The Pillars of Christian Character Introduction & Gratitude

00:00:00:22 – 00:00:20:24
Michael Gewecke
Well, you may still be waiting for Clint to arrive. And if you are, it would surprise all of us. Because it would mean he could teleport from Minneapolis. So, Clinton, Jane are on their way for a vacation this week, which is great that they get to get out and, go spend some time with some friends in a warmer place.

00:00:20:26 – 00:00:38:26
Michael Gewecke
So, you’re stuck with me tonight, and, in a couple of weeks, I’ve got a con ed event coming up, and then Clint will be, teaching solo that week. So we got a little bit of a different schedule this lent, but we’re getting kicked off with our series, introduction to Christian Character and a topic like this one.

00:00:38:26 – 00:01:07:14
Michael Gewecke
It seems appropriate to start with prayer. So let’s do that. Grace. Lord, we are grateful for your son, Jesus Christ, for how he put on flesh and in doing so showed us your way. We ask that you would reveal to us in this time together, as we reflect over the coming weeks how it is that you’ve called us to live, with his character, for him to live in and through us by the power of your spirit, and we ask it in the name of Jesus Christ, our Lord and Savior.

00:01:07:16 – 00:01:43:01
Michael Gewecke
Amen. All right. So, as we jump into this series, the diving question, I think that we are all going to have to wrestle with is fundamentally, what’s the difference between a good person and a person of Christian character? But we sometimes allow those things to translate and we act as if they’re the exact same. But when we look at that closer in our time together, I think we’re going to find some real distinct differences between a person who we might all agree.

00:01:43:01 – 00:02:12:02
Michael Gewecke
Yeah, they’re good. And someone who we would say has pursue the lifetime of seeking to be a person of Christian character. So in the next several weeks, we’re going to be examining, key components of Christian life and character, the attributes we seek to not only display when we’re in public, but that we live out in private. Our discipleship is proven genuine by our actions, even when no one is watching.

00:02:12:04 – 00:02:36:08
Michael Gewecke
And the traits that we’ve chosen for this Christian character series, they’re not a uniform list. In fact, you know, there’s a historic list of church virtues or Christian virtues. Some of the examples we’ve chosen are on that list. But what we’ve chosen, we think are virtues, are character traits are things that are relevant, especially in the day in which we live, the day time culture, all those things.

00:02:36:10 – 00:03:05:26
Michael Gewecke
And, we’ll, we’ll be engaging them as we go through together. Well, the books that we’re exploring as part of the series is written here by John MacArthur. It’s called The Pillars of Christian Character. If you wanted to follow along, you won’t be exclusively out of this book. But a lot of our content is coming from here. He identifies 13 pillars faith, obedience, humility, love, unity, growth, forgiveness, joy, gratitude, strength, self-discipline, worship, and hope.

00:03:05:29 – 00:03:32:00
Michael Gewecke
And then he writes, without question, the crucial issue in living the Christian life is the condition of your heart. Are you understanding and applying the fundamental pillars of Christian character that God’s Word so clearly outlines? That’s a big list. And it’s a challenging, topic, quite frankly, to dive into. But I’m excited because I think there’s going to be a lot of interesting conversations that will be ahead of us as we go.

00:03:32:03 – 00:04:04:15
Michael Gewecke
First we start with some definitions. The first is when we talk about Christian character. Well, let’s start with Christian. What do we mean by Christian? Because fundamentally we’re qualifying what character is right. And so whenever you say Christian, you need to recognize that that’s fundamentally two words put together. Right? You have Christ. And then you have the end at the end, which is the part that qualifies it as being about you and me.

00:04:04:17 – 00:04:35:21
Michael Gewecke
Jesus Christ is the center of the term. When we are talking about what it means to be Christian, we mean that we are those who follow in his way. And there’s lots of different families. There’s lots of different ways that’s been done over the years, but there’s a Orthodox core. Every Christian of every family agrees on some basic tenets sin, redemption, trinity, atonement, incarnation, resurrection, all of these things, regardless whether you’re Orthodox, you’re Catholic or you’re Lutheran or Methodist, whatever.

00:04:35:23 – 00:04:56:26
Michael Gewecke
If you’re somewhere along that line, we all agree that there are these things that we should pursue, like discipleship and sanctification, that we should practice each and every day in our life and faith. So Christian then refers not just to our beliefs, but importantly, our actions, that our lives reflect the fact that Christ is at the center.

00:04:56:29 – 00:05:23:08
Michael Gewecke
And so even if there isn’t a universal consensus, we can agree that being Christian should mean something about how we live and who we are and the character we have. Character itself. That word is actually from the Greek. It is. It sounds like character, but it looks very different in, Greek text. But it’s a quality that has stood the test proven genuine, giving evidence of authenticity.

00:05:23:11 – 00:05:50:09
Michael Gewecke
It over time came to mean a person’s true nature, what you were when no one was looking, and it was the mental and moral qualities distinctive to the individual. And it’s often expressed in traits or attributes we talked about as being honesty, integrity, courage, etc. so when you have Christian and you have character and you combine them, then you start talking about the character that happens when you are living in the way of Christ.

00:05:50:09 – 00:06:11:09
Michael Gewecke
I make no mistake about this is a new way of living, and it’s directly connected to God’s revelation in Jesus Christ. Because if you want to know what Christian character is, you need to look to the source of that character. That’s not a book. It’s not a set of ideas. It’s a person. I’m going to give you all an opportunity, like a children’s sermon.

00:06:11:09 – 00:06:38:16
Michael Gewecke
Who’s the person? Jesus. Absolutely right. Jesus is the living embodiment of who God is. When God is a human, Jesus is God. And so when we look to Jesus, if we want to know the question, what does God want us to be like? The answer is like Jesus, he’s the living embodiment of character. And so for the Christian, everything we do is for the purpose of learning and practicing Jesus’s way of life in the world.

