Look What God Has Done!
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ENGAGE
Why a gratitude journal.
“If You Feel Thankful, Write It Down. It's Good For Your Health”
December 24, 2018
Kristen Uroda for NPR
Over this past year, lifestyle blogger Aileen Xu has kept a monthly gratitude list.
Sometimes it was the big stuff: "I'm grateful that my family is so understanding. I'm grateful so many people care."
And sometimes it was life's little blessings: "July 2018: I'm grateful for good hair after I shower."
Xu started making such lists when she was in college, "at a point when I was just not in a very good place in my life." Now, the 28-year-old lifestyle blogger and YouTuber recommends the practice to her nearly 750,000 subscribers.
It wasn't a hard sell.
"I think just over the last few years there's been more of a trend to focus on gratitude," says psychologist Laurie Santos, who teaches a course on the science of well-being and happiness at Yale.
Gratitude Is Good For The Soul And Helps The Heart, Too
Gratitude is being endorsed by wellness blogs and magazines. You can buy different kinds of specific gratitude journals, or download apps that remind you to jot down your blessings.
"Those types of products can remind us to take time to be grateful," Santos says. "But it's also important to remember that gratitude is free."
And noting your gratitude seems to pay off: There's a growing body of research on the benefits of gratitude. Studies have found that giving thanks and counting blessings can help people sleep better, lower stress and improve interpersonal relationships. Earlier this year, a study found that keeping a gratitude journal decreased materialism and bolstered generosity among adolescents.
In another study from August, high school students who were asked to keep gratitude journals also reported healthier eating. There's also some evidence it could lower your risk of heart disease and lower symptoms of depression for some people.
That's why gratitude features heavily in Santos' happiness class. "It's one of the practices that really wins out from the field of positive psychology," she says, because it takes very little time, and "the benefits are so powerful."
ENCOUNTER
There was someone in the Bible who understood well the value of gratitude - David. Yes, King David, the shepherd / psalmist, got it well. So well, he penned on of the most beloved Psalms that is basically his personal gratitude journal. I am thankful, that he didn’t keep this journal to himself. No, millions and millions of people have benefited from this beautiful writing!
Main Idea - Bless the Lord for What He Has Done for You!
Bless = “Kneel down” - a position of worship or humility בָּרַךְ (bā·rǎḵ)
The first thing I want you to notice from this text is that this Psalm, at least the first part is focused on him.
It is a self-command. And it is a command to himself.
Look at verse 1.
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!
David is saying, “I must bless the Lord with all that I am! I must bless God’s name. A name that is “holy,” “set apart,” “unique,” “consecrated!”
This is what David commanded himself to do!
No wonder God referred to him as a man after His own heart (1 Sam 13:14, Acts 13:22).
By the way, do you do this? Do you command yourself to “Bless the Lord with all that is within you?”
We’d be wise to follow his example!
Why was David so determined to “bless” the name of God?
To answer this is to discover what this entire Psalm is all about!
We will only focus on verses 2-5 and what you will find is five reasons David “blessed” the LORD!
In fact, David tells us what his focus for his blessing will be in verse 2.
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits,
David understood well that anything he had, anything he could enjoy, anything that made his life on this planet better and benefited him, was reason to bless the LORD.
Did David have a great deal of struggle and challenge through his life? Yes! However, he never forgot where his help came from, it was from the Lord.
We again must follow his example and “bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not ALL His benefits!”
What are the benefits David had in mind? There are five in the next three verses.
Let’s take a look...
1. Bless the LORD for His Forgiveness (vs. 3a)
Psalm 103:3a (ESV)
who forgives all your iniquity...
Explain - David understood the gospel. He understood that redemption comes from the Lord. And redemption is only possible through the forgiveness of God.
David blessed the Lord for His forgiveness.
Illustrate - To forgive is to release from a debt.
God releases all who repent of their sins and place their faith in Christ.
Apply - Have you been forgiven by God? If not you need to be.
