Make Room for Thanksgiving
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Luke 17: 11- 19 ( ESV)
11 On the way to Jerusalem he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. 12 And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers, who stood at a distance 13 and lifted up their voices, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.” 14 When he saw them he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went they were cleansed. 15 Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice; 16 and he fell on his face at Jesus' feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. 17 Then Jesus answered, “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? 18 Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” 19 And he said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.1 Thessalonians 5:18 (NIV)
Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.Thanksgiving was expressed at His feet not from a distance
Misery loves company but thanksgiving is for the faithful
Thanksgiving takes the Foreigner and welcomes them into the family
They obeyed God & then were healed, rather than obeying God because they were healed
Obedience without gratitude makes you a good soldier not a Godly Example
If you don’t give thanks quickly you likely won't give thanks at all
"We would worry less if we praised more. Thanksgiving is the enemy of discontent and dissatisfaction." – Harry Ironside
It’s time to Make Room for Thanksgiving to be personal
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[Music] hi my name is Dean Dora and I serve as the lead Pastor here at Real Life Church our mission is to engage real life Embrace real people and ENC counter the real God I want to take a moment before we jump into the message just to say thank you first of all for engaging with this message we believe that this message has the power to lift you up and your faith and lead you to encounter God and the power and presence of the Holy Spirit if you haven't already we would love for you to take a second to like
And subscribe this way you can stay engaged and upto-date on the latest messages again thank you so much for joining us from Sacramento and Beyond we trust you'll be blessed by the message today it is good to see you all here this morning I'm excited uh to be able to share the word with each of us today and uh you know it always seems like the clock moves so fast so we're going to just jump right into it how many you guys ready to get into the word today amen well we're going to be continuing
our make room sermon series today and um I want to remind you as always if you want to follow along you can do so all the notes for the sermon will be in the uver Bible app you can go to events select Real Life Church uh and you will see all that there Pastor Taylor does an incredible job with how he's been stepping up our our online presence and giving the ability for people to follow along and so we are going to hop into it it's no surprise that uh this week is a big week many of us are either late to
planning or have already been planning ahead cuz you're that one person who likes to plan Thanksgiving 3 weeks in advance but we are preparing for for uh this coming week we're preparing for uh being with our family now for some of you that's a mixed emotion we're preparing to sit around a dinner table and to have a feast of eating food and and having fellowship and you know Thanksgiving is always a confusing time for me it's a confusing time for me because I I don't know what it is about
my makeup but for some reason I'm always torn between if I want an apple pie or a sweet potato pie I don't know if I want mashed potatoes or if I want collard greens see some of y'all exactly I this is my kind of church someone just say why does it have to be a choice it's not I'm going to eat all of it I'm just going to take both of it and we just going to have a good time but I've come to realize that at the Thanksgiving table there's really two types of people at Thanksgiving and you can tell the
type of person they are based on their plate here's the first one see the first person is the person who uh doesn't allow their food to touch I know some of y'all are out there you're one of those people that you you've held on to this belief that yeah you know it all goes to the same place but while you have to look at it the turkey cannot I mean it is a cardinal sin if that turkey touches the mashed potatoes you can't allow anything to touch you you might be you know a little OCD but it's all right but you just your
plate has to be organized in such a way you're that person that uh you know their their plate has more empty plate on it than food on it this is the type of person who for some crazy Wicked reason thinks they should go into the holidays and actually wants to lose weight and not gain weight they're the person that's going to turn down the second uh the the second serving of pie they're the person who's like oh it's okay I don't need I don't need rolls I'm not eating carbs right
now I don't get you kind of people there's another type of person and this is what your plate looks like yeah this is the folks who like to load that laid up come on these are the people who they don't care what it's touching it's all going to the same spot you're the kind of person that you might even just take your fork and just stir that thing up cuz you're like hey it all it all works together this is the individual who just cast off all restraint they're not worried about the
