How Gratitude Keeps You From Sin (EP 209)

What's going on guys? Welcome back to another episode of the Bricecroft podcast. I'm Bryce and today by the title of this episode, we are going to be talking about gratitude. I feel like we hear about this term whether we're in church settings or you listen to Brandon Lake or in many different Christian environments. We hear the term gratitude. What is gratitude? What does it look like in the scriptures? How can we apply it more in our life? What does it ultimately look like? We're going to get into it. Hey, real quick, before we keep going, I have an announcement I've been really excited to make. I'm officially announcing our ministry's biggest live event ever, Open Heaven. It's happening Sunday, November 8, 2026 at 7.30 p.m. at the Pavilion at Toyota Music Factory in Irving, Texas. This is going to be a night center around worship, faith, and genuine community. All of us together in one room encountering God in person. There's going to be live worship and really special moments throughout the night. Take us to our on sale right now, head to briskrawford.org/tour or click the link in the description below to grab yours. And please only buy through my official site or that link. Do not buy from random resellers online, a lot of them are scams. I genuinely believe this is going to be a night people carry with them for a long time. I would love to see you there. All right, back to the episode. But before we get into the scriptures, we have to understand exactly what gratitude is. Gratitude in its simplest form is saying thank you. It's saying thank you for receiving something that you didn't deserve. It's saying thank you for receiving blessings and gifts and favor and life and breath and everything in between from God. Whether it's from Himself or through people from God, we are saying thank you. Thank you. That's how powerful it is. Gratitude in thanks, Hivin. Go hand in hand and we'll get to that later on in the episode. But one of the primary scriptures that stuck out to me about gratitude is actually Luke chapter 17 and we're going to start in verse 11. But Jesus is about to heal 10 lepers and it's so interesting what happens in the story. I want you to hear this. On the way to Jerusalem, he was passing along between Samaria and Galilee and as he entered a village, he was met by 10 lepers who stood at a distance and lifting up their voices saying Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. When he saw them, he said to them, "Go and show yourselves to the priest." And as they went, they were cleansed. Now I want to stop right here. There's many times in the scriptures where people come to Jesus and say, "Lord, if you'll make me clean, would you do so?" And he's like, "Absolutely, absolutely. I'll make you clean." It's the Lord that loves to give, you know, every good gift comes from above. So God, us being his children, he wants to take care of us. He's jealous for our love. He loves us so desperately. He loves giving good gifts. We have a lot to be grateful for. We have many reasons to practice gratitude because of the character of God. Now, look at this. Then 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 Jesus' feet, giving him thanks. Now he was a Samaritan. Now let's start right there. Now that sounds good at face value. A guy looked down, he's like, "Oh my gosh, I'm healed." Because you have to understand the lepers are outcast. They're sick. No one wants to get near them. Oftentimes lepers out not only where they outcast outside of the city, but many lepers oftentimes had some sort of bell signifying that when they walked in the city, people would know that's the leper. Get away from that guy. I don't want to get near him. I'm going to get unclean if I get his disease. So I'll face value. You're like, "Oh great, turn around." He's grateful and all that jazz. But the sad part is there was ten of them that got healed. Only one of them turned around with gratitude. In verse 17, then Jesus answered, "We're not ten cleansed. Where are the nine?" Was no one found to return and give praise to God except his foreigner? And he said to him, "Rise and go your way. Your faith has made you well." Let me give you a practical warning here about your life. Many times we cry out to God in the depths and darkest parts of our lives. And we ask God, "Pull through. If you do this thing, then I'll start following your God. I promise I'll stop cussing. If you just do this one thing for me." If God pulls through in your life and you lack gratitude, then you're going to convince yourself that you got yourself out of that hole and Jesus did it. Whenever we lack practicing gratitude and we conquer a mountain, we're pulled out of a hole. We finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. We then convince ourselves that it is we that got ourselves