How to Speak God's Love Language

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We're talking about gratitude today,

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

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I love all the little tchotchke things my kids

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

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I love them.

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And my wife, we're the same way.

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

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My son Samuel made this work of art,

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

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And then he has me standing on top of the house

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

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my goatee in his drawing.

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So I love that. I love this.

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I keep this on my desk here at Crossroads.

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This is my son, Nathan, who who actually

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is quite a bit larger than this right now.

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This is when he was little.

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He made me this cute little daddy frame.

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He's almost as tall as me now.

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So this is going back some years.

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And then my dear daughter Isabelle is an artist.

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She made this abstract snowman art for me

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a couple Christmases ago.

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And I just keep all of these things.

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

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

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

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

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

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I'm not going to do that.

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But I love all of these.

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My wife and I, we keep all of these.

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Why do we keep that?

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Why is it so delightful for me?

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I mean, look, I love my kids

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and my kids actually do have artistic ability,

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but this isn't like Banksy level quality stuff.

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

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

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Maybe I delight in the ways that my kids recognize me

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and thank me because God is that way toward us,

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because God is that way toward you and I.

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

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God does not need your gratitude.

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He's not wringing His hands right now saying,

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"Oh, it's Sunday morning.

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I hope they're going to be people singing

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in church this morning to me."

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No, He doesn't need our gratitude.

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But you know what? He loves your gratitude.

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He loves it when you and I say thank you

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in the same way that a good father loves it

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when their kids recognize them.

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And so today, as we talk about gratitude,

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we want to talk about what does it teach us

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about God's character and what does it teach us

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

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Let's pray.

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God, I ask that you would just bring this

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into focus for all of us.

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

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today to maybe have a surprise,

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to see something surprising about Your heart,

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about who You are

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and the relationship that You want for us.

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And so I'm praying that all of us

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would open that surprise today.

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

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

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that's different than what we have right now.

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

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This is a really good book, Five Love Languages.

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And one of the quotes in the book

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is from a psychologist. It says this:

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

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

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And we're learning it today

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through the lens of the book of Leviticus.

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Leviticus, as you saw in the opening video,

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one of the oldest books in the Bible.

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It's a book that can be complicated.

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

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

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about sacrifices in the altar.

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There's all kinds of things in Leviticus

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that can be confusing to us to understand.

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

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If you're going to understand Jesus,

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you have to understand Leviticus.

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

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that God instituted through the book of Leviticus

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for the Nation of Israel, because they teach us

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something about God and they also teach us

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something about Jesus.

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And that's definitely true with the offering

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we're going to look at today.

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But the idea today is through this offering,

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the grain offering we're talking about,

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and I don't typically title my messages,

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but I'm titling this one

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How to Speak God's Love Language.

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We're going to learn today

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how to speak God's love language

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and His love language is gratitude.

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His love language is thankfulness.

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Thankfulness is a powerful, powerful reality in our world.

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Just look at some of these statistics.

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This is from Forbes.com.

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That's how important being thanked

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is to us as human beings.

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How about this one?

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

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It doesn't mean that they're leaving

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maybe for another opportunity.

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

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and going to another job

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is because I don't feel appreciated.

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How about this one?

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Something we need, but something that so many of us

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feel like we're lacking in our lives.

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

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

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Maybe you're a principal of a school,

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maybe you manage a team in some other context.

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Hey, I want to help you reduce employee turnover.

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I want to help you on your bottom line.

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This week, in the next seven days,

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

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And guess what?

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Your boss wants to be thanked, too.

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So if you're not a manager,

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that means you have a manager

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and most of us have a manager.

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Some time in the next seven days,

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

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The power of thankfulness is really deep.

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And I think it's that way for us

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because it's that way with God.

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And so we see that through this grain offering,

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which shows up in the book of Leviticus chapter two.

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This is what it says in verse one.

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So this is the place where we see the grain offering

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described in the book of Leviticus.

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And I want to teach you a Hebrew word today.

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

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might not appreciate you saying, because

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we're going to try to pronounce it

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the way it's pronounced in the Hebrew language.

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

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

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

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

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One, two, three. AUDIENCE: Mincha.

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- That's right.

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

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the person behind you did it right.

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Mincha. Mincha.

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This word Mincha is actually the word for offering.

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It means to offer up something in gratitude.

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

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But often it was also including

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something that had to do with food.

