One Out of Ten – The Message Everyone Must Hear

Automated transcript, lightly edited for readability. Scripture appears as spoken; the video is the authoritative teaching.

What Does Thanksgiving Mean to America? But getting back to Thanksgiving, when we think of Thanksgiving in the United States, what do we think of? Pilgrims, Indians, turkeys, cranberry jelly or sauce—cranberry mush, probably shouldn't eat it, but we do a bowlful. Stuffing or dressing, if you're from the north. How many of you guys know the first national Thanksgiving did not happen until 1777? You see, a lot of people think that pilgrims and Indians got together and had this fall feast at Plymouth. The Indians helped accommodate, and then they all shared and laughed together for a couple days and that's how Thanksgiving began, the first Thanksgiving. And that's not necessarily the case. You see, throughout history, every single culture and kingdom have had a fall feast of Thanksgiving, right? It's when the last harvest of the year comes, specifically in the Near East.

Israel had one, it's called Sukkot. It's when they celebrated the last major harvest. That's why you bring the first fruits of your harvest to Sukkot. We wave them in the air. It's a Thanksgiving festival, right? Turkey's done. Even in secular America, we have fall feasts or fall festivals, right? That originated from celebrating the very last harvest season. You think you just had a festival where you go and ride in a hay bale around some pumpkin patches? No, it came from giving thanks.

The Real History of American Thanksgiving

The very first organized Thanksgiving had to do with military victory. See, in 1777, the first declaration of a day of Thanksgiving by Congress followed the surrender of General John Burgoyne of the British Army in the Revolutionary War. This general surrendered to the colonies along with 5,000 troops. And it was such a big deal that Congress encouraged all 13 colonies to celebrate a day of Thanksgiving. In 1789, George Washington was the first president to actually announce Thanksgiving as a holiday. It took place Thursday, November 26th, and it did not become a nationally recognized holiday until much later.

So he was the first president to actually declare a day of thanks. If you read his proclamation, guess what? It has to do with war. It has to do with the bounty of the harvest and the good graces of the things that God has given us, but victory in war. See, we got Memorial Day, we got Veterans Day—we were very patriotic with Thanksgiving. Celebration of military victories of America. In the 19th century, there was a writer named Sarah Hale. Anyone know that name? You've read her books. Mary Had a Little Lamb—she wrote it, right? She was reading a diary of pilgrim life one day and got excited. She was like, "Wow, this is awesome about the 1628 count of pilgrims and the Indians coming together and having a Thanksgiving festival for three days."

And they didn't have turkey. They had venison and maybe some geese or something. And she got really excited. She's like, "Man, this was a Thanksgiving legend. We should revitalize this. We should have Thanksgiving like they did with the Indians, and it was such a joyous occasion." So she began petitioning for 30 years for a national holiday that would occur every single November called Thanksgiving. In her publication, she posted recipes for turkey, recipes for cranberry sauce, recipes for stuffing, pumpkin pie—the origins of these things. Pretty cool. I'm not mad at her.

Lincoln Solidifies the Holiday

In 1849, she waged a campaign lasting for 30 years, so on and so forth. We know that. Until finally, right after the Gettysburg victory of the Northern Army, Abraham Lincoln stood up. What are you laughing at? What did I say? That's not right. That's not right at all. It's supposed to be 1863. In the middle of the Civil War in 1863, President Abraham Lincoln declared that Thanksgiving would then be celebrated every single year on the final Thursday of the month. You see, from the time of George Washington proclaiming it as president, almost every single president followed through during their term.

Every year, a president would stand up and say, "This year we're going to celebrate Thanksgiving for all the blessings that God gave to us, all that God did for us, for all the blessings that God has given you." We're going to take a day. We're going to eat a bunch of good food. We're going to go to sleep on the couch. We're going to spend time with family. We're going to praise God for Thanksgiving. Except for a few presidents like Thomas Jefferson. He didn't like the idea of Thanksgiving because, to him, it overlapped church and state so much that he was hesitant during his entire term. He didn't declare Thanksgiving, but that was just one.

Andrew Jackson, I think, was another one. But every other president celebrated Thanksgiving. We need to celebrate God in our nation, right? Abraham Lincoln finally said, "We're going to solidify this, guys. We're going to make sure this sucker goes on every single year." What did he say in his proclamation? Let me read some of Abraham Lincoln: "I do therefore invite my fellow citizens in every part of the United States, and also those who are at sea and those who are sojourning in a foreign land, to set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent Father who dwelleth in the heavens.

And I recommended them that while offering up the ascriptions justly due to him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also with humble penances for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to his tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, and sufferers in this lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged, and fervently implore the interposition of the Almighty hand to heal the wounds of the nation and to restore it as soon as it may be consistent with the divine purposes to the full enjoyment of peace, harmony, tranquility, and union." Abraham Lincoln stated that in the midst of the Civil War we should celebrate Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November to remember that God is in control and even if we find ourselves in a civil war killing each other, that he would act swiftly, heal us, and return us back to a state of Thanksgiving and peace.

