Life.Church with Craig Groeschel - Gratitude is the Key to Happiness | Joakim Lundqvist

Episode Date: May 30, 2021

You can never fully control your circumstances, but you can fully control your attitude. In Week 4 of True Virtue, we’re learning how to keep an attitude of gratitude.ABOUT THIS MESSAGEIn a cynical world, it’s easy to give the impression of good character without actually living it out. But now more than ever, actions speak louder than words. Not just any action, but the kind centered on what matters most. Let’s learn how we can bring True Virtue back into our everyday lives.Find Your FitSomething inside you just might be part of God’s plans to change the world around you. Because of how much we believe this, at Life.Church there are serving opportunities to fit your schedule and your skills! Learn more at http://www.life.church/findmyfitLearn more about True Virtue: www.life.church/truevirtueStart the True Virtue Bible Plan: www.go2.lc/truevirtueWE’RE OPENWe’re continuing to monitor guidelines and best practices for gathering in a safe way. Learn more about everything we're doing to keep you safe and how you can help by using hand sanitizer, washing your hands often, and more: https://www.life.church/updatesFind a time and attend a service with us: http://www.life.church/locationsNEXT STEPSHave you made a decision to follow Jesus? You may be wondering what’s next on your journey. We want to help! Let us guide you to your next steps in your walk with Christ: https://www.life.church/nextABOUT LIFE.CHURCHWherever you are in life, you have a purpose. Life.Church wants to help you find your next step. Our hope is that your journey will include joining us at a Life.Church location throughout the United States or globally online at https://www.live.life.church. Find locations, videos, and more info about us at https://www.life.church or download the Life.Church app at https://www.life.church/app. FIND US ON SOCIAL MEDIAFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/life.churchInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/life.churchTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/lifechurchCONNECT WITH PASTOR CRAIGYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCIIdiIO-Y20hRW9niR0CA8AFacebook: http://www.facebook.com/craiggroeschelInstagram: http://www.instagram.com/craiggroeschelTwitter: http://www.twitter.com/craiggroeschelThe Virtue of Gratitude - 00:00For God Nothing Is Impossible - 5:08Keep Thanking God - 10:22An Attitude of Gratitude - 13:33When God Says No - 18:30#lifechurch #joakimlundqvist #gratitude Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

We're in the fourth Sunday now of this series called True Virtues. And of course, pastor has been preaching three Sundays, so big shoes to fill. But when he asked me, I was slightly nervous about finishing a series that he started. But still, then he asked me, could you please speak about the virtue of gratitude? And I went, oh yeah, oh yeah. This is one of my favorite subjects. So I'm happy and honored to share the Word of God with you guys today. So why don't we start straight away?

If you have your Bible or your U version app, would you just look up Psalms 100, and we're going to start right there. And the initial foundational truth that I need to communicate as the kind of the foundation of the rest that I'm about to say is this.

Gratitude is the door to God's presence. Gratitude and Thanksgiving is the door to God's presence. And we read this so clearly in Psalm. 100 and verse 4 it says enter into his gates with thanksgiving and into his courts with praise be thankful to him and bless his name enter with thanksgiving thanksgiving is how we enter into God's gates is how we enter into God's house and you know if you're going to have a conversation with someone or fellowship with

someone it really helps if you're both in the same house right you could have a limited conversation a limited fellowship if one is in the house and one is outside but it's going to be it's going to be a bit strange you have to scream at the top of your voice you'll have a hard time hearing what the other person is saying sometimes you will see a glimpse of that person maybe through a window and actually that's exactly how many Christians relate to God he said oh I wish I hear God's voice a bit clearer. I wish I could feel God's presence a bit stronger. Well maybe the problem is you haven't entered through his gates.

When you come to him, the first thing you say is help. But he doesn't say we enter into his gates by screaming help. He says we enter into his gates through gratitude, through Thanksgiving. And then once you've entered, you can say help if you want or if you need. But that's not how we enter. we enter through gratitude. We enter God's presence with Thanksgiving. So every time you pray, start with Thanksgiving.

Every single day, start with Thanksgiving. I was almost being poetical right there. Every single prayer you pray, start with Thanksgiving. Every single day, start with Thanksgiving. Because that's how we enter into the presence of God. Which leads us to the second truth we need to realize about gratitude and thanksgiving. Gratitude brings freedom.

