Tim McAllister [00:00:01]:
Hey. You're gonna have to forgive me for just a second. It, I walked in here today and I thought, geez, did I miss Thanksgiving or something? It looks like Christmas already. But it's not. It is, Thanksgiving. And we're going to talk a little bit about that here today. Those of you and I'm just going to jump right into this. Those of you who know me, and some of you who don't, know that I like rubber ducks.

Tim McAllister [00:00:33]:
Okay? This is my newest one. It's my car rubber duck. You guys have stress balls. I have a stress rubber duck. But I like rubber ducks. Personally, I think the rubber duck is probably the second most significant invention next to the wheel, and the wheel just barely beats it out. Now the reason I'm mentioning how much I like rubber ducks this is a bag, by the way. I picked this up in Venice.

Tim McAllister [00:01:01]:
I went to the rubber duck store. I have a problem. But the reason that I bring this up is, we're going to start this off today with with a little game, kind of like that the, the one that's on I don't know if it's still on TV. Wheel of fortune? So we're gonna play a game. We're gonna throw up on the screen here in a little bit, something for you guys to fill in the blanks on. Okay? So it is a line of scripture. If you've got if you were brought your bible or if you've got your bible on your phone or on your laptop, you'll notice that we put that line of scripture in the notes, but we did not put what the scripture actually said. Okay.

Tim McAllister [00:01:50]:
So we're going to throw up on the screen here. Now this that you're going to see, this is my translation of that scripture. So the first one who's able to to read it and read it completely all the way through, you know, raise your hand, go for it. You get one shot at it. If you're able to get through it, I'm gonna give you a rubber duck. Alright. Just what you always wanted. If you're not able to do it, we're going to go to the person who's second.

Tim McAllister [00:02:18]:
Okay? So there it is. First one who can fill that out. Now, if you were in Myanmar, you'd be able to answer that right away. Do they have a TikTok sound there for Wheel of Fortune? Someone in the back. All the way, but I can't see. Who is it? Okay. What do you want me to read it out? Read it out loud the whole way through. I will be like a little rubber duck.

Tim McAllister [00:02:51]:
I cannot be crushed. I cannot be broken. I lost the staff. I will always rise to the surface. -Christine. Very good job. She's a lady. It won't hurt her.

Tim McAllister [00:03:08]:
Alrighty. Now you know why they don't have me translate the Bible. Come on. But that particular scripture line, as as Durban mentioned, I'm the missions director and we do, an enormous amount of work over in Myanmar. We've been committed over there for, like, a decade now. And I use this this interpretation of scripture over there. We use it all the time. We use it to ingrain it into their heads.

Tim McAllister [00:03:42]:
Alright. So we and we do it with the children. We do it with the caregivers. We do it with the staff. We drill this into their heads. We have had t shirts made with rubber ducks on it. We have handed out rubber ducks. We have handed out pictures with the little rubber duck and these things on it.

Tim McAllister [00:04:02]:
We have gone as far as we have these little rubber bracelets that have that on it. We drill this into their head. And the reason that we do that is because we need for them to understand that they need to be a rubber duck. So I can teach them that, and I can teach you that. Okay? But what I cannot teach is that there is a huge caveat that enables you to be a rubber duck. And, yeah, we'll come back to that here a little bit later. So this is going to be serious. So next, we're just going to jump to the next thing.

Tim McAllister [00:04:44]:
How many of you have watched or know, it's Thanksgiving, Charlie Brown? How many of you watch those cartoons? I am like the strangest person. Okay. I love these shows. I love Charlie Brown. It used to be on all, you know, you could watch it on the on the free channels back when we had just the 3. Now you got to pay to watch it or you can watch it on YouTube, kind of. But anyway, so we're going to talk about, it's Thanksgiving, Charlie Brown. And the opening scene of it, we have these three characters.

Tim McAllister [00:05:22]:
We have Charlie Brown, we have Linus and we have Charlie Brown's 5 year old sister, Sally. Now, I take a lot of meaning out of Charlie Brown shows. Okay? Charlie Brown. Everybody knows who Charlie Brown is. Charlie Brown is a determined young boy. He's a true friend. You know, he never gives up. He should probably give up playing a kite.