If you have been forgiven by God, when is the last time you blessed him for such a grand demonstration of kindness, forbearance, and love?
David’s words are so good for us to hear so we too can bless God for His forgiveness of ALL your personal iniquity/sin.
Review - Bless the Lord for What He Has Done for You!
Transition - He has forgiven you!
2. Bless the LORD for His Healing Power (vs. 3b)
Psalm 103:3b (ESV)
...who heals all your diseases...
Explain - David understood well that God is the Great Physician and that He is the one who superintends over our health.
Yet there are so many who suffer, who are sick and unhealthy. What are we supposed to do with a promise like this one when we see so many hurting physically?
Illustrate - My friend Lonnie who has been in the hospital with Covid Pneumonia since Thanksgiving. Why does God not simply heal him and let him go home.
How could David legitimately claim such a promise?
Where is David now? The last time we read about David, he lie sick and in bed, ready to die. But we know now that this man after God’s own heart is with the great physician, fully healed and healthier than he ever was in this life.
Apply - If you are a follower of Christ, this is true for you as well. No matter what ails you today, you will be fully restored and made better than ever. When you die here, you will live there - I mean really live, forever!!
Review - Bless the Lord for What He Has Done for You!
Transition - He’s forgiven you, healed you, and
3. Bless the LORD for His Deliverance from Death (vs. 4a)
Psalm 103:4a(ESV)
...who redeems your life from the pit...
Explain - This phrase means God has rescued you from Hell.
Hell is a real place
And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”
But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death.”
But for those of us in Christ, like David, we have a different story to live out. A story that began at the day we were born-again!
Or do you not know that the unrighteous will not inherit the kingdom of God? Do not be deceived: neither the sexually immoral, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor men who practice homosexuality, nor thieves, nor the greedy, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor swindlers will inherit the kingdom of God. And such were some of you. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.
Yes, we, because of the finished work of Christ on the cross, have been delivered from death. We have been redeemed, bought back by the blood of Christ so we never have to worry about being eternally separated from God. EVER!
Illustrate - You really never appreciate life until you are on death’s door. To be delivered from death makes one grateful for life!
Apply - Christian, your life has been redeemed from the pit. You are forever alive. And even though you may die physically in this life, you will never die when you are with the Lord.
Please bless the Lord for this reality in your life.
Review - Bless the Lord for What He Has Done for You!
Transition -He’s forgiven you, healed you, redeemed you from the pit...
4. Bless the LORD for His Unrelenting Love and Mercy (vs. 4b)
Psalm 103:4b (ESV)
...who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy...
Explain - Can I make a bold proclamation? Everyone wants to be loved and everyone desires mercy when it’s needed. Of course people tend to look for these things in all the wrong places.
But the one place that these things come from. The one and true place you can find true love and genuine mercy is the God of the Bible.
Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
God is love
God is merciful - What is mercy? Withholding punishment that you deserve.
The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.
Our God is love and mercy
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases; his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
And, according to David, He crowns you with not just any kind of love and mercy, but the type that is rooted in his steadfast (continuious) character.
He “Crowns” you = the sense is that God honors you with His steadfast love and mercy! What? God honors the sinner? What kind of a God does this? Our God!
Illustrate - I don’t want to honor people that sin against me...
But think about this. Jesus called Judas friend when Judas gave him the kiss of betrayal. I don’t believe he was being facetious. I truly believed Jesus loved Judas.
Apply - No matter what you’ve done, said, thought, He loves you with and everlasting love and His mercies toward you are new everyday!
Review - Bless the Lord for What He Has Done for You!
Transition -He’s forgiven you, healed you, redeemed you from the pit, crowned you with love and mercy...
5. Bless the LORD for His Satisfying Good (vs. 5a)
Psalm 103:5a (ESV)
who satisfies you with good...
Explain - Perhaps we, as Americans struggle with this more than others around the world, but are are you satisfied? Are you content with what you have been entrusted?
