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  AN ATTITUDE OF GRATITUDE
  by Duane Troyer
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Summary: This sermon emphasizes the importance of gratitude and
thankfulness, highlighting the power of having an attitude of gratitude
in overcoming challenges and maintaining faith. It explores the concept
of intentionally maintaining a thankful state of mind, even in the face
of difficulties, and how gratitude can lead to contentment and joy. The
message encourages a mindset of humility, recognizing God's goodness,
and learning to be grateful in all circumstances.

Duration: 1:18:43 Topics: "Gratitude", "Contentment in Challenges"
Scripture References: Colossians 3:15, Ezra 3:11, Psalms 100:4, Psalms 27:1

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DESCRIPTION
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This sermon emphasizes the importance of gratitude and thankfulness,
highlighting the power of having an attitude of gratitude in overcoming
challenges and maintaining faith. It explores the concept of
intentionally maintaining a thankful state of mind, even in the face of
difficulties, and how gratitude can lead to contentment and joy. The
message encourages a mindset of humility, recognizing God's goodness,
and learning to be grateful in all circumstances.

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CONTENT
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To be here again, I'm very thankful for what was shared in the opening
and I think it will not be hard to tie it in or apply it to what I'd
like to share today and I have a lot of things I'd like to share. Let's
stand for a reading of part of Colossians 3. Therefore, if you have been
raised up with Christ, keep seeking the things above, where Christ is,
seated at the right hand of God. Set your mind on the things above, not
on the things that are on the earth, for you have died, and your life is
hidden with Christ in God.

When Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be
revealed with him in glory. Therefore, consider the members of your
earthly body as dead, to immorality, impurity, passion, evil desires,
and greed, which amounts to idolatry. For it is because of these things
that the wrath of God will come upon the sons of disobedience.

And in them you also once walked when you were living in them, but now
you also put them all aside. Anger, wrath, malice, slander, and abusive
speech from your mouth do not lie to one another since you lay aside the
old self with its evil practices and put on the new self who is being
renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the one who
created him. A renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek
and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, and
free man, but Christ is all and in all.

So as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a
heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience,
bearing with one another and forgiving each other. Whoever has a
complaint against anyone, just as the Lord forgave you, so also should
you. Beyond all these things, put on love, which is the perfect bond of
unity.

Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were
called in one body, and be thankful. Let the word of Christ richly dwell
within you, with all wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with
psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your
hearts to God, whatever you do in word or deed, do it all in the name of
the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father. Let's pray.

O God, we ask you to be with us today and help us and guide us, and I
pray that you would guide my thoughts and help us as we look into your
words, that we could be filled with this thankfulness, this gratitude
that you talked about, that we could put to death the deeds of the
flesh, that we could mortify them and be conformed in your image. So
help us, Lord, and we pray for your blessing on this meeting and on the
rest of this day. We do this in the name of the Lord.

Amen. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen.

Amen. Amen. Amen.

Several weeks ago, when I was helping Brother D. John on his property,
digging in water lines and septic lines and electric lines and setting
up his mobile home, one day, on one thing or another, we were having a
conversation, and John made a statement that caught my attention, and
it's just a pretty straightforward and simple statement. He said, the
Lord is teaching us, the Lord is trying to teach us gratitude. Nothing
seems very special to that.

We should all know that, right? But somehow, I guess partly because it's
something I need to grow in and it's something we don't talk about much,
it got my attention. It is from that statement that is birthed much of
what I'd like to talk about today. The Lord is not just wanting to teach
us repentance and baptism and non-resistance and the proper
understanding of marriage and about not swearing an oath.

He's wanting to teach us gratitude, how to be grateful, how to be
thankful. And here in Colossians 3, he's, you know, among all the things
that he's describing here about the believer or the new man, or
describing or instructing, it's like a description and an instruction,
of the person who is raised with Christ, who seeks those things which
are above and mortifies the members on earth, that you once walked in.
Now you put aside anger and malice and slander and all these things,
abusive speech, and you're being renewed in the image of Christ.

You're being conformed, you're being made a new person in Christ's
image. You're putting on compassion, you're putting on kindness, bear
with one another, put on love. And then in verse 15 here he says, let
the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called
to be one body and be thankful.

It's a command. It's a command to be thankful. And he goes on in verse
16 to say, let the word of Christ richly dwell within you with all
wisdom, teaching and admonishing one another with songs and hymns and
spiritual songs, singing with thankfulness in your hearts to God.

He's telling us to express it, to express this gratitude in songs, in
praises, in hymns. And he goes on in verse 17 to say, whatever you do in
word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks
through him to God the Father. Whatever we do, both word and deed, it
should be done with and in and through thankfulness to God.

That's pretty all encompassing to what we do from morning till evening
and evening till morning. God is not only wanting us to be full of
gratitude, in the second chapter of Colossians, Paul says he wants us to
be overflowing with gratitude. Overflowing with gratitude.

