Summary
This sermon explores the profound spiritual principle of giving thanks before receiving God’s provision. The speaker begins with a relatable analogy of using Google Earth to locate one’s home, emphasizing how humans instinctively focus on themselves first. He connects this to the biblical teaching that we should look to God first, as seen in Psalm 145:15-16, where God provides for His people by opening His hand and satisfying their needs. The message challenges listeners to embrace the counterintuitive practice of gratitude even in the absence of visible answers, drawing on the example of Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead, where He expressed thanks to God before the miracle occurred.
The speaker explains that thanksgiving acts as a “superpower” to elevate our perspective beyond immediate problems, enabling us to see God’s broader plan and find direction. He compares this to GPS technology, which connects to fixed towers for accurate navigation. Just as GPS requires a stable signal, our spiritual guidance comes from God’s unbroken promises and presence. The encouragement is to trust God’s timing, as illustrated in Ecclesiastes 3:11 and Romans 8:25. The sermon also highlights the importance of communal prayer, using the example of the church’s prayer ministry and online gatherings, and calls for believers to look up and trust in God’s faithfulness. The message concludes with a powerful prayer for God’s continued provision and a reminder that nothing is impossible when we align our hearts with His.
Sermon transcription
Brothers and sisters, you know the first time I heard about it and I went to the internet, Google Earth, what did I think first? I searched my address. That’s correct. I searched my address. Am I existing in this planet Earth according to Google? I searched for my address. My in I was still in Nsc that time, and I found it. And afterwards, what I did, I searched my house in Indonesia. My parents’ house, not my house, my parents’ house. And I found it. I can see I never saw my house from the top. And the way I found it because at that time maybe the address was not precisely registered. So I just look at the city and from the city I kind of recognize and I follow the street and I found where my house. Have you tried that? Have you seen your house from the top? Right. I’ve never seen it from the top before. Only when Google made it possible. So you see when we got a tool and we got something you know what we do? We are so selfish creatures. We try to look for ourselves first before we look for others. Right? That’s the very first thing we are looking at. And now brothers and sisters, God is asking us to do different work. And this is something that seems counterintuitive. When God says give, what did He say? It will come back to you. So first is for you to give and it will come back to you. Now brothers and sisters, this might sound counterintuitive maybe when we are giving thanks before we receive. We giving thanks before we receive. We actually seem counterintuitive. Why should you giving thanks on something you have not received? Right? But this is then the principle of God that is different than we usually do. So therefore brothers and sisters I would like to read with you Psalm 145 verse 15-16. This is the verses that pastor Angel has already read for us. Psalm 145 verse 15-16 up here on the screen. Follow me as I read. Brothers and sisters, the eyes of all look to you. You give them their food at the proper time. You open your hand and satisfy the desire of every living thing. So when I read the Bible, brothers and sisters, I always like the verb. I always like the verb. And why do I like the verb? Because I know then the action. What did God do? What did the Israelite do? What did someone in the Bible in that story do? So that I can imagine what is actually happening. So the verb in these verses is highlighted in yellow to look and then God give and then open his hands and satisfy. And you see here the Israelites just only do one thing. They look up to God. But God did three things. He give them what they need. He opened his arm and he satisfied people. Amen. So those are the things remember that that is the anchor to look to give to open and satisfy. Now I will pair this with two other verses brothers and sisters. 1 Thessalonians chapter 5 verse 18. 1 Thessalonians 5:18. Give thanks in all circumstances for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus. Give thanks in all circumstances. And I’m asking myself Lord, all circumstances really even in difficulties and God says really really give thanks in all circumstances and we’ll learn why and I’m so much blessed when I was looking at this and Philippians 4:6 do not be anxious about anything but in every situation by prayer and petition with thanksgiving present your request to God. The power of thanksgiving. Hallelujah. Let’s bow down our head and pray.
Lord Jesus, bless us, oh Lord. As we are pondering on your words, the verses that we have just read. May you continue to guide us. Help us. Give us the understanding, oh Lord, in these words that you are about to say to us. Father, hide me behind your cross. And Lord, may you be the one speaking to your people, Lord. And father, may anointing be upon each and every one of us that we are all connected through the all sources of everything that we need. The Holy Spirit works in us in Jesus name we pray. Amen. Amen.