out of the bond and not Jesus. And it's only Jesus like, "Wait, there was ten of you guys only. One of you turned around to praise God for healing you." I mean, there's no way that anyone else but Jesus could have healed these men. And 90% of them had the audacity to walk away as if they had nothing to be grateful for. You see, so often in society, we cry out to God to move in our life, move in our circumstances, move in our country, then God does. And we act as if there wasn't even a problem. And so we show a lack of gratitude towards God. How hypocritical it is of us to cry out and ask God to move in our life, show up, speak to us, be with us, pull us out of a dark pit, and then he does, and then we just do nothing about it. That is a lack of gratitude. You know what the greatest form of gratitude is preaching the gospel. Why? Because Jesus Christ pulled you out of the darkest pit possible, which comes to your salvation, which comes to your eternal destination, which comes to your ultimate satisfaction. He pulls us out of this hole and the ultimate view, the ultimate display of gratitude is saying, God has saved my life. Now I've got to preach the gospel to other people so we can save theirs. That is the ultimate form of gratitude. And oftentimes, I remember for me personally that growing up, I had heard a lot about Jesus. I went to private Christian school. I'm very grateful for my education I got there. I went to church camps growing up. And there were so many times where I asked God to move in my life or I was struggling or I was hurting or I cried out, I mean, I got saved like 39 times in two summers at church camp. And then the God would pull through and I would act as if he didn't do anything. And there was a lack of gratitude. A lack of gratitude will allow pride to creep in your life and then you will become your own God and not Jesus. No wonder we find ourselves struggling and suffering underneath the pressure of performance, underneath the pressure of sin, underneath the pressure of opinions and people because we lack gratitude. I mean, what does Philippians 4 say? Let's flip to Philippians 4. Philippians says, says this, do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God. I love how it says in prayer and supplication, it doesn't exclude the thanksgiving says with thanksgiving. The psalm say we enter his courts with praise and thanksgiving. So often our prayer lives have become merely wishless to Santa Claus and it's God ain't a genie. God is our father, God is our Lord. He is a friend to us that are brokenhearted. He's not a genie with prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. In everything that we do, thanksgiving is attached. Gratitude is attached because gratitude aligns our heart posture with the Lord's. Gratitude keeps us centered, rounded, and rooted in the work of the cross. Gratitude allows us not to lose sight of the beauty of what Jesus has done because the second we lose gratitude, we lose everything because if we are not grateful for Jesus and His finished work, then what are we grateful for? Something that you did? Were you grateful for the way that you conquered your porn addiction? And then 48 hours later, you fell back in because you thought you were the one that got you out of the hole after you cried out to Jesus because you felt shame and guilt for falling in a sin, time and time again. And then you got one little bit of peace because Jesus is the principese. You got one ounce of peace and you forgot Jesus is someone that brings you comfort, satisfaction, and strength. You thought I just got myself out of this hole. Then you fell back in 48 hours later because we lack gratitude. Look at Luke 24. Jesus resurrected in His physical body, appears before the disciples. And he says, on the resurrected Christ, look, it's me. They're like, now I believe it. He shows them holes in his hands, holds inside. They're like, no, don't believe it. They were marveled and amazed. And he said, do you guys have something to eat? I'll have fish off bread. And they sit down and as they as they broke bread, Jesus opened their minds to the scripture. It was in that moment, I view that like a Thanksgiving holiday, right? Jesus is having Thanksgiving around the table. And Jesus turned Thanksgiving from being a holiday to a weapon. Gratitude will be your number one weapon against sin and temptation. Because one major reason we fall into sin and temptation time and time again is because we think that that thing will satisfy us and we are not satisfied and grateful for the peace and provision and satisfaction of the Lord Jesus. Those are part with. And so when we fall into sin and temptation, we're saying, no, I'm not grateful for Jesus. I don't think he's doing it enough for me. I don't know if this is going to work out. And so we turn to sin. Gratitude is going to be