That means it should be affecting our surroundings. When we have a
bucket of water and we keep pouring it in and it starts to overflow, it
starts to water and saturate the ground around it. That's how full of
thankfulness we should be.

It should be running out of us. I know a lot of you girls and single
sisters are memorizing Colossians. I really appreciate it.

It's full of this. Here in chapter 4 in verse 2 it says, devote
yourselves to prayer, keeping alert in it with an attitude of
thanksgiving. That's what I want to talk about, having an attitude of
gratitude.

Not just an occasional expression, not just when things go good, but
having an attitude of gratitude. Something that fills us, not only fills
us, but overflows from us. When we're filled with gratitude, it
confounds the enemy.

The wrath and envy and malice and bitterness that would destroy us loses
its power when it's up against a thankful heart. It can't even find a
foothold to start attacking. James, the brother of our Lord, told us to
be thankful when we're tempted.

When we're tried, count it all joy. Be thankful for that. Why? Because
here's an opportunity for it to work something good in us.

So be thankful for that. Paul says in Ephesians, in everything give
thanks. An attitude of gratitude should be one of the distinguishing
marks of Christ's followers.

We should stand out. We should be a separate people, non-conformed to
the world in this area. And one of the reasons is, unthankfulness is a
mark of a godless person.

You know there in Romans 1 where he talks about how the wrath of God
will come upon the godless people, so they deny the Lord, and it talks
about all those things that happen to them to the point where he gives
them over to a reprobate mind. Well, one of the things he says there in
Romans 1 is that they did not honor him as God or give him thanks. This
is the mark of a godless person.

They did not give him thanks. Man's propensity is to be negative. It
seems like we are hardwired to complain.

Did you ever hear of someone coming home from town, and you ask them how
it went, and he says, it was great, I hit six go-lights. Nobody calls
them go-lights. Even though they're just as green as they are red, we're
just negative.

They're all stoplights, right? And we complain about those. We're
hardwired to be that way. That's how the natural man is, but the Lord
wants us to learn gratitude.

He wants us to have a new heart. David Brazil once said that, I think he
wrote somewhere in one of his books, I think he said maybe some
Christian psychiatrist from India wrote this to him, and said that 80%
of man's problems are from bitterness and envy in their hearts. True or
not, I don't know, but let's face it, the natural man is full of these
things on the inside, these things that we're supposed to be cleansed
from and put to death and become a new man.

In Hebrews 13, 15 it says, Therefore let us offer the sacrifice of
praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks
to his name. The fruit of our lips, right? That's what we speak, what
comes out of our mouth is the fruit of our lips. And now I want you to
think about, and here it talks about offering up this, I'm not sure why
it says the sacrifice of praise, maybe somebody has an explanation for
that, but basically the praises to God should be the fruit of our lips.

If you can imagine how pleased God is when someone in their old self had
been a murderer, he had been shedding innocent blood, his hands were
stained with the blood of people, and this man repents and he becomes a
new man, and these same hands now start dealing a portion to the hungry
and feeding the poor. That is very, very pleasing to God. He is pleased
with those hands.

Or if there were feet that were swift to running to mischief, and then
the person becomes a new man, and instead he uses those feet to visit
the sick and the imprisoned, God is pleased with that. Well, God is
equally pleased when these lips of ours, who used to complain and
grumble and just be unsatisfied, when they start thanking him and
praising him, he is pleased with that. When they start singing hymns of
praise, and praising God does not just mean saying, praise God and
praise the Lord, right? Sure, that has its appropriate place, but
sometimes you meet people and they say that a lot.

That's their phrase, like, oh, praise God, oh, praise the Lord. I don't
think God is displeased with that, but I would like you to think about
what might be more pleasing to God. Imagine in just this natural sense,
we have a workplace.

Let's say we have a construction crew. There's the boss man and he has a
handful of guys working for him. And they go out on the construction
site, they're building a house, and every day the customer stops by and
he walks around to look at the progress and see what's being done, and
he watches the guys work for an hour or two.

Suppose these employees, for some reason or another, their way of
praising the boss man would be to just often say, praise the boss man.
The customer walks around and says, hey, you're making good progress
today, and they say, praise the boss man. Or there's this little part
that he says, I see that's a time-consuming little section there, and
they say, praise the boss man.

Maybe the customer would think these guys appreciate the boss, maybe
he'd be a little confused too, don't you think, possibly? But what if he
went on the job site and he told the workers, you guys are making good
progress today, and they'd say, you know what, that boss man of ours, he
has taught us the most efficient way to get this done, he's done so good
at teaching us, we just love working together. What if he said, I don't
know, that part there is kind of time-consuming, and they'd say, you
know what, the boss man told us this particular part, be extra careful,
this is a very critical part, double-check everything. He's so precise,
he wants everything done so right.

What if he walked around the corner and the worker said, you know that
boss man of ours, he only accepts the best materials. If you see a load
of lumber coming out here that's not top quality, he'll send it back.
The boss man is so good to us.

