessalonians 5:18. "Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." Listen to that again, "Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus." See, what we see in Colossians is Paul's modeling this gratitude, but in other places, he taught it like here. And so she keeps saying to Corrie, "Corrie, give thanks in all circumstances." And Corrie's like, "The fleas are crazy. What do you mean?" Well, a few months later, Corrie is reflecting on how they began a Bible study in the concentration camp, and they had many other prisoners that were coming into their space. And they realized, she realized that the gospel was doing great work. People were coming to faith in Jesus. They were having a Bible study. It was a remarkable thing. And here's what she realized. She realized that through the months that they were doing this, that the guards never interrupted, and they never put a halt to it. And then she realized why. The fleas. The guards didn't want to deal with all of that. They didn't want the fleas getting all over them. And when she realized what God had done, she was able to genuinely thank God for the fleas because she knew that even they were a part of His grace to many who would hear and know the gospel. So we can give thanks even in hardship, like Paul faced, like Corrie and Betsie faced, like sometimes we will face because when we understand the beauty of the grace of God, it changes everything. So let me ask you, how grateful are you really? How grateful are you really? That's a good question that's worthy of our reflection. I read of a farmer who didn't go to church all that often, but went periodically and certainly went on Mother's Day, Father's Day, Easter, and Christmas. And it was coming around Christmas time. It wasn't Christmas day, but it was around Christmas time. And he went to church that day, the farmer did. And the pastor there was preaching out of Isaiah 1 on this single verse, "The ox knows its master, the donkey its owner's manger, but Israel does not know, my people do not understand." And he listened respectfully to the message. And then he came home somewhat later and started going about his day, and he stood in the midst of his cows. And while he was standing there in the midst of his cows, the cows would come up and start licking him on the side, start nudging their heads and rubbing up on his shoulder. And he paused and he thought to himself, "It's true. what the pastor said is true. He said, the cows are more grateful to me than I am to God because I just didn't understand." Friends, until we truly understand the immeasurable grace that God has shown us in Jesus, we won't really live lives of gratitude. But when we do, the ripple effect of that will be immense. Remember, this is what Paul told the Colossians. Remember, we looked at it in verse number six. Watch this. "In the same way, the gospel is bearing fruit and growing throughout the whole world, just as it has been doing among you since the day you heard it and truly understood God's grace," since you heard it and truly understood God's grace. Lives of gratitude, because of the grace of Christ Jesus, have ripple effects into every aspect of our relationship. So let me say this, if you're here and you have yet to put your faith and trust in Jesus, you've kind of been living your own way, whether you're a mom that's coming here for the first time, or maybe you're a mom who brought some people for the first time, I know that happens every Mother's Day, which is great. Listen to me, even if you have yet to put your faith in Jesus, let me tell you what you can be grateful for, what you can be grateful for to God today, that God has shown you the grace that you're still alive and you're still given the gracious opportunity to respond in faith to Him. You have that opportunity today. Maybe you're here and you have put your faith and trust in Jesus and you've been transformed, but what's happened to your heart over time is that you become too self-focused. And gratitude has gone the way of selfish frustration. Here's the thing, if your life doesn't presently reflect gratitude, I can tell you why. It's a problem with your understanding of God's grace in Jesus Christ. That's why. But here's the good news. Here's what you can be grateful for. God is giving you this moment today to bathe yourself in His grace, to reflect and think about what He's done on your behalf to save you from eternal separation from Him, that God has gone to the utmost lengths in the gift of his sinless Son on our behalf and in our place, to go to the depths of our shame, the depths of our embarrassment, the depths of our sin. And He's taken it all upon himself so that the justice of God against sin could be satisfied through His death on our behalf and His resurrection that conquered death, sin, hell, and the grave on our behalf. And so now by faith in Him, we can be forgiven and restored to relationship with God. So what you can do is you can ask God to help you see that, to help you experience that, and you can let that ripple into every aspect of your life and the lives of others. Can we bow together for prayer as we conclude? We'll be walking out in just a moment, but before we do, one simple invitation to you. There'll be some men and women that'll be making their way down front even now, and they're going to be here to receive you. If when we say amen, after I pray, people are walking out and you wanna walk toward the front and take one of these men or women by the hand and say, "I want to receive Jesus. I want to know the grace that God's given," they would love to take a moment and pray with you, share with you how you can know Jesus. So I encourage you to do that. Maybe you just need somebody to pray with because maybe your heart has gone a little cold. Maybe there's a selfish frustration that's happened in your world, and maybe you need to have somebody just pray with you about that, that you will experience and know and respond to the beauty of God's grace. Whatever it may be, I hope that you'll do what God leads you to do in that regard. It doesn't take any really hard work to come and take somebody by the hand and get prayer. So I encourage you to do that. Father, thank you for every expression of your grace to us in Christ Jesus. Though we want to deeply understand it, we know that we will never exhaust our understanding of the matchless beauty, of the indescribable gift that is Jesus to us. But would you help us to walk in that light so that we would constantly and consistently be a people of deep, abiding gratitude, that when people see our lives, they see the gratitude that we have for what God has done for us in Christ Jesus, and they see us walking not in the pangs of anxiety ridden with us all day, every day, but instead in the beauty of grace, which you've hardwired us for, to be a grateful people because of the ripple effects of your grace. Help us to be that kind of people. We pray now in Jesus' name. And all God's people said, amen. You're loved. God bless you.