You thought it was about pilgrims and Indians, right? Incredible, huh? The first Thanksgiving in Congress, I think, was December 16th in 1777, by the way. It's incredible. History. Does history change your view on stuff a little bit?

Reclaiming the Religious Meaning

Are we still going to sit around with our families, still going to eat big turkey, stuffing, dressing, whatever you want to call it? It's interesting to kind of know why we're doing something because we're thankful for everything that God has given to us. Our presidents of past knew that this was a religious holiday. It was not a secular holiday. We celebrate and honor and venerate some big bird? This is a religious holiday where we thank God for everything that he has given to us. And so, every year, Thanksgiving, we sit around a table, right? Yeah, I know. I'm going to sit around a table, get all the family over, right?

Everybody have family over on Thanksgiving? Or go to someone else's house, right? A few people. It's a lonely Thanksgiving for some folks. Typically, you sit around a big table, and then someone has the audacity to look at you and say, "Hey, every one of us needs to say what we're thankful for." Everyone know what I'm talking about, right? And all of us act like this is a surprise. Everybody does this, everyone should do this, but then we act like it's a surprise, especially when we see everyone going around the table: "I'm thankful for this, I'm thankful for that." And then it comes to you. It comes to you. And you act like this is a surprise pop quiz, and you don't know the answers.

Going Blank When Asked

Does anyone else just go blank when they're asked what they're thankful for? Just me. Just me. Come on. Ladies, you go blank when they're angry. And then the men, at least the smart ones, just look at their wife. "I'm thankful for my wife. I'm thankful for my life. I'm thankful for my kids." Next one, right? Why do we draw a blank? Why do we draw a blank? That ought not be so. Oh, my slides weren't over. 1939: President Franklin D. Roosevelt moved the holiday up a week to give Depression-era retailers time to make more money during the Christmas shopping season. I spoke in my Christmas teaching last year that the Christmas of today really didn't exist 200 years ago—with all the elements and the commercialism—it just didn't.

Christmas of today was unrecognizable 200 years ago. But Coca-Cola got a hold of the standard image of Santa, painted him red and white, and poof, commercialism was born. Macy's knew. Everyone understood that when you have the Thanksgiving parade, at that moment, Thanksgiving kicks off Christmas, right? That's why you throw eggs at someone's house when they put Christmas decorations up before Thanksgiving. What are you doing? It's not time yet. Everyone understood in the late 1800s, early 1900s, that Thanksgiving kicked off this winter Christmas season. Macy's took full advantage of this by hosting the annual Macy's Thanksgiving parade.

Everybody would come out to celebrate kicking off the Christmas season. The president said, "Alright, we can give retailers an extra week. If we move Thanksgiving up, we'll give everyone an extra week of shopping and it'll fuel money into the economy and retailers will make more money for Christmas shopping." Right? Makes sense? People hated it, thought it was a stupid idea. Protested, protested, protested, until finally, in 1941, FDR signed a bill solidifying Thanksgiving on the fourth Thursday of November of every single year. That's how we have it today. Pilgrims did not come up the last Thursday of November and invite the Indians over to eat some corn or something.

Didn't happen. Franklin D. Roosevelt is why we're celebrating Thanksgiving on Thursday.

The Ten Lepers of Luke 17

So I mentioned about Luke chapter 17. Turn with me in your scriptures. Yeshua starts his ministry in Galilee outside of Judea, right? He did not start his ministry in Judea. He started his ministry outside of Judea, in Galilee, Gentile commercial intersection. It's beautiful. He wanted to change the world. Every time he had to go to Jerusalem, he had to travel down and around. Most people avoided Samaria. Sometimes he went through it. Sometimes he didn't. On the way to Jerusalem, he, Yeshua, was passing along between Samaria and Galilee. Okay? So right below Galilee area. And as he entered a village, he was met by ten lepers who stood at a distance and lifted up their voices.

Notice the lepers stood at a distance. Why did they stand at a distance? Because we know what Torah states in Leviticus 13, 14. Got the unclean law specifically with lepers. Laws to lepers. If you have leprosy, whatever this disease is, you are not to go and touch anybody. I'm going to kick you outside of the city so you can't infect anybody, and you're just going to sit out there and rot away. Do not touch anybody and expose anyone else from your disease.

So they stood at afar, all right, as to our commandment. And they lifted up their voices, and they said, Master, have mercy on us. Epistaste is a Greek word only used by Luke, and it means master, literally. One who is higher than us. One we look up to. One who has authority. The lepers knew who Yeshua was and they yelled out, Master, have mercy on us. And when he saw them, he said to them, go and show yourself to the priest. And as they went, they were healed. I love that. You're a leper. You're a yonder, you see Yeshua. Yeshua, have mercy, right? Probably I got a little limb right here. Yeshua, have mercy. Can't see. Eyes are probably blind. Who knows? And he yells back, go on, go show yourself to the priest.