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And so here's how this Mincha worked.

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Here's how the grain Mincha worked.

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

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we would bring to God the first of our grain,

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the fine flour that we've meshed out of wheat

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that we will use to make bread,

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which was essential to life in the Middle East,

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still is essential to life everywhere in the world.

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We would bring that to the tabernacle.

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This kind of soft structure

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is meant to represent the tabernacle,

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the tent of meeting where God dwelled with His people

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and where he gave them the book of Leviticus,

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these instructions.

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So you would bring your grain, your Mincha offering,

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and what you would do is you would give it

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to the priest or to the priests sons because

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their job was to offer the sacrifices

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for the people to God.

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They were kind of the go between.

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And the priests would take from

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whatever you gave them of the grain.

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

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

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And then the rest of the offering,

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they would actually get to keep as the priest.

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

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

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So the way that the Levites, the priests were fed

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and cared for and their families is from the Mincha,

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the offerings of the people

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after they had offered that small sacrifice to God,

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they got to keep the rest.

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This is the grain offering.

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A couple of other things that

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are important to know about this offering.

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One is that God required this offering

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to be given with some salt.

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

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

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I want a little seasoning on that."

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I mean, can I get an amen, somebody?

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Like, I want a little flavor in my food.

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I love that God is saying,

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"Don't just give me this bland stuff.

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I want a little salt on the offering."

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We'll talk about why that salt was so important

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a little bit later.

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Another thing is He says

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this cannot be offered with honey or yeast,

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so it had to be unleavened bread.

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And the reason for that is because yeast

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

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So that was the reason for that.

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But here's the other thing

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that I think is interesting about this offering.

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There was no required amount of grain.

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

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if you were here a couple of weeks ago,

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he did an offering that was around lambs and goats.

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

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

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But in this case, it allowed for people

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who had much to offer their much,

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but people who had little to offer their little.

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And that tells us something about God's heart

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behind instituting this grain offering.

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You could say this: the grain offering

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was really about reminding people

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and for people to say to God,

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

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And so out of what you have given Me,

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I am giving back to you."

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You could say the grain offering

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is a sacrifice of gratitude.

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It's a sacrifice of gratitude.

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And in this sacrifice, the way that God describes it

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and instructs the people to do it,

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

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Number one, we learn that God wants our best.

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God wants our best. Think about it.

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

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Grain, wheat, what they needed to make bread,

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unspeakably valuable to them.

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

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to literally offer the source of life to God.

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It was them giving God their very, very best.

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And it took remarkable trust to do this.

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

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we've got some green thumbs.

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Raise your hand if you're a green thumb,

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like, you can grow anything.

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You can bring plants back to life.

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

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That is not me. That is not me.

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I have plants and I kill plants.

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That's what I do.

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I have them and then I kill them.

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And so my wife is a green thumb.

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I am not.

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And so, but here's the thing.

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All the plants that I have killed,

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

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

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

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

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Can you imagine living in a desert, raising grain?

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And if it doesn't work out for you,

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if you don't have a green thumb,

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

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out of that soil and how to make sure

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that you water it enough appropriately,

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how to make sure that you keep it away

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from all of the other things

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that would want to take it from you.

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If you don't figure that out,

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your family's life is on the line.

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

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And so when the people offered it to God,

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

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You're worthy of our sacrifice."

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I mean, remember, this is a society

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where, you know, we get upset about rain.

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We get upset that it's March

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and we still have snow in the forecast.

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I get upset that we're still in March

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and there's snow in the forecast. Right?

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But they celebrated all kinds of precipitation

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because they desperately needed it.

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They didn't have Kroger. Right?

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They didn't have Target.

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

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

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

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Like, so these are people who were dependent

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on what came out of the ground.

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

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And so to give it to God was basically saying,

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"God, we're saying you are more important

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than the source of our life, and in fact,

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you are the ultimate source of our life."

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So it was a way for them to symbolize

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

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

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God wants our hearts in generosity.

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

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because God wasn't He wasn't after something

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

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This wasn't transactional for God.

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I believe it was relational.

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In the same way that I don't care

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what my kids use to create something for me.

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

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or if they bought it from a store

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or if they made it with their hands.

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What I care about is the fact

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that my kid was thinking about me

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and they took the time to get something

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

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That's all that I care about.

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

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Which means we all have grain to share.

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

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This isn't something that's cut off

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from those who don't have much.