the the they're just concerned about the plate and that nap that's going to happen they don't care about anything else they're hoping you put more butter in that dish these are the folks who are not worried about impressing anyone they don't care what you think of them they are going to take all the food that they can possibly squeeze on this plate they don't even care if you got enough of the sides they G to make sure they got enough because they're too afraid to risk that there might not be enough for
second so they just get it all on the first round these are people who have made the decision they're going to handle business from Jump Street and today I want to talk to us about making room for Thanksgiving in our life see if you and I truly want to make room for Thanksgiving in our life can I tell you something you got to clear the plate cuz many of us live like that second person we got a mountain of things on our plate a mountain of problems a mountain of issues concerns stress and worries we have all these things that
are piling High we welcome them so gladly but if we want to make room for Thanksgiving it means means we have to have the boldness and courage to say first I need to clear this thing off my plate what are the Traditions that have been causing your plate to be overwhelmed what is the past pains or things that have happened in your life that make you feel overloaded or overwhelmed leaving no more room for Thanksgiving towards God because you have too much work to do because you're too busy because you have to appease
every other person going into the holidays and don't have time to consider being grateful to to God maybe you've been holding on to the same nasty green beans for years and years to come in the form of a relationship that has hurt you and because of that there's no gratitude left in your heart today so why do we have to talk about Thanksgiving why is it important that we have to make room for Thanksgiving in our life Pastor Dean and I must have been in the spirit because he already quoted the same verse that I'm about to
quote and it's 1 Thessalonians 5:18 it says that we should give thanks in all circumstances for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus being a thankful person being a person with gratitude in your life is a part of the will of God for your life that means we can't escape it if we want to please God that means we can't operate in the fullness that God would have for you and I if we are not people that live with Thanksgiving in our life with gratitude in our hearts today I'm going to give us a narrative
message meaning I really just want to walk through a portion of scripture that I believe will help us to understand the significance of the power of Thanksgiving and we're going to do so looking at Luke chapter 17 starting in verse 11 it says on the way to Jerusalem he meaning Jesus was passing along between Samaria and Galilee and as he entered a village he was met by 10 leopards who stood at a distance they lifted up their voices saying Jesus Master have mercy on us when he saw them he said to them go and show yourselves
to the priest and as they went they were cleansed then one of them when he saw that he was cleansed he or healed he turned back praising God with a loud voice and he fell on his face at Jesus's feet giving him thanks now he was a Samaritan then Jesus answered were not 10 CL where are the nine was no one found to return and give praise to God except this Foreigner and he said to him rise and go your way your faith has made you well Lord I just pray today that you would help us to navigate and clear the plate of anything in our lives that
would hinder us from being thankful to God we trust you remove any distractions speak to us Holy Spirit and all God's people said amen I want to set the scene for us this morning that Jesus as we see in Luke chapter 17 he's he's on the journey between Samaria and Galilee he's about 20 miles away from Jerusalem now if you know anything about Samaria and Galilee these are not two nations of people that get along with each other Jesus essentially could have been walking down uh in LA and going through
the bloods on one side Crips on the other side He Is straddling a line of two groups of people who don't want want to see each other who don't talk to each other who don't commune with each other and the Bible brings us in to Jesus entering into an unknown Village doesn't name the village in fact it's just it's just some random Village to you and I and as Jesus is going into this random Village he happens upon 10 leopards now what I love about just how this story is set up is that that though this Village
seems random to us Jesus never does anything Rand randomly that there was a purpose that he needed to go on that route that there was intentionality be between him saying I'm going to straddle the line of opposing sides and there I'm going to encounter people who are in need there I'm going to encounter the rejects I just praise God that he encounters a reject like me come on somebody and it says that these 10 men all had one thing in common and that is that they had leprosy now leprosy is not something that we necessarily deal with