Showing Themselves to the Priests

Guys, the priests, let me put it in perspective. The priests were like the food inspectors of the first century. Okay, Torah says that they are the ones who are supposed to not heal the lepers, but to inspect the lepers to make sure they are healed. Okay, you go and show yourself to the priest and you skin lesions all over the place. You're showing yourself to the food inspector. He's going to be, no, get away. You're not allowed in the city. Go on. Guys, we're sitting there rotting alive. Go show yourself to the priest, guys. All right. They agreed to this and they went. And as they began walking at the master's command, they were cleansed of this disease. We could do a sermon just on that, but we're going to move on.

One Samaritan Returned

Then one of them, how many? One of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. And he fell on his face at Yeshua's feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Why is that significant? Samaritans were not—they were the outcasts of Judea. Okay? Ever since the 8th century BCE after the Assyrians took over and began inbreeding the northern tribes of Israel with Babylonians, Assyrians, all kinds of folks, the Judeans reject them. They were half-breeds. They had a little bit different standard of Torah, right? They didn't worship in Jerusalem. They worshiped up north on some mountain, Gerizim. And the Jews hated them. They did not view them as being in the covenant of God. Then Yeshua answered, Were there not ten cleansed? Where are the other nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner? Out of all ten of the lepers that were healed, the Samaritan runs back and gives praise to God and gives gratitude to Yeshua. Hence the name of this message, one out of ten. 10%. 10%.

Gratitude and Thanksgiving

And so that got me thinking on a road about gratitude and thanksgiving. And am I thankful for the things that I have? Am I thankful? Do I show gratitude to God for the things that I have? If so, why is it so hard at the Thanksgiving dinner table to come up with one thing to express thanks to God for? Am I part of the 10%? Or am I part of the majority, the 90%? Hmm. Rise and go your way. Your faith has made you well. That Greek word there can mean healed, cleansed, or saved, actually. Your faith has saved you. Does that mean that the nine other guys that were healed weren't saved? Because they didn't show gratitude? Gratitude's a big deal. We know hospitality is an attribute of a believer. Saved if you're not hospitable. A lot was. So I began studying leprosy.

Dr. Brand's Discovery in India

So we know Leviticus 13, 14. If you want to go back and review the laws of leprosy and Torah, very in-depth information. In the middle of the 20th century, there was a doctor, Dr. Brand. And he was a surgeon. And he took a trip to India because he felt God move in his life that he should go visit people in India. And when he arrived in India, he noticed something. He noticed the poor sitting outside of the temples, outside of the stores, in the street corners, begging for money. Right? And people were just rejecting them. Wouldn't give them anything, spitting on them, kicking dust, get away from me.

And so he asked his friend there in India, who are these people? And he said, oh, those are the lepers. Right? Coming from the West, we mean lepers. There's actually lepers? Yeah, these are the lepers. And so he stayed and he worked at a hospital and he began to observe these people with this unique disease that's now known as Hansen's disease. Now there is a debate whether Hansen's disease is the leprosy talked about, spoken about all over scripture. We're not sure, but let's just assume it is. He's looking at these people and he notices something very unique. He notices people walking barefoot over concrete with shards of glass sticking out of it.

And they just walked through it. He noticed that people working at the hospital digging holes and trenches out back with a shovel. At the end of the day, they take their hand off the shovel and he notices there's a nail protruding from the shovel. They had their hand in the whole time they were working. What in the world?

The Gift of Pain

On a cabinet, medical supplies, he had a rusty lock. He tells a story. When your lock gets a little rusty, it's really hard. You're like, He did not have the strength to turn the key to get the lock open. And a 12-year-old boy who was diagnosed with this mysterious disease comes up and says, I can do it. Oh, really? Okay, well, give it a shot, boy. Kid wakes up, turns the key. Here you go. Guys in awe. How did this child, X-Man, mutant, how did this child have the strength to turn the key in this lock? And then he looked down and he noticed a pool of blood that wasn't there a second ago trailing off behind the child.

Kid, kid, kid, come here, let me see your hand, what did you do? The child turned the key, but not before it sliced through the intense layers of his skin, sinews fat, and nicked the bone in his fingers. You see, the bacterium for this disease of leprosy, the first thing it attacks are the nerves that are close to the top of the skin, and then follows lesions and sores over the body. Over time, your nerves get shot, and it acts as an anesthetic. It numbs you. So you cannot feel pain. He ends up writing a book called "The Gift of Pain" and it shocked the West. What do you mean "the gift of pain"? If you were sick, wouldn't you just rather not feel pain? Wouldn't that be nice?

