Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:00:00]:

Hey, good morning, everybody. Thank you so much for making me cry and have to blow my nose by singing that song and bring back so many memories for me. But I'm grateful. I'm grateful for just we've not just survived for 24 years and but we've been able to thrive and been able to see lives changed and and it's because we have people like like them who hear something and they just want to take that to the next level. I just was reminiscing about that. We were in a meeting and we went through the whole weekend, and I thought, oh, okay, I know what's going on. And then boom, she dropped that. And I go, what the heck, right? But that's the best kind of surprise, and I hope that you guys have that kind of sense where God just drops something into your lap that's just a blessing to you.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:00:50]:

Hey, but we're in our series that we started a few weeks ago now called Reset, and sometimes you just got to prepare for a new season. And one of those things that helps to prepare us, I think, is gratitude. And gratitude is a big deal today, and it's often talked about by people who are talking about how to maximize their life. When they want to change their life up, they recognize they need to make some adjustments. That often gratitude is talked about as kind of a powerful, healthy strategy in how to change your life, right, and how to kind of elevate where you are maybe in terms of emotion and mood and disposition. And it's been said that gratitude can transform common days into Thanksgiving, turn routine jobs into joy, and change ordinary opportunities into blessing. It's what makes whatever little you have, it turns it into abundance. It makes the perspective of the world not just seeing all that's wrong, but seeing also what's good and what's meaningful.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:01:53]:

And so we probably know that gratitude has a capacity to change us. And people who study these kinds of things says it actually affects the whole of who you are as a person. And there's a slide that we're just going to put up, might be a little hard to read, but just talks about how it can affect us on a psychological level, it can help affect us on a physical level, it can affect us in our relationships on a social level. One of the ways it changes us is that, to be honest, that if you've been struggling a little bit with your emotions, if you've been struggling with a sense of darkness or whatever it is, that when you have gratitude all of a sudden. One of the things it does, it has a capacity to drain some of the toxic things that we all feel at times. Right? That not every emotion you feel is great. And so what it does is it helps you to be aware of things that you might have overlooked it gives you an increased sense of well being and satisfaction and generally changes your mood. It's gratitude that tends to make us happy, not happiness making us grateful, right? It's gratitude that makes us happy.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:03:05]:

On physically, what happens as a result is that actually your immune system gets stronger. Just like, you know that when you're all stressed out and you get sick, right, you get run down. That when you're grateful. And there's this spirit of gratitude in you that actually your immune system gets strengthened. That generally if you have high blood pressure, it tends to get lessened. Some to be honest, even last night I was praying with some old friends. When I say old friends, I'm not saying that they were super old, but all of us are not as young as we used to be. And I said, hey, what can we pray for? And she said, all the aches and pains, now I'm feeling it.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:03:46]:

And all these things. I said, well, first is we should be grateful that we're older so we can experience aches and pains. Because there is an alternative. The alternative is not good, right? So if you're getting older, it's a good thing. And so we see these kinds of things. It affects your sleep cycle. That when you have a grateful heart, when you're experiencing this spirit, that to be honest, for most of us, that sometimes you get knocked off a sleep cycle. And for some you just fight and fight and fight.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:04:17]:

You can't get it back. Sometimes it's this aspect of gratitude helps you to do that. And of course, if you're experiencing more positive kind of emotional mood enhancement, right, these kinds of things. If you're feeling better, if you're sleeping better, you'll probably be more empathetic, you'll probably speak better, you'll probably be less moody, right? You'll be less sensitive about different things and obviously it will improve your relationships. But the thing about that is this gratitude is sometimes spoken of almost like a life hack, like a brain hack. It's like, oh, this is how you tap your brain to kind of maximize and do all these things. But it forgets that one of those things is that gratitude is based on the fact of things outside of you. You see your place in the world because to be honest, you got to be grateful to somebody, right? To something.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:05:12]:

And what is that thing? We got to be grateful to God, right? Sometimes we miss who to be grateful to. And so this morning we're going to read Psalm 151. And just as a key point to this aspect of practicing gratitude, and some of us, we need to practice gratitude. Some of you guys are always grateful and some of us, we need to practice because it will change you, it helps you to reset, it helps you to be embracing, not simply to be honest. Sometimes you need gratitude to help you process your past and sometimes you need gratitude to help you embrace your future. And so we're going to read this together. Would you be grateful? You will be. But let's stand and let's read God's word together in reverence for God.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:05:57]:

Ready? Let's read. Give thanks to the Lord and proclaim his greatness. Let the whole world know what he has done. And you know, some of those things about being grateful, we can whisper. And there are times to whisper. You're just silent. You're just thanking God for his goodness. And sometimes you're grateful.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:06:17]:

You hold maybe your boyfriend or girlfriend's hand, or you hold your spouse or you hold your kids, and you just tell them how silently, like, really quiet, and it's the intimate moment, and there's sometimes that you shout it out, right? And there's sometimes you just got to declare those things. And then it says that in the assembly. That one of those things. It says to shout that out. But before we're seated, whether you say it quietly or loudly, would you just turn to your neighbor and just say, I'm so grateful for you. I'm so grateful God brought you into my life. And then you can have a seat. Now, if you just met the person, it doesn't mean you have to go home with that person, right? Now, having this spirit of gratitude affects us on very deep ways.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:07:05]:

We talked about, right? But one of those things is all of us, we still get anxious about different things. We all still have concerns. We all still have sometimes pressures in life. And the scripture then kind of gives us a solution how in some sense, we practice this, and he says it like this. The Apostle Paul says in Philippians four, six and seven, he says, do not be anxious about anything, right? But in every situation, by prayer, petition. Prayer and petition with what? Thanksgiving? Let's say with Thanksgiving. And it's not talking about turkey. It's not talking about football games, right? It's not talking about a turkey bowl.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:07:47]:

It's saying, with being grateful, with gratitude, present your request to God. And then it says this and the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Now, I understand that sometimes that what we'll kind of fight with sometimes is our worries, our concerns, our fears, our pressures, and this feeling of gratitude. Now, some studies have come out and that have shown this is that, and you've heard us talk about it a little bit before. That when you have all this kind of those negative emotions that we call negative, like fears and anxieties and worries, a lot of that is activated in a part of your brain they call the amygdala, the hypothalamus and all that stuff, right? That's where it activates. Now, when you're grateful, it activates a different portion of your brain. Some studies have shown is that generally it's either this part or the other part. Which will be working.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:08:50]:

Guess what? When you begin to be grateful, it activates a different part of your brain. You know what it does? It tends to shut off this part that drives the fear and anxiety. So it is there is a brain hack to this. But this is why Jesus gives us the instruction for that. And I've seen this played out in my own life. I've seen it played out where at times that I don't know if you've ever been in a place where even the more you pray, the more scared and the more anxious you become. I've been in that place and I didn't expect it. But it happened when my son, my youngest son was sick and he was an infant at the time.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:09:30]:

He was the third child. We'd had two obviously then previous to that and none of them have ever experienced this, but our third child had a high fever. That where he had these fibrill convulsions. I don't know if you guys know what that is when you get a high fever. And to be honest, his eyes started to roll in the back of his head, he started to shake. And we'd never seen this and we raised two other kids, so we were nervous, right? And so this happened at the end of a small group and so thankfully that friends were there so they could watch our other kids who were actually sleeping by then. Can you guys just stay? And then we got to take the to the hospital. And so we're blazing down farrington highway going to west because hey, I believe that Jesus is a healer.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:10:17]:

I've seen him heal. I've seen people crazy kind of stuff. I've seen people whose face is hanging with bell's palsy. When we pray at the end of that moment their face is normal, right? I've seen stuff happen, right? So I'm a believer. I know that God is able, right? So we're praying, and the more we pray, like nothing's happening, and then the more we pray and I'm claiming in the name of Jesus, and then I'm praying in tongues, and I'm praying whatever way that I can pray. I'm praying, and then I see his eyes roll over the back of his head. And then all of a sudden, what's happening is, the more I pray, what I realize is this is not in faith. It's out of fear that I'm praying.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:10:57]:

Right? It's in desperation that I'm praying. It's not in faith that I'm praying. At that moment I wasn't mindful of this verse, although I've read it many times, I just realized we're working ourselves into a frenzy, basically. So I said, let's just stop. Honey, we didn't need to stop. And rather than focusing on the situation because some of us you're in situations, you go like I don't know, there's not a whole lot to be thankful for. I just said let's just thank God for what we know is true. And so to be honest, my wife, she couldn't really pray at that moment.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:11:31]:

She was just panicked. She's a mom, right? It affects them. I was scared, but it affects them on a deeper level. And so instead I just started saying, lord, I thank you. That Mark, he's a gift, and that you love Him more than we love Him. Thank You, Lord, that even though we don't understand what's going on, you understand what's going on. And I just started to thank God for all the stuff that I knew is true. I thank you that children are a gift from the Lord and we embrace Him and we receive Him.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:11:57]:

We're thankful that you only give good things, that you're the Father who gives good gifts to his children, and that you won't give us something that is not good, right? So we start just confessing these things and we start seeing these things. And the fear that was palpable in that van, all of a sudden, it's like the atmosphere just went and there was peace. Now, did everything stop for him at that moment? No, it didn't. And we still had to go to emergency and we still had to have him in there. But to be honest, he discovered he had an infection and they gave him antibiotics. And when we went to go see our pediatrician after that as a follow up, he's a very well known guy in this community. He kind of often shows up in the best of the best doctors for pediatricians and all that stuff. But he said this.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:12:49]:

He said, Glenn, you know, probably I wouldn't have caught it if you brought him. I don't know how this guy caught it because he had a bladder infection, which for an infant boy is very rare, right? He said, I wouldn't have even thought this was possible. But I think that what happens is that when you start thanking God sometimes in the middle of the problem, that it has a capacity not just to change what's happening in your brain, but to change circumstance, to change atmosphere. That's why we want to practice this, because if you got to reset, one of the things we have to practice is practice gratitude. But we got to know who we're grateful to. So let me give you guys five things this morning, and the first thing is this be grateful for his calling. Now, some of you, when you hear the word calling, you think like, what does that mean? I'm not called to be a pastor or I'm not called to no, that's fine. That is often referred to as a calling.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:13:46]:

But everybody has different assignments and everybody has different kind of seasons in which they'll operate, sometimes in a role or in a certain task. But that's not what I'm talking about when I say calling, because the first calling, if you ever see in the Scriptures, the first calling that Jesus ever gives is to Himself. Come follow me, he says. Right? That's the first thing he says. And it's like the fishermen, they left their nets and they followed Jesus. The first calling always that Jesus gives to people is not to go do stuff and not to go kind of leave and go change the world. The first calling, he says, is to Himself. And that when he's calling us to Himself, he changes our status, that we might have been people that God loved, we might have been people that he cared about.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:14:36]:

But then all of a sudden, he says, we are transferred into his family, and he calls us his sons and his daughter. We read this in Two Timothy one Nine, for God saved us and called us to live a holy life. And he did this not because we deserved it, right? Aren't you glad that what you get from God is not what you deserve? Right. Man, if I only got from God what I deserve, I would be in sad shape, but because that was his plan from before the beginning of time to show us his grace through Christ Jesus. God's desire is that he be gracious to you. That's his plan. That's part of his plan. And so how he calls us? He calls us out of the world.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:15:17]:

He calls us out of our old lives. He saves us from our sins. He saves us from judgment. And he doesn't just save us from judgment. He calls us to a relationship. He calls us to a friendship. So that it's not just you anymore. And sometimes some of us, we've been raised.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:15:33]:

It's all on you. I was raised that way. You know what my dad told me once? He said, Glenn, I know you have your friends, and I have all these things, but at the end, it's only you. That's the way I was raised, right? So you got to be hard, you got to be tough. And that's the way I was raised. That's the way I grew up until I met Jesus. And then I felt a peace that I never had. Then I felt, like, a sense of just his love that I never experienced.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:16:00]:

Because in past, it was just me. I had friends and we did stuff together. But sometimes, push comes to shove, you got to trust yourself. That's where I was raised. But, man, when I experienced Jesus, what a peace I had, what a joy. Now, I want to ask you guys this. I want you to close your eyes. Just close your eyes.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:16:21]:

Nobody's going to touch your money. Don't worry. Close your eyes, and I want you to think, where were you when you first encountered Jesus? I'm not talking about necessarily church, but it's that time when God started to become real to you. When was that time? I'm going to guess this. It wasn't when you deserved it. It wasn't when everything was great. It wasn't when you were in the top of the world, it was probably in a different season. And that in that moment, he wanted you to experience his grace, his mercy, his presence.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:16:58]:

He wanted you to find rest for your souls. He wanted you to know that he was for you and not against you. He wanted your mind to get renewed. He wanted you to experience his faithfulness to you, right? You can open your eyes. You can open your eyes. And for some of us, that we need to be reminded that sometimes the God that we serve, he hasn't changed. And every once in a while, I'll hear people say stuff like this that, hey, God in the Old Testament was an angry God. But the god in the New Testament is a God of love.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:17:34]:

And I understand why they say that, because you see, like, the flood, you see different things that have happened. But would you know this? That the God is the same God from the Old Testament to the New Testament? In the Old Testament. It says this in Psalm 138. Let's read what it says. Ready? Let's read. The Lord is compassionate and merciful, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. And so this is the thing, is that God that you serve is not a moody God. Aren't you glad God's not moody? Right? Anybody have moody people in their life? Right? Yeah.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:18:13]:

Don't point fingers. Some of you guys point. No, but yeah, we can have moody people in our life. But you don't have a moody God in your life. He doesn't say, that's the old Japanese man song, by the way. You got to be I don't know, they just make that sound. And you don't have to be Japanese to make that sound. You just got to be old.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:18:30]:

No, but you got to be moody at that moment. But I'm glad that God is compassionate and merciful. And to be honest, you see it played out in the Scriptures. If you look at it, if you look for it. Like, for instance, you might know that the Egyptians were not a favorite people to the Israelites. Why? Because they were enslaved. Right? They became slaves. They didn't start out that way.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:18:56]:

They just started getting to become slaves. They started dominating them. There was even a time where they murdered their children. And what was the first thing that God does? Does he just wipe them out? No. You know what he does is he calls Moses, who was a shepherd, who was an old man, he was 80 back then, and he encountered God with a burning bush. But this is what he does. Then he calls him and said, you go have a sit down conversation with the Pharaoh and tell him to let the people go. So you know what? God takes a long time to get angry.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:19:33]:

What does he do? Does he do it once? And he says, hey, let the people go. Or are you guys all wiped out? No. Happens ten times, right? And this whole process has been happening, to be honest, over years. God is slow to get angry. And even though these people, they didn't acknowledge God, they didn't worship God, but God is still merciful. God still loved them. And you know what? I'm grateful. Later in the Old Testament, it says and that Egypt will worship the Lord God one day because God still is including them.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:20:10]:

He still includes them in the plans. And so some of us that you know what you know what it's like to be kind of like on the other side of the church, right? I remember being on the other side of kind of like making fun of Christians, mocking Christians, making my friend who was trying to tell me about Jesus making her cry. Because we would just get into arguments. And I love to argue in those days. My wife might say sometimes still yet, but generally not. But I sense that. But God is I'm so glad God is slow to anger. And so just god's not angry with you, right? Do me a favor.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:20:47]:

Turn to your neighbor, says, God's not angry with you. He's not angry with you. Right? So remember, he's still in that process of calling us to himself, right? But the second thing, I would say this look back at your life and be grateful for the holy moments. And you might wonder, what is a holy moment for me? Sometimes this is one of the ways that I would say is a holy moment. When I get to see a man and a wife, they standing it usually starts before they're standing together to pledge their lives. It's like when he's standing and I'm standing up front with him and she comes around the corner in her dress, and she's beautiful. And sometimes I've seen these guys, really tough guys, just kind of like all of a sudden, the lip starts to move and then the tear, and then some of them this, like, full on hanabata coming out. This is so beautiful.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:21:42]:

And I bring out my handkerchief and then want to give it back to me. I said, Brother, I get one out of one. You can keep that one. Right? And that's a holy moment. I see them pledge their lives together. I just get to be a part of that, a special part of their day, right? And maybe sometimes it's not. Maybe not sometimes a joyous time. There's been times where people's hearts have been broken for various reasons, right? Sometimes it's a relationship.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:22:12]:

Sometimes it's a loss of a job and they're discouraged. And I get to put a hand on their shoulder and I get to tell them that God still has a good plan for their life. And although right now we know we cannot see it. And I get to pray for them, and I get to try to cover them with a grace that that's a holy moment, right? Sometimes there's been moments that we're praying for some miracle to happen, and God does a miracle. Then we go, I call that a holy moment. Why? Because it wasn't me. It wasn't me. I got to be a part of it.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:22:45]:

And then God let me be a part of something, but it wasn't me. The Apostle Paul recognizes that we got to recognize there's moments like that in our life. He says it like this in two Corinthians, chapter two, verses 15 to 17. He says, for we are the aroma of Christ. Let's say that aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing to one, a fragrance from death to death. In other words, because they're reminded that apart from Jesus, we're lost. And he says to the other, a fragrance from life to life. And then he says this who is sufficient for these things? You know what Paul said, man, that's holy moment stuff.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:23:29]:

And it's not me. It's not me. It's God doing this. I just get to be a part of it. For we are not like so many peddlers of God's word, but as men of sincerity, as commissioned by God in the sight of God, we speak in Christ. And so every time that maybe you've reached out to somebody, maybe somebody in a point of need and you give them something financial or you brought food to the house because you know why? Because God told you to do it. Because maybe you thought, this is what Jesus will want you to. That's a holy moment every time.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:24:03]:

Maybe you're at work and everybody's like, hey, how you? Good. Good. And then maybe during a break, in a shorter moment that you're just alone away from the rest of the Gang, you hear it's like, amen. To be honest, kind of rough right now because different things are going on in his life. And you say, hey, man, I'll be praying for you. That's a holy moment where you're bringing an injection of some kind of encouragement or hope that you're trying to bring. That every time that you reach out in Jesus name. If we're really honest, it's not just you.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:24:37]:

It's God doing that through you. He's letting you to use your heart, to use your mind to say something. Do you have to have the magic words? Are you going to take away all their pain or change all the situation all the time? No. Sometimes they change. Sometimes the situations change, right? Sometimes God does answer in a dramatic way. When that happens, we all rejoice. But this is what I'm under. No illusions.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:25:02]:

I'm not the healer. Who's the healer? Jesus is the healer, right? But we've seen major healings, right? Seeing people who should be dead. That to be honest. I just remember my friend Dava lyn Ching when she was called that's the lady who literally she died at Queen's West. And we had prayed. We were at, uh and we prayed and somebody said she had died. Oh, my gosh. And we prayed.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:25:28]:

We had we're at service with nothing we could do. And that day after service, when I'm in my house in my shorts and no more shirt, sleeping on the sofa, and I hear the knock on the door, and I open the door and she's there in her hospital gown with her son, and I so cleverly say, david Lynn, what are you doing? I heard you died. When you put on the spot, you don't always have the right words, right? And she said this, I did, but God raised me up. That's a holy moment, isn't it? That's like, nobody's going to claim glory for that, right? But what a tremendous privilege, right? And so don't be under no illusions. There are those moments that happen every time you reach out in Jesus name. Why? Because he wanted you to. Why? Because he's leading you. That's a holy moment.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:26:25]:

Be aware God is using you. And there ought to be more of those. Shouldn't there be? Right? That we want more of those. And you know, the thing is that too, is even though we're grateful to God, you got to be grateful for the friends and the people in the journey that's with you, right. Be grateful for the people in the journey with you. Sometimes we set aside days for people that we know we ought to be grateful for, right. In May. What's that day? Oh, man, you guys need an education.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:26:56]:

So in May, what is that day on a Sunday? Mother's Day, right. So what do you guys do? You buy a card or you make a card. You buy flowers, maybe. Maybe there's a nice dinner. So some little gift, maybe, whatever it is, right. What's the day in June? Kamehameha Day. No, I was kidding. Father's Day.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:27:18]:

Right. So we have those days, right? And so maybe on our anniversary you have these days. But what we don't want to do is never say anything besides those days. Right. Hopefully what engenders in us is just a habit of being grateful for the people in our life and for all of us, that there's probably some people you need to be grateful for in your life, then the people who stood with you, right? The people who, when everything went sideways, there were some people that still believed in you. There were still some people who stood with you. And to be honest, sometimes you need to be thankful for the people who were able to tell you you were wrong to your face, not because they wanted to be right, but because they wanted you to do well. Because that's a different level, right? There's always people, and some of us, we all know somebody right now that to be honest, you guys have a friend, a.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:28:15]:

Girl or a guy who's, like, dating somebody, and they introduce you, and everybody is like, oh, yeah, wow, she's great, she's great. And after they leave, everybody is like, sometimes going, what? Oh, my gosh. Right? Sometimes. And I'm not saying that we're not careful in how we do it, but sometimes we have to be willing to say something to someone, not because we know what's right all the time, not because we're going to make somebody do something. And I've had that conversation with some of my friends. I just said, can I just share with you my concern? Because you know, I'm going to stand with you regardless if you guys get married, you know what, I'm going to be the first one to be standing and clapping. But can I just share my concern? But no matter what, I'm going to say it once. I'll never say it again.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:29:10]:

Why? Because I was concerned about them, not because I wanted to control them, not because I knew what was right. Better to say advanced, and they still got married, right? And you know what? And the kids right now, one of them is a missionary in India right now. But you know what? There was a lot of change along the way, and he wasn't a believer, and he became a believer. But it's because we maintained relationship, we maintained friendship. So be grateful for the people at times who are willing to tell you the truth, because you and I, we need the truth, right? This is the part we don't need. We don't need attitude with the truth, but we need truth. We need truth with grace. And so be grateful for those people, right? And if you're newer to the church, I mean, it's probably obvious that we cannot go 24 years without knowing that.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:30:03]:

It's a lot of people that were before us that set the groundwork, right? It's the George Sharomas, the violet of lapats. It's the people that in the last service, there was the Jean Chi. There's a bunch of Kareem nakamoto. There's some of you guys in this room that you're like, maybe 20 years ago, you started coming. There's people that you came. Ten years ago, there's people that came, but there's people that went before us. And to be honest, whether that people there's some people who've been with us from the beginning, still with us, and then there's some that they've gone to other churches right after that. There's some they've moved.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:30:40]:

I can't believe how many people move, right? But we're grateful for those people, whether they've been with us in a shorter season or they're with us over the long haul, that we know that I'm a better person as a result I'm a better person as a result of there's some people I'm a better husband because I got to hang out with them. There's some people I'm a better father. There's some people I'm a better pastor as a result of people pouring into my life, people I get to share life with. I'm guessing the same is with you. You're a better person because of people in your life. Paul says this in Ephesians. He says, I have not stopped thanking God for you. I pray for you constantly, and there are times it's rough.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:31:28]:

Every friendship, right? Every family member, every family has their rough spots. But he says this in one, thessalonians 518. Can we read that together? Let's read what it says. Ready? Begin. In everything. Give thanks for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. It doesn't mean that I am thankful for everything, but in every season, I'm looking for the signs of God's presence and not the sign of the absence. And sometimes it's going to be in the person who stood with you.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:32:06]:

Sometimes it's going to be in the person who just prayed for you, going to be the person who encouraged you, person who believed something in you. I've had that opportunity to believe in people and see them go into the ministry. I've seen people have an opportunity to change a career. A brother that he graduated from, uh, and smart kid, but he graduated with psychology. And I said, So what are you going to do at that? He said, I don't know. And he was just kind of working like a minimum wage job. And I asked him, hey, I have a friend, she runs a physical therapy company. You interested in that? And he goes, Well, I don't know, maybe.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:32:51]:

And I introduced her at church, and she understood. I kind of talked him up a little bit. She hired him. He's a physical therapist today, right? He went and he got his doctorate today. You know, that kind of a thing. I'm grateful because not only that he went in that thing, but when I injured my shoulder and I couldn't do stuff, and I was asking him in the gym, I'm doing this stuff, man, my shoulder is just killing me. And then he said this. It takes great medical expertise.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:33:26]:

He says, have you considered doing exercises that don't hurt your shoulder? Oh, my gosh. That's why you have a doctorate, right? But the thing is that I've been blessed as well. I'm grateful for the people in my life. And to be honest, there's people in this room. You guys all have made me a better person. You've called me to a higher level at times. There's parts where I've been encouraged. I've been surrounded.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:33:55]:

I get to encourage. I get to lift people up. But to be honest, I've been blessed in the process, right? And so let's just be grateful for the people in the journey with us, right? If you're with that person right now that you just haven't said lately that you're grateful for them, would you just turn to that person right now? Just tell me you're grateful. I'm grateful for you. I'm thankful you're in my life, right? And one of the things I've seen is that it's very easy to be grateful when, like, a great thing happens, right? Like, wow, it's the anniversary, it's the party, it's like, we got the new job. Yeah, of course we're grateful and we're happy in that moment because it's good circumstances, right? And to be honest, you don't need to have God in your life to be happy or thankful in that moment. But can you also be grateful that God is for you? Especially when it doesn't look like it? And what I mean by that is that for some of us, for most of us, to be honest, in the last few years, whether it was the pandemic, whether it was all the stuff that came up during that time that some of us lost jobs during that season, right? Some of us lost relationships we never thought we would lose in that time. Some of us took a financial hit during that time that we weren't really prepared for.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:35:18]:

Some of us lost opportunities there's some of us that we lost pregnancies. There's some of us, we lost health. And in those moments, maybe it seems like hope is getting a little thin, right? It's in moments like that where maybe you're like me because, to be honest, I've had moments like that, but I never stopped believing that God was faithful. This is what I was concerned about. Do I have enough strength to keep holding on to God, to see his faithfulness? You guys know what I'm talking about, right? I've experienced that too, right? Sometimes in the best days, that turned into hard days, right? Because sometimes there's two sides to a coin, right? And maybe you can think of a time like that, but what does it say that what do we do, kind of in those moments as God brings us through it's on hindsight at times, because some of you right in the middle of it. If you can't see it right now, we understand, so let us see it for you. Let us believe it for you. If you can't believe, we'll believe it for you.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:36:26]:

There's sometimes when we pray that, hey, I'm just coming alongside them. And sometimes, to be honest, we're believing for them because they cannot even believe for themselves at times. But this is what it says in Psalm 124. What if the Lord had not been on our side, right? And he says this let all Israel repeat. So let's us, as the people of God, let's repeat that from verse two. Let's read. Ready? Begin. What if the Lord had not been on our side when people attacked us? They would have swallowed us alive in their burning anger.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:36:55]:

The waters would have engulfed us, a torrent would have overwhelmed us. Praise the Lord who did not let their teeth tear us apart. We escaped. The trap is broken, we're free. But verse eight, I love this. Our help is from the Lord who made heaven and earth. And whether it's sometimes an illness, whether sometimes it's things that have gone sideways and things that you never planned for, the things that you never thought was possible in your life, when that happens, that sometimes you need to be reminded god is still for you. God is still on your side, right? God is still believing for you when you cannot believe for yourself.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:37:40]:

And that we just want to raise that up. We want to encourage that. And so I want you to do me a favor. I want you to close your eyes, right? And over the last 24 years, some of you guys not been alive that long. So whatever years that you look at in your life and I'm sure there's seasons that you never thought you would make it and that you wondered, I don't know how I can make it. But somehow you did. Somehow God carried you through. What if the Lord wasn't on your side? Can you see how it might have even gotten even worse? But you know what? He grabbed a hold of you when, to be honest, sometimes we were heading in the wrong direction.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:38:23]:

But for some of us, that's our turnaround. For some of us, that's where we experienced jesus, there's a mercy that never fails. You the one who's not angry with you. Would you be reminded of that? Be grateful he's for you. You guys can open your eyes. Some of you got jobs in that moment. Some of you got a new start in that moment. Some of you got a door open.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:38:54]:

When the door in front of you closed, there was a door in the side that opened. Some of us, when brokenness, kind of hit us that we found a support and a resilience that allowed us to get through till things changed. And so because of those things, because God calls us first to Himself and he always will, and because God has been the person that not only has a calling in our life, but he brings people in your life. And because God is the One who allows you to be touching moments and people and situations that are just man, it's just a holy moment. And because he will pull you through even when you don't know that how you're going to get through. This is why we also do the last thing. It's great to be grateful, but let your gratitude also launch you forward to believe Him for the future. Because if he did it in the past, we can do it in the future, right? If he never failed you when the chips were down, he's not going to fail you in the future.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:39:57]:

And so he says it like this as a result, in One Corinthians 1558 so my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable and always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless. And so don't let the thinking that says it doesn't matter already or this is my season is done. I'll let the young people do it. We need every person to believe that God is still God. We need every person to understand the grace and mercy of God. We need every person to be empowered by his spirit. Why? Because that every life you touch is a holy moment. Because the people in the journey matter.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:40:49]:

Because no matter what the situation right now, god is going to sustain you and strengthen you. And even if you cannot believe it right now, we'll believe it for you and we'll stand with you. But would you know this? He wants you to believe there's bigger things ahead. He wants you to understand that every person is valuable. And when we go to Hokele next week, even though we're not in this location anymore, well, we'll be here Saturday night, so we'll still by the way, we're still here Saturday nights. We're just starting the location in Kappole. Would you know that? It's not because we think this place is bad. This place is an answer to prayer.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:41:38]:

There was a moment when and we were at our other ministry center and we had to move because they put a martial arts studio right above us. Yeah, you guys remember how crazy that was? You'd be in the middle of a class or you could be in the middle of a counseling and all of a sudden you hear boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. It was less crazy and they wouldn't change it. And we know we don't know whose idea it was, but there's other spaces. Could you move? We couldn't resolve. So we said we would move. And then we were looking around and we couldn't find anything. And then we were looking all around.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:42:11]:

We were looking in from Campbell Industrial to Ayea to upper in Waipahu Pearl City. We were looking for a place and nothing panned out because whether the parking or different situation or had an office but didn't have a space for storage or had a place where we could meet, but all these things and we were worried, at least I was worried, but we were meeting at, uh, at that time. And I remember getting up and standing, some of you guys might remember, and I just say, hey, you know what? God, I'm confident God has a place for us, right? I just wish he would tell me where it is and people would chuckle a little bit like that. But I was half joking and of course, totally serious. On the other hand, because we didn't have a place and time was getting tight and then we started before remote work was a thing. Before remote work was a thing. I was thinking, we're going to lose the office, so let's rent like big rental spaces so we can at least store all our stuff, and we'll be portable, and we'll work out of our houses till we can find a space. We start thinking like that, right? You start making all the alternate plans.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:43:23]:

And I was supposed to go on vacation, and then I thought, I'm going to cancel my vacation just because of the situation. And then I thought, you know what? I got to honor my family, right? Because they need more of me than sometimes than I'm available with, you know what I mean? Because everybody works hard, right? But that's what we planned. And I felt the Lord says, what are you going to change if you don't take vacation? Are you going to make the I said, no, I don't know. God, you have to provide. And so I went on vacation. And to be honest, I had a great vacation. But I would be lying if I didn't worry about this thing. I admit I didn't worry about this and pray about it, but the day I came home, the day I came home, this place became available.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:44:19]:

Now, to be honest, it had been available before it, but we never saw it. You know why? Because it was attached to another part of the building that made it like, double in rent. And we couldn't cover double the rent because we already had a Sunday location at, uh, west. But when the day we came home is when they changed the listing so that all of a sudden, this place was listed separately. And so drop off the bags, come and look at the space. And this space was trash. Can I just some of you guys yeah, it was it was trash. We had an air conditioner was like this.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:44:59]:

Somebody going up to you and going that's how cool it made you. There was ceiling tiles stained. There was a broken tile that was stained with oil and all this kind of stuff. It was horrible. There was, like bird nests of wires from all the different generations of people who were in the space before. But you know what I saw? I saw opportunity. I saw a space that we could use for, like, a Saturday night service I didn't know would turn into a Sunday service. During the pandemic, we had offices.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:45:33]:

But you know what? People jumped in and they carpeted. People jumped in and we cleaned up and took down the tiles, and people didn't understand. We said, no, we're going to take all that out because the ceiling was so low. We needed to try to create a little bit more volume and all this kind of stuff. But it's you guys who made it happen, right? And so today, at least the people sometimes will say, this is an interesting area, but when they come in, it says, yeah, but inside is nice. But you know what? It didn't start that way. It's like, we made it that way. That's what God does with our lives.

Pastor Glenn Yamaguchi [00:46:11]:

It doesn't start out the best. God just makes it that way, right? He'll bring people, he'll bring resources. He brings himself. And that's when things change. I'm grateful. 24 years we've been able to see it. I'm looking forward to the next one. Amen.