00:06:38:19 – 00:07:12:12
Michael Gewecke
And so it makes Christian character fundamentally about us having a new identity. It’s not philosophical ideas or best practices or citizenship or all the benefits of character. Those are good, right? It’s not about those things. It’s about whether or not we are discovering and living out our new identity in Jesus Christ. One theologian, N.T. Wright, says the fundamental answer is that what we’re here for is to become genuine human beings, reflecting the God in whose image we are made.

00:07:12:15 – 00:07:36:07
Michael Gewecke
That’s an astonishing statement that our goal when we wake up in the morning after we get our coffee, is to reflect God’s life the best of what God was in the world. Jesus was in the world in the way that we’re living out our lives. That is at the height, Christian character. So it’s it’s really two things simultaneously.

00:07:36:12 – 00:08:00:12
Michael Gewecke
Every Christian is seeking to become genuine and authentic, to integrate what we believe and profess with how we actually act and live, the quality of genuineness of our life. With regard to Christianity, it’s what you do is the same as what you say, which I don’t know if about this happened to you. I literally remember the day when my dad said to me, son, do as I say and not as I do.

00:08:00:15 – 00:08:27:11
Michael Gewecke
And that was often good advice. But friends, that to not be the way of Christian discipleship as it relates to Christian character, we are called to do as we say, to live as we believe. And then ultimately, there are particular markers of how Christians should behave and live a moral, an ethic, a virtue, a way of describing what it means to have Christian character.

00:08:27:18 – 00:09:00:22
Michael Gewecke
When we have a gap between the genuineness of our faith and the actual activities of our life, that’s what we call sin. And if we continue to live in that gap, if we continue to go down that road, that’s what we call hypocrisy. And at the end of the day, you might know one of the reasons we thought talking about Christian character was so essential in this time was because Christians cannot fundamentally live in a hypocritical relationship with the world forever.

00:09:00:25 – 00:09:20:10
Michael Gewecke
We can be hypocrites, but we confess the truth of that hypocrisy. Fundamentally, if we’re living in the way of Christ, then we’re living in the way of the truth. And the truth can never be a hypocrite. This another way. Look at it. We are responsible to our relationship with God. We all have moral and character failings. We know we’re not perfect, right?

00:09:20:17 – 00:09:42:21
Michael Gewecke
But ultimately we’re responsible to God when we fail to live up to what he’s called us to be. When our character fails us, that’s between us and God. But so often in the culture in which we live, we are far more focused on when our neighbor and far more potently when our enemy sales. We say, well, they are a liar.

00:09:42:23 – 00:10:03:19
Michael Gewecke
They’re a person of ill repute. They can’t be trusted, right? We point out the hypocrisy of others, and then when we do so, we take a as a pass for ourself to do the opposite and quite frankly, still wrong thing. Christians can’t do that. That’s not Christian character characters rather than Christ. It’s immutable because Christ is the truth.

00:10:03:27 – 00:10:25:00
Michael Gewecke
We must live in the truth, and we can’t direct that other people that’s between them and their God. I think I’m going to pause here. There’s not a lot of information flying your way. Already out. Thoughts, questions, feedback. If Christian characters truly a new way of living, we have to ask ourself where does it come from? Where does our character come from?

00:10:25:03 – 00:10:49:15
Michael Gewecke
And if we turn our attention to Scripture, Paul makes it pretty clear if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come, the old has gone, the new is here and need to be abundantly clear. You did not make the new creation. You can’t force character to happen in yourself. This is what makes Christian character different from character.

00:10:49:17 – 00:11:10:09
Michael Gewecke
And I know we have some educators in this room, and so I hope that this is in no way offensive. But for a while it was in vogue in schools to talk about building character, making character, the pillars of character. This was a thing we talked about a lot. Fundamentally, that’s that’s a good thing. It’s a good thing you talk to kids about character, like honesty, right?

00:11:10:11 – 00:11:36:00
Michael Gewecke
Courage or standing up for the downtrodden. These are good things. But friends, Christians don’t believe that character is just a good idea that helps society. That’s not how we get to character. Christians begin with new creation, new hearts, God doing a new thing in us. And it’s from that center that then we begin to live out this character into the world.

00:11:36:02 – 00:12:05:14
Michael Gewecke
That is an essential distinction, because Christians could talk about the fruit of the spirit, love, joy, peace, forbearance, etc. against these things. There’s no law. You can’t go to a public setting and say, you all should have character and you should have love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness. Because fundamentally, if you don’t believe in the power of the Holy Spirit, if you don’t believe God’s at work at you, then that’s just kind of a pipe dream.

00:12:05:16 – 00:12:27:27
Michael Gewecke
It’s just, a hope out into the universe. But Christians don’t believe it’s just a hope. We believe the Spirit of God is at work in us, doing a new thing, recreating within our hearts. So therefore, you have a character that doesn’t belong to you. You have a transplant, and that transplant is God Himself alive. Network by the power of the spirit.

00:12:27:29 – 00:12:52:27
Michael Gewecke
So fundamentally, I know I’m hitting this hard, but I think this is really important. We get this down before we start the series on character. Christ character is the final say in defining for Christian what our character is. It all boils down to who is Jesus Christ, and if that’s the standard, then if that’s the center, then everything else gets referenced after it.

00:12:52:29 – 00:13:10:23
Michael Gewecke
No matter what is our morals, our ethics, those situations that we deal with every day, all of that has to be put in conversation with who Jesus Christ is and he who he calls us to be. I have to admit, I went back and forth on this. I’m now regretting I was going to get a whiteboard show. They’ve done it.