So brothers and sisters, why thanksgiving? Why thanksgiving? Now this this illustration comes to me when I was just continued to ponder why should we give thanks especially. It’s easy to understand somebody giving thanks on something they receive something that they have received, like sister Rurin was giving a testimony today she received the answer from the embassy of the visa she was asking. Right, it’s easy to understand when she gives thanks in that situation she’s been waiting for, imagine if she gives thanks before she receives. Amen. She did as well. Now, here is the illustration, brothers and sisters. Who likes going to woods to the forest? Who likes going to the forest? Or who is doing scouting? I know my wife is doing scouting. Who else is doing scouting? Rurin’s doing scouting. Who else? Ready? Michelle, who else doing scouting? So you you too, brother Marvin, you did scouting before. Okay. So when you are doing scouting, so those who will lift their hands, I’m going to test you. So when you are going out and to make sure that you know your orientation, where you come from and where you want to go, what do you need? A compass, right? Or if you don’t have a compass, what would you do? The sun, right? So there is an orientation. If you can’t see the sun and um and the cloud is actually closing the sun and it’s almost gone. Use your phone. Imagine if you forgot your phone or there is no signal in uh in the forest, right? You pray. I like that one. I like that one.
So, brothers and sisters, another thing is for you to give a sign. So, you uh you know, you give your own sign when you come in. Yeah. You either you take uh some of the you know the wood or you create some scratch there of your own sign or you uh you take the branches and you put uh them there is a sign that you know you were there before right so that you can come back in case you missed it. Okay now imagine if those all are gone. Now brothers and sisters, I was asking myself, Lord, how is thanksgiving before you receive what you’re asking for really make a difference. So this is what I have received in the as an impression brothers and sisters and I was thinking and pondering about it and uh this is not a precise and perfect way of illustrating it but closely. So imagine you are in the forest or in the Amazon forest and for whatever reason you don't have your compass with you. You don't you can't see the sun where it comes from you. So you cannot orientate and you also don't have your watch with you. There is no signal. You just totally lost. Right? You are in the middle of the woods. And the woods by the way look the same everywhere you look. Right? You are in trouble. You are in trouble. Yeah. Imagine that for a second. So you are there in the middle and you don't know where to go. Right. So brothers and sisters, do you have have anybody have read Alice in the Wonderland? Yeah. So Alice in the Wonderland was looking and asking where should I go? Right. Which direction should I take? And then the person was saying where do you want to go? If you do not know where you want to go, it doesn't matter which direction you would take. Right? It doesn't matter if you do not want to go in life. It doesn't matter what you do because then whatever come right happens. But if you know where you want to go, right? So you are the person there inside the woods. You want to go to whatever the camp because you want to save the life. You need an orientation because you want to go. Should I go left? Should I go right? Should go down now or go up and whatever. Now here is the catch, brothers. You need to get an orientation. In order for you to get an orientation, you need to elevate yourself. So you separate trees and the forest right? So if imagine you have the superpower that superpower is actually lift you up out of the woods going up and you get a little bit more of the horizon and it's going up further you get more horizon. As you're going up further, you get more horizon and more and more and more higher. Then you can recognize, oh, that is Rio de Janeiro, right? That is that and that is that and I'm here. Therefore, if I want to go there, I need to go in that direction, right? You need to go and get an orientation. You need to know where you are relative to a fixed place so that you can orient yourself and be able to take the step.
Now the superpower that brings you from your place where you are confused because when you're confused you are only focusing on yourself. You are focusing on the trouble. You are focusing on the problem. Now this power that lifts you up is the thanksgiving. So you are out of the realm way because you are reorientating yourself from your own problem into God’s level of thinking. So the thanksgiving before you receive what you are asking for is actually the superpower that brings you up. So remember, Einstein was actually saying you cannot solve a problem with the knowledge you created the problem with. Yeah. If you have your problem and uh you create and you can't solve it with the the knowledge that you have in creating those problem. You got to have a higher knowledge. You got to get yourself out of yourself. Now thanksgiving before that is the one that gives you that brothers and sisters. The thanksgiving before or in the midst of your trouble is actually the one that lifts you up in order for you to know that God has been doing so many other great things. And God says I will be with you and I will guide you and I will bless you. And that’s the time when the thanksgiving flows from your heart at the time you don't know what else to do. Whom else to ask? Whom else to ask? Then you give your thanksgiving to God and you said, “Lord, I don't know what else to do.” And I give thanks to you for what you’re going to do in the next hour or in the next days, in the next months, whatever it is. Brothers and sisters, thanksgiving is a superpower that brings you out of your trouble up for you to be able to orient yourself. Amen. So once you're up there and you know the direction you want to go there, then you orient yourself and start taking the step. Amen.