That customer would go home and say, man, those guys really like their
boss man. They really like working for him. And he sounds like a real
good guy.

He sounds like a real good guy, yeah. Anyway, just don't get me wrong,
like the phrase, praise the Lord and praise God, they have their
appropriate places. But praising God is something way, way beyond that.

It should be. It should be something in which we are recognizing and
expressing our appreciation for the hand of God in everything. In a
similar way, like, okay, it should come from an attitude of gratitude,
like from the very core of our being, we really truly are thankful.

See, if we teach our children to say thank you, and we should, if our
children receive something and we teach them to say thank you, they
receive something and they forget it, you say, I'll say thank you. Like,
you're not actually teaching them to be thankful by doing that. You
should still do that because you're teaching them to be polite and we
should be polite.

But you're not necessarily teaching them to be thankful just by saying
thank you. Just like somebody is not necessarily always praising God
just when he says praise God. But it needs to come from the fact that
it's so much more special when the child is actually thankful and from
his heart flows a thank you, right? He is actually thankful.

He's not only polite, he's thankful and polite. I want to go through a
story in 2 Chronicles 20. And it's about Jehoshaphat.

And Jehoshaphat, I'm not going to read chapter 17 and 19 that talk about
Jehoshaphat and what he was doing as a king, but it's pretty neat. He
was bringing some really good godly reform to Judah. I mean, he was
setting judges up city by city.

He was telling these judges, watch what you're doing, you're not judging
for man but for God. He said, take no bribes, show no partiality. In
Jerusalem, he appointed priests and Levites saying, whatever cause comes
before you, warn the people that they do not transgress against the
Lord.

It says that Jehoshaphat took delight in the ways of the Lord. It says
he sent leaders and sons of mighty men from city to city, teaching the
people the ways of the Lord. And these men went from city to city
throughout the day and it says they took with them the book of the laws
of God and they taught the people and fear of God came upon the people.

There were good things happening in the land of Judah. People were
turning to righteousness, people were turning to holiness. And then,
something happened.

Something that will always happen when this kind of thing starts
happening. An attack came. The adversary, the enemy of God cannot bear
such righteousness.

That old serpent, the devil, is fuming and spewing over any progress
made toward godliness and holiness. And it's one thing if here and there
there's a few scattered people who know the ways of the Lord, but these
guys were going around preaching and teaching and people were coming to
know the ways of the Lord. You can look down through the pages of
history when God's people step it up.

When God's people get a vision for the furtherance of the kingdom of God
you can be certain that there is another group of people stepping it up.
You can be sure that there are attacks and accusations and envy and all
kinds of persecution in the nation. And that's what happened.

Let's read here in 2nd Chronicles 20. After this, the sons of Moab and
the sons of Ammon and others from the Minuites came to the battle
against Jehoshaphat. And some came and told Jehoshaphat saying, a great
multitude has come against you from beyond the sea, from Syria.

They are in Hazazon, Tamar. And Jehoshaphat was afraid and set himself
to seek the Lord and proclaimed a fast throughout all Judah. So Judah
gathered to seek the Lord and from all the cities of Judah they came to
seek the Lord.

Then Jehoshaphat stood in the assembly of Judah and Jerusalem before the
new court in the house of the Lord and said, Lord God of our fathers,
are you not God in heaven? And do you not rule over all the kingdoms of
the nations? And in your hand, is there not power and might so that no
one is able to withstand you? Are you not the Lord who drove out the
inhabitants of this land before your people Israel and gave it to the
seed of Abraham, your friend, forever? And in it they settled and built
you a sanctuary. In it to your name, saying, if disaster comes upon us,
whether sword, judgment, death, or famine, we will stand before this
house and before you, for your name is in this house. It cries out to
you in our affliction and you will hear and save.

Here are the sons of Ammon, Moab, and Mount Seir, whom you would not let
Israel capture when they came out of the land of Egypt. They turned from
them and did not destroy them. Now they are here attempting to throw us
out of the inheritance you gave us.

Lord our God, will you not judge them? For we have no power against this
great multitude coming up against us. We do not know what to do to them,
but our eyes are upon you. Now all Judah stood before the Lord with
their wives and their children.

And the Spirit of the Lord came upon Jehaviel, the son of Zechariah. And
he said, Listen, King Jehoshaphat, all Judah and the inhabitants of
Jerusalem, thus says the Lord to you. Do not be afraid, nor dismayed,
because of this great multitude, for the battle is not yours, but God's.

Go down against them tomorrow. They will surely come up by the ascent of
Ziz. And you will find them at the end of the river before the desert of
Jeruel.

You will not need to fight in this battle. Understand that the salvation
of the Lord is with you. Judah and Jerusalem, do not fear and be
dismayed.

Go out against them tomorrow, for the Lord is with you. And Jehoshaphat
bowed with his face to the ground, and all Judah and the inhabitants of
Jerusalem fell before the Lord and worshipped him. And the Levites of
the sons of Kohath and the sons of Korah stood up to praise the Lord God
of Israel with voices loud and high.