Gratitude brings freedom. Because with gratitude, you enter into the presence of God and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. So gratitude brings an element of freedom. Spiritual freedom, emotional freedom, relational freedom, even physical freedom. The Bible speaks about this repeatedly. And out of all the stories in the Bible

that exemplifies how gratitude and thanksgiving brings freedom, I want to retell the story of Jonah, the prophet Jonah, who's got his own book in the Old Testament. Now Jonah was a prophet whom God asked to go to a certain city called Nineveh, which is actually the present-day city of Mosul in Iraq, the former ISIS stronghold, if you remember. And Jonah didn't want to go, he didn't like the city, didn't like the people, so he went the opposite way.

A long story short, he ended up in a boat and he was thrown overboard and he ended up inside a fish for three days. That's a whole new level of problems right there. I respect that you have problem, I have problems too, but that's a whole new ballgame in the existence of problems, okay? Actually I hear sometimes people referring to this story and take it as a proof that the Bible is not true

because they said there is no, fish big enough to swallow a guy and have him inside of it for three days and I go hey we're talking about god here the creator of heaven and earth right you think if God needs a fish to swallow a guy that God will go oh no I don't have a fish big enough what am I going to do God could create a new fish just for that purpose or he can enlarge an existing fish he can go Hey Nemo, hold on. Because I'm going to enlarge you by like a million temporarily. So you can swallow a guy and have him inside of you for three days.

For God, nothing is impossible, amen. So anyway, yeah. So here's Jonah inside the belly of these fish. This fish. That's the most horrible piece of circumstance you can even imagine. But let's read what Jonah is doing inside the belly. of the fish. It says in Jonah chapter 2 verse 9, but I will sacrifice to you with the voice of Thanksgiving. I will pay what I have vowed. Salvation is of the Lord. So even in the belly of the fish,

Jonah gives thanks to God. Not because of his circumstances, but in his circumstances. It's a big, big, big difference. And because Jonah, Down there in the bottom of the sea, inside the fish gives thanks, he enters into the presence of God. And where the spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. Look what happens. So the Lord spoke to the fish and vomited Jonah onto dry land. Praise God.

Thanksgiving brings freedom. Thanksgiving brings deliverance. And I've seen this happening so many times in my life and in my family. They tell you a story from, there's a long time ago, my daughter Evelyn was just five years old at the time, and we were in my car, and she was in the back seat, strapped to her car kid's seat. I'm sure this is a better English word for that,

but you understand what I'm getting at. So she was back there and I was driving, and I was driving home to get a document, and then we would be on our way. And, you know, as I drove up to our driveway, see, at the time we lived in a house that I actually built myself, very proud of that. very proud of that and it was on a hill so the driveway was kind of sloping so every time I parked

I needed to make sure that the you know the gear is in parking mode and the the emergency brake is pulled and everything so I made sure of that then I turned to a valena back in the back seat and I said hey girl I'm just gonna run in and get a document you just sit there and and I'll be back in a minute okay I got a thumbs up from my five year old I ran out of of the car, ran up to the door, got the key out, just as I was about to put the key in the door, I heard the most horrible crashing sound behind me. And I turned around and the car was not in the driveway anymore. It had rolled backwards out in the street, crossed the street, went straight through the fence of my neighbor's garden and was now parked inside my neighbor's garden.

But Evelyn was standing on the driveway, exactly where I parked the car. I ran up to her and I knelt and I said, Evolina, what happened? And she said, well, Dad, you were gone for so long. It's been like eight seconds, okay? That's what I try to tell my wife later on. It was like eight seconds. You were gone for so long. So I was just sitting in the backseat going, I wonder how that emergency break really works.

So she unbuckled herself and crawled to the front seat, put the gear in neutral and let go of the emergency break. I got a very clever five-year-old there. But then I asked her, but the car must have gone backwards immediately. How did you get out of the car? Because even if she managed to open the door, the car going backward, the door would have crushed her. And she was standing at the exact same spot where I parked the car. And she looked at me and said, well, Dad, an angel lifted me out. out. And she shared her story about how she let go of the emergency break. And immediately it was like

time stopped. And she saw this angel coming into the car, grab hold of her, carried her carefully out of the car and put her gently down on the driveway. And when I heard that, first of all, I honestly have to say, okay, Angel, if you were busy getting my daughter out of the car, could you have stopped the car? I'm sorry, that's horrible. That's horrible. I didn't think that at all. I didn't think that at all.

