The Bryce Crawford Podcast - How Gratitude Keeps You From Sin (EP 209)

Episode Date: July 17, 2026

How Gratitude Keeps You From Sin (EP 209)

The Hulu original series Furious is coming to Disney Plus, starring Emmy Rossum. Furious follows FBI agent Alice Black on the hunt for a mysterious and calculating serial killer. Both walk their own paths toward justice, and as their lives start to intertwine, the line between right and wrong begins to blur. Don't miss the three-episode premiere of the Hulu original series Furious on July 27th, only on Hulu on Disney Plus. This episode is brought to you by Accenture. When your advertising operations fall out of sync, everything else follows.

Spotify and Accenture are working together to reinvent the rhythm of ad sales, using automation, analytics, and smarter workflows to simplify campaign delivery and access better data across the business. The result? Less time spent on operations, more time connecting brands with the moments and fandoms that matter most. Learn more at Accenture.com slash Spotify. What's going on, guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Bryce Crawford podcast. I'm Bryce. And today, by the title of this episode, we're going to be talking about gratitude. I feel like we hear about this term, whether we're in church settings or you listen to Brandon Lake or in many different Christian environments, we hear the term gratitude. What is gratitude? What does it look like in the scriptures? How can we apply it more in our life? What does it ultimately look like? We're going to get in. to it. Hey, real quick, before we keep going, I have an announcement I've been really excited to make. I'm officially announcing our ministry's biggest live event ever open heaven. It's happening Sunday, November 8th, 2026 at 7.30 p.m. at the pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving, Texas.

This is going to be a night centered around worship, faith, and genuine community, all of us together in one room, encountering God in person. There's going to be live worship and really special moments throughout the night. Tickets are on sale right now. Head to bricecrawford.org or click the link in the description below to grab yours. And please only buy through my official site or that link to not buy from random resellers online. A lot of them are scams. I genuinely believe this is going to be a night people carry with them for a long time. I would love to see you there. All right, back to the episode. But before we get into the scriptures, we have to understand exactly what gratitude is. Gratitude in its simplest form is saying thank you. It's saying thank you for

receiving something that you didn't deserve. It's saying thank you for receiving blessings and gifts and favor and life and breath and everything in between from God. Whether it's from himself or through people from God, we are saying thank you. Thank you. That's how powerful it is. Gratitude and Thanksgiving go hand in hand, and we'll get to that later on in the episode. But one of the primary scriptures that stuck out to me about gratitude is actually Luke, chapter 6th,000. 17, and we're going to start in verse 11, but Jesus is about to heal 10 lepers, and it's so interesting of what happens in the story and what you hear this. On the way to Jerusalem, he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee, and as he entered a village, he was met by 10 lepers

who stood at a distance, and lifting up their voices saying, Jesus, master, have mercy on us. When he saw them, he said to them, go and show yourselves to the priest, and as they went, they were cleansed. Now, I want to stop right here. There's many times. in the scriptures where people come to Jesus and say, Lord, if you'll make me clean, would you do so? And he's like, absolutely, absolutely, I'll make you clean. It's the Lord that loves to give. You know, every good gift comes from above. So God, us being his children, he wants to take care of us. He's jealous for our love. He loves us so desperately. He loves giving good gifts. We have a lot to be grateful for. We have many reasons to practice gratitude because of the character of God.

Now look at this. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice, and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Now, let's start right there. Now, that sounds good at face value. A guy looked down and he's like, oh my gosh, I'm healed,

because you have to understand the lepers are outcast. They're sick. No one wants to get near them. Oftentimes lepers, not only were they outcast outside of the city, but many lepers oftentimes had some sort of bell signifying that when they walked in the city, people would know that's the leper, get away from that guy, I don't want to get near him, I'm going to get unclean if I get his disease. So I have face value, you're like, oh, great, turned around, he's grateful and all that jazz.

But the sad part is, there was 10 of them that got healed. Only one of them turned around with gratitude. In verse 17, then Jesus answered, We're not 10 cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except his foreigner? and he said to him, rise and go your way, your faith has made you well. Let me give you a practical warning here about your life.