Self-Inflicted Harm Without Feeling

This Hansen's disease caused the skin to stiffen in some areas of the body. So I see people with their faces start to look like a wrinkled lion or a dog maybe. What's the one thing about lepers that you notice? Have you ever seen a movie, Kingdom of Heaven, remember fingers are falling off? Leprosy doesn't cause the limbs to fade away. This is done by the patient's own doing. Drop a potato in the fire, he noticed people would just reach into the fire, hot coals, dig the potato out. One man that went blind did so by washing his face every day with a hot towel. He couldn't tell how hot it was. And so with scalding water every morning, he touched his eyeballs with it until he was blind.

He didn't know why. Slowly fading away, finger by finger, toe by toe, hand by hand, appendage and appendage. Hansen's disease doesn't kill people. The wounds and the sores that become infected kill people. Ten lepers stood at afar saying, Master, have mercy on us. Smiled at them. Go and show yourself to the priests. And on their way, they were healed of this disease. Able to feel everything. Sores went away. No trace. Maybe stubbed their toe in the way. Ouch! I felt bad.

Spiritual Leprosy

One was so excited that he turned back and began to praise God for the blessing that he had given him. You hear a lot of people talk about spiritual leprosy. I love that. It got me thinking about that. Spiritual leprosy. What does that mean? It means that when you come to a point where you're unable to hear or acknowledge God's word and commandments in our lives, because God has commandments for us for a reason, right?

Pain as a Guard

What's the reason? It stops you from doing something. Stop. It's a guard. It's a fence. Don't go any further, right? Pain does that very same thing in our lives. We should be thankful for pain. People out there right now who are numb to God's presence, they don't understand why they can't feel God's presence with them any longer. And it's not like God isn't there. He's whispering in their ear, I'm right here. This is what spiritual leprosy does. These are the symptoms of spiritual leprosy. When you are numb to everything that God has presented before you. When you are numb to the blessings that God has presented before you. When you sit there in your prayers and you want to thank God for something, but it's like you're back at that kitchen table and you just can't think of anything. It's incredible. When I was putting together this message, I had a very, very humbling and sobering occurrence. And I want to admit this to you. Can I be a real person with you guys?

Gratitude and Entitlement: Opposites

So we talk about gratitude. Being grateful for something—it's giving thanks for something, it's appreciating something, something that's been given to you. And then you have entitlement. Now what's interesting is these things are almost antonyms. They're almost opposites from each other, right? You can't be grateful for something if you feel entitled to it. That's absolutely true. Your gratitude ends where your sense of entitlement begins. You can't be grateful for something that you feel entitled to. It's impossible. Let that soak in for a second. What do you feel entitled to in your life today?

A Personal Reckoning

Like many of you know, my wife and I have prayed to God for a child. We've spent nights crying together for a child. Father, we want to know what it's like to share love with a child. Give us this blessing. We researched adoption because we were led in that direction. We had to fill out a whole lot of paperwork. It was hard. We had to face the reality of everything that it was going to take and make a decision—a stressful decision. We had to endure this stress if we were going to proceed with this. We had to have a DSS agent for an interview not once but twice in our house. Ladies and gentlemen, I was homeschooled.

We don't just allow those people in our homes. We had to do a lot. We had to raise a lot of money—thousands of dollars just to begin the process— and then they were like, "Oh yeah, it's going to cost you tens of thousands more. Are you sure you're going to be able to do this?" "Yeah, I guess we're taking a loan if we need to. We'll keep fundraising." At one point, I looked at Jenny. I'm like, "Man, we could buy a new car and redo the kitchen. You really want to do this?" I spent time with the adoption agency, filling out the paperwork. One day, application was in, still fundraising—I have a long way to go—we get a phone call in Walmart, and my wife is jumping up and down.

We were chosen by a mother. So if you have a profile, they pass it out to moms who are pregnant and they choose you, typically early in the adoption. And we were chosen by a mother. And so I go into freak-out mode, you know—oh, everything's going to change. Okay, we're fundraising 10 times more now. We've got to raise a lot of money now. We're not doing so well toward the maximum amount. We've got six, eight, five, nine months. How long do we have? The child was born yesterday. You can pick him up tomorrow at 1 p.m. Really? We didn't know anything about the child. Race, medical history, nothing. Yes, we have a son.

We ran home and started cleaning up the house because we were fundraising for something else. The next day, we brought home our son, whom we named Benjamin. And I realized that I was not grateful for my son. Because I felt like I had worked so hard with my wife to do everything that we needed to do to bring home a boy who is our son, I felt entitled to him when I was doing this message this week. How dare I? I felt entitled because I felt like I paid for him with my time and my efforts. I work very hard to make sure my wife is happy and to give her a good home and make sure she has clothes on her back and give her everything that she needs and I should be entitled to my wife's loyalty.