today though it is still around but between modern medicine it's not a condition that we have to be worried about so what is leprosy I want you to get a picture and understanding of what this is leprosy is a skin disease sought to be believed as very contagious it is a disease that is causing the flesh to become hardened attacking the nerves and what is so dangerous about someone having leprosy is that it causes them to no longer be able to feel pain or sensation in the areas that are being impacted well
that's very dangerous because if you were to get harmed or hurt you wouldn't even know the severity of it because of your leprosy now in the customary uh understanding of of the Jewish law if someone were to have leprosy what I think makes it more dangerous is that they would have to be outcast and banished into isolation if someone were to have leprosy they would be deemed as being unclean and not allowed to live in community with anybody else they were simply ostracized to live life as a pariah to live life as an outcast to
live life with no one to love them no one to be friends with them no one to hang out with them to talk with them because they had to be removed from the community if being cast out and living in isolation wasn't enough one of the the the requirements for someone who would have leprosy that is that if somebody did happen to come upon you as they were nearing you you would have to yell out to them wait just so you know if you come any closer I'm unclean come on just let's put that in our modern context today that means when
someone walks into the room that you're in just imagine you have to reveal your darkest sin that you might be dealing with or have dealt with just imagine you have to say hey my name's Paul and I have massive anger issues and sometimes I out I have outbursts on my family hey my name's Susan and and before you say anything I just want you to know I'm addicted to pornography hey my name is Tiffany and and in just case you didn't know I like to rob people but welcome could you imagine the shame could you
imagine the greater impact of just feeling like nobody cares no one loves you your life is now just to be in isolation and to let everyone know don't come near me I'm damaged goods this is the life of someone who would have leprosy this is what they had to look forward to the Bible tells us though that there are 10 of them and I think it's interesting that there were more than just one see the only people they could hang out with were the people who also had the same condition they have which leads me to my first thing I want
you to jot down if you're taking notes is that misery loves company but Thanksgiving is for the faithful misery loves company but Thanksgiving is for the faithful you will never be alone if you are a miserable person but you also will never move forward because misery always finds people to be miserable with them it's so natural that we attract the people that we are we attract what we are we welcome what we are and so if misery is what we are living in then misery is what we will attract the 10 lepers are there together
unified in their pain but divided in their Thanksgiving you unified in pain see what can hinder you and I from making room for Thanksgiving in our life is that we're unified with pain we're unified with misery and we're like well if they're miserable it's okay I'm miserable their marriage isn't good it's okay that my marriage isn't good if they have a broken relationship with their family members it's okay if I do as well we do not want to get caught up and being unified with misery but we want to
cross over into Thanksgiving and being faithful so when Jesus saw this 10 they began to shout out they begin to cry out to him and the first things they utter is his name Jesus and there's a lot of us here will you call upon the name of the Lord you cry out you cry out to God asking him for deliverance asking him for help but notice they didn't just stop at his name they also added his title and position in their life they said Jesus m Master Jesus that is your name Master is the position you carry in my life many
of you you've been crawling on the name of Jesus but have you given him the proper title in your life as Master have you been stuck in misery calling out to Jesus Jesus Jesus wondering why you're still in that place can I invite you to put him as master and Lord over your life and watch what God will do in your life they say master have mercy on us now we know that there's this there there's this a connection between grace and mercy we see throughout scripture Grace is is getting that which we do not
deserve it's like somebody just handing you something and blessing you Grace is getting that which we don't deserve but Mercy is not getting what we do deserve and they're calling out to God and they're saying Jesus Master would you not give me what I know that I deserve would you give me mercy today see Mercy is something that only God can give you and I Mercy is the fact that you have come to the acceptance to say God I know I'm guilty of this but I'm asking you for Mercy please don't
give me what I know I do deserve and that's why it's so blessed to know God and to walk with God because we know his mercies are new every morning Jesus would then go along to give them the instructions in which they are going to be healed now if you study the other accounts of Jesus healing leprosy in the Bible you'll notice a theme that every time there was a leper that came to him Jesus would lay hands on them to heal them now this is not only a h not a a practice that should have been done but Jesus was was blowing