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We all have grain to share.

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

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Now, I will say this.

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I know that for many of us, me included,

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sometimes it's hard to be thankful

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or sometimes it's hard to produce that gratitude,

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to produce that grain for God

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when things are going hard, when things are difficult.

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

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You just got something new.

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You just got a promotion.

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It's easy to then in those moments say,

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"Oh, I'm thankful to God,"

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and rattle off the goodness in your life.

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

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But even in the most difficult days of my life,

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

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When I lost my father, I was surrounded by friendship

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and community like you couldn't imagine.

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So even in the midst of that loss,

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there was the grain of gratitude

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that I am not grieving alone.

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When I've had illness or other things impact me

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or other people in my family, there have been

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these moments of recognizing, "You know what?

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This is putting into perspective

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how important this person is in my life.

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

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and I want to see them healed,

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

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

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Because there's grain and gratitude,

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even on the hardest days of our lives.

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May not be easy to give it,

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but there's always grain to give to God.

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And what God wants is our hearts.

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

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He wanted to be a salty offering.

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

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it actually is a pleasing aroma to my nostrils,

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is what God says.

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

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

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So why is God saying in this moment,

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"When you offer this and your whole heart,

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it's a pleasing aroma to me"?

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

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in human terms a supernatural reality

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that even though we are created beings,

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we have the ability to delight our creator.

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We have the ability to make the creator of the universe

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smile in the same way that when I see

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

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God wants your heart.

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And when you give your heart to Him in gratitude,

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He smiles, He rejoices, He delights in that.

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It's a beautiful aspect of who He is.

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But there's another meaning to this salt,

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

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The salt, or salt in general in those days,

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was a preservative, right?

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It was meant to help things last.

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And so in this description of Leviticus 2

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and the grain offering, God uses this phrase.

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He says when you put the salt on it,

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

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See, God created a relationship

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with the Nation of Israel that was

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an unconditional love relationship, very much like

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the relationship between a parent and a child,

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very much like the relationship between

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a committed spouse to another.

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It was a covenant relationship.

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It was a always and forever, never stopping,

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not going to give up kind of relationship.

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And so God wanted a little bit of salt

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on the grain offering so that the giver of the offering

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would be reminded that just like this salt preserves,

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God's love for you will preserve,

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that you'll never do anything that will cause

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the Father of the Universe once you have come back

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into relationship with Him through Jesus

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and you're in that covenant relationship,

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

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He will never abandon you.

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He wants you to know that that salt of the covenant

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is true of His love for you and for me.

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It's beautiful.

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So God is giving all of these pictures to the people

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as they give this grain offering to Him.

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Because God wants our heart and God wants our best.

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

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far more than He needs it from you.

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He wants it for you and for me.

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Notice this.

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

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

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that gets burned on the altar. Right?

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And after that, it has no other useful life.

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It's burnt.

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

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But He says the most holy part of the offering,

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actually the greater part of the offering,

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

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whatever it is of the offering

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that the priest actually gets to enjoy.

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

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Even the sacrifice that He requires from us

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is actually something He wants for us.

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I think about this as a father.

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

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and often times for the last several years

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

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And so one of the things we always do

00:18:33

is we go to the same restaurant there, Pinchers,

00:18:35

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

00:18:36

And it's an opportunity for me

00:18:38

to be with my family on Father's Day.

00:18:40

And I love it. We get dressed up.

00:18:42

The kids have given me little cards.

00:18:43

You know, Maria has done her thing,

00:18:45

Like, it's beautiful. I love it.

00:18:46

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

00:18:49

At the end of that meal,

00:18:50

when the server comes and brings the check,

00:18:53

guess who they bring the check to?

00:18:57

The same person who pays the check

00:18:59

every other time we go out to dinner.

00:19:01

I get the check, right?

00:19:02

My kids are celebrating me,

00:19:04

but I'm paying for it, right?

00:19:07

Can I get an amen

00:19:08

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

00:19:10

Same with Christmas.

00:19:11

Like, my kids, they blow my mind on Christmas

00:19:14

because they'll think of, like, little things

00:19:15

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

00:19:18

that I need that maybe need replaced or whatever.

00:19:20

And so their gifts are always really thoughtful

00:19:23

and really special.

00:19:24

But if you follow the money trail on those gifts,

00:19:26

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

00:19:29

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

00:19:31

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

00:19:34

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

00:19:36

But can I tell you something?