Entitled to Everything

My car—we paid for our car. Am I grateful for it? No, I'm entitled to it. I'm entitled to my house. I'm entitled to my house. I realize that I'm entitled to everything in my life. At least that's what I've told myself. And I was not one bit grateful for anything. No wonder I have that awkward silence in prayer when I'm trying to think of the things I'm grateful for God giving me. I've forgotten that He's given me everything. I dare say that's every one of us—at least 90% of us, How is it so easy to forget? Who gives us favor in those job interviews? How is it so easy to forget? Who leads us to that vehicle?

Who leads us to that house? Who allows us to get that raise at work so we can provide for our family? For our children? How can we forget the weight of God's blessing in our life? To be so arrogant to feel entitled to anything. 1 Thessalonians states, "Be joyful always, pray continually, and give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Messiah Yeshua." God's will for you is that you would be grateful for everything. Are we failing in God's will? You cannot be grateful for something that you feel entitled to.

The Purpose of Blessing

And then I realized: What is the purpose of God giving us blessings? What is the purpose of God shining His light into our life? It's so that we can carry out that mandate and carry it forward to others, right? That's the whole purpose of everything. See, God loved you so much that He gave. You didn't work. He gave His only begotten Son that He should die for you, that you would not perish but have everlasting life. Are we grateful for that or do we feel entitled to that as well? That's a serious question you need to ask yourself. Are you entitled to your salvation? Are you entitled to the covenant of God because you worked for it, because you gave some type of an effort, because it cost you something that God probably gave you to begin with? And the mandate of His kingdom, after we're in it, is to go out and give the same invitation that brought us into the kingdom to everybody else. Everything that God gives to us is supposed to shine through us to other people.

Light and Mirror

God used Yeshua to heal the lepers. The first leper prays to God. Everything is supposed to reflect off of you. It's not supposed to absorb into you. You get a light and a mirror—what happens? Reflects off, right? Hits the mirror and the mirror reflects it off. Every single blessing in our life is supposed to have that effect in our lives if we are truly ambassadors of Messiah. I'm talking about every single thing that God gives to us is supposed to be transformed into a reciprocal action. If you have kids, you are supposed to be raising them in a manner that is going to strengthen and edify His kingdom, not your own. If you have a marriage that God has blessed you with, you should be willing to take time within this great marriage to give to those who are struggling. If God has blessed you with financial prosperity, don't think for a moment that you're not being tested. Don't think for a minute that you're not being tested in a world that lacks proximity to His kingdom.

Where Your Treasure Is

See, we go home and we give gratitude to God. We thank Him with our lips, but I bet our hearts are far from Him. Yeshua said that, quoting Isaiah. Later on, He actually said something very sobering. He said that wherever your treasure is, the things that you hold of value in your life, wherever your treasure is, so your heart will be also. In other words, Yeshua said, if you give me your checkbook, I'll open it up and I can show you where your heart is in contrast to God's kingdom. The financial prosperity that God gives to you is supposed to be reciprocated back into His kingdom. When we give to Founded in Truth, it's a blessing to Founded in Truth. When it comes into Founded in Truth, we have the same mandate. Everything that comes in needs to be reciprocated back out for the sake of His kingdom.

From Basement to Growth

Two and a half years ago, remember where we were? A little hole in the wall in the basement of that church. How many of you guys were there? It's incredible. We made a mission to facilitate a gathering of believers that would be founded on the purpose of shedding the gospel of Yeshua, spreading the gospel of Yeshua, and revealing the hidden truth of God's covenant with Abraham. No doubt God has been working through each and every one of you in this ministry for that effort. A year ago we had no external assets, right? We understood that the feast days—the Moedim— that's where Jason was saying, it's where the rubber meets the road. That's our greatest opportunity to memorialize the feast days that our ancestors kept in Jerusalem with the temple. It's also our biggest evangelical tool. If we want to explore it like that, I'm willing to do it.

Feast Days as Evangelical Opportunity

You know, at Passover this year we had over 100 people. We had five families that had never done Passover before in their lives. I think three or four of them had never been to Feast. We got to show them the light of Torah through the example of Yeshua on Passover with a fellowship of believers. Yom Teruah, we've been able to obtain speakers, soundboard, a bunch of cool microphones. Yom Teruah, we were singing in the park, dancing in a circle, tooting all these crazy horns. Who are these people? People were walking up to our shelter. Not in here. Sukkot, we had visitors to Sukkot. These are opportunities that God has allowed us to function with because of the blessing of others.

Next step for us—we can't do it right now—is to facilitate and get our own facility. Can you imagine giving notice months ahead of time for our feast days because we know we're going to have it? Men, can you imagine having a small group every single week, not in Chick-fil-A? Ladies, would you like to invite that co-worker, that peer who's not a believer, who refuses to come to a Shabbat or even a Sunday service at a church because she doesn't want anything to do with religion, but you would love to introduce her to the real people of faith that are in your small group? It'd be nice to do that on a Tuesday afternoon if we had a place in place.