And so brothers and sisters that's when I started and I said when I look in Google map where my house is in Indonesia because I see it from the top I can orient myself I remember this is there this is there and this is how GPS work. Do you know how GPS works brothers and sisters? So your phone is connected to two at least three towers to be able to locate where your phone is. Yeah. As we speak, your phone is connected to towers and the towers can tell the distance between your phone and the towers. The towers are fixed and are a known location in the world, right? And your phone is moving. So each of these towers will give information how much is the distance between you and the towers. Therefore they can locate you. So brothers and sisters they know where we are. So don't try to hide. The thing is God knows you even more even before we are here on this planet earth now. So brothers and sisters why do I say that this reference they need three they need to locate you two is about possible but there are some uncertainty they need three to be certain we only need one our god and we know that is certain and by the way the signal can be disturbed and the tower could get could lose power, right? And there are many towers around and they can connect to many different towers. But our Lord never lost power. There is no hindrance of the signal. Why? Because he is in you. He is with you. And so here it is, brothers and sisters. Looking up, looking from the top is the way where thanksgiving works. And in the verses that we have read, brothers and sisters, looking up is actually a gesture of asking Lord, can you help me? Can you help me? That's what the verse is actually said.
Now, when I said giving thanks before something you receive, this is actually what Jesus did when he raised Lazarus out of the tomb. So in John 11:41 brothers and sisters if you want to read the complete story and I'm sure that you know this story right so Jesus was late coming and um and uh everybody was saying he's dead there's no point of you coming here basically but Jesus said now bring me to where you lay him right so then then at that time he was asking people move the stone that actually closed the place where they uh already put Lazarus in. They said it's already a few days going to be stink, right? But just move the stone. And here it is. John 11:41. Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying. That was Lazarus. And here is what Jesus did. Jesus lift up his eyes. Jesus lift up his eyes. Even Jesus lift up his eyes, brothers and sisters. And said, “Father, I thank you. You have heard me.” You see here, the miracle has not happened yet. He gave. He looked up. He looked up and gave thanks and said, “Thank you, Lord, that you have been hearing me.” And brothers and sisters, you might be faced with the dream that you thought it it's a dead dream, right? Or something that you thought is not possible or something that you probably have been praying for for a long time and never happened and never move anything. Why don't we take this time and lift up our eyes and say thank you Lord that you are hearing me. And you know what happened after this? Jesus called Lazarus. Lazarus came out and uh and Lazarus was like so brothers and sisters in the verses after this God said in loud voice I don't know how loud that is and this is Jesus God when when it says loud it must be very loud. Yeah. So maybe sir Lazarus was there and then suddenly I said like oh chill God chill not so loud please we will ask we will ask God later in heaven how loud it most but Jesus himself lift up his eyes and give thanks. Amen. So here is brothers and sisters the power of giving thanks before the miracles and I would like to challenge in every one of us whatever it is or uh that that that might be inside of our hearts and I don't know brothers and sisters but God knows it might be impossible and the thing is I believe when God impresses it in your heart there must be something there otherwise he will not put it in your heart. I believe that. So whatever it is, how high it is, how impossible it is and at that time people have not seen this thing happened, right? So Jesus is raising the dead. It could be something that you buried down inside of your heart. It didn't happen. It never happened. And maybe you fail a couple of times and therefore you said that's it, Phenito. It's over. Goodbye. And uh try new things. I don't know what it is, but I'm sure that God is speaking to you right now. You can call that dream that dream up right now. And it seems impossible. Open up your eyes. Look up. Give thanks and said, “Thank you, Lord, for hearing me.” The fact that this message, the this preaching right now is reminding you of that that dream is the fact that God wants you to open up your eyes. Lift up your eyes and give thanks to him that he heard you.