00:19:38

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

00:19:40

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

00:19:44

I will pay for my kids to give me gifts

00:19:46

because I love my kids and I love it

00:19:49

that my kids want to celebrate me.

00:19:51

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

00:19:54

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

00:19:57

Everything.

00:19:58

Your words, your voice, your time,

00:20:00

your presence, your talents.

00:20:02

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

00:20:05

When you give it back to him in gratitude,

00:20:07

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

00:20:10

He loves it. [cheers and applause]

00:20:14

You can't outgive God.

00:20:18

But you don't have to because God loves it

00:20:22

when his kids recognize Him.

00:20:24

And so isn't it interesting that even gratitude,

00:20:27

even the act of gratitude, does way more for you

00:20:31

than it does for God?

00:20:32

You guys have seen the science on this.

00:20:34

Let me just remind you,

00:20:35

gratitude can decrease depression, anxiety,

00:20:39

difficulties with chronic pain and risk of disease.

00:20:42

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

00:20:47

He goes on to say:

00:21:07

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

00:21:13

Isn't that true?

00:21:15

If you could get from a pill

00:21:18

what you can get from being thankful to God,

00:21:20

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

00:21:23

Isn't God good

00:21:25

that even in giving you the command to be grateful,

00:21:28

He is giving you something that is far better for you

00:21:31

than what He needs from you.

00:21:34

Gratitude is for us.

00:21:37

You know, if someone were to ask me

00:21:39

what's your biggest vision for your kids?

00:21:43

What's your greatest desire for your kids?

00:21:46

I often use this verse to answer that question.

00:21:49

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

00:21:51

And 3 John 4 says this:

00:21:58

And as a father, that's what I want

00:22:00

more than anything else for my kids.

00:22:02

I have no greater joy than knowing that

00:22:04

Nathan, Isabelle and Samuel are walking in the truth.

00:22:08

And here's what I want you to know.

00:22:09

When you and I are walking in gratitude toward God,

00:22:12

we are walking in the truth.

00:22:14

We are walking in the truth.

00:22:16

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

00:22:19

We're seeing God rightly.

00:22:20

We're seeing His kindness, rightly.

00:22:22

We're seeing His mercy rightly.

00:22:23

We're seeing His love rightly.

00:22:25

We're seeing His forgiveness rightly.

00:22:27

We're seeing His generosity rightly

00:22:29

when we are walking in gratitude.

00:22:32

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

00:22:35

we're seeing ourselves rightly too.

00:22:38

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

00:22:40

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

00:22:43

that we're the objects of His kindness,

00:22:44

that He has forgiven us.

00:22:46

So I have no greater joy

00:22:47

and I believe God has no greater joy than knowing

00:22:50

that his children are walking in gratitude

00:22:52

because when we walk in gratitude

00:22:53

we're walking in the truth.

00:22:56

And here's why.

00:22:58

Because our gratitude is how God knows

00:23:01

we understand the gravity of His kindness toward us.

00:23:05

I told you that everything that we see in Leviticus

00:23:08

points to Jesus in some way.

00:23:10

I want to show you the beautiful connection

00:23:13

of what God instituted thousands of years ago

00:23:15

in a tent for the Nation of Israel

00:23:17

and how it connects to Jesus today.

00:23:20

Right now we're celebrating the season of Lent

00:23:23

in the calendar of the church,

00:23:25

the 40 days leading up to Easter,

00:23:28

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

00:23:32

where we remember Jesus dying on a Cross for us,

00:23:35

sacrificing Himself for us,

00:23:37

and then ultimately looking forward to Easter

00:23:39

when He rose and beat death and offered us a life

00:23:43

that we couldn't have without His power.

00:23:46

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

00:23:49

this Lenten season, it was interesting to review

00:23:51

this grain offering in Leviticus.

00:23:55

Jesus gives Himself many names in the Scriptures.

00:23:58

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

00:24:01

"I am the Bread of Life."

00:24:03

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

00:24:08

And interestingly, the grain offering was an offering,

00:24:12

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

00:24:15

the ninth hour.

00:24:18

The ninth hour in the way that the Jewish people

00:24:21

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

00:24:24

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

00:24:27

So when you were bringing your Mincha,

00:24:29

that wasn't an offering for the morning.

00:24:30

Your Mincha wasn't an offering for the evening.