I was just amazed by the fact that God intervened to save my daughter from this trauma. And I remember that night as Maria and I, my wife and I was kneeling and just giving thanks to God. God spoke to me. And it was one of those rare occasions where I almost could hear his voice audibly inside of me. And he said, you have no idea.

How many attacks of the enemy that was sent out toward you and your family that fell down to the ground even before you knew about them because of your Thanksgiving? And I'll never forget that. With that, I'm not saying that if you've suffered tragedies or hard times in your family, I'm not saying that that is because you haven't thanked God enough. It doesn't work that way. This is a broken world, and we don't know why things happen.

But I do believe that if you just keep thanking God and keep thanking God, sooner or later, freedom will come. Sooner or later, freedom will come. Sooner or later, that fish is going to spit you out on dry land if you just keep thanking God because gratitude brings freedom, amen? This moves us over to my next point. Next truth regarding gratitude. Gratitude is a daily choice.

Gratitude is a daily choice. And to illustrate this truth, why don't we talk about Paul and Silas? And the story found in the book of Acts chapter 16. Now Paul and Silas were two disciples who set out to do exactly what Jesus asked them to do. He asked them to preach the gospel and to pray for people,

and this is exactly what they did. and because of that they were beaten with rods, because of that they were arrested and put into the inner cell of a jail, because of that they were chained up and their feet was fastened to the stock. And of course they could have sat there and had a lot of question marks to deal with.

They could have said, we did what Jesus asked us to. How come all these things happened to us? and they could have created a grudge and bitterness and disappointment and all kinds of things. But instead they choose to do something completely different, praise God. We read in the book of Acts chapter 16, but at midnight, at the darkest hour, Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God and the prisoners were listening to them. So they were loud. Suddenly there was a great earthquake so that the fact.

Foundations of the prison were shaken and immediately all the doors were opened and everyone's chains were loosed. This is a great example of the fact that you can never fully control your circumstances, but you can always fully control your attitudes. You can never be in full control of whatever happens to you, but you can always have full control regarding the attitudes with which we respond to your circumstances. Paul and Silas makes a choice, even though we suffer, even though our bodies hurt, and even though we don't really understand the situation, yet we will worship, yet we will give thanks, we will stay in an attitude of gratitude. And the beautiful thing with this story also is that their decision to respond to all these trials with Thanksgiving, led to the release of themselves, but not only them, it affected everyone around them. Because it said not only did their chains come often,

not only did their prison door open up, but every chain in the prison, and every prison door in the prison were opened up. Meaning when you and I choose an attitude of gratitude, it will not only affect you, it will affect everyone around you. Your gratitude will affect your family. your gratitude will affect your workplace or your school or the people around you your neighborhood amen

so let's bring freedom into our communities let's bring freedom into our families why how by choosing gratitude so that we can enter constantly into the presence of god to release freedom amen i don't tell you about my grandmother i was blessed with a a wonderful grandmother a very godly woman who loved Jesus with all her heart. She were living in the same town as my family, so I visited her a lot when growing up. You got candy there, cookies and stuff. And at the very last phase of her life, she was in her mid-90s.

She had a stroke which left her without the ability to speak. She could no longer speak for the last few months. of her life. Apart from one thing, she could say one thing up until her dying day. She could say thank you. She could say thank you. And I remember one of the last, yeah, this was actually the last time I saw her. I went to see her in her house and I opened the door carefully because I didn't know if she was awake or asleep. And I could hear her voice inside the bedroom. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you, thank you, thank you. And I walked into the bedroom, and I walked straight into the presence of God.

And there she was, my little tiny grandmother, lying in her bed, eyes closed, big smile on her face, hands lifted. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. Just lying there and enjoying the presence of the Lord. And then she saw me, and she went, ah, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you. and I sat down and took a little tiny hand in mind. She looked at me and she said, thank you, thank you, thank you. And I looked back at her and I said, thank you, thank you, thank you. And I made up my mind at that point.