As believers in Christ, we, of all people should be satisfied and content with what we have.
And one way we can do this is spend time in our personal worship time “blessing the Lord” for what He gives us each and every day. Recognizing the good that he has done and continues to do for us.
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change.
Instead of wishing for more or different or better, revel in what you have and actually list off these things and thank him for them.
Illustrate -
Praise and Thanksgiving
Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations. (Psalm 100:4–5, ESV)
Things I am thankful to God for…
My salvation and personal relationship with Jesus.
The Word of God.
A wife who loves Jesus and serves with me in the ministry.
Children who love and serve the Lord.
Four beautiful grandchildren.
A church who loves the preaching of the Word.
That I get paid to study, preach, and teach the Bible.
For my health.
For my gifting and abilities.
An appreciation for caring for my physical body as well as my spiritual life.
For my home and all of your physical provisions.
Thank you, Jesus!
Apply - Will you spend some time developing a gratitude list? It’s an amazing exercise that will benefit you beyond what you thought possible.
Review - Bless the Lord for What He Has Done for You!
EMPOWER
What is the result of “blessing” the LORD for His forgiveness, healing, deliverance, love, mercy, and satisfying good? The result is RENEWAL! Even in blessing God, David receives something in return - Renewal of strength.
who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
This is the same thought that we see the prophet Isaiah use in...
but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles; they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.
So, if it is good for David to bless the LORD, it’s good for us to as well.
It will, as a body, renew our strength!
It will keep us from a bitter and unthankful heart.
It will help us to press on toward the the mark of the upward high calling in Christ Jesus.
Look what God has done
Buttoning up or new Admin Processes and other thoughts:
New Reimbursement Forms to fill out when turning in receipts
Mailboxes in the church office for Elders/Deacons/Ministries
Job Descriptions and Review Forms for staff
very small/simple process: how to re-set the chairs in the worship area
Our bank (TCF) was purchased by Huntington - was a big transition as they switched.
Prayer Focus (Elders/Deacons started to help out with this)
Communion (Elders started to help out with this)
Scripture Readers: Team of 24 people willing to read scripture on a Sundays.
Helpers in the office: Bobby Hays and Debbie Grady
This year we received many benefits from outside voices.
Jeff Bowen led several training sessions on church culture which has had an impact on our leadership
We connected with Every Ethne early this year which had a surprising impact on our church throughout this year.
They led us through the SFA (Spiritual Formation Assessment) which was a survey of our people which most of you participated in. This helped us understand things we were doing well as a church as well as things we needed to grow in. For example, we are one of the best examples of a church they have seen as far as our culture of discipleship. Also we learned that we needed a lot of growth in the areas of prayer and personal evangelism.
This realization led to a renewed commitment to pray as a church. We had an equipping class on prayer. Our elders also began a monthly meeting where we pray for everyone in the church. We had 4 (one per quarter) - 24-Hours of Prayer in 2021
We also brought Dr. Thad Bergmeier from Every Ethne to train us with My Circle evangelism. We followed that up with the equipping class My Circle Unpacked and began to saturate our church culture with reminders for personal evangelism. As a result, we are seeing increased prayer requests for evangelism opportunities. As a result of the prayers, we are seeing increased opportunities for evangelism!
Pastor Mark and Pastor Tim were also able to attend a church planting conference hosted by Every Ethne which proved to be insightful and has led to our elders discussing leadership development more seriously.
Every Ethne also performed the MAP (Ministry Area Profile) which is an in-depth demographic study of our area which revealed to us incredible opportunities for outreach within our community.
We have had growing friendships with other gospel-driven, local pastors and have prayed weekly together with them. We also as a joint effort hosted Allendale Prays where we prayed publicly in the park for our community all summer long.
We had an influx of young people joining our church this year to the point where the 20’s are now the second-largest age demographic in our church. We praise God as the 20’s are usually the smallest demographic within a church and has been for us in the past.
We have had a faithful witness to college students.