So they rose early in the morning and went to the desert of Tekoa. And
as they went out, Jehoshaphat stood and cried out and said, Hear me,
Judah and inhabitants of Jerusalem. Trust in the Lord your God and you
shall be established.

Trust his prophets and you shall prosper. And he consulted with the
people and appointed singers and those who should confess and praise the
beauty of holiness. And they went out before the army and said, Give
thanks to the Lord for his mercy endures forever.

Now when they began to sing and give praise, the Lord allowed the sons
of Ammon to fight against Moab and Mount Seir, he who had come against
Judah, and they were defeated. For the sons of Ammon and Moab stood
against the inhabitants of Mount Seir and utterly killed and destroyed
them. And when they had killed the inhabitants of Seir, they helped to
destroy one another.

So when Judah came to a place overlooking the desert, they saw the
multitude and there were all the dead bodies fallen to the earth. No one
had escaped. When Jehoshaphat and his people came to take away their
spoils, they found a great deal of cattle and babies and spoils and
precious articles which they stripped off for themselves.

And they spent three days gathering the spoils because there was so
much. And on the fourth day they assembled in the Valley of Blessing for
there they blessed the Lord. That is why the place has been called the
Valley of Blessing until this day.

Then every man of Judah returned to Jerusalem with Jehoshaphat in front
of them with great joy for the Lord had made them rejoice over their
enemies. So they came to Jerusalem, to the house of the Lord with
stringed instruments and harps and trumpets. And the fear of God was on
all the kingdoms of the land when they heard that the Lord had fought
against the enemies of Israel.

Then the realm of Jehoshaphat was quiet for his God gave him rest all
around. What an amazing victory. I mean, they went up against this
multitude that they were so afraid of.

They had been so afraid of. And Jehoshaphat did not put his fiercest
warriors and his mightiest men of valor up front in the front rows. No,
he chose out his best singers.

And he put this group of singers up front. And they went out singing and
praising God and singing about the beauty of his holiness. And when the
enemy heard this.

And this was not battle hymn music with a marchy theme to it. This was
praises for his mercy. And the enemy was confounded and confused.

They had either not the power or not the unity to go up and fight
against something like this. And they just started fighting each other.
And when Israel came up in the King James it says the watchtower when
they came up on this place where they overlooked the valley there was
nothing there but a whole bunch of dead bodies.

The enemy was utterly defeated. That's pretty amazing. Maybe one of the
most amazing battles fought in Israel.

But let's take a closer look at some of the things that were happening
here. Jehoshaphat he was a godly man but he was also very human. When I
don't know who first saw this multitude coming was it a watchman
somewhere maybe a shepherd out keeping the sheep saw this huge multitude
coming and somebody came running to Jerusalem with the word of what
happened Jehoshaphat was afraid.

He was very human. And there is nothing wrong with being afraid if we
correctly respond to it. Courage is not the absence of fear it's the
overcoming of fear.