And when it's time for me to go, that's how I want to go. That's how I want to go with that attitude, with that mindset, with that element of gratitude, alive in my heart. But you see, friends, that did not come by accident. It came through a series of repeated choices to choose gratitude and choose Thanksgiving. My grandmother didn't have an easy life. She lived through both world wars

and she had to struggle a lot in life but daily she chose gratitude and because of that she ended up in this beautiful spot right at the end of her life and she was just ready to go straight into heaven because in her life there was the same attitude and atmosphere that you will meet in heaven,

an atmosphere of gratitude and Thanksgiving, amen. And this leads me over to the last thing I want to share with you guys regarding gratitude and Thanksgiving. We've said that gratitude is the door into God's presence. We've said that gratitude brings freedom, and also the gratitude is a daily choice. And my final truth I want to communicate to you as we speak about gratitude is this choosing gratitude

means letting go of something else. Choosing gratitude means letting go of something else. You know why? Because gratitude and grudges cannot coexist. One will kick out the other. And it's up to us to choose what we meditate upon, what we let go of and what we want to keep in our lives. If you want to live a life of gratitude,

you need to let go of certain things. maybe that bitterness against your parents or that that grudge against your pastoral leader or maybe that disappointment toward God maybe because he didn't answer your prayer at that specific occasion now people you need to understand something about God answering prayer God has promised to always answer your prayers it's just that sometimes the answer is no so sometimes he says yes and we love when he do that And then sometimes he says yes but not now. You got it right but you got the timing wrong.

Sometimes he actually says no. Even Jesus got a no in the Garden of Gitsemone. He honestly prayed Lord if this can be all taken away from me. If there's another way than the suffering and the cross, can we have it that way instead? And he got to know. But you see when God says no to your prayer, it means always that there is something better in store for you.

He's got something better, better further down the road. And because of that, no in Getsemane, we are here today. Thank God we are. We are saved and we are forgiven and we are righteous and we are restored and we are the sons and daughters of God. All because of that no in the Garden of Gitsemone. So no is not a bad thing, amen. I was on Facebook the other week

and scrolling through all these names and profile pictures. All of a sudden I stopped because I recognized the name, but I couldn't really place it. And I realized this was a woman and I realized, oh, it's her.

She used to be a girl that I was madly in love with when I was 16, 17. I clearly remember it all came back to me now. I was praying fervent. to God that she would become my girlfriend and later my wife. I was praying so hard. And then now this was like 35 years later.

I look at her profile picture and I said, thank God for unanswered prayer. Sorry, that's horrible. That's not what I wanted to say. But the thing is that God said, sorry about how that came out. You see, God gave me a no. and to me that hurt at that moment

because I knew what I wanted but God had something even better and she was called Maria and this year we celebrate our 34th anniversary of passionate happy marriage but still it might be that you hold grudges

and you have disappointments and sometimes we hold on to them because there's a level of enjoyment actually there's something in us that likes being angry at someone else and we feel we have have the right to be angry because that person gave me this comment on Facebook so I will stay angry

and disappointment and bitter and hold grudges like forever. What we don't realize is that we hold on to these things. We cannot really see the blessing of gratitude. We need to let go of something to gain something that is even more precious. And I want to end with a story that happened to me the other year. I was in Stockholm, which is the capital of Sweden. And Stockholm is basically a lot of water and a lot of bridges, okay? So I was crossing this bridge in Stockholm, and as I was crossing the bridge, there was like a TV crew on the bridge.

And as I passed by, they said, sir, sir, excuse me, could you come by? And I came up, and it turned out that this was a crew recording a commercial for antivirus programs for cell phones. So they were interviewing random people about how they used their cell phones and wanted to make a point out of the fact

said, oh, my cell phone is so precious to me and so important, so it needs to be secured and protected by this antivirus program. So they said, would you mind answering a few questions about your cell phone on camera? I said, sure. So this guy started to speak to me asking me questions. This was a few years ago, it's different aircraft.

So this guy just asked me questions about my cell phone and all that, how do you use it, how precious is it to you, and so on. Then all of a sudden, this guy asked me, if I give you 2,000 euros, that's 2,500 US dollars, would you throw your cell phone off the bridge and into the water right now? That is the stupidest question I've ever heard in my life.

You can't be serious. The guy took out 2,000 euros, $2,500. And my mind just went like this. Because I was thinking, in what universe, in this, is this anything else but an amazing offer? Because I can buy a new cell phone for like 500 bucks and I can download the whole content from the cloud and I'll still have $2,000.

So he said, will you do it? I said, yeah. So I threw my cell phone off the bridge and into the water, I'm not making this up guys. And I got $2,500. I got a new phone for five, I downloaded the full content, went home to Maria, and said, you have no idea what happened. I told her the full story.

And she said, praise God, because I saw this new pair of shoes. What I didn't realize is that after this whole recording, when I saw the final commercial, I'm not making this, you can find, you can Google it, it's out there, you can find it and see it on YouTube. What I didn't realize or know about is that they had asked the same, given the same offer to all these other people. And every single one said no. I was the only one who took the offer. Why?