Ratio Christi has been able to continue despite significant challenges that came along with COVID.
We have been connected with 5 Grand Valley students as prayer partners this year.
Heather Gulgin has had much fruit connecting with international students towards the end of this year.
We have navigated through COVID 19 - While many have been sick and some very ill, we have not experienced the mortality rate here as seen in the world.
We started theology courses in our church this year.
12 individuals in our church read through Grudem’s Systematic Theology together this year (which averages 120 pages per month). This is incredible!
Coming into the new year we are continuing the Systematic Theology course and have also started a Church History / Historical Theology course, both of which filled to capacity very quickly.
We have plans to continue these classes and offering a third class starting in 2023.
Our connection group ministry is the most full and healthy it has ever been.
We added several deacons to our deacon team this year, and have just a phenomenal team overall.
Our elder team has really matured over the past year and has been working hard on casting vision, modeling Christ-likeness, and has increased their efficiency in getting things done. They have also been more involved in leading services participating in the prayer focus and leading communion.
Our tech teams have been run very effectively by young people in our church.
Carrie Searles completed her first year as an official staff member of our church. As a natural trainer and delegator, she has multiplied her ministry through her investment in others.
Our welcome/greeter team has really developed with the leadership of Jessica Smith. Since late August, we have given out 34 visitor bags and there were even more we gave out before we started counting in August.
We had a successful and helpful Missions Conference this past spring.
We were able to have our Grow Conference led by Dr. Charles Ware who spoke on Grace Relations.
Also, Jill VanSolkema took on the hospitality ministry and did a stellar job planning for refreshments for that conference and family chats.
We had unprecedented reach through our website this year. In 2020 our website had a total of 53,445 visits. So far in 2021, we surpassed that number by almost 5 times with 255,368 visits. Many of our blogs and articles reach thousands of people per month.
Giving - did you notice the budget listed in the bulletin? YTD - $305,000.00 / Actual - $335,751.95. That’s $30,000 above our required budget for 2021!!
As of today, the total funds raised for the building are at $2,717,718. We have received two installments from the Lasko Foundation of $290,304.30 each, totaling $580,608.60.
In 2021, we have had $994,978.94 in "Designated Building Giving"! That's almost $1 million in one year. Add to that the "Excess General Giving over Expenditures that has been transferred (not including December yet) of $92,805 and the interest of $4,260 and we have added about $1,092,000 to our Building Fund in 2021!
We still have around $20,000 in pledges from Phase 1 that are still not fulfilled; However, there have been many amounts given that were not pledged and beyond what was pledged. So, we are sure the phase 1 giving will/has exceeded pledges.
For phase 2 of the RUAB, so far, we have had pledges of $254,420.00; of which $82,600 has been given up front.
For total projected giving, ignoring any additional phase 2 pledges (which may very well still come in), if we expect $8,000 per month in excess General Giving over budget and actual expenditures (and we have averaged $8,437 in 2021) we can expect the following to be total amount raised by 9/30/2022 (expected completion date of the building):
Raised to date now 2,717,718
Excess General Giving (Dec 21 through Sept 2022) 80,000
Remaining phase 1 pledges expected 20,000
Phase 2 pledges not yet given 171,820
Installment 3 from Lasko Foundation 290,304
Total anticipated funds raised 3,279,842
So, our little church looks like it will raise nearly $3.3 million dollars toward our building by the time it is done getting built! That is amazing..... And God's not done blessing this work yet!
Call to me and I will answer you, and will tell you great and hidden things that you have not known.
Look what God has done!
Let is bless His name together!!
Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
After hearing all that God has done for you and for your church, aren’t you renewed in your faith that God is for us and not against us?
Connection Group Reflection Questions
1. What do these verses teach me about our character?
2. What do these verses teach me about God and his character?
3. Because these words are from God, they are TRUTH! What truth is he asking me to believe?
4. What do I need to do to obey him?
5. With whom can I share these truths?