00:24:33

The Mincha offering, the grain offering,

00:24:36

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

00:24:39

Interestingly, not coincidentally, the Bible

00:24:42

was very clear in all four accounts of

00:24:44

the four gospels of Jesus's crucifixion

00:24:47

that it was at the ninth hour

00:24:48

when Jesus breathed His last breath.

00:24:50

It was the ninth hour when Jesus became

00:24:54

the ultimate Mincha sacrifice of God.

00:24:57

God gave us His best in sacrificing Jesus for us.

00:25:00

God gave us His heart in sacrificing Jesus for us.

00:25:04

And He did that for us

00:25:05

more than He needed anything from us

00:25:08

because Jesus was God's ultimate Mincha

00:25:10

so we would know how much our Father loves us.

00:25:14

Powerful connection to who Jesus is.

00:25:18

So every time they were burning this offering,

00:25:21

every time they were doing this,

00:25:22

they were preparing their hearts for the time

00:25:24

when God would make the ultimate Mincha,

00:25:26

the ultimate sacrifice of the Bread of Life.

00:25:30

And so Paul is reflecting on this

00:25:32

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

00:25:34

And in Ephesians 5:2 he says this:

00:25:45

There's that sweet smelling aroma.

00:25:47

This is all connected to who Jesus is.

00:25:50

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

00:25:53

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

00:25:57

I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters,

00:25:59

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

00:26:02

in view of God's sacrifice,

00:26:04

to present your bodies a living Minka.

00:26:07

It's the same word, living sacrifice,

00:26:09

holy and acceptable to God,

00:26:11

which is your spiritual act of worship.

00:26:14

It might be that the greatest indicator

00:26:18

that you actually are a follower of Jesus,

00:26:21

even more than your love for other people,

00:26:24

might be your gratitude toward God.

00:26:28

One author put it this way:

00:26:38

God wants to make a home in a grateful heart.

00:26:42

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

00:26:46

to offer gratitude, Minka sacrifice to Him.

00:26:49

And so may we be those people,

00:26:51

may we be people whose hearts are so moved to gratitude

00:26:54

because of the kindness of our Father toward us

00:26:57

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

00:27:01

as an ultimate sacrifice."

00:27:03

Recently I had a conversation with Justin Mosteller,

00:27:06

who's on the worship team here at Crossroads.

00:27:09

And he was telling me a story.

00:27:10

And it so resonated with this theme

00:27:12

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

00:27:14

So Justin's coming up now.

00:27:16

Let's give it up for Justin Mosteller

00:27:18

as he comes and joins me up here.

00:27:23

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

00:27:24

- Absolutely, man. - Yeah, man.

00:27:26

- So thinking back, I think this was

00:27:28

a hallway conversation during the Super Bowl service.

00:27:30

- That's right.

00:27:31

We see less of each other these days.

00:27:33

I know.

00:27:34

So Super Bowl we got to catch up.

00:27:36

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

00:27:38

but specifically, you were talking to me

00:27:40

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

00:27:43

So introduce us to your mother-in-law.

00:27:45

- That's right.

00:27:46

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

00:27:49

There is no one in my life right now

00:27:52

who's giving God the sacrifice of gratitude

00:27:54

like my mother-in-law is.

00:27:55

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

00:27:57

with her full permission, mind you.

00:27:59

- Yes.

00:28:00

- But I want to introduce you to her.

00:28:01

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

00:28:04

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

00:28:06

They also have another sister not in that photo,

00:28:08

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

00:28:11

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

00:28:13

And you can, too.

00:28:15

So she is an amazing grandmother to my four kids.

00:28:18

And so I call her Grammy.

00:28:20

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

00:28:22

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

00:28:25

And for the last several years,

00:28:26

she joins us every weekend from home.

00:28:29

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

00:28:32

Everybody join me. Say hi, Grammy.

00:28:34

Good morning. I love you.

00:28:35

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

00:28:37

Grammy. - Yeah.

00:28:38

And and the reason that she resonates with you

00:28:41

in terms of gratitude is because

00:28:42

she's been going through a really difficult time.

00:28:44

So talk about what her journey has been

00:28:46

in the last 4 or 5 years.

00:28:48

- Yeah, I mean, you said it earlier,

00:28:49

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

00:28:52

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

00:28:55

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

00:28:57

But here's what I want you to hear is

00:28:59

a challenge to each one of us:

00:29:01

What's the grain that we have

00:29:03

in the best days or worst days?