00:13:10:23 – 00:13:32:20
Michael Gewecke
But here we are. We’re going to try to tease this out together. I think that we have to see a relationship between Christ at the center and the world in which we live. Far too many of us live in a world in which the stuff out here, all the stuff in the world, has a way of forming who our character is more than our faith does.

00:13:32:22 – 00:13:52:22
Michael Gewecke
Let me tease it out this way. You you go to work or you’re at the coffee shop, or you do whatever you do in a day, you’re given a nearly endless supply of things that wants to get you thinking about the world you live in. Right. You want to talk about, well, what’s your opinion about this? Or what do I do in this situation or what I do in this situation.

00:13:52:22 – 00:14:12:18
Michael Gewecke
And, and all of those things, over time, unconsciously begin to shape who you are. You make a little white lie here, and then you make a little white lie there, and then it pushes you down the road a little bit to being a person a little less attached to the truth. Or you go to the conversation and, and it’s more and more pointed towards a particular group or people.

00:14:12:18 – 00:14:38:14
Michael Gewecke
And then you find yourself talking about that more often. It’s often that Christians find ourselves starting up here with all of these unconscious character builders, and they work their way down to us. But it shouldn’t be. Christians should go the other way. We should start with the character of Christ. And when those things happen, we should immediately ask, what does my Christ character have to say about that?

00:14:38:16 – 00:15:07:08
Michael Gewecke
That’s a substantial difference, right? So when someone asks you a very specific question and I’m just naming one because it’s hyper specific and most people don’t care about it, but like, what do you think about gerrymandering? Right? We live in a politically charged conversation. Instead of thinking, well, what is my theory about that? And politics and elections and all those things, a Christian has to start with the Christ Character Center and ask, what are the values of Jesus Christ that would be brought to that conversation?

00:15:07:10 – 00:15:41:12
Michael Gewecke
And we have to do that over and over and over again. We have to start at the center. Who is Jesus and how does Jesus’s character inform this conversation? Now, that doesn’t have to be politics. It can be that situation in the office. But the person who is really hard to deal with that it can be, how do I dress my child in this circumstance, whatever it is, instead of allowing this stuff to come down and subconsciously begin to shape our own moral and our ethic, our character, we should focus on the character of Christ and then allow him to redefine these things that are above us.

00:15:41:14 – 00:16:15:28
Michael Gewecke
The only word I want to offer, and I’m a little off script here, so I apologize. This, I think, is a place to begin, and an increasingly binary culture. I think you can probably already see that in a world in which it’s either this or this. That’s the way forward for a Christian is to say, let me start with Christ, and sometimes Christ will lead you down this or this, and sometimes Jesus will take you down a path that you never thought existed.

00:16:16:00 – 00:16:32:00
Michael Gewecke
And it happens over and over and over again in the scriptures where the scribes come to Jesus and they do what every parent does. Do you want this or this? Right? Because when you set the question that way, the child doesn’t know that you’re leaving out the other option. So my children did I don’t know if that was true for you guys.

00:16:32:00 – 00:16:54:06
Michael Gewecke
My my children always know there’s an option C but anyways, regardless, the point is, and the point I want to make to you is in a world in which we live, we have to be the kind of people who start with Jesus Christ at the center. And Paul makes this very clear in Romans, don’t conform to the pattern of the world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.

00:16:54:07 – 00:17:13:08
Michael Gewecke
Obviously, this will be a center of the sermon series. This lent. You’ll be able to test and approve what God’s will is his good, pleasing, and perfect will. Note the importance of the ordering. Friends, if you want to test and approve what God’s will is, which is the thing most of us want to know most of the time.

00:17:13:08 – 00:17:46:17
Michael Gewecke
What should I do in this circumstance instead of starting there? Don’t conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed. So in the realm of Christian character, Christians are people who are interested in transformation, not moral dictates. If we can get our mind around that, that’s a really uncomfortable idea, but makes a whole lot of sense of the four gospels and Jesus’s encounter with people who are really interested in what are we supposed to do?

00:17:46:19 – 00:18:08:13
Michael Gewecke
It reminds me of the story Jesus, who is my neighbor. And you remember how it all teases out all the good people pass by, but the person who shouldn’t stop is the one who does. That is what transformation looks like. Is Jesus helping us to see a path we didn’t even know possible? So it’s the rhythm of Christian character formation.

00:18:08:15 – 00:18:34:12
Michael Gewecke
Jesus Christ is at the center. The world presses in, we bring it to Christ, and then we go back out transformed. And this is the rhythm that will be going throughout this entire series. So Christ’s character doesn’t just happen. It takes intentional effort. We know that it’s hard work to practice the faith. It’s difficult and slow, and quite frankly, much of it is opposed to our natural self.

00:18:34:12 – 00:18:56:03
Michael Gewecke
It’s our own benefit, our own interests. Character building takes time, honesty and confession about our shortcomings and our gaps. And to write, he wrote the other book that we’re using for this series called After You believe, you have to develop character traits. You have to work at them. You have to think about it. Yeah. To make conscious choices, character.

00:18:56:03 – 00:19:22:21
Michael Gewecke
The transforming, shaping and marking of a life and its habits will generate the sort of behavior that rules might have pointed toward, but which are rule keeping mentality can never achieve that. That is so important because if you define character by simply what you do, then we’re going to be arguing all day long about what the rules are to define what should have been done.

00:19:22:24 – 00:19:49:18
Michael Gewecke
Have you ever been on the wrong side? The word should should becomes a prison really quickly. Christians aren’t chiefly interested in the rule keeping. We’re chiefly interested in the kind of heart transformation that puts Christ at the center of our lives, and teaches us to be people of character. Last word about this before we get to a quick discussion question.