That's the next step, guys. If we can get that blessing from God, that's the next step.

The Great Commission and Financial Stewardship

We have other ministries out there that are spreading the gospel of Yeshua to the outermost four corners of the world, just as the Great Commission was. And for some reason, as believers, we feel like we should not financially support them because we're entitled to all the blessings in our lives, including our money. The poor will always be with you. That's what Yeshua said. Everybody knows someone who can't afford to buy clothes for their kids. Everybody knows someone who's struggling to pay for groceries this week. Everybody knows someone who can't pay that power bill, can't pay that rent. God has given you a blessing to bless others in his name.

This is where the financial prosperity that God has given to you needs to act with spreading his name, his kingdom across the world. The fullness of the prosperity of God should not be found at home in your TV. It shouldn't be found in your car. It should not be found in your iPhone, Android, jewelry, home. These are things that we feel entitled to, guys. No one should walk into your house and say, "Oh, I see where they're putting all of their money." This is a very real occurrence. Do we ever wonder why we get hit with waves of brokenness and impossible situations in our lives? Being real, because this is me too: I don't know.

I might go out on a limb here. I wonder if the Father sits on his throne and yearns for his people just to say thank you. Yearns for it. He allows situations to come in our lives that are absolutely impossible to handle on our own.

Impossible! The only way we're going to get through this situation is if He intervenes. And when He does, maybe, just maybe, we will look up and say, "Thank you." Maybe.

The Garden, the Serpent, and the Forbidden Fruit

Absolutely incredible. The garden. The garden. Eve. Everybody knows the story, right? What happened in the garden. Adam and Eve were told to till and keep the garden of God. It's their job to maintain it. Get the weed whacker out every Wednesday, around the trees. Tremors. Make sure everything looks good. And as a result of that, they get to eat of everything except for one tree. So what? We know the story. The serpent comes down the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Speaks to Eve. He's like, "Eve, you want some of this—apple, figs, whatever it was?" She says, "No, Father says I can't eat this."

"No, no, no, Eve, you don't understand. I've seen the work that you've been doing around the garden. You've been doing a good job. I saw you aerating the west side of the garden just yesterday, blowing the leaves. You've been doing a great job here. Don't you know that God doesn't want you to eat the fruit because then you'll be like him and the other Elohim. You'll be like the gods if you eat of the fruit." "No, it'll kill me if I eat it." "No, it's not going to kill you. God's just saying that because he wants it all for himself." Emphasis is mine. What's Eve do? She saw that the fruit was good to eat, make one wise.

She felt entitled to the fruit. Adam and Eve felt entitled to the fruit that they were not entitled to. It's incredible.

The Dangerous Entitlement

We have to be careful because, can I be real? I'm going to say something that every single one of you are going to immediately reject, but it's true. You can't tell me it's not true. I know it's true because I know you because I'm just like you. As believers, we yearn to hear Satan's voice tell us that we are entitled to all of the blessings that God gives to us. We yearn for that voice to speak into our life. We accept it. We love justifying such things. Give me a little key to an apartment in our heart. The biggest lie that you will ever be told is that God does not have a purpose for giving you all of the blessings that he has given you. He's given you a voice to sing—you need to be singing praises to him. If he's given you the ability to play an instrument, you need to be playing an instrument for him. He's given you the ability to dance—why aren't you up here? He's given you the blessing of finances. Why aren't you doing something with it?

We got a big problem with this in the messianic and Hebrew roots community. I don't know what it is. Nope, I'm gonna keep it all to myself. You have ministries, non-profit, world organizations that are helping people. You're not going to give them five bucks because it's yours because you're entitled to it. Guys, we have to be very careful because that's a dangerous line that we're walking. A dangerous line.

The Parable of the Talents

Yeshua tells a parable about a master who leaves a little bit of his inheritance to three of his men, his workers. A few talents each. And two of the workers go and they take what the Father has given them and they invest it. They give it function. And because they give it function, it multiplies. So when the master returns: "Look, master, look at these things you gave to us, the blessing that you gave to us, and look—multiplied!" "Good job, guys. Faithful servants, good job. The blessings I've given to you in your life." It's funny because whenever I say blessing, every one of you thinks I'm only talking about money.

Don't believe that lie. That's easy. Money. Give money away. What about the other things in your life that you want to be selfish with? Then there was that one servant, gave him one coin, one talent, and the servant buried it. So I'm going to re-emphasize the story, and I'm going to say the servant kept it to himself. Did not give the blessing the father gave him any function, any purpose for the greater good of the father's kingdom. "You wicked servant." We have to be very careful. You cannot be grateful if you feel entitled to something. Maybe this is why we draw a blank at Thanksgiving. Maybe this is why when it comes our turn, we sit at the Thanksgiving table saying, "Oh, what am I thankful for?