Now brothers and sisters, and this is how we should do it in Hebrews 12:2, fixing our eyes on Jesus. This is the way we going to continue looking at Jesus, the pioneer and the perfector of our faith. For the joy set before him, he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. So brothers and sisters, as I mentioned before to you, GPS, the way the GPS work, it needs to have one, two, and three fixed positions to determine where you are. We only need one in this case, brothers and sisters, and that is the cross. Amen. At the cross, God has paid all our sins. At the cross, God said, “For the joy that I have seen.” What is this joy that God saw when he endured the cross? What is this joy? Is the joy seeing you brothers and sisters accepting him as a Lord our Lord and Savior and we will be with him in paradise. The joy knowing that everyone are welcome to the kingdom of God if you acknowledge him as your God and savior. Amen. So basically brothers and sisters when you see challenges just go what how God is putting an example on you orient yourself right you know where you want to go imagine the joy that you will have arriving in your destination even before you arrive at your destination the joy is the journey, the joy is the time you arrive. This is what God is saying. Did he endure? Did he have pain? He has a lot of pain at that time. He was human. He’s man. He feels all the pain. The nail and the mocking and all the whip everything and every time I remember I mean nothing in the in the movie of uh what was that movie about uh the res uh the crucifixion of Jesus the passion right so every time when they start getting him and the process of him bringing the cross until he was on the cross. Nothing is actually depicted that is close. But every time I see that movie, I feel like Lord, you endure all those. You endure all. Why? For the joy that he has seen. He sees you and I coming joining him at that right time enjoying the presence of the Lord.
So here it is brothers and sisters. You might be in the process that you think today how could it be that I overcome all this. And this is the same as when we in the time where in the church there are so many challenges that we face. We just we cannot think of that way at that time. But one thing we know God has started the work and he will continue. Amen. And there were a time that we are so much in need of resources and we just praying to God and we believe and um and there are many that can testify that we believe and we continue and we persevere it. Was it painful? It was painful brothers and sisters. Was it a lot of sacrifice? Yes, that was a lot of sacrifice. And I'm sure there is something inside of you shaken right now as I'm speaking because the Holy Spirit is speaking to you. And you probably think that is impossible that this guy is difficult that is so much money this is that this is that whatever it is. Brothers and sisters, today right now here in this place I would like to say thank God and said Lord thank you for hearing me. The fact that he is speaking to you right now, brothers and sisters, he is wanting, he is wanting for you to look at the joy that is set before you when this challenges is overcome.
So brothers and sisters, God is so good. God has been so good to our church. God has been so good to many of our alumni. I call those who have been blessed in our church and we send them we call them our alumni. Right? So uh some opairs you you might be an alumni from this church but you will be bringing this message and you're going to pass on this message for anybody else and you are the living testimony of this message. Maybe sometimes the alumni come back right so either they become the teacher there or somebody or something else or doing reunion. So please do come and visit us once in a while right. So brothers and sisters it is good to give thanks and knowing that God is doing something good in us. In Psalm 107 verse 8-9, let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love is wonderful deeds for mankind. For he satisfy the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things. You remember in the first uh in Psalm when we open Psalm 145 50 40 15-16. So we look up and God is giving and opening his arm and satisfy his people. Amen. When you give thanks, this is precisely what God is going to do. God will lift you up. You know your orientation. And by the way, brothers and sisters, that's the power. That's the power because when you give thanks, you basically know that there is something there. No, this is not uh this wrong. It's not it's not something someone more powerful than you is looking after you. That's what thanksgiving really means. Now, when you know the orientation, when you're lifted up, you know the orientation, you know where to go, right? And it's time for you to take this next step. And when you go and imagine myself again or yourself again in the woods, you know where the orientation is. You know where to go. You're taking step. It doesn't mean that you are going to be there in split seconds. Not that God didn't want to do. And sometimes God does do miracles brothers and sisters. But there is another thing that God is doing in the journey is for you to trust him in the process. Amen. From where you are to where you want to go, there are steps that you need to take. And that step is not worryless, is not challengeless, is not maybe as smooth as you think it is. Maybe it's up and down, one, two step forward, one step back. Whichever ways when you fight and continue, God will bring you as long as you trust him in the process. Brothers and sisters, going through the process is not nice, but you got to go through the process in order for you to be able to achieve it. Yeah. So those of you who are in uh in um chemical processes, so uh we have sister an here, my colleague Michelle and um and also brother Rammon. So chemical engineers know this. You got to have a control on your processes. So when when you are cooking something, you're separating something or anything you do, you got to control it because if you don't control it, it can run away and uncontrolled runaway reactions can do damages. So in order for us to know how do we know that we are out of control we need a measurement right? So we need a measurement even before the measurement is being done. Chemical engineers always think what could happen? What could happen? What's the worst thing that could happen? And if it does happen, how do we know that it happened? And if it does happen and we measure it, how do we contain it? How do we do in such a way that we can still get this back in control? Now imagine your life in the process right? It is always good to measure where you are relative to where you God wants you to do.
Now how do we do it is for you to ask God and measure it against God. Amen. So you are not losing signal. You have a