You know I've met people people who seem to me so so happy-go-lucky so
light about about any trouble so kind of unconcerned about any potential
dangers that sometimes I just wonder does this person take anything
seriously? What would it take for him to be like serious about
something? I've met people who were afraid but they were too proud to
let anyone know they tried to fake happiness they tried to fake
confidence try to make it appear like everything's okay I've met people
of course that when they're afraid it just drives them into despair and
they they shut up and they give up things aren't going my way it's very
self-centered but Jehoshaphat was none of these in verse 3 it says
Jehoshaphat was afraid and set himself to seek the Lord and proclaim the
facts throughout all Judah that's a really good response when something
comes up that is deeply concerning and troubling and I'm impressed I'm
impressed with the unity here it says that everybody in Judah came
together in Jerusalem they heard about this and they all came together
and they sought the Lord it says that the wives and the children came
together they all fasted they all sought the Lord with such unity for
begging for God a word from God begging for protection it says they
fasted in Jehoshaphat's prayer they gave recognition to God's power they
acknowledged his covenant they acknowledged that we have no power
against this multitude and our eyes are upon you it reminded me of that
message Brother Daniel gave some time ago about how he noticed a pattern
in the prayers of the people of old here's some of the things that
happened they all acknowledged the power of God they all acknowledged
the covenant that he has with his people and they all acknowledged their
undone-ness without his help and here it says we look to you and to such
to such a unified seeking of the Lord's will and protection the Spirit
of the Lord gave them a very clear answer to one of the Levites he said
don't be dismayed because of this multitude see the salvation of the
Lord the Lord is with you and they bowed their faces to the ground and
worshipped him you know I know I know we have brothers and sisters who
take things very seriously who when we hear an accusation whether it be
against us personally or against us as a group we don't just dismiss it
lightly it affects us deeply sometimes we spend sleepless nights
sometimes it makes us hang our harps on the willow for a while I'm
thankful for that I'm thankful I'm thankful we don't want to be people
who who are just light and flippant about what people say we don't want
to have this arrogance that we can just easily dismiss any accusations
as a false accusation because we're right we don't want to be those
people the world would say what we need is positive thinking what we
need is a bit more self confidence a bit more self esteem but the
problem with positive thinking is that it always only operates on a
surface level right it never gets to the very heart of the problem like
dreaming about a happy outcome might calm things a little bit and they
might feel better than despairing over the tragedy but it lacks realism
it lacks reality there's a big difference between faith like Leroy
talked about this morning there's a big difference between faith and
trust and positive thinking faith is what Jehoshaphat had and it's that
place in which we don't just drum up a bunch of positive ideas about how
to handle something, we get real right and we seek the Lord and we do it
deeply and we bring in our brothers should we not bring in our wives and
our children should we not strive to be more like that you know in the
1700s the Moravians were the Moravians started in Germany I think I
think there was a little bit of kind of a history that led up to the
Moravians but what's kind of known as the Moravians when they started by
Count Zinzendorf there in Germany and then they by the 1700s they became
very zealous missionaries I mean they traveled the world over with
militant strategy they sailed the seas they sailed to the Americas they
sailed to the West Indies they sailed north to Greenland they went over
the world to spread this good news that they were infatuated with that
they were addicted to may I say and they made many many sea voyages and
a lot of times they just went with merchant ships that were going back
and forth anyway but it got to the point where they had their own ships
they had Moravian captains sailing their own ships little Moravian
communities on sea that went back and forth and carried Moravians and
merchandise that's how how zealous they were I sometimes dream about
like us getting getting a zeal for communities all over the world having
our own jet brother Max is our pilot I'm sure there's more to it more to
it, a lot to it but I just like reading those stories and they were if
they sent people to the South Indies or the West Indies and there was
lots and lots of sickness a lot of those people died within a few months
and they sent more those people got sick and died and they sent more
there was no giving up anyway one of the one of the things that they had
a consistent testimony of on sea was that when the storms would come and
the ship would shake and the billows would roll and the water would
cover the decks while other sailors were cursing and swearing and
screaming these Moravians were called to leave they sat together singing
hymns they were at peace in one of those voyages Captain Garrison after
they were in this storm and Captain Garrison was was convinced that
nothing short of the storm stopping was going to have them hit the rocks
and he was really concerned but Count Zinzendorf was on that voyage and
he was completely at peace this captain went down to look for him he was
down there in the cabin there and he said it's alright it'll be alright
and the storm did stop and Captain Garrison went down and asked Count
Zinzendorf he went by Brother Ludwig as a Moravian but asked him like
how can you be this way and Brother Ludwig said he's known the Savior
for 20 years and he said I've learned whenever I'm in a crucial
situation I examine myself to see if I'm at fault if I find anything in
myself that displeases my Savior I make it right and thereafter or if I
don't find anything I'm okay with the outcome that's faith many of you
may have heard about this but on one of these merchant ships that was
going across the sea John Wesley was on that ship and so was a little
group of Moravians and this is what John Wesley wrote in his diary that
day it's on January 25, 1736 and Wesley is on board a ship bound to
America and observes the Moravians in the midst of life-threatening
storms he said at seven I went to the Germans I had long before observed
the great seriousness of their behavior of their humility they had given
a continual proof by performance by performing those servile offices for
other passengers which none of the English would undertake for which
they desired and would receive no pay saying it is good for our proud
hearts and their loving Savior had done more for them and every day had
given them occasion of showing a meekness which no injury could move if