Tim McAllister [00:05:49]:
But Charlie is kind. He's patient. He tends to wear his heart on his sleeve, and Charlie Brown likes helping others. Now, Linus, on the other side, Linus, he's the thoughtful one. He's the smart one. He's respectful. He's the voice of reason. He is a deep thinker.

Tim McAllister [00:06:10]:
And even though I've never quite figured out why he carries around that security blanket, he is delightfully optimistic. He continues to believe that the Greek pumpkin is going to come one of these years. It's the one in the middle that we are really most curious about. She doesn't get much airtime. But at the beginning of this particular special, this is Sally. And Sally, if I had to categorize her, Sally is what I would call the queen of whys. Why? Why do I have to do it? Why not them? Why me? And when Sally is told the answer and she doesn't like the answer, Sally answers with, Who cares? In another episode, in the Christmas episode, Sally, now this is back in 1965, Sally asked for money. She asked for tens and twenties.

Tim McAllister [00:07:08]:
And today's money, that would be a 5 year old asking for $10200 bills. But in this episode, as the show is just beginning, Sally, right here, right at this particular moment is saying, Why should I give thanks? What do I have to be thankful for? Now most of us, we kind of fool ourselves. We fool ourselves into thinking that we are, we're like Charlie Brown or we're like Linus or we're a combination of the 2 of them. But really, are we? When was the last time you gossiped about someone? Have you repaid all your debts to a friend? Is your garage or home overflowing with stains and stuff, and yet you still want more? Have you betrayed your spouse, denied your father or mother? Have you wished that you were taller? Some of us wish that we were shorter. Younger, older, richer, skinnier? Wish that you had somebody else's skill set. Wish that you had their physical qualities, their money, their spouse. In truth, we're really much more like Charlie Brown's 5 year old sister, Sally. And we just add in a dose of Lucy and Violet just for good measure.

Tim McAllister [00:08:45]:
Now, Paul addresses this type of a person in Romans. See, I can connect this to the Bible. And we're going to take a look at what Paul writes here in Romans. He writes it in Romans, 1, verse 28 through 31. And this is what it says. And just as they did not see fit to acknowledge God any longer, God gave them over to a depraved mind to do those things which are not proper, being filled with all unrighteousness, wickedness, greed, evil, full of envy, murder, deceit, malice. They are gossips, slanderers, haters of God, insolent, arrogant, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents without understanding, untrustworthy, unloving, unmerciful. Now, not that any of us here, or any of you watching online, have ever possessed any of those characteristics.

Tim McAllister [00:09:50]:
But if a person were to possess some of those characteristics, some of those qualities, where would it begin at? What would be the first warning sign of a life that's going to go sideways? Paul actually addressed that just a few lines before he got into that. And we find that in Romans 1, before he got into that. And we find that in Romans 1, verse 21. For even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks. That's how it all begins. That's the gateway sin. It is so subtle, we don't even recognize it as a sin. And yet it is devastating.

Tim McAllister [00:10:38]:
There is something especially distasteful and repulsive about the sin of ingratitude. Now our culture, we have fallen prey to an epidemic of ingratitude. Ingratitude is kind of like it's like carbon monoxide. It's invisible, but it's deadly. This subtle sin is polluting our lives. It's polluting our homes. It's polluting our culture and our churches. Honestly, I would be stunned if any of you, truthfully, could come up to me and tell me, you know, when I woke up this morning, my first thought was, I just wish that I could be a more thankful person, because if I could, my life would be so much better.

Tim McAllister [00:11:30]:
Lack of gratitude rarely lack of gratitude rarely presents itself to us as a source of our problems. We've become so unaware of our own ingratitude that we don't even recognize it as a sin. We are Sally. We are why should I be thankful? Who cares? And yet, right there it is in Romans, Romans 121. There it is. You know what I wouldn't be surprised about? I wouldn't be surprised that if, instead of waking up wanting to be more thankful, some of you woke up thinking this instead. I am tired of my spouse. I'm tired of my child, my friend, my boss being inconsiderate of me.

Tim McAllister [00:12:21]:
Or I've given him, her, them every opportunity to apologize to me. Or the whys. Why did this happen to me? Why can't other people be normal like me? Why is life so hard? Why does this problem never end? Why am I supposed to just accept this? Why, why, why me? Feeling betrayed, left out, unappreciated, we sink lower and lower and lower into our ourselves and into our problems away from God. We are an ungrateful people living in an ungrateful nation. But you cannot you just cannot worship God without giving thanks. And you cannot give thanks while you are busy whining, cry, or laugh, bitter or better, whine or worship. That choice is yours. But as a culture, we have chosen whining.