the minds of all the Pharisees and the religious leaders because you should not touch that which is unclean and Jesus was showing them that yeah you see them as unclean but I see them as clean I see them as my children but in this account there is no laying on of hands there is no be healed he simply just gives them instructions go and see the priest now it was customary that if someone did have leprosy the law stipulated that they would have to get healed first and then go to the priest see the priest's role was to examine the
condition of the individual it was the priest's role to determine unclean or clean and so Jesus is having them go to the priest but he's doing it out of the order of what was customary they're already supposed to be healed before they go to the priest because they're unclean and they should not even go to the priest in the first place until they are made clean but Jesus tells them go see the priest some of us you just need to start walking and by the time you get there God's going to have it figured
out you just simply need to listen to the instructions that God has given you and start taking that step of faith and start walking and by the time you get to the destination he will have already worked it all out no longer should you be stuck in paralysis of saying well I can't walk yet until I fully get here healed no you can walk and your faith will make you well see they obeyed God and then were healed rather than obeying God because they were healed they obeyed God before they were healed why because he was the master of
their life do not get stuck this holiday season with whatever tradition uh pain or cycle of things that you have had to deal with in your life I want to encourage you just start walking in the direction God has for you and it's in them being obedient Before the Breakthrough come on we want to praise God after he's done the miracle right who doesn't want to get up here and and shout and pretend to sing like Pastor Brandon and and just glorify God after he's done it but do do you want to do it in the middle of it when you don't know
if you're going to be healed when you don't know how he's going to deliver you when you don't know if he's going to save your family member when you don't know if he's going to come through financially for your family would you still be obedient in that moment cuz the 10 lepers were you cannot this is something that I felt like God told me as I was reading this two things number one the crowd doesn't always get it right right they all obeyed they went but when it came to giving thanks only one Jesus asked the
question where are the nine the crowd don't always get it right when it comes to this by the way so don't don't follow the crowd follow God but secondly we cannot be thankful for something if we are unwilling to look back and give praise for it the Bible says that as he was walking he realized he was healed and he what he turned back to praise God and to say thank you sometimes the reason why we don't have room for Thanksgiving in our lives is because we're unwilling to turn back we're just so we're just so filled
with joy or whatever it is the fact that we're back in community for these men that they just keep going forward failing to realize wait wait wait I should have turned back and say thank you for the one who actually made this possible which is is something that I've learned in life if you don't give thanks quickly you likely won't give thanks at all if you don't give thanks quickly you likely won't give thanks all come on we've all we've all had somebody pay for our lunch before you ever have someone take you to
a meal or do some kind act of gesture right there and and the reality is if this is how it has been for me in my life if you don't say thank you in that moment you're not remembering three weeks ago and they like oh you know what I need to thank so and so for lunch no Thanksgiving if you delay if you wait you likely won't be thankful for it you likely won't say it you likely won't remember it because I think Thanksgiving sometimes maybe this is just a product of the Fall I don't know I feel like
thankfulness is like a bucket with holes in it and we're constantly spilling it we got to keep feeling it keep feeling it because it just has the tendency to just to spill out it has a tendency for us to just forget about it or to not see the importance of it and to keep living our busy lives not being willing to turn back and to say you know what I need to be thankful for what God has done some could look at this story and say well the nine I know there's someone out there because I had this thought and I know I ain't alone
the nine did everything exactly the way Jesus said to do it can there really be any fault in their actions like they did what Jesus said he said go see the priest he never said come back to me and give thanks he never said once you realize you're healed you should come back and and worship me no he just he says go and do this but yet we kind of read this and we're thinking well the one was much greater than the nine because the one came back to say Thanksgiving and I think it's because of this obedience without gratitude makes