they were pushed struck or thrown down they rose again and went away but
no complaint was found in their mouth there was now an opportunity of
trying whether they were delivered from the spirit of fear as well as
from that of pride and anger and revenge in the midst of the songs were
with their service began the sea broke over split the main sail in
pieces covered the ship covered the ship and poured in between the decks
as if the great deep had already swallowed us up a terrible screaming
began among the English but the Germans calmly sung on I asked one of
them afterwards was you not afraid and he answered I thank God no and I
asked but were not your women and children afraid and he replied loudly
no our women and children are not afraid to die from them I went to
their crying trembling neighbors and pointed out to them the difference
in the hour of trial between him that fears God and him that does not at
twelve the wind fell and this is how he ends his diary that day he says
this was the most glorious day which I had hitherto seen see how non-
conformed to the world these people were and how much conformed to the
image of Christ they were somewhere along the way these people had a
heart transplant they had mortified anger and malice and unthankfulness
and grumbling and they had learned gratitude you know this word this
word heart I think we often have an inappropriate interpretation of that
we sum it up as our emotions you'll hear people say my mind said yes but
my heart said no um that's that's not a biblical way to look at the word
heart the scriptural meaning of heart totally includes our thought life
it totally includes our mind it's not exclusively our thought life but
it totally includes it um it is our entire inner being it is our thought
life our will our conscience and our emotions that is what our heart is
and we do well to think about this because the word heart is hundreds
and hundreds and hundreds of times in scripture right um it is what is
at the core of our being and guess what God wants to give us a new heart
do we believe that do we believe that he wants to give us a new thought
life do you believe he wants to give you a new will and new emotions and
a new conscience do we believe that that's what he means when he says he
wants to put in us a new heart if we think if you don't believe it if
you don't have faith he won't if we think this is just how I am I'm a
bit pessimistic in my personality I'm just a bit negative I'm not the
kind of guy that really expresses praise or thanksgiving it means you
don't believe God right um how can you believe anything he says how do
you believe that he created heaven and earth and that he sent his son to
save us and you say well the scripture says so and I say well the
scripture says he wants to give us a new heart but without faith as
brother Leroy said if you don't believe it if you don't believe that he
can change your way of thinking if you don't believe that he can change
your will and your very inner being then he won't and I thought about
this Leroy talked about there were surely lots of other blind people
lots of other sick people who did not get healed why? because they did
not believe it and I have a feeling that many of those people might have
believed that Jesus did actually do this to some of the people but it
wouldn't work for me as I believe and we might be inclined to think well
God did help that guy have an attitude of gratitude but I can't have it
really? it means you don't believe it it means you don't believe that
the Lord can give you a completely new hauling over of how you think of
the things that you desire or will to do I'm not saying this is
something that happens one day like the image I get in Colossians there
is that we are being transformed into that image if we are not destined
to be our old negative grumbling complainers that we naturally are we
are not destined to be that we do not have to be that we believe that we
do not have to be that the eternal kingdom of heaven will be filled with
people singing and praising and saying holy holy lord god almighty day
in and day out that's what's going to be going on let's ask ourselves
how would heaven be like if we were there as we are now do you think
just being in paradise would finally change us or would our unthankful
and hurtful ways change paradise into hell all over again of the early
Christians it is said that they sang at their worship services at the
table behind the plow and in the vineyards Clement of Alexandria wrote
we cultivate the fields praising we sail the sea singing hymns in the
early 100's they had their before dawn meetings they came together
before the sun was up and there were two reasons one was it was
dangerous to be a Christian to be known as a Christian you could leave
your head for that the other reason is many most of the Christians were
slaves and common laborers they had to work for their masters in the
fields day in and day out their masters gave them no leave to go to a
worship service so they just got up earlier and they came together in
the dark before dawn and they worshipped god together I just love this
beautiful simplicity of simple peasants and slaves and farmers coming
together because they just want to praise god together they had no
scriptures they could barely read most of them but they could express
their gratitude together in the 1500's the Anabaptists sang themselves
into the hearts of many they wrote hundreds of psalms they sang them to
familiar folk tunes and it was an effective means of spreading their
convictions and as the persecution and bloodshed intensified so did the
flow of their songs a few hundred years earlier the Waldensians did the
same thing they were accused by the church of composing religious songs
in their mother tongue and teaching them to the children on the streets
and converting many adults in closing let's remember Jehoshaphat and his
singing army when we face this battle in our minds remember we wrestle
not against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers and
rulers of darkness and spiritual weakness and therefore our weapons of
warfare are not carnal that's not what we're up against when anger, when
bitterness when envy, when jealousy or just plain discouragement when
these things are trying to attack us they're like the Ammonites and the
Moabites and the people of Mount Cedar that came against Jehoshaphat
let's face it honestly let's fall on our faces before the Lord let's
examine ourselves for things that displease the Lord and make these
things right remember the salvation of the Lord rise up and praise Him
with our lips, loud and high like these singers did and sing of the
beauty of His holiness and may we all come up there to that watchtower
and look down over this enemy and see the multitude of dead bodies
looming around in Ezra in the book of Ezra it's talking about how the
exiles were starting to return to Jerusalem to rebuild the temple and as
soon as they had the foundation laid for the temple they had this
celebration and this is what it says in Ezra 3 chapter 3 verse 11 and
they sang together by chorus in praising and giving thanks unto the Lord