00:19:49:20 – 00:20:26:02
Michael Gewecke
Character building is such a big process. It demands so much of us. It cannot be done chiefly alone. I just I just don’t think it can be. I don’t believe it is a process that you can do in your living room with your Bible. That’s important. Essential? I’m not trying to downplay it, but we sometimes do downplay the importance of community in the midst of building character within us, because fundamentally, character is in the Bible, not related to just you and God.

00:20:26:02 – 00:20:47:08
Michael Gewecke
But fundamentally, we have to remember God doesn’t show favorites. We have to remember what James has to say in chapter two, verse one, that in church, we have the unique opportunity to make sure that when the poor shows up, they don’t have a different seat than the rich. It might shock us that that was a problem in the early church.

00:20:47:08 – 00:21:11:11
Michael Gewecke
Let’s see in our Bible, right? And yet it was in Corinthians. We have a record of them saying, you let the affluent people take communion before the homeless people, right? Sinfulness has existed since the beginning. We all know this. But fundamentally, church is the place where we get to practice putting others first. When Jesus says the least will be the greatest, and the greatest will be the least.

00:21:11:12 – 00:21:32:21
Michael Gewecke
Church is the place where we commit to make that happen. And you might think that that is maybe a high falutin idea. I think it’s incredibly practical. Clinton I we have the opportunity to work with lots of Presbyterian churches in the region and, just had a conversation with one of the churches and, just to be blunt, they said, pastor, what are we going to do?

00:21:32:21 – 00:22:04:07
Michael Gewecke
We have a new person coming to church, and they stink, like, seriously, like really bad. And it’s really uncomfortable. What do we do? It’s a great question. What with a person with Christlike character do is the starting place for that conversation, right? What what does it look like to be the kind of people who get an opportunity in community to practice forbearance, love, grace, all of the traits we’re going to talk about, we can think about them all day long.

00:22:04:09 – 00:22:11:26
Michael Gewecke
They look very different when there’s someone right across from you, you actually have to practice it on.

00:22:11:29 – 00:22:55:03
Michael Gewecke
All right. So lot come at you there. When you hear the phrase Christian character, I’m curious what comes to mind for you first? Well, when you think Christian character, is there a word or phrase? Is there an idea that would be your starting point? Talk to me, Grace, acceptance. Okay. Yeah. Serving others. So I hear in all three of those, the first thing that comes to mind is an aspect of Christian character is that there?

00:22:55:06 – 00:23:30:09
Michael Gewecke
Not me on them. It’s my fourth time on a microphone today. Great love to see it. I just said the that I if I’m trying to make my decisions more based in like my Christian character rather than a knee jerk reaction, then grace is the main thing I’m thinking about more, because grace might not come as naturally, when I’m making a worldly decision, unless I’m making a conscious effort to be, like, very rooted in my faith, I would show grace more often and make a more grace filled decision.

00:23:30:11 – 00:23:55:23
Michael Gewecke
If I was basing it on my faith versus the world. Other thoughts? All right, that that’s interesting, but I know I just ask you, what are your thoughts? And I started talking. Give me one second to connect that I think that we we have to slow down in these conversations because it’s so quick that we get back into the ruts aren’t always bad.

00:23:55:23 – 00:24:15:06
Michael Gewecke
You realize we make ruts because they help us go faster, right? The Oregon Trail had ruts because it help people know where to go and it help carts go. So. But it is a rut. It’s a mental rut that we’ll get into to say, well, this is what character is. And before you know it, you’re working to have better character.

00:24:15:09 – 00:24:41:15
Michael Gewecke
Or you’ll say, my character that I want to work towards is grace. And then you start finding yourself, beating yourself up upon how many, how often you failed to have grace. And what happens is you go from inviting the Spirit of God to renew and transform your heart because you believe, as a person of faith that God can affect new creation inside you, to you trying to make your character something else.

00:24:41:18 – 00:24:50:07
Michael Gewecke
And now you’ve made a turn and suddenly you’re trying to do the salvific work that Jesus already did for you.

00:24:50:10 – 00:25:15:12
Michael Gewecke
Some of your faces have me thinking I way off. Let me get that. Now. Let me make this really, really, really practical where where we can get on the ground with this. If we go through a whole series talking about character, and all you hear throughout the series is guilt, what I don’t measure up there, and I don’t measure up there, and I don’t do that.

00:25:15:14 – 00:25:43:10
Michael Gewecke
Then you’ve misheard the the fundamental strain underneath all of this, which is character for you, is a gift. Can you measure yourself to a gift? No, no. Ultimately you can only receive it and then you can practice it. Maybe the best analogy I can give for this, have you ever known a person in your life who you think is being really gifted at something, right?

00:25:43:10 – 00:26:05:15
Michael Gewecke
Maybe you think maybe, you know a musician who’s really gifted at music or not? Some athlete who was really gifted at their sport. I guarantee you, every one of those who has proceeded down the long journey is not just gifted. They spend a lot of time in the weight room or the music room or wherever it is you have been gifted with.

00:26:05:15 – 00:26:37:13
Michael Gewecke
The character of Christ, but it doesn’t mean you don’t have work to do. But if you keep measuring yourself as if your character is related to how much discipline you’ve had today, you’ve missed the starting point, which is essential. If we’re going to talk about Christian character. So I might keep hammering that. I’m really sorry, but we just we have to get that right, because if not, then I’m just a guy up here telling you, here’s some opinions I have about the way that you should live.