00:29:05

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

00:29:06

In the last five years her life completely changed.

00:29:10

In February of 2018, she was diagnosed

00:29:13

with idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis.

00:29:16

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

00:29:19

But it's a lung disease.

00:29:20

And specifically it's the same lung disease

00:29:23

that her father passed away from

00:29:25

and that her sister was passing away from.

00:29:28

She was -- Grammy was diagnosed in February.

00:29:31

Her sister was passing away from it

00:29:33

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

00:29:37

Her life completely changed that year

00:29:40

because Grammy was active, like,

00:29:41

Grammy was a nurse for 45 years of her life.

00:29:45

She was a NICU nurse down at UC Hospital

00:29:47

for 30 years of her life.

00:29:48

Incredible grandmother, all these things.

00:29:51

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

00:29:54

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

00:29:59

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

00:30:01

I talked to her this week and said,

00:30:03

we were just prepping for this.

00:30:04

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

00:30:07

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

00:30:10

She stands in gratitude today,

00:30:11

but that hasn't always been the case

00:30:13

in her journey through this because

00:30:16

she's mourned and grieved and lost.

00:30:18

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

00:30:23

she could have chosen bitterness,

00:30:25

and all of us would have said,

00:30:26

"You've got every right to, Grammy.

00:30:28

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

00:30:30

And yet she's continued to practice gratitude.

00:30:34

Like, her smile today lights up the whole room.

00:30:37

The hugs she gives my kids

00:30:38

are better than any gifts they could ask Grammy for.

00:30:41

She's chosen gratitude,

00:30:44

and I've seen her continually choose love

00:30:46

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

00:30:50

and to choose to worship God

00:30:52

right in the midst of her circumstances.

00:30:54

- That's powerful. - Yeah.

00:30:55

- That's powerful, man.

00:30:56

And actually, you had her in mind when you

00:31:01

and the music team wrote the song

00:31:03

that we sung that opened our time today, Grateful.

00:31:05

So talk about that. How did that connection happen?

00:31:08

- Yeah, well we started several months ago last year

00:31:12

just starting to write songs for our church.

00:31:14

And she was just in my mind.

00:31:16

I wanted to just see if we could write

00:31:18

the song that Grammy lives out every day.

00:31:21

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

00:31:24

And so it was with her in mind that we started

00:31:26

to write this song called Grateful.

00:31:28

- Yeah. - And I remember finishing it

00:31:30

and you finish something and you're like,

00:31:32

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

00:31:33

but it was meaningful to me.

00:31:35

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

00:31:37

I sent it to her on a voice memo,

00:31:39

and she declared right then and there,

00:31:40

"This is my song."

00:31:42

So you may think it's your song.

00:31:44

I'm here to tell you Grammy disagrees,

00:31:46

and I'm not going to disagree with her.

00:31:48

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

00:31:50

And she has continually carried this song since then.

00:31:54

And I'll tell you this.

00:31:55

Here's what I asked Grammy this week.

00:31:58

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

00:32:01

about the sacrifice of gratitude?"

00:32:04

Here's her answer:

00:32:06

It is a continuous commitment

00:32:08

that has grown in me over the years.

00:32:10

It feels more natural with frequent repetition.

00:32:13

And that's what it is.

00:32:15

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

00:32:18

And then she says these words:

00:32:24

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

00:32:30

She was diagnosed five years ago

00:32:32

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

00:32:34

Every Christmas and every Thanksgiving

00:32:36

has been this may be the last one.

00:32:38

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

00:32:42

and she says this:

00:32:44

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

00:32:46

but this far into my disease, I can say

00:32:48

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

00:32:52

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

00:32:56

I'm living in the presence of God,

00:32:58

a sense of sitting on His knee.

00:33:00

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

00:33:04

I believe -- these are strong right here.

00:33:08

I believe that I will still have

00:33:10

pulmonary fibrosis when I die.

00:33:12

But I also believe that God has healed me completely.

00:33:16

He's brought me so much peace and wisdom

00:33:18

through the journey of my disease

00:33:19

that I feel healed and whole today.

00:33:22

Friends, that is what gratitude sounds like.

00:33:25

- Sacrifice of gratitude. Yeah. [applause]

00:33:28

- Can I show you a photo? - Yes.