you a really good soldier but not a Godly example obedience without gratitude makes you a good soldier you followed the orders you did as you were commanded but having gratitude and Thanksgiving now you can be a Godly example we see so many times in the Old Testament and the new countless times how many times the Bible says give thanks expressing gratitude thanks be to God it is in there time and time and time again we cannot be followers of Christ Christ and not know that we are called to make room for Thanksgiving in
our lives so yes you might be like Lord I've been obedient you're a good soldier I don't want to just be a good soldier though I want to be a Godly example to others I want to model after Christ I want to model my life that it would give honor to God based on How I Live not just saying I hit the letter of the law I want to be right by the spirit of the law there's a quote by Harry Ironside that says thiswe would worry less if we praise more Thanksgiving is the enemy of discontent and dissatisfaction we would worry less if
we just praise God more that's what I love about worship I don't know if you noticed this but when you're truly worshiping God there's not a worry in your life all the pressure all the stress that's outside of those doors all the tension and turmoil that you have to go back into or your workplace or your home it all disappears when you're praising God when we are worshiping God when we're Are Thankful when we're giving praise to God discontentment just kind of goes out the door dissatisfaction
with life begin to just melt away off of you we got to be people who make room for Thanksgiving in our lives so upon this one coming back in verse seven Jesus answered him and saying we not 10 cleansed where are the nine was no one found to return and give praise to God except this Foreigner now what he's meaning by this Foreigner is that the one that returned was the one Samaritan ironically the Samaritan is the one who can't even go into the temple to worship God while the others could but he could worship at Fe the
feet of Jesus and so he says is not only the Foreigner the one that's supposed to be opposed me or against me and my people that's the only one that will come back and give thanks this was a hard pill of swallow but as I was reading that I thought to myself if I really wanted to grieve the heart of God I would just live a life lacking gratitude where are the nine were there not 10 that were cleansed where are the others praising God for what he has done in our lives let not be said of you and I friends that we would be the nine and
not the one that we would be the ones lacking gratitude that we would be the ones lacking Thanksgiving in our hearts for not just what he has done in our lives but simply for the fact of who he is so as a Samaritan who should not talk to Jesus who should not commune with Jesus who was just healed of leprosy as he turns back to give praise to God the Bible says that he falls at his feet and he's worshiping his head is to his feet I want you to notice Early In this passage it says that they were shouting from a
distance and now he is at his feet Thanksgiving can take you from living far away from God to in close proximity with God and he was willing to take his head and to worship at Jesus's feet now what does this mean what does this represent what is the the symbolism here it is a deep sign of humility the head is seen as the glory of an individual as seen as the highest portion of them the the thing that is most esteemed and the feet were seen as unclean dirty feet uh the lowly part of a person and so here the Samaritan is
taking that which is seen as the highest portion of him and he's bringing it to the most lowly place of Jesus he's setting everything into alignment I am down here God and you are right here I worship here at your feet I praise you for what you're doing here at your feet I'm willing to go low to glorify you I've never met per a person who is filled with Thanksgiving and also Pride that's filled with gratitude but also has an arrogant personality he was willing to go to Jesus's feet and saying the best of who
I am I place at the lowliest place of you their condition had them living in distance but Thanksgiving brought him to Jesus we have to answer this question do you want to be in the comfort of community of others over the comfort of communion with him I don't believe the nine this is just my thoughts I don't believe the nine were maliciously trying not to say thank you I think they just probably got overjoyed and overwhelmed they were back in community with people and they went on living their life but do we want the
comfort of just community over the comfort of communion with him because I think the one won he won at life right there he got to be at the feet of Jesus while the others got to be in the presence of others I want to conclude today with this principle of a thank you card or a thank you letter anyone ever receive a thank you letter now when I think of a thank you card there's actually a couple of ways I I think about it see I don't know about you I've been guilty of this because I'm not always the best at expressing my