Because these guys were too much in love with what they already had and not ready to let go of it to gain something that is even more valuable and of higher value. Sometimes that is me, sometimes that is you. We hold on to stuff. We hold on to grudges. to disappointment, to bitterness, and to anger, not realizing that if we just let it go, we throw it off the bridge and into the water,

God is ready to introduce you to the blessing of Thanksgiving, allowing you to enter into his presence daily, allowing you to experience a new level of spiritual freedom, emotional freedom, relational freedom, if you are making gratitude and thanksgiving your daily. choice. And if you want to make that commitment right now, you just want to pray with me saying, God, I want to do that. I want to let go of whatever I need to let go of. And I want to choose gratitude so that I can step into the presence of God even stronger and experience even more

of freedom that gratitude brings. Why don't you just open up your heart right now and make that decision as we pray? Father, we just thank you so much for this wonderful spiritual principle. that gratitude brings us into the presence of God, and therefore gratitude brings freedom. Lord, we make up our minds right now that we will let go of anything that keeps gratitude out of our lives. Father, we throw bitterness and disappointment and anger and grudges off the bridge and into the water. And we choose gratitude, Father, toward you, toward other fellow human beings. and we choose to walk in that freedom that gratitude brings. This we pray in Jesus' name.

Amen. Amen. Can you guys tell pastor? Thank you. And I'm just, I'm grateful that you had your phone backed up. If you didn't have your phone backed up, that story wouldn't have been as good. No, that wouldn't work. I lost 24 hours, but it was worth it. Thank you for sharing the word today.

Can you guys tell pastor again? Thank you. As you just continue today in an attitude of prayer, I just want to say to you, my church family, I'm grateful for you. So grateful for you. I'm grateful for my bride, for our friendship. I'm grateful, pastor, for your faithfulness to God

and His Word and to share. I'm grateful to every single one of you that serve every single week who love others by loving their children or by making people feel welcome by discipling people in your small groups. I'm thankful for your prayer. I'm thankful for your generosity.

I'm thankful that you invite other people to become a part of our family. And today I'm incredibly grateful that beyond a shadow of a doubt in life church locations and online, there are gonna be people who find freedom to the grace of Jesus Christ. Could you just continue to pray with me? Father, we ask that you would draw people by your grace

through your son Jesus to know true freedom in Christ and will give you all the praise. As you're praying without looking around today, or those of you watching online, let me tell you about some amazing news. The good news is that our Heavenly Father, God, he loves you so much. He loves you exactly as you are.

If you find yourself feeling guilty or ashamed of things that you've done, thoughts that you've had, I want to just remind you that there's nothing that you can do to cause God to love you anymore. And there's nothing you can do to cause God to love you even, and he loves you. He just loves you because that's who, who he is. But God doesn't want you in a place where you're hurting broken or far from him.

And the reality is that every single one of us, we've sinned against a holy God. You know it. You feel guilty. You feel ashamed. You know you've done some things wrong. You feel the guilt. The good news is that God loves you so much that he became one of you. In the person of his son, Jesus, the one who never ever sinned, the Lamb of God, who laid down his life, who died in our place, and God raised him from the dead so that anybody, and this includes you, doesn't matter who you are, doesn't matter what you did way years ago in the past, doesn't matter what you did last night. When you call on the name that is above every name, the name of Jesus, our God hears your prayers, he will forgive your sin, you'll find freedom like you've never known before, and a reason to give God praise.

And all of our churches are those of you watching online who say, I won his grace. All we're going to do today is we're going to step away from our old sinful life. We're going to call on Jesus, and he's going to save you and make you new. Those who say, yes, I need his forgiveness. Today, I'm letting go of whatever I've been holding on to. I'm grabbing a hold of the grace of Jesus. Today, by faith, I surrender my life to Jesus. That's your prayer.

Would you lift your hands high right now? Just say yes at all of our churches. As we have people today calling out on Jesus, all of our churches, those of you online, just type in the chat. giving my life to Jesus, just type that right now. I'm giving my life to Jesus and I would be honored just to pray with you. Would you just pray aloud wherever you are? Just pray Heavenly Father. Forgive my sins. Jesus save me. Make me new. I let go of my past and I cling to you. Fill me with your spirit so I could know you and serve you and follow you.

for the rest of my life. Thank you for new life. I give you mine. In Jesus' name, I pray. I know somebody's ready to give God some praise. You're full of gratitude, give him thanks, give him honor, worship him today.