00:33:30

- I want to show you another photo.

00:33:31

This is my favorite picture of Grammy

00:33:33

that she showed to me this week.

00:33:36

This is her standing in this auditorium

00:33:38

just a few months ago

00:33:39

on the night of our Thanksgiving Eve service.

00:33:42

She came.

00:33:43

She never thought she'd get to come back

00:33:45

to this auditorium, but she came

00:33:46

and sat right down here in front.

00:33:47

That's her standing connected to her oxygen,

00:33:51

standing out of her wheelchair with hands lifted high,

00:33:54

singing her song Grateful.

00:33:57

That is what gratitude looks like.

00:33:59

- Amen. - Yeah.

00:34:01

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

00:34:05

- Thank you.

00:34:06

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

00:34:09

Justin told me that story, and I was like,

00:34:11

you know what? Grammy' leading us.

00:34:13

She's leading us in how to respond,

00:34:16

how to offer our Mincha of gratitude to God.

00:34:19

And so we're going to do something

00:34:21

that we usually don't do.

00:34:23

We usually kind of at this point have

00:34:25

all the different sites kind of have

00:34:26

their own local worship moment.

00:34:28

But we said, you know what?

00:34:29

What an opportunity for us as one church to offer

00:34:32

a sacrifice of gratitude to God together.

00:34:34

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

00:34:36

whatever site you're in.

00:34:39

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

00:34:41

the grain of gratitude in this season of your life.

00:34:44

And I want you to be a person of integrity

00:34:46

and know you can be wherever you are

00:34:48

emotionally with God in this moment.

00:34:50

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

00:34:52

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

00:34:55

Pleases the heart of your good Father.

00:34:58

And I know it does something for your heart

00:35:00

that nothing else can.

00:35:01

So let's sing this song as an act

00:35:04

of that Mincha sacrifice to a good Father together.

00:35:07

Let's sing.

00:35:11

- Sing for every breath.

00:35:18

For every breath that I have breathed

00:35:23

for every gift that I've received

00:35:28

for all the kindness you have so

00:35:33

I am grateful

00:35:45

Sing those words again.

00:35:47

For every breath that I have breathed

00:35:53

for every gift that I've received

00:35:58

for all the kindness you have shown

00:36:03

I am grateful to Jesus.

00:36:10

Jesus, I will sing,

00:36:14

oh, my soul shall ever be

00:36:19

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

00:36:36

Gratitude for the work he's done.

00:36:39

For the Cross on which You died

00:36:44

and for the grave from which You rise

00:36:49

that I now stand, set free and saved

00:36:55

Oh, I am grateful

00:37:01

Yes, we are, right here God.

00:37:05

We give him our offering of gratitude.

00:37:07

Oh for the Cross on which you died

00:37:13

and for the grave from which You rise

00:37:18

that I now stand set free and saved

00:37:24

oh, I am grateful

00:37:29

Oh, Jesus, I will sing

00:37:35

and my soul shall ever be

00:37:40

from rising sun to end of day

00:37:45

I am grateful

00:37:50

Lift it up.

00:37:51

oh, Jesus, I will sing

00:37:56

and my soul shall ever be

00:38:01

from rising sun to end of day

00:38:07

I am grateful

00:38:13

I am grateful

00:38:18

I am grateful

00:38:23

[applause]

00:38:34

- God, what an amazing mystery it is

00:38:37

that our words of gratitude actually reach Your heart,

00:38:42

that they're are sweet smelling aroma to You.

00:38:45

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

00:38:49

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

00:38:52

help us to find it.

00:38:53

Help us to find it, God.

00:38:55

I think about something that's been a mantra

00:38:56

that I've been using this year.

00:38:58

I wake up every day and say,

00:38:59

"This is the day the Lord has made.

00:39:01

I will be glad.

00:39:02

I will give thanks and be glad in it."

00:39:04

But then there's another part of that mantra

00:39:06

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

00:39:08

This is the day the Lord has made

00:39:10

and I will rejoice and be glad in it somehow.

00:39:13

Some days we got to put the somehow on that

00:39:16

because it might not be as clear.

00:39:17

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

00:39:21

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

00:39:24

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

00:39:27

Thank You for the way You love us.

00:39:29

Thank You for the way You lead us.

00:39:31

Thank You for what You have given us in Jesus.

00:39:33

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

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