Tim McAllister [00:13:35]:
And yet, every person in here, every single one of you, is richer than 99.4 percent of the people who have ever lived. Our garages are so full of stuff. Our houses are so full of stuff that it's overflowing. Our garages are so full of stuff that we can't park our 1 or 2 car in the garage. We have so much stuff that we stuff it into locker storage places that we pay for, and we still whine, wanting more. We are an ungrateful people living in an ungrateful nation. But you don't have to be. You don't have to be.

Tim McAllister [00:14:30]:
And I lost my place. You can choose. You can choose to have a grateful life. And it starts by making God, or making the choice to have a heart that is as grateful to God as the amazing grace that he has poured into your life. You can choose that if you want. Now, if I were to ask each of you to write on a piece of paper all the things, everything that you are thankful for, what would that list look like? I did that a couple weeks ago with the kids in the journey program and our middle school students, and I want to show you what they came up with. We're going to throw them up here on a couple of the screens. They wrote up a lot of stuff.

Tim McAllister [00:15:27]:
Take a look at those. We're not going to go through them real fast, but we're going to spend a little bit of time on them. They gave us a 104 different things that they are thankful for. These are things that did not get repeated on them. And they gave us 38 individuals that they are thankful for. Some of these things are really kind of fun. I like not having homework. I can agree with that.

Tim McAllister [00:15:53]:
Not having to walk everywhere. Let's jump to the next screen. They like picking puka shells, sand. They like music, Air 1, Caleb, movies. I hope it's a notebook and it's not the movie notebook. I don't know how you can be thankful for that. But they also thanked 38 people individually. They also threw up these.

Tim McAllister [00:16:19]:
Now, these are middle school students. These are 5th to 8th, 9th grade. Okay? They throw up to show the next screen. They're thankful for God. They are thankful for Jesus. They're thankful for the Bible. They're thankful for this church. They are thankful for air, life, the stars, the moon, rain, sunshine, joy and pain.

Tim McAllister [00:16:47]:
How many of you would have that last one on your list of things that you are thankful for? Pain? How can we be thankful for the illness that afflicts us, the spouse that abandoned us, the parent who abandoned us, the spouse who betrayed us, the child who denies us, the friend who takes things from us, or the loss of a loved one. Now, I'm not telling you that gratitude will make the pain go away because it won't. It will always, and it is always going to be a part of the story of my life. But what I am saying is that gratitude will help to loosen the bonds of suffering. Because even in the darkest circumstances, there is something to remain thankful for. So where am I going with this? In 2nd Corinthian, Paul addresses this exact topic. But before we really get into that, we need to get a little bit of history on this one. Okay? When Paul writes the letter to the Corinthians, his second one, it's actually this 4th, but we call it 2nd Corinthians, there is a famine that is occurring in Judea and Jerusalem.

Tim McAllister [00:18:11]:
Paul is located right now. He's up in Macedonia. He's writing to those in Corinth. At this period of time, the people in Corinth are among the richest in all of the Roman Empire. Now, earlier, those in Corinth had pledged, along with those that are in a much, much poorer area up in Macedonia, to give to help those that are dealing with the famine down in Judea and Jerusalem. The Macedonians have kept their end of it. They've actually given more than they could afford to because they wanted to express their devotion to God and they really wanted to be involved in this. Those in Corinth had not.

Tim McAllister [00:18:57]:
So Paul is writing to them because he is concerned about them. And what he is attempting to get them to see is that by not giving, by not being concerned about others, that they were overlooking the amazing grace that was given to them. And they're stifling gratitude in the process. It's this first that's we've been showing up here on the screen. And God will generously provide all you need. Then you will have everything you need and plenty left over to share with others. Here's the main point. Here's what I'm driving at.

Tim McAllister [00:19:46]:
We are like them. When we overlook the amazing grace that has been given to us, then we stifle gratitude. We forget everything God has given us. And we plow head first into the whys. Why should I? Why doesn't somebody else? Why me? We plow headlong into that repulsive sin of ingratitude. What's the flip side of that look like? Paul addresses that immediately following this. And we see that in 2nd Corinthians, 9 verses 10 through 15. For God is the one who provides seed for the farmer and then bread to eat.