I mean, I got my clothes on. I got this nice sweater on. I'm not cold. I got a big turkey drumstick in my hand. I got a wife that loves me. I got a gold wedding ring—silver. I got a baby. I got five kids. I got grandkids. What could I possibly be thankful for?" Are we entitled to everything, or have we convinced ourselves that we're entitled to everything in our life? Is this a sobering message? This sure was for me. Or if we do say that we're thankful for our wife or our kids or our house—well, I'm thankful to God—if we feel entitled to it and we say that, then we've just replaced God and lifted ourselves up as saying, "I'm entitled." I'm thankful for the entitlement to everything that I've done for me and my family.

Everything Is a Gift

What if, guys, what if every single thing we looked at in our lives we saw as a blessing from God? Everything good. See, James talks about this. Look at this: "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above." Everything that you call good in your life is from above. Everything that you think is good and valuable in your life is a direct gift from God. You weren't entitled to it. He could have pulled the strings. Taken it away. He didn't. That's incredible—that we have become so arrogant as a body of Messiah to replace God's graces to us with our own selfish endeavors. My son is a gift from God.

I did not deserve him. My wife is a gift from God. I do not deserve her. Your car, your bank account, house—everything is a gift from God. You do not deserve it. You know what you deserve according to scripture? Wages of sin. That's what you deserve. Death. You're alive? What do you know? That must mean that is a gift from God. Every one of us should be in awe right now about the blessings that God thought about and gave to us in our life. Psalm : "I will praise the name of God with song and I shall magnify him with Thanksgiving." See, ten minutes ago we would have read that verse and been like, "I wonder what I would have sung about."

First Chronicles 16:8: "Oh, give thanks to Yahweh. Call upon his name. Make known his deeds among the people. Make known the blessings He has given to you around that Thanksgiving table when all your family asks you. What are you thankful for? You should break down crying every single time someone asks you that." 1 Thessalonians : "In everything, not in some things, in everything, be grateful and give thanks, for this is God's will for you." 2 Corinthians : "You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God."

That's what Paul's calling out. He's basically saying that your generosity can cause others not to see you being generous to them, but to see God being generous to them through you.

An Ambassador of Messiah

You guys know what an ambassador does? It's a mediator, one who stands and delivers messages from someone higher to the people. That's your job as an ambassador of Messiah. Everything that he gives you is supposed to be a letter and a message and a blessing that should be going to someone else—not so you can get any type of recognition because you don't deserve anything. As human beings, we don't. Sorry to break it to you. He deserves everything.

When you are generous to others, thanksgiving to God breaks out. That's more important than you guys. We're going to die one day. We're going to be forgotten generations from now. They're never going to know our name. But the records will remain how great our God is, and I want to be a part of uplifting his name.

The Sign of a Mature Believer

I think someone's going to be born. Mature believers are thankful. It's a sign of a mature believer. Colossians 3.15, "and let the peace of God rule in your hearts. Peace of God." You know when we stress out about our stuff or our situations in life or the things that we don't have control over, we always stress out, have anxiety. How do we obtain the peace of God? By realizing that every single thing that's going to happen in our life is from God. I don't have any control over it. I'm just walking the way I'm supposed to be walking throughout life. That's when you obtain the peace of God and knowing that all you can do is say, thank you, Father. How can I serve you better? "To which also you are called in one body, be thankful. That's it. Let the peace of God be in your hearts and be thankful." That's easy. What are you thankful for?

The Patron-Client Model of Grace

Seneca the Younger—not from the Hunger Games—was a first century Roman Stoic philosopher. He talks a lot about patron-client relationships. In the Roman Empire, faith was understood as giving honor to someone higher than you who has bestowed a blessing on you. It was known as a patron. Patronage. If you needed something that you could not obtain, a patron would come and give you something that you needed. And if you received this gift, you had to give honor back. Pistos—it was faith. You were faithful back to the master. This whole idea about greasy grace and all this mess—this is called grace, the cycle of grace. When someone gave you something you didn't deserve, you accepted it. And in accepting it, you agreed to give back honor and praise and thanksgiving back to the patron, the one who gave it to you.

The Reformation's Mistake

After the Reformation, we totally revamped in our stupidity. Stupidity of wanting to protest something we understood as a foundation was wrong, but we had no idea where to go. So we're going to lop the second part of the grace cycle off and just say when God gives you something, you take it. That's grace. No. When God gives you something, you have a choice. Am I going to take it? And if I'm going to take it, am I able to reciprocate the things that he's given me back to honor and praise back to him? This was how society in the Roman Empire worked, and grace and faith were legal terms that described that situation. So Seneca says: "Thus, patrons tend to act out of some form of balanced reciprocity, expecting a return of praise and respect." Every blessing that God gives you needs to be reciprocated back to his kingdom in praise and respect, right? From their clients—the ones who receive.