Many times we cry out to God in the depths and darkest parts of our lives, and we ask God, pull through. If you do this thing, then I'll start following you. Or God, I promise I'll stop cussing if you just do this one thing for me. If God pulls through in your life and you lack gratitude, then you're going to convince yourself that you got yourself out of that hole and Jesus did it. Whenever we lack practicing gratitude

and we conquer a mountain, we're pulled out of a hole, we finally see the light at the end of the tunnel, we then convince ourselves that it is we that got ourselves out of the bond and not Jesus. And it's so interesting, Jesus is like, wait, there was 10 of you guys,

only one of you turned around to praise God for healing you? I mean, there's no way that anyone else, But Jesus could have healed these men, and 90% of them had the audacity to walk away as if they had nothing to be grateful for. You see, so often in society, we cry out to God to move in our life, move in our circumstances, move in our country, then God does, and we act as if there wasn't even a problem,

and so we show a lack of gratitude towards God. How hypocritical it is of us to cry out and ask God. to move in our life, show up, speak to us, be with us, pull us out of a dark pit, and then he does, and then we just do nothing about it. That is a lack of gratitude. You know what the greatest form of gratitude is? Preaching the gospel. Why? Because Jesus Christ pulled you out of the darkest pit possible, which comes to your salvation, which comes to your eternal destination, which comes to your ultimate satisfaction. He pulls us out of this whole, and the ultimate view, the ultimate display of gratitude is saying, God has saved my life. Now I've got to preach the gospel

to other people so you can save theirs. That is the ultimate form of gratitude. And oftentimes, I remember for me personally, like growing up, I had heard a lot about Jesus. I went to private Christian school. I'm very grateful for my education I got there. I went to church camps growing up. And there were so many times where I asked God to move in my life, or I was struggling, or I was hurting or I cried. I mean, I got saved like 39 times in two summers at church camp. And then God would pull through and I would act as if he didn't do anything. And there was a lack of gratitude. A lack of gratitude will allow pride to creep in your life and then you will become your own God and not Jesus. No wonder we find ourselves struggling and suffering underneath the

pressure of performance, underneath the pressure of sin, underneath the pressure of opinions and people, because we lack gratitude. I mean, what does Philippians 4 say? Let's flip to Philippians four. Philippians says, says this, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with Thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God. I love how it says in prayer and supplication, it doesn't exclude the Thanksgiving. He says, with Thanksgiving. The Psalms say we enter his courts with praise and Thanksgiving. So often our prayer lives have become merely wishless to Santa Claus. And it's, God ain't a genie. God is our father. God is our Lord. He is a friend to us that are brokenhearted. He's not a genie with prayer and supplication with

Thanksgiving. In everything that we do, Thanksgiving is attached. Gratitude is attached because gratitude aligns our heart posture with the Lord's. Gratitude keeps us centered, rounded, and rooted in the work of the cross. Gratitude allows us not to lose sight of the beauty of what Jesus has done because the second we lose gratitude, we lose everything. Because if we are not grateful for Jesus and his finished work, then what are we grateful for? Something that you did? Were you grateful for the way that you conquered your porn addiction? And then 48 hours later, you fell back in because you thought you were the one that got you out of the hole after you cried out to Jesus because you felt shame and guilt for falling into sin time and time again. And then you got one little bit of peace

because Jesus is the prince of peace. You got one ounce of peace and you forgot. Jesus is the one that brings you comfort, satisfaction, and strength, you thought, I just got myself out of this whole. Then you fell back in 48 hours later because we lack gratitude. Look at Luke 24. Jesus resurrected in his physical body appears before the disciples. And he says, I'm the resurrected Christ. Look, it's me. They're like, now I'll believe it. He shows them holes in his hands, holds inside. They're like, Nope, don't believe it. They were marveled and amazed. And he said, do you guys have something to eat?

I'll have fish off bread. And they sit down and as they broke bread, Jesus opened their minds to the scripture. This episode is brought to you by Activia. You might already be eating yogurt, but not all yogurts are created equal. Activia contains over one billion probiotics per serving to survive and reach the gut alive.

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Conditions apply. Visit Scotiabank.com slash h-I-SA to learn more. Scotia Bank, you're richer than you think. It was in that moment. I viewed that like a Thanksgiving holiday, right? Jesus is having Thanksgiving around the table, and Jesus turned Thanksgiving from being a holiday to a weapon. Gratitude will be your number one weapon against sin and temptation.

Because one major reason we fall into sin and temptation time and time again is because we think that that thing will satisfy us, and we are not satisfied and grateful for the peace and provision and satisfaction that the Lord Jesus fills our heart with. And so when we fall into sin and temptation, we are saying, no, I'm not grateful for Jesus. I don't think he's doing it enough for me. I don't know if this is going to work out.