00:26:37:18 – 00:26:59:14
Michael Gewecke
And you are sitting there thinking, I don’t really measure up to that. And then we go home. The Christian work is to start with the gospel, Jesus Christ, new creation in you, which is a real thing. We forget that, and if that’s a real thing, then this character he’s given to you is an opportunity for you to practice something you wouldn’t have been able to do by yourself.

00:26:59:19 – 00:27:25:15
Michael Gewecke
How do I forgive my enemy? You can’t. But with Christ, you can. So let’s practice. Maybe don’t start with the biggest enemy. Maybe work your way up to it. Right? But too many of us never start working our way up to it, because we don’t believe that we can do it. Because we know our self well enough to know we don’t have that character, but we forget we have the character of Christ.

00:27:25:15 – 00:27:46:28
Michael Gewecke
All right, now I’m on a circle. Let’s keep moving. All right. Here we go. I skip ahead here, I think I did. We’ll get to this. So we’re going to shift here. We’re going to stop talking about character in general. That’s sort of the sign up for the series. Now we’re going to talk about gratitude. Gratitude should be our first aspect of Christian character.

00:27:46:28 – 00:28:07:17
Michael Gewecke
And the word for gratitude in the Bible, the word that that when we think of gratitude, in the actual Greek, it’s called Eucharist. So and Eucharist. So, there’s a few words that come from it. One is Eucharist, which you may or may not know depending upon how long you’ve been in church. But Eucharist is another name for the Lord’s Supper, for communion.

00:28:07:19 – 00:28:30:20
Michael Gewecke
And it what it means is the meal of thanksgiving. So if you are saying communion, what you mean in the original language is the thanksgiving meal and then Eucharist. So also we have in our language today as eulogy, which actually technically is to speak praise, to say something positive of a person. McArthur combines these in his book.

00:28:30:20 – 00:28:57:12
Michael Gewecke
He says that the Lord’s Supper, combines both the elements of the sin offering in terms of the memorial character, the elements of the thank offering into one, we remember Christ, the sacrifice for our sins, and we offer up thanksgiving for that sacrifice all at the same time. So. So Thanksgiving becomes a model in which we recognize our entire life should be lived with gratitude for what Christ has given for us.

00:28:57:14 – 00:29:27:12
Michael Gewecke
So for Christians, gratitude is the cornerstone trait of faith because, even in the New Testament, the words gratitude, thanks, and thanksgiving appear roughly 75 times in the New Testament alone. We begin our series with gratitude because it’s such a foundational practice for Christians. We are called undoubtedly to be thankful people, and it should be ingrained in us for no other reason that we receive the grace of Christ.

00:29:27:15 – 00:29:55:09
Michael Gewecke
That alone should be enough for us to live the remainder of our life as grateful people. And to do so, we’re called to be mindful of the blessings, gifts, and graces that God has given in our life. I don’t know of a way you could make an argument from Scripture that our Christian can live their life on gratefully, I just don’t know how one would take that path inside the scriptural witness.

00:29:55:12 – 00:30:27:22
Michael Gewecke
We are fundamentally people who live out the the, the character trait of gratitude in our lives. We get this from the psalmist. It’s embedded throughout the scriptures, not just the New Testament. Praise the Lord, my soul, all my inmost being. Praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Who forgives your sins, heals your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed.

00:30:27:27 – 00:30:44:15
Michael Gewecke
Like the eagles. Reminds me of the cruise that we were just on when everyone I met and talked to told me, it’s really cold out.

00:30:44:18 – 00:31:11:03
Michael Gewecke
There on a cruise ship in the Bahamas, and all you have to talk about is how things don’t measure up. That’s a stupid example. And I picked a stupid example because that is where we live, where we live in the constant repetition of what’s not right, what doesn’t measure up. And the more and more we rehearse that story, the farther and farther we get from what the psalmist is trying to tell us.

00:31:11:11 – 00:31:33:21
Michael Gewecke
Every single thing in your life is gift. Not all of it is good, but God promises to be with you in all of it, right? God’s faithfulness, God’s care, God’s presence. This is yours and mine forever. And if that’s true, we should literally be singing and dancing everywhere we go. I can’t sing or dance, but you get what I mean.

00:31:33:23 – 00:32:02:24
Michael Gewecke
Our lives should reflect the lightness and levity of the people who have received a gift that literally cannot be counted. Every moment that follows that is a moment transformed by the gift. It makes me think of the story. Do you remember the story of the ten lepers, all of them healed by Jesus? All of them but one. One comes back to Jesus, one comes back, and one is grateful.

00:32:02:26 – 00:32:25:22
Michael Gewecke
I think there’s something about those numbers that reflect the difficulty of the task, but I’m going to be honest with you. Nine and by the way, Jesus didn’t say they have had to come back, right? But but one was able to practice gratitude. And we’re all called to live our life in light of grace that Christ has given us.

00:32:25:24 – 00:32:54:23
Michael Gewecke
In light of the way that or in light of the ways that we might try to get out of it, the Bible’s pretty clear about it. Give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Always give thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. So then, just as you receive Christ Jesus as Lord, continue to live your lives in him, rooted and built up in him, strengthened in the faith as you were taught, and overflowing with thankfulness.

00:32:54:26 – 00:33:17:16
Michael Gewecke
We are as Christians, called to live with this kind of well of gratitude that just flows out of our hearts, spills out of us and into the world in which we live. And this is where I need to take a pause, because I don’t want you to mishear me. Christians are called to be grateful. We’re called to practice Thanksgiving in all things.