Tim McAllister [00:20:39]:
In the same way, he will provide and increase your resources and then produce a great harvest of generosity in you. Yes, you will be enriched in every way so that you can always be generous. And when we take your gifts to those who need them, they will thank God. So two things will result from this ministry of giving. The needs of the believers in Jerusalem will be met and they will joyfully express their thanks to God as a result of your ministry. They will give glory to God for your generosity to them and to all believers will prove that you are obedient to the good news of Christ. And they will pray for you with deep affection because of the overflowing grace God has given to you. Thank God for this gift to wonderful for words.

Tim McAllister [00:21:53]:
How would that play out here? If we need an example of how that plays out here, I mentioned earlier, we do a whole lot of work over in Myanmar. We deal with the orphans over there and the civil war over there. We have been engaged there for a decade, and we have tried repeatedly to get someone from there over to here. It's a very, very difficult thing to do. But most of you are aware, we managed to get someone here this year. So she came, she talked, she shared with you, enlightened you into a little bit more of the situation there. She recently went back. And when she got back, she sent us a message, that things have deteriorated over there so bad that even their water they they buy water, just like we do, you know, like, in the water thing back there, the 5 gallon blue things.

Tim McAllister [00:22:50]:
They buy water to drink. But because the war is so intense that those facilities are now destroyed, so even that water is contaminated and, literally, you can see the dirt and everything in it. So she had written to us about that. So those of you who give to the ESTHER project, rarely do you get an opportunity to actually see what we're doing here. So we're going to show you a picture of what we decided to make a decision on. So what we did was we then bought them a filtration unit. Nothing too extravagant. Nothing too expensive.

Tim McAllister [00:23:27]:
But it is enough to filter enough water to provide clean drinking water for the 50 children, men, women and staff in that facility. Their way of expressing gratitude to it look at what they call their water. That's Aloha water. They named it because they are grateful for what we have done. So for those of you who donate, when you give your tithes and offering, when you give, what you are actually doing is you are giving out of gratitude to God. And you caused gratitude to well up in the others' hearts, those in Myanmar. Gratitude begets gratitude. You've become a channel to the grace that you've received so that others, those over in Myanmar, may become beneficiaries of his grace as well.

Tim McAllister [00:24:25]:
It's this never ending cycle of life, guilt, grace, gratitude. Guilt creates grace. Grace creates gratitude. Guilt, grace, gratitude. That's the Bible. Now as a Christian, we understand that, and we understand that every one of us is born in a state of inescapable guilt. We are sinners, and we are unable to go, well, at least I am, I'm not able to go a day without sinning. So what do we do? We try, but we fail to make ourselves worthy by our deeds or by our words to be good enough to earn God's favor.

Tim McAllister [00:25:13]:
How's that working for us? If we admit it, left to ourselves, we are hopeless. And into this mess that we have created comes the undeserved, the amazing grace of God through the life and death of Jesus, who substitutionally takes the judgment that we deserve upon himself when he died on the cross. In that one extravagant gift, each of us was given everything that we need to be in a right relationship with our creator, death replaced with certain life. Your guilt was swallowed up in the amazing grace of God. So what follows next should logically be a good reaction to that? You would expect that sheer gratitude would propel us to never ending acts of worship and service. Undeniable guilt plus undeserved grace, 1+1, should equal unbridled gratitude. 2. But does it? We can readily affirm it.

Tim McAllister [00:26:36]:
We can affirm it, the biblical progression of that, from guilt to grace, death to life, despair to hope. Yet in practice, we struggle. We struggle with the next step. For most of us, responding to the grace that God has given with gratitude is difficult. God's gift of amazing grace is not something that shows up in our daily lives. Why is that? I could spend hours up here talking about the whys, But the whys won't get us any closer to the how. How do we take what we know and make it into something that we live, a life filled with gratitude? So back to the rubber duck. I can teach you the concept of being a rubber duck.