And so we turn to sin. gratitude is going to be a primary weapon that will keep you on the straight and arrow. Gratitude is going to be a single-handed practice that is going to keep you rooting and grounded. A practice that I have implemented in my daily walk with Jesus is in the morning. I have a routine in the morning you got to do. I wake up and I go on a prayer walk with my dog. and at first when I started doing this, my prayer walk was like, honestly, exactly what I said at the beginning. It was me asking God for specific things. The Bible tells us, make our request

known to God, but that's not the primary purpose of prayer. And so now my prayer walks in the morning with my dog Moses have now changed from me asking God for things to simply being grateful. God, thank you for this. I remember this morning, particularly I was walking Moses, and I could not stop, but sit and thank God for the weather. I just thought it was such a beautiful day out this morning and still is, and I couldn't stop. And for some reason, that continual prayer of God, I'm just in all of the weather. Like, thank you that you've allowed this to be today. God, thank you for who you are and thank you for your character.

And thank you for my breath. Thank you that I have the ability to walk. And thank you that we have a roof over our head. And thank you, Lord, for the things that you do in our life. Because this constant state of gratitude keeps us dependent on God. God because when we are grateful, we realize he is the only one that can provide and give good gifts. We realize that he is the only one that gives us not what we want, but what we need. And when we are dependent on him, we can't help but stay in a constant place of gratitude.

I mean, if you're someone that's struggling with sin right now, maybe reflect on your own life. Maybe you're not being grateful. Maybe one of the reasons why you're continually falling into sin is because you are so down on yourself and down on your luck. that you were so hyper fixated on your suffering rather than gratitude. It's like, what do you mean, Bryce? How can I be grateful in the midst of my suffering? Look, your story wouldn't be your story without your suffering. It would be ignorant for us to neglect your suffering and hardship and trial.

And at the same time, it would be foolish of us to not be grateful for what God is teaching us through. It be grateful that his characters remain the same at the peaks of our life and the lows of our life. that we would be insane to neglect gratitude for Jesus Christ, that he doesn't change his opinion about us despite our suffering and sin. He doesn't change his mind about us just because we're having another hard day. And so maybe the missing peace to get you out of this pit of despair, this pit of hopelessness, this pit of pride, this pit of sin is simply gratitude. Actually, as society grows and temptation grows and all of these things,

It's actually quite simple. Maybe gratitude is the missing peace in your life that could change the trajectory of your faith journey simply because you are grateful for every ounce and aspect of your daily life through Jesus Christ because he is the one that gives it to you. And so I want to pray for you. I want to pray that gratitude becomes a practice in your life. I just want to thank God.

I want to pray that gratitude becomes a practice in your life and I just want to thank God for you, your life, this day. the next day, Lord Will and if there is one, we want to thank him. Lord Jesus, we love you. God, we are so grateful for the life that you've instilled in our lungs. Gratitude, we want to be a daily part of our practice. So, Lord, we are just grateful. Right now, wherever we're watch or listen. God, we say we're grateful for you. We're grateful for the Word of God. We're grateful for Jesus Christ, death and resurrection on the cross. We're grateful for breath in our lungs. Lord, we're grateful for sunshine. We're grateful for the weather. We're grateful for animals. We're grateful for friendships. We're

grateful for toothpaste. We're grateful for food. We are grateful for legs. We are grateful for eyes that can see. We are grateful for smell that we can smell. We're grateful for sounds that we can listen. We're grateful for music. Lord, we are grateful for creativity. Lord, we are grateful for the person watching and listening. And Lord, we are grateful for our enemies because you care for them just as much as you care about us. Lord, we are grateful and we want to stay in this place. Lord, would you let you let gratitude become a daily practice in our life. Let us not lose sight of you because we lack gratitude. But Lord, continue to remind us of things that we can continue to praise you for because you have given us a new song in our mouth. Lord, we love you. We thank you. We are so grateful for you.

In Jesus name. Hey, y'all, it's Kelly Clarkson with Wayfair. Ever order furniture online and wonder what if? Like, what if it doesn't hold up? That sofa was four days old. You should have ordered from Wayfair. With Wayfair, there's no what if. Just style you love and quality you can trust. Visit wayfair.ca. Wayfair, every style, every home. Amen.