00:33:17:19 – 00:33:56:06
Michael Gewecke
That does not mean that everything in your life you should be thankful for. That’s a key distinction. You remember last year we spent the entire Lenten series talking about guilt, grief, about the difficulty of loss. And friends, we need to be clear. We’re not called to be thankful for the suffering, the disease, the loss, the tragedy. But we are called to practice gratitude in spite of those realities, because fundamentally, our belief is that God is with us in that struggle, which is why we can always be people with hope.

00:33:56:08 – 00:34:31:25
Michael Gewecke
I think some of the greatest incubators of gratitude in the course of human history have been the darkest places, and that is only possible because Jesus Christ is with those who are suffering and his character therefore lives in them. And so therefore they can do what we could have never imagined by ourselves. John MacArthur says it this way no matter how choppy the seas become, a believer’s heart is buoyed by constant praise and gratefulness to the Lord or Calvin.

00:34:31:27 – 00:34:56:04
Michael Gewecke
That’s a really interesting thing with this. His, he ties this command to gratitude directly to his idea of providence, which is that God is working in the world, that God is bending things towards God’s will. Tell them believed. If God is truly sovereign over all things and every circumstance and every moment, then every breath is a gift that comes from him.

00:34:56:06 – 00:35:29:28
Michael Gewecke
And all human life should be an exercise of gratitude for the gift that God has given to us, he wrote. We are not our own. We’re God’s last. Therefore live for him and die for him. We are God’s light in his wisdom and will therefore rule all of our actions. In other words, if we have the character of Christ in us, if God has claimed us, then our calling is to follow God’s will and to be grateful as he leads us through the life that he’s gifted us with.

00:35:30:00 – 00:35:42:27
Michael Gewecke
You see the turn here once again. It’s a way from character is what you need to do tomorrow and instead a turn towards the identity that you’re called to live into today.

00:35:42:29 – 00:36:15:23
Michael Gewecke
For Calvin, gratitude is not just an emotional response to good things. It’s the logical consequence. It’s the requirement that comes from us being children of God’s providence. If everything belongs to God, it comes from God. Then thankfulness is just simply the honest recognition of that reality. And Moses gave the people of Israel the same warning, as they prepared to enter the Promised Land, a warning about the forgetfulness that prosperity gives when you’ve eaten and are satisfied.

00:36:15:23 – 00:36:34:13
Michael Gewecke
Praise the Lord your God for the good land he has given you. Be careful that you do not forget the Lord your God. Otherwise, when you eat and you are satisfied, you will build fine houses and settle down. Then your heart will become proud and you will forget the Lord your God. You may say to yourself, my power and the strength of my hands have produced this well for me.

00:36:34:19 – 00:37:03:12
Michael Gewecke
But remember the Lord your God, for this he who gives you the ability to produce wealth. There’s a subtle turn in what Moses is sharing with the people. If you want to be the kind of people who remember who your God is. Practice being grateful. Because if you don’t practice gratitude, there will be some day when you hear yourself saying, I’m the one who did it.

00:37:03:15 – 00:37:38:04
Michael Gewecke
And that is a very subtle turn. The moment where suddenly the God who gave us becomes the God of ourselves, who did the work ourselves. I’m going to pause there. Thoughts? Comments. That’s a that’s a it’s a challenging foothold to get. That to be honest with you though, that was the answer. The answer was, well, it’s not going to be easy, but have conversations that you think are appropriate and meaningful and build relationship before you do.

00:37:38:06 – 00:38:12:25
Michael Gewecke
Nobody gets to that position without some reason. But I got to tell you, Presbyterian churches are not known for our ability to show hospitality to every person who walks through the door. I mean, we are philosophically, but I think I told, oh, I’ll keep it really brief. Gratitude is so important. It filters all the way down through our worship, how we treat one another.

00:38:12:27 – 00:38:35:06
Michael Gewecke
I’m glad that you’re here today is a way of expressing gratitude that we are together in the Lord’s house for worship. There was a time we had one of our executives. There’s a worship. Hi, the worship service. It was great. And I don’t really remember anything about that morning. Everything went really well except for at the end of the service I came up to the exact cave.

00:38:35:06 – 00:38:57:27
Michael Gewecke
So thank you for being here. Great to have you here. We don’t get to see them very often, so it’s fun to have them here. And she said, you know, the thing that really stuck out to me I thought, I’m ready. Hit me. And she said, you know, one of those people who came today was wearing shorts. I mean, if he came in a Speedo, we’d have a conversation.

00:38:57:27 – 00:39:20:25
Michael Gewecke
You know, I mean, that’s not great. He was in church and he was a teenager. I can’t tell you how grateful I am for that. So much gratitude and gratitude for that family, gratitude for that student, gratitude for a congregation that says, yeah, we are so glad that you’re here. Even if we were suits, we’re glad you’re here.

00:39:20:28 – 00:39:49:29
Michael Gewecke
Gratitude is the way that we can see that through Christ. Image. Christ’s ability to eat dinner with the prostitute, which is not the same as a high school wearing shorts. But, you see, both of those are things that aren’t supposed to be. And when when we don’t have the eyes of gratitude, when instead we’re trying to order the universe in our own way, we miss the ordering of God’s universe that we’re called to celebrate.

00:39:50:02 – 00:40:14:01
Michael Gewecke
And it gets really practical. Like, was the person ahead of you smell like, well, we wouldn’t be smelling them if they weren’t in church today. Or what do we do with the kid who wore shorts today? At least they’re in the sanctuary so we can be bothered by it. We certainly be grateful in all of those situations. All right, let’s move on.

00:40:14:03 – 00:40:42:17
Michael Gewecke
Gratitude is about who about us believing who God says we are and not just reacting to the world in which we live. It’s less about being thankful for specific things, though. That’s obviously part about it. It’s more about simply being thankful as who we are. We generally think of gratitude as a reaction to the things that happen, but Scripture presents gratitude rather as a discipline.