a primary weapon that will keep you on the straightening era. Gratitude is going to be a single handed practice that is going to keep you rooted and grounded. A practice that I have implemented in my daily walk with Jesus is in the more I have a routine in the morning. I got to do a wake up and I go on a prayer walk with my dog. And at first when I started doing this, my prayer walk was like, honestly, exactly what it's said at the beginning. It was me asking God for specific things. And the Bible tells us, make our request known to God. But that's not the primary purpose of prayer. And so now my prayer walks in the morning with my dog Moses have now changed from me asking God for things to simply being grateful. God, thank you for this. Thank you for that. I remember this morning, particularly I was walking Moses and I could not stop but sit and thank God for the weather. I just thought it was such a beautiful day out this morning and still is. And I couldn't stop. And for some reason, that that continual prayer, God, I'm just in awe of the weather. Like thank you that you've allowed us to be today. God, thank you for who you are. And thank you for your character. And thank you for my breath. Thank you that I have the ability to walk. And thank you that we have a roof over our head. And thank you Lord for the things that you do. And I'm like, because this constant state of gratitude keeps us dependent on God because when we are grateful, we realize he is the only one that can provide and give good gifts. We realize that he is the only one that gives us not what we not what we want, but what we need. And when we are dependent on him, we can't help but stay in a constant place of gratitude. I mean, if you're someone that's struggling with sin right now, maybe reflect on your own life, maybe you're not being grateful. Maybe one of the reasons why you're continually falling into sin is because you are so down on yourself and down on your look that you are so hyperfixated on your suffering rather than gratitude. It's like, what do you mean, Bryce? How can I be grateful in the midst of my suffering? Look, your story would be your story without your suffering. It would be ignorant for us to neglect your suffering and hardship and trial. And at the same time, it would be foolish of us to not be grateful for what God is teaching us through. It'd be grateful that his characters remain the same at the peaks of our life and the lows of our life that we would be insane to neglect gratitude for Jesus Christ that he doesn't change his opinion about us despite our suffering and sin. He doesn't change his mind about us just because we're having another hard day. And so maybe the missing piece to get you out of this pit of despair, this pit of hopelessness, this pit of pride, this pit of sin is simply gratitude. Actually, as society grows and temptation grows and all of these things, it's actually quite simple but maybe gratitude is the missing piece in your life that could change the trajectory of your faith, the journey simply because you are grateful for every ounce and aspect of your daily life through Jesus Christ because he is the one that gives it to you. And so I want to pray for you. I want to pray that gratitude becomes a practice in your life. I just want to thank God. I want to pray that gratitude becomes a practice in your life and I just want to thank God for you, your life, this day, the next day, Lord willing, if there is one, We want to thank Him. Lord Jesus, we love you. God we are so grateful for the life that you've been still in our lungs. Gratitude we want to be a good hailey part of our practice. So Lord, we are just grateful. Right now wherever we're watching or listening to God, we say we're grateful for you. We're grateful for the Word of God. We're grateful for Jesus Christ, death and resurrection all across. We're grateful for bread in our lungs. Lord, we're grateful for sunshine. We're grateful for the weather. We're grateful for animals. We're grateful for friendships. We're grateful for toothpaste. We're grateful for food. We are grateful for legs. We are grateful for eyes that can see. We are grateful for smell that we can smell. We're grateful for sounds that we can listen. We're grateful for music. Lord, we are grateful for creativity. Lord, we are grateful for the person watching and listening. And Lord, we are grateful for our enemies because you care for them just as much as you care about us. Lord, we are grateful and we want to stay in this place. Lord, would you let gratitude become a daily practice in our life? Let us not lose sight of you because we lack gratitude. Lord, continue to remind us of things that we can continue to praise you for because you have given us a new song in our mouth. Lord, we love you. We thank you. We are so grateful for you in Jesus' name, amen.