Tim McAllister [00:27:37]:
I will be like a little rubber duck. I cannot be crushed. I cannot be broken. I will bounce back. I will always rise to the surface. But I can't make you choose to be a rubber duck. Because before you can be a rubber duck, you must first be thankful for everything. And that includes those things that try to crush your dreams, that try to break you physically, mentally, spiritually, those things that attempt to squeeze the passion out of you because God will use those exact things to achieve good.

Tim McAllister [00:28:26]:
He is using it, and he will help you rise, but only if you let go of the chains of ungratefulness holding you down. So application. So if you choose to be a rubber duck, how do we do that? Well, the easy way, if you wanted to, you could jump on a plane with me, and we could go to Myanmar, spend a day there. And I think it would change your view on gratitude. We could try something just a little bit less drastic, a little bit less dramatic. So what I'm asking each of you to do, and even those of you online, I'm asking you to commit to a season of gratitude. But before we do that, we have to be honest with ourselves. I've devised 4 levels of gratitude of where you're at on this scale.

Tim McAllister [00:29:23]:
And we have to determine right now, how grateful am I? First, a, I look at the world through grateful eyes and consistently express my gratitude to God and others. I know I've been greatly blessed, but I don't often stop to actually express my gratitude to God and others. Long way to go to develop a lifestyle of gratitude. Or, d, I'm a whiner. I tend to focus on my problems and I often express them to others. You know, years ago, I was a D. I worked my up to a C, and now I'm a B. What are you? But it really doesn't matter from this day forward if you are an a, b, c or d.

Tim McAllister [00:30:33]:
What matters is that you are making it your goal to have a heart that is as grateful to God as the amazing grace he has poured into your life. So here's the takeaway. What I'd like you to do is I would like you to join with me in a season of gratitude by taking these 6 steps from today until the end of the year. 1st 1, commit to a season of thanks, not a half hearted commitment, a full commitment. You're going to work at being thankful. Number 2, start your prayers by thanking God. It is really difficult to whine and complain if you start off thanking. Number 3, write down 5 things in a journal that you are thankful for.

Tim McAllister [00:31:31]:
Psychiatrists have done studies, and our friend over here probably knows about these. They've done studies where if a person writes 5 things daily, 5 things that they are thankful for, in the span of 1 week, if they do that every day for a week, at the end of that week, their view of life has shifted. They are much more positive. They are more energetic. They are more active. They are happier in their relationships. Imagine what it would do if you did it from now to the end of the year and hopefully longer. So take that as a point.

Tim McAllister [00:32:12]:
Number 4, take inventory of those who deserve or need a word of thanks from you. And then thank them. Number 5, write and give thank you cards. When was the last time you got a thank you card? When was the last time you sent a thank you card? When was the last time you bought a thank you card? Now, that may seem like a little thing, but there's 2 people here. 1, Linda, who gave out some thank you cards this week. If you want to see the impact that handing out a thank you card gives, Linda gave out a thank you card to someone that she started to cry. It meant that much to the recipient on it. And another individual, Christie, in the back, received a thank you card this week.

Tim McAllister [00:33:14]:
She thought she'd never receive a thank you card. It made Christie cry with joy. Thank you cards mean a lot. It doesn't take that much to do. Just do it. And number 6, if you're going to do it, let's do it together. Do it as a family. Do it with your friends.

Tim McAllister [00:33:38]:
Do it with your life group. Do it with all of us. Just do it. Mike's gonna close, play a song here to put a cap on this, and then I will come back up and I'll close this up in prayer. Thanks. Hey. The, the ushers are handing out just something for you. If you were to read in 2nd Corinthians just a little bit later, 6 in chapter 6 verse 1, Paul writes, as God's coworkers, we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain.

Tim McAllister [00:37:39]:
So the God's grace in vain. So the ushers have handed out to you just a little journal for you to write till the end of the year 5 things a day that you're thankful for. They've also, we're going to give you some thank you cards. So you can provide thank you cards to those people who you want to give a thank you card. It'll make a difference. If you would, we'll close it up here. Bow your heads and pray. Heavenly Father, open my heart to understand how precious I am to you, how loved I am by you.

Tim McAllister [00:38:25]:
Open the eyes of my soul to see the gifts you have put before me. I may become beneficiaries of your grace as well. Help me to be a conduit to those that I can be a conduit to so that they can experience the amazing grace of you and of our savior, Jesus Christ. Amen. Hey, guys. Thanks for having me tonight.