00:40:42:19 – 00:41:07:07
Michael Gewecke
It is. Sometimes it is work to be grateful, counter to our circumstances and opposed to the situation. We find ourself in. N.T. Wright wrote this. Don’t imagine that you can just step in to step into it on a cheerful, sunny morning and stay there effortlessly forever. That is why it’s both hard and glorious work. It’s like the time you went to camp.

00:41:07:07 – 00:41:25:04
Michael Gewecke
I hope you had this experience. You go to camp and you have a great time. A week where you read the Bible and it seems like God’s talking to you and and great sermons. And, I don’t know if the food’s as good as you remember it, but, you know, you go have this mountaintop experience and then you get home and suddenly you’re like, what happened to my face?

00:41:25:04 – 00:41:50:20
Michael Gewecke
Where are you? God? Well, we have to learn to practice gratitude when God feels close and even far more difficult. When God feels far away, because we know that he lives in us, which is what makes gratitude a discipline. It makes it a thing that we have to actually engage in. Because it is a way in which God continues to teach us that he’s with us.

00:41:50:22 – 00:42:10:25
Michael Gewecke
Paul talks about this in the book of Philippians. I’ve learned to be content tent, whatever the circumstances. I know what is to be a need, and I know what is to have plenty. I’ve learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well-fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I could do all things through him who gives me strength.

00:42:10:27 – 00:42:34:21
Michael Gewecke
And Jonathan Edwards, considered one of the greatest theologians in American history and was, in the reformed tradition, Edwards argues that true Christian virtue is not, simply a behavior. In other words, our character is not just what we do, but it affects how we feel. Our grateful heart is one that simply that not that doesn’t simply obey a command to give thanks.

00:42:34:26 – 00:42:58:18
Michael Gewecke
It’s one that has genuinely seen the beauty and goodness of God and is moved by it. So Edwards wants us to know that gratitude is the overflow of a heart that delights in God. He writes, this true religion in great part consists in wholly affections. The things of religion takes place in no further degree than they are affected with them.

00:42:58:25 – 00:43:29:21
Michael Gewecke
What he means to say is that religion isn’t just about what you think, it’s about how it transforms what you feel about the world that you live in. Another theologian says it in a different way. Grace and gratitude belong together like heaven and earth. Grace evokes gratitude like the voice, an echo. Gratitude follows grace like thunder, lightning, which is pretty good.

00:43:29:23 – 00:43:52:18
Michael Gewecke
If Edwards is right that gratitude flows from truly seeing God, and Bart is right that all Christian ethics as a response of thanksgiving, then gratitude is not one virtue among many. It is the atmosphere. It’s the world in which all the other virtues breathe. And this gratitude is just like the character traits that we’re going to be talking about.

00:43:52:18 – 00:44:32:17
Michael Gewecke
The rest of the series, all of them are communal. The early church made Thanksgiving an actual part of their fellowship. And First Corinthians chapter 14. And when we practice Thanksgiving together, we’re reminding each other, no matter our circumstance, that there is something to be thankful for or one really, really wise, saint in the church once said, the reason that I go to church in a funeral is so that I can be present with the family and have faith for them when they can’t have it for themselves.

00:44:32:20 – 00:45:05:15
Michael Gewecke
That’s really good. We’re called to practice gratitude in Christian community because not everyone can practice gratitude easily every day. And so we’re called to bear up with one another, support one another, see the good, and and seek to show that good for one another. This is not just a trait that matters for us internally. Remember, if we’re going to live as people of character, it’s not just about what you do.

00:45:05:15 – 00:45:26:07
Michael Gewecke
When people are watching, it’s about who you are, even when they’re not. And to write, writes the generous creator. God is not honored, is not reflected into his world by a church that stands aloof, secure in its own holiness, and looking down on the best that the rest of the world can do. Precisely because the greatest Christian virtue is love.

00:45:26:10 – 00:45:56:04
Michael Gewecke
The individual Christian and the church as a whole must develop the settled habits of looking out for what’s going on in the surrounding world, rejoicing with its joy, weeping with its grief above all, eager for opportunities to bring love, comfort, healing, and hope wherever possible. I want to point out to you a very, very subtle turn that Nietzsche right, has made here that that if we miss, I think we’re leaving something incredibly important on the table.

00:45:56:06 – 00:46:27:01
Michael Gewecke
No, this this distinction between the church as the whole having a witness to the surrounding world. Why are we called to be grateful? Because of evangelism. When you think of evangelism, I don’t know what you think of, but I doubt you think about gratitude. But what he’s saying is the church is called to rejoice with the world in its joy, to weep with it in its grief.

00:46:27:03 – 00:46:52:20
Michael Gewecke
And this is where the church gets off so often, because we find ourselves as reactive as the world is to its own situations. But Christians, friends are not surprised when sin breaks the world. We’re not surprised when people do despicable and horrible things. Why? Because at the end of the day, we know that without the character of Christ, we are hopeless.

00:46:52:20 – 00:47:27:04
Michael Gewecke
We, me. And so when the world is caught in cycles of violence and brokenness and pain and disunion, we’re not shocked by that. We are broken by it with them and for them, that is an incredibly important distinction. Gratitude is not just about first press the church. It’s about if we are a well of gratitude here, it should flow out into our own community in the world because they need someone to show and demonstrate gratitude for them.

00:47:27:07 – 00:47:51:19
Michael Gewecke
We are the hands and feet of Christ. If we are going to have the character of Christ, that gratitude will be seen in us or it won’t be seen at all. For you guys have been really good sports. Well, I got another one. So here we go. We’re almost there. There’s a lot of ways to get off track with gratitude.

00:47:51:24 – 00:48:20:24
Michael Gewecke
And this comes from MacArthur. So you could look this up yourself. I’m not going to read through the whole thing, but, just seven of the things he named doubt about God and God’s working in the world selfishness, worldliness, a critical spirit, impatience, spiritual coldness that would be neglect of faith and rebellion. All of those are hindrances to Christians practicing practicing gratitude.

00:48:20:26 – 00:48:43:12
Michael Gewecke
It’s a great thing that could be a fire hose. This is my recommendation to you, though. And it’s not often that I give recommendations that, find their source in Benjamin Franklin, but here we are. Benjamin Franklin is well known for having a daily journal, and he had a list of character traits, most of which he did not think of in Christian terms.

00:48:43:12 – 00:49:04:07
Michael Gewecke
But they were virtues he thought of and wanted to pursue. And in his book, he would just go on the cycle through those traits, and every day he would, open the next page, which would be, let’s say, gratitude. And he would record that day how he practiced that trait. And the next day he would go on to the next trait and he would journal.

00:49:04:07 – 00:49:34:21
Michael Gewecke
So on going through the cycle, my invitation for you, if you want to do the interactive version of lent with us, would be will gather again in seven days. It might be interesting to take seven of these, different ways that we might find hindrances to gratitude and to just simply write a sentence about where you saw that in your life that day.

00:49:34:24 – 00:50:02:12
Michael Gewecke
It might be an opportunity for you to turn that on its head. And you say, I’m going to take the character trait and simply journal how I worked in a positive way to practice that gift that I’ve been given. And you just let that grow as you seek to try to, add your awareness to what God’s already doing in your life.

00:50:02:14 – 00:50:32:20
Michael Gewecke
Here we go. Last slide. You made it. Even though they knew God, they did not honor him as God or give thanks. Romans 121 MacArthur takes this and argues that if Christians can’t find endless cause for thanksgiving for gratitude, it’s worth examining the foundations of our faith itself. So. Was it so bad that it was cold in the Bahamas?

00:50:32:22 – 00:51:04:01
Michael Gewecke
No. Right. But that being a trite example should not keep us from realizing how difficult gratitude really is, right? It’s not just about complaining when things aren’t going the way that we want. Gratitude is the muscle of a person who has believed that Jesus Christ has transformed the world. And if we believe that, then everything that follows is transformed.

00:51:04:04 – 00:51:20:02
Michael Gewecke
If we will be the kind of people who put our hope, faith and trust in it, then we will find our lives renewed and transformed, and we will begin practicing a new kind of character from the inside out. All right.

00:51:20:04 – 00:51:42:00
Michael Gewecke
Now final thoughts, questions, feedback. There are multiple answers to your question. So the question is how did I respond to this executive, who mentioned the shorts in worship? I’m going to respond with two things. What I actually did and what I thought in hindsight, I should have done what I said was, well, you know, we live in the lakes area.

00:51:42:00 – 00:52:01:27
Michael Gewecke
We have a more, kind of a looser dress code because of a lot of guests and visitors. And I left open for their imagination. If this individual was one of those guests, it was not. It was not a yes. It was. It was one of the beloved children of God who’s been this church for their entire life.

00:52:01:28 – 00:52:27:09
Michael Gewecke
So I didn’t say that, though. Well, I flirted with that. No, I think that’s that’s the problem that the the problem is like when a person comes up to you and asks, how are you doing? And you say, fine, and you’re not fine, right? There are some people you should not tell them how you’re actually doing that day.

00:52:27:09 – 00:53:01:21
Michael Gewecke
That’s wisdom. Right? The thing that is difficult, though, is that when you believe that that’s an appropriate response to everyone who asks you how you’re doing today, and we do that. So I think in that way, maybe one of the fundamental ways I miss the mark in that situation would have been that this is a person who I’d worked with and would have had an opportunity to do so, to shift and reframe that conversation.

00:53:01:24 – 00:53:19:28
Michael Gewecke
Also, I wanted to go to lunch. I, I wish I would have said, I think if I could have, spent multiple hours researching a session on gratitude before I talked to her. I know I think I would have said,

00:53:20:01 – 00:53:23:26
Michael Gewecke
We have to be very careful.

00:53:23:29 – 00:53:53:02
Michael Gewecke
To not allow our hearts to have walls in them that keep God’s children from coming in. Because fundamentally, we should be glad that God has brought them in. I mean, I there’s no universe. I would have said that. But I mean, you know, I, I think this is this is the problem, right? And this is where I, I, I’m really sorry.

00:53:53:02 – 00:54:15:08
Michael Gewecke
I feel like I keep coming at the same thing from four different directions, but I think it’s not important. So I’ll close with this. If we go through a series on character and your takeaway is what do I do in this situation? The only answer I can give you is start at the right place. Start with Jesus, and if you start there, I trust where he’s going to take you.

00:54:15:10 – 00:54:40:18
Michael Gewecke
But what we really want is the answer. And I want that too. What should I what should have I said or what should I do? What should we do? We have to ultimately get to those answers. We have to. That’s what is required by living faith out in the real world. But far too often we just start getting into the zone where we’re answering the questions and never going back to Jesus.

00:54:40:21 – 00:55:12:18
Michael Gewecke
And so this series is an invitation to get really serious about what does Jesus have to say about who we actually are, not just what we believe, but who we actually are and how we actually live in the world? And if we make it through an entire week and we’ve not practiced gratitude one time in a way that’s meaningful and centered on who Jesus Christ actually is right now for you today, that’s an invitation to fall back into his grace and to be grateful again because he’s given you everything.

00:55:12:20 – 00:55:13:12
Michael Gewecke
Thanks be to God.