feelings uh anyone ever get a thank you card when you open it all it said was thank you come on somebody you better tell the truth in church that doesn't hit the same that doesn't impact us the same as when you open up a blank card that doesn't even have the printed thank you and it's just filled with their words this week as we go into Thanksgiving I want to invite you to enter into a place of saying God I want to say thank you I want to say thank you for all that you have done in my life I want to say
thank you for who you are I want to encourage us this week I want you to write a thank you letter to God not just a thank you you James but I want you to take the time to write a thank you letter to God I want to encourage you if you feel comfortable share it with your family or loved ones at the Thanksgiving table say hey I wrote this card to give God thanks and I would love to share it with all of you on this night for this week I'm challenging you let's not pray to God asking for anything but let's just pray
to God giving thanks for everything let's just simply thank him for who he is would you all stand to your feet with me today I've asked Pastor Brandon to help me as we're going to uh he's going to lead us in a song this is kind of an older song it might be familiar to you but what I'm asking is that for these next just few moments that we have I want us to get into the mindset and into the spirit of saying God I want my heart disposition to be in a place of saying thank you I think it's very important that as
a pastor or as anyone who would speak before po people that we should never ask you to do anything that we're not willing to do and so I just want to share with you I wrote a thank you letter to God says Dear God as I write you this letter I find myself wishing there were more words in the English language so I could utilize them all to express my gratitude for who you are in my life I'm not quite sure what life milestone to start with I was recently asked in a room of peers what I was thankful for immediately my mind jumped to one thing
and that is being a father it could seem insignificant for others but you and I know how much of a sensitive subject that has been I'm not sure I quite realize the gravity of the gift to raise the three boys that you have given me but I'm eager to learn as time goes on thank you for being my heavenly father but also for the fruit of your spirit that helps me be one to my own then there is Chelsea I'm continually amazed at how blessed I I am that you brought our two paths together I am grateful to know it
was an act of your love for me bringing her into my life so much more can be said to express my gratitude for you when it comes to her but we're in church and I'm going to keep it moving Lord I want to thank you for not allowing my life to be easy through every difficult season adversity or trial you have been with me and you have developed me through it I'm thankful my life has never been boring and the journey of knowing you lead leads me to want to know you more Thanks for opening your arms to
embrace me even when I tried to push you away you have humbled me taught me corrected me and then corrected me again but I never have felt that you have disapproved of me I eternally want to say thank you for taking the taste of sin out of my mouth you know everything I was bound to and your love delivered me even when I ran back to it time and time again thank you for being patient with me not giving me a license to do so because I know I will have to give an account but still having a calling on my life to serve your people in Ministry I
am grateful for the depth of relationships I get to have with friends and the many that have become my family and the new ones that are to come thank you for every leader that has spoken into my life and lastly thank you for revealing yourself to me in your word growing me in your word and maturing me to be more in your likeness love your son James I want to encourage [Applause] [Music] you there's a thank you letter in each and every one of you and this week don't hold back even if that page as you go to
write it has to be covered with tears let's give God the praise that he deserves let's say thank you to Our Father in Heaven see it's if we're going to make room for Thanksgiving we have to make it personal we cannot ride on the coattails of someone else's gratitude it has to be our own today is a special day I want to pray for you real quickly and I want to invite you into one more thing father would you just be with us right now God we thank you that you are so good your compassion knows no
bounds you have been faithful time and time again God and Lord I pray as we go into this week that realize church and the people that would call Real Life Church home would be filled with gratitude Thanksgiving and an abundance of Praise would you help us to make room on our plate would you help us to see you rightly not only as Jesus but as our Master not only as our Master but you call us friend we thank you God in Jesus name and everyone said amen thank you so much for watching this message we pray that it encouraged you and strengthen
your walk with God we also want to say thank you to our generous donors through your gifts we're able to make a difference for God's Kingdom in our community and around the world if you'd like to partner with us in giving you can text and give the amount to 84321 or you can visit our website also catch up with all our social media platforms to stay up to date on all that's happening here at real life we'll see you next time [Music] [Music]