because He is good for His mercy endures forever towards Israel and the
people shouted with a great shout when they praised the Lord because the
foundation of the house of the Lord was laid now if they could rejoice
with such rejoicing and such gratitude over that foundation that was
laid for the temple that in less than a thousand years got destroyed
again should we not make the earth swell over the laid foundation of a
kingdom that cannot be shaken and as Paul says other foundations can no
man lay than what is laid and that is Jesus Christ and brother Dijon
said may he keep that gratitude and may we learn God be with you I'll
open it up for comments and corrections anything else you want to add
I'll express my gratitude for for what you shared Dwayne I confess I
came here this morning kind of discouraged maybe you'd say something
like that feeling weak in faith and then I guess Dwayne helped me
recognize I was just being unthankful and fortunately that's easily
remedied I'll quickly try to tie in Leroy shared about faith this
morning something that was pointed out to me a lot of years ago that
really stuck out to me that there's two times that Jesus complimented or
spoke highly of people's faith and one time Leroy mentioned it as a guy
that said I'm not even worthy that you should come under my roof is that
right? yeah and then the other time was the lady that asked for help and
Jesus said no and said that he came for the children and he shouldn't
give it to dogs and he basically called this lady a dog and she said
even the dogs get the crowns and he marveled at her faith and the common
quality between these two people is humility and the person is
throughout this correlation between having this faith that Jesus even
marveled at and humility and I don't think it's too hard to see how that
humility is tied to to thankfulness I think when we're unthankful it's
because we're feeling entitled like we deserve what we're getting and if
we're humble we recognize that we don't deserve we don't deserve much so
everything we have is worthy to be grateful grateful for and not taken
for granted so a couple of stories I'll try to share them quickly I
probably shared them both before one is about the story goes there was a
king and through whatever circumstances he adopts a poor boy and has him
to become the prince and every morning the servant comes in to wake up
the prince and take him to breakfast and every morning the prince says
okay, thank you for waking me up, please stand outside the door and I'll
be right with you and he takes a few minutes and he comes out the door
and this happens for years and finally one day the servant gets up the
courage and he says, what is it that you do every morning when you ask
me to stand outside the door and the prince says well I kept the clothes
that I was wearing the day that the king found me in my closet and every
morning I take off my royal princely pajamas and I put on my old my old
pauper clothes and I look at myself in the mirror because I don't ever
want to forget where I came from I really liked that story and then
another one is kind of a testimony I had a friend whose job was to take
care of a young man in his twenties who was stuck in a wheelchair and he
couldn't move somewhere in here from the neck down and I was with my
friend and talking with this guy this young man just had a great
attitude he just had a big smile and whatever and I just marveled like
man this poor kid, he's stuck in a wheelchair he has to ask for help,
everybody has to help him with everything and here he has such a good
attitude and I asked him about it somehow because of his disability he
would go to meetings and he would meet with other people that had
similar disabilities that were paralyzed to different degrees and he
said I go to these meetings and I've met all these people that have
different levels of disability that having suffered neck or spinal
injuries and he says the thing I've noticed, everybody no matter where
they're just so you know depending where your injury is on your neck or
your back people will lose the ability to feel or move from that spot
down and it can be very intricate like you can depending where the
injury is will affect how much movement you have depending where it is
and so he said no matter I see this all the time no matter where
somebody's injury is they always wish they had a little bit wherever it
is even a guy that's just like can't move from his neck down he just
wishes oh if I could just shrug my shoulders or a guy that can't even do
that and barely move his head imagine if you couldn't turn your head and
you're stuck in a chair it would be easy to think oh if I could just
turn my head from side to side oh if I just had that everybody just
wants a little more so basically they're not being thankful for where
they're at he was able to recognize like if I was a little worse off I'd
wish I'd tell myself oh I'd be so thankful I'd be so happy if I just had
what I had now so he just intentionally put himself in that position so
he could be thankful for where he was the similar aspect in those two
stories that I shared is that these two guys intentionally were
intentionally maintaining a thankful state of mind it wasn't an accident
they did like the kid the prince he exercised himself and put on these
old clothes to remind himself this man stuck in a wheelchair had learned
how to make himself be thankful by kind of pretending he was worse off
he'd be thankful that's kind of the point that I want to make I think
there's this idea that that the new heart that God gives you the spirit
that he gives us which might just make some people just automatically
just be thankful people and I think that I think the truth is that part
of our part of our conversion is recognizing the truth of where we are
and people are often really thankful when they're converted they see oh
boy I'm a sinner and God's goodness to offer me life and so that's like
your conversion experience and then I think like the walking out daily
walking out of faith is partly an intentional reminder of our lowliest
state and I think that intentional reminding is what will help us to be
to be thankful there's so much bad stuff going on I think so many bad
things that can go on in anyone's life are going on that you're just
bound to be discouraged unless you're intentionally unless you
intentionally focus on the good things and there is so much to be to be
thankful for and it's not carnal to just intentionally remind yourself
about that I really appreciated that so many so many things that you
shared I was thankful for there really is a power in the attitude of
gratitude there is a strength there I was kind of sitting here thinking
how if every one of us in this room could lay hold of that like he just
shared, my brother Dwayne just shared it there I think there's a good
chance every single one of us in this room could overcome the world it's
it's one of those things that if you can lay hold of that it's gonna
it's just such a power behind it it can do so many things in your life
and I just really appreciated that it made me think of the scripture in
