Gratitude: The Key to Deeper Connection with God

### Quotes for Outreach

1. "Questions are powerful. Sometimes they're annoying. But they're powerful. Jesus asked apparently 305 questions. That will mean something to some of you. There was an article in the New York Times that cited that Jesus was 40 times, listen to this, 40 times more likely to ask a question than to answer one. That's interesting, isn't it? I mean, you've maybe noticed, for those of you who've maybe been around the story of Jesus, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John's accounts, the renderings of his life, the writings of Jesus' life, that sometimes Jesus would be in a group and someone would ask a question and you'd keep reading and you'd go, that didn't answer that question. Because Jesus would respond with a question." [44:27] (47 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "When he saw them, when he saw them, that settle in a little bit. When he saw them, he said, go show yourself to the priests. And as they went, they were cleansed. One of them, when he saw he was healed, he came back, praising God in a loud voice. And he threw himself at Jesus' feet and thanked him, and he was a Samaritan. Interesting. When he saw them. That's not what people wanted to do or be about anyone with leprosy. That's why they were shunned outside of the village. That's why they were supposed to be a hundred paces away, two, three hundred feet away. Nobody wanted to be anywhere near them. No one wanted to acknowledge them. No one wanted to see them. But Jesus saw them." [50:18] (68 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "Learning gratefulness leads us to see the goodness of God, who he is, what he's done, and what he wants to continue to do. And that leads us to his presence in such a beautiful way. When you are around people who are grateful, who have hearts of gratitude, who understand what it is to receive the blessings of God, not so much necessarily of the healings as I talked about last week with our granddaughter, we are blessed to have had a little granddaughter who received a miracle. We don't understand it because I know that that's not everyone's experience." [01:04:39] (33 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "Know God's heart for you this morning. Whether things are going well. I mean, it's a long weekend in Victoria. We're having a barbecue after. Woo-hoo. But maybe there's some things that are being a real challenge and are causing a bit of disillusionment for you. I understand. But know that that doesn't cause God to run. He sees you. He knows you. And he hears you. Even when you might feel like you're a hundred paces away, you're a hundred miles away, he hears you." [01:14:23] (44 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


### Quotes for Members

1. "Jesus begins to reveal his heart to us. He wants more to be just some magic man. He wants to be more than just some sort of healer guy, some sideshow. What we begin to see here is we begin to understand the heart of God that he actually wants us, not just our disease possibly to heal, but he actually, he wants us. There's no one returned except this foreigner. It's interesting in that phrase, this foreigner, but this community, just like our cultures today, you know, we kind of segment and end up in these little pods or clicks or whatever you want to call it where the sort of like-minded people end up with like-minded people and like, you know, and all this kind of stuff." [57:22] (64 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


2. "The story shows us and reminds us and tells us the reality of the isolation experience, the experience that many of us, you know, have in this broken world. We live in a broken world. The world was broken. These people had leprosy, but the world is broken in more than just physical ways. See, this story is about outcasts, shunned, people whose identity was just all of a sudden, no, you are a leper. That is who you are. You're not the son and or daughter of so and so. You're not from this way or place or that place. No, you are a leper. And being a leper, get out of here. We don't even want to see you, let alone do we want to hear you. Get a long ways away." [59:08] (49 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


3. "We live in Victoria. Victoria. Beautiful. Unbelievable. Where the push for more, where the push for better, there's honestly, there's a bit of an entitlement sense that we have, and it's pervasive in our culture. And when entitlement starts to take over, and we just sort of have expectations, we completely lose the ability to be content, and to have hearts full of gratefulness and gratitude. And did you see what happens in this story when you're not grateful? You don't get Jesus. You've got a cool deal, but you don't get Jesus. You got healed of leprosy and I just, it blows my mind. I'm sure they were glad, but were they grateful?" [01:04:39] (33 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


4. "We can get so fixated on the what and not the who. The what matters, don't let me downplay that. Life matters, things are going on, but let's not miss the who. But sometimes we can, our hearts, I guess, can get hard a little bit. Our hearts can get a little insensitive. Sometimes we can get a little insensitive, but sometimes we can get a little disillusioned. Sometimes what just happens is we actually get distracted. Sometimes we maybe for sure at times, right, we can become even just disillusioned and just not really sure what's really going on." [01:10:12] (46 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)


5. "I think the posture of these 10 lepers, at least at the very beginning, is the posture that we need to have. Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. The NIV, the one that I read, actually says, have pity on us. I don't want to say pity, but I should. Are you, am I, are we willing to understand our need of God's goodness, of God's grace? Do we see our need for God to have mercy on us, to have pity on us, if you like? Can live with that kind of posture. You need, we need, I need to protect my heart. We need to keep our heart soft, grateful, hopeful." [01:11:58] (63 seconds) (Download raw clip | Download cropped clip)