Welcome to the daily disciple podcast, where we seek daily to be with and to become like Jesus, our teacher. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the season of the podcast where we are spending today with Jesus today. And the title of the podcast is Morning is Thinkful. And I've opened up my Bible to the Gospel of Luke, chapter 17.
We'll be there in just a moment, but sometimes it's hard to be thankful. It really is. It's hard to be grateful. We want to be.
And we try to be. And sometimes we employ all kinds of willpower and intentionality to be grateful and to be thankful. But we often find that we want more than being grateful for what it is that we have. And that could be finances.
That could be where this relationship is. That could be how I'm feeling emotionally. Am I feeling okay? We tend to want more, better, you know, bigger, deeper than being thankful for what it is that we have right now, right now in this present moment.
We tend to be down because it wasn't what we expected it to be. You know, our expectations can be so high, you know, this evening or this season or this relationship or my bonus or whatever. It was just not big enough. It was not good enough.
And sometimes, and I'm going to use the word sometimes, we're entitled, which means we feel like we deserve this, which we have, or we deserve that, which we don't yet have. And it can rob us of gratefulness and thankfulness. We tend to be unsatisfied instead of content, especially in the season where there's been a lot of loss in frustration and isolation. So today, as we look at this passage as we talk about this incredible New Testament word, thankful, the invitation today, and of course tomorrow as we celebrate Thanksgiving is to enter the rest of the joy of Thanksgiving, the rest of the joy of content and the rest of the joy of gratitude.
God, thank you for what I have right here and right now. And this might involve God giving us new eyes to see what we have because we've been so preoccupied with what we don't have or what we want. We haven't seen maybe clearly enough what we do have, or this might involve God breaking down walls of entitlement so that we can enter into this place of thankfulness. So in Luke chapter 17, Jesus is on his way to Jerusalem, and he runs into 10 people with leprosy, and he heals them, all of them.
And we pick it up in Luke 17, verse 15, only one of them, when he saw it was healed, came back praising God, and in a loud voice, he threw himself at Jesus' feet, and he thanked Jesus. And this man was a Samaritan. And Jesus says we're not all tin cleansed, we're the other nine, has no one returned to give praise to God except this foreigner. But he said to him, rise and go, your faith has made you, well, for 16 again, he threw himself at Jesus' feet, and he thanked him.
And this was the only man that came back. And I don't know why the other nine didn't come back. It's actually a good thing to think about, and the text doesn't say it, but we can postulate. Maybe they were entitled to God doing what he should do.
I mean, they found the Messiah. There's all kinds of little tests and prophecies about when the Messiah comes, bringing healing and cleansing lepers, and the blind seeing. And so they found the Messiah, and God did what he was supposed to do. They were entitled.
They felt like God owed them something, and we should just pause there for a minute and maybe take a look at our entitlement. What are we entitled that God should do right now? What are we entitled that other people should do right here and right now? Because entitlement keeps us from the life of Thanksgiving.
And notice in the story, the Thanksgiving births a joy, a celebration, a rejoicing, a faith to see what God has done, not what he hasn't done. To see what God has moved and has given us in our lives, not what he hasn't yet moved or hasn't yet given us. Thanksgiving gratitude is one of the most prominent New Testament themes. It's just thorough going in the New Testament because it's a sign of the age to come.
It's the door into rest and enjoyment of people and enjoying this moment. We've talked so much about enjoying this present moment and taking in the richness and the mystery and the transcendency and the beauty of this moment. See, gratefulness, thankfulness, and being in this moment go hand in glove. Thankfulness is a pathway into praise and rejoicing.
So this is the invitation this morning. And as we walk with Jesus today and as we enter into the holiday of Thanksgiving tomorrow, here's the invitation to buy the power of the Spirit be released from the wilderness of entitlement. I need or I want more, I deserve more into the promise land of thankfulness and gratefulness and contentment. And as I was pondering this morning, just looking at the story, I'm realizing that maybe the American story, when it's gone wrong, can lead us into entitlement.
I know my unrealistic expectations on myself, on others, on God, on this event, on that, can lead me into a place of not being grateful because my expectations weren't hit. We have such high expectations on this relationship or this first date or this vacation with our family or this holiday with our friends or with our family. You know, and so in order to enter into gratitude, we need to take a look at how much the American story has duped us into thinking that we are entitled to this, that and the other. We need to take a look at our unrealistic expectations on ourselves and others.
We need to take a look at our entitlement because in entitlement, when we deserve, we will always be left in the wilderness of ungratefulness. In the Gospel, Jesus, as he calls us to walk and talk with him, has so much more for us than that. You know, I just thought about this, but I think this Thanksgiving, we need to be aware of the thought or the feeling, well, I'm just going to get through this Thanksgiving. You know, it's been such a hard year.
It's so weird. This and I just got to get through it. And if that's our goal, we will achieve that goal. We will just get through it.
But there's so much more than that. But most people miss it. I think that's implicit in the story. 10 of the lepers were healed, but only one out of the 10 came back and we're thankful and grateful to God for what he had done.
Only one realized, oh my gosh, God is good. And he's doing these unexpected things and they're happening all around me. And sometimes it's the small things and sometimes it's the great things. But I think part of what this story is saying is that not very many people enter into the Promised Land of gratefulness.
God wants to invite us into it right here. Right now he's calling us to be grateful. He's calling us to be thankful. He is breaking down those walls of entitlement.
And so this Thanksgiving, this Thanksgiving tomorrow, of course, we'll start today as we walk and talk with Jesus by tomorrow. Let's talk with our friends and family about what we're grateful for, starting with them, what we're thankful for, what God has done. And you know what? That might shock people.
That might surprise people. But the reality is, and this is what we've been talking about since, you know, March, as we walk and talk with Jesus every day. We will slowly but surely by the power of the Spirit become like him. A thankful, grateful people that are content with what God has done and who God is and enjoy that moment with our friends and with our family.
So enjoy today with Jesus. We'll talk. Thanks for listening to the daily disciple podcast. We truly hope that you were encouraged by it today.
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