Ingratitude: The Worst Evil

Moreover, ingratitude ranked as one of the worst interpersonal evils. In Seneca's writings, The Axis of Evil, he argues that ingrates are the worst of the very bad lot. Homicides or murderers, tyrants, thieves, adulterers, robbers, sacrilegious men, and traitors—there will always be. But the worst of all of these, worse than a murderer, worse than a tyrant, worse than a thief, is the crime of ingratitude. Even the Romans understood what an evil and wicked person is: one not thankful to the God who gives him the blessings in his life. "Matt, you're quoting a bunch of pagan Stoic philosophers. He wasn't a believer.

Why should I listen to him?" Because Paul writes basically the very same thing in Romans chapter 1. "Because that when they knew God, they glorified him not as God. Yeah, he exists. I know my God exists, but I get all the blessings in my life because I'm entitled to them. Let's just say that. Neither were thankful." So this is setting the foundation for the rest of the chapter. They were not thankful. They did not glorify God because they were not thankful. "But became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened, professing themselves to be wise, they became fools. And even as they did not like to retain God in their knowledge, God gave them over to a reprobate mind to do those things which are not convenient, being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness, full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity."

Why? Because they were not thankful.

My Personal Gratitude

Guys, I am thankful for you. I am thankful for our fellowship that I've seen God work in since it started in a little living room in a 1,500 square foot house. I'm thankful that we have the opportunity to—do you guys know that we have a bank account, a Zetica bank account at FIT specifically for Zetica and poor? So we can meet the needs of people who can't buy groceries or people who can't pay their rent, local families. This is incredible. I'm thankful for that. I'm thankful for my son. I'm thankful for my wife. I'm thankful for my friends, my family. I'm thankful for my car. It does have issues every once in a while.

Thankful for my TV. I'm thankful for my computer. I'm thankful for my house. Thankful for my job because I don't deserve any of it. And I got to make darn sure that I don't let the devil into my life to whisper such evil things again: "You're entitled to these blessings from God." No, get away from me, Satan. I am nothing before God and I am just honored to be in his kingdom, honored to be considered for invitation into the kingdom of the King of Kings. Let the deeds of God that you are thankful for be known among men. When your family asks you what you're thankful for, you should take up an hour because the list is long. We just got to realize it.

God Works in Your Life

So that was the boring Thanksgiving message that I cried over while putting together this week. And I hope if you don't walk away with anything else today that you will realize that there is a God that cares about you, that there is a God that loves you, that there is a God that has mercy on you, that there is a God that looks down and says, "Yeah, that one. I'm gonna give her favor in this job interview. She's gonna get that job. I know the resume's long. I know she worked really hard on that resume. The resume's not gonna give her that job—I am." That raise at work—he doesn't know it yet. But he's completely miserable in that job he's at. I'm going to take that job away from him. I'm going to do him a favor. I'm going to take that job away from him, and I'm going to give him an even better job that he's going to look back on one day, and maybe he will look back and realize that I worked in his life, and maybe—just maybe, I bet God gets excited about thinking about it—just maybe he might remember the things that I've given to him, and he'll say, thank you, God. One day. One day.

The 10% Who Remember

Lepers do not have the gift of pain. Yeshua gave them pain back. Changed their life. One came back. Are you the 10%? Not the 1%. Are you the 10%? The 1% is a completely different thing.

Some people have to be thankful for something. Are you part of the 10%? Or are you part of the 90% that just keeps on walking and for some reason feels entitled to the healing and the salvation that God has given them?

Join Our Mission

Hey guys, I'm Matthew Vanderells, pastor of Founded in Truth Fellowship, and I hope you enjoyed this message. If you'd like to see more messages and teachings like this one, consider subscribing to our YouTube channel by clicking this link right here. You can also leave some comments below. I know the staff at Founded in Truth loves to see positive feedback for the messages and teachings that we put out, so thank you for that ahead of time. You can also check out our website to find out more information about the ministry by clicking this link over here. And if this message or teaching has been edifying to you or your family, I would ask you to consider financially supporting FIT—maybe sending a donation or an offering.

It helps keep these messages online and available for those who might find themselves far from God. You can do that through our Smart Giving Portal right here. Guys, our mission at Founded in Truth is simple. Our mission is to spread the Gospel of Yeshua through the historical, cultural, and biblical evidence of the God of Israel by taking the forgotten truths of God's Word to the nations. This is to be laid as the foundation of all truth. Founded in Truth yearns to facilitate a gathering of believers who seek one thing—the ancient paths referred to in Jeremiah . Will you join us on this mission? I hope so.

I pray that you will continue seeking truth so that the light of God will shine through you and for the sake of the kingdom of our Savior, Yeshua. Shalom.