Psalms so while I sing praise unto thy name forever that I may daily
perform my vows I thought about this how just when we're in that place
it enables us to do the things that we have to do we're in that place of
thankfulness over the years I realized that God teaches us gratitude
amen, he does want to teach us gratitude but one reason or one way how
he teaches us gratitude is not by giving us what we want but by taking
it away it's not it's not because you get everything you want that you
learn to be grateful for things it's by not having them and then when
you do get them you'll be grateful for them and it makes you kind of I
don't know how to tie it all together but Jesus asks us to give up
everything you know and then and then in his time he gives them back to
us with a proper understanding of how to treat those things which would
be to be grateful for them Paul also said in every state I am something
like in every state that I am in I have learned to therewith be content
whether he's a baster he's abounding, he has learned to be content it's
like he had laid hold of that gratitude that thankfulness and whether he
had stuff or he was in a place of comfort he knew how to rightly divide
it and be thankful for it but not set his heart on it and if he had
nothing he knew how to rightly divide it and be thankful and just he had
that proper that proper mindset and when you were sharing about the mind
and the heart it made me think of the mind of Christ you know all those
things that you were sharing that's really what God is trying to teach
us what Christ is trying to give us is his mind and the mind of Christ
is to have that that thankfulness and that gratitude at all times and
whether we're abased or abounding to be thankful and that's really a
blessing Thank you Yeah, how many times do any of us when we run into
temporal problems that we want immediately to come up with our own
manifestation of a temporal solution like the way that that King like he
just right away it's like there was a fast and everybody was fasting it
even reminds me of when Jonah walked through the city for three days
declaring the judgment of God and the King right away just went into
sackcloth and ashes and declared fast in the at least the one that I
have there's the hymn of the the three Jews the three Hebrews when
they're thrown into the fire and they're singing in the furnace it might
not be in the Masoretic but it's in the but at the end of it, it's quite
long actually but at the end of it, it says now Nebuchadnezzar heard
their singing and he marveled and rose up in haste and saw his nobles he
marveled that these people are in the flames and they're singing Psalm
100 make a joyful noise unto the Lord all you lands serve the Lord with
gladness come before his presence with singing know ye that the Lord he
is God it is he that hath made us and not we ourselves we are his people
and the sheep of his pasture enter into his gates of thanksgiving and
into his courts of praise be thankful unto him and bless his name for
the Lord is good his mercy is everlasting and his truth endureth to all
generations the thought I had was serve the Lord with gladness come
before his presence with singing and then where it says enter into his
gates of thanksgiving I mean the thought is like you would enter into
the gates of thanksgiving but the thought is also like maybe that's what
opens the gates so that you can enter for the beauty of the earth for
the beauty of the skies for the love that's from our earth over and
around us lies Christ our God to thee we raise this our hymn of grateful
praise for the joy of human love brother sister parent child friends on
earth and friends above for all gentle thoughts and mild Christ our God
to thee we raise this our hymn of grateful praise for a church that
evermore liveth with holy hands above offering up on every shore his
poor sacrifice of love Christ our God to thee we raise this our hymn of
grateful praise for thy self as gift divine to our days so freely given
for that great, great love of mine peace on earth and joy in heaven
Christ our God to thee we raise this our hymn of grateful praise for
worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness in the beauty of holiness in
the beauty of holiness of holiness to the Father above in him mercy be
joyful all ye people and magnify Jehovah of glory oh come before his
presence and glorify his name oh worship the Lord in the beauty of
holiness in the beauty of holiness in the beauty of holiness of holiness
to Jesus our gracious redeemer we praise him for he loved us and brought
us to his salvation oh glory oh come before his presence and glorify his
name oh worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness in the beauty of
holiness in the beauty of holiness of holiness to the spirit the holy
redeemer we praise him for the Father and the Son our Savior oh glory oh
come before his presence and glorify his name therefore the redeemed of
the Lord shall return and from the sinning on his right arm everlasting
joy shall be upon their heads therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall
return and from the sinning on his right arm everlasting joy shall be
upon their heads they shall obtain gladness and joy and sorrow and
mourning shall be away therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return
and from the sinning on his right arm everlasting joy shall be upon
their heads and families all along the hill shall find many friends and
soldiers try and rest on battle where the night shall veil the glowing
skies against the foe impaled below the shrinking earth faith is a river
we know that overcomes the world faith is a victory faith is a victory
oh glorious victory that overcomes the world his banner over us his
blood our sword the word of God we travel the road that sings of love
with shouts of triumph high I think they like a whirlwind's breath swept
on o'er every field the fate I wish they conquered then they're still
our shining shield faith is a victory faith is a victory oh glorious
victory that overcomes the world to him that overcomes the foe thy
strength shall be his before the angels he shall know his name confess
in heaven that overcomes the hills of night our hearts with love of
faith will vanquish all the hosts of night in Jesus glory name faith is
a victory faith is a victory oh glorious victory that overcomes the
world the lord is my light is my light is my salvation whom shall I fear
the lord is the strength is the strength of my life of whom shall I be
afraid the lord is the strength of my life of whom shall I be afraid the
lord is the strength of my life of whom be afraid the lord is the
strength of my life of whom shall I be afraid the lord is the strength
of my life of whom shall I be afraid of my life of whom shall I be
afraid of my life be afraid of my life shall I be afraid of my life

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Video: https://sermonindex2.b-cdn.net/BVHh_MeNOV0.mp4
Source: https://sermonindex.net/speakers/duane-troyer/an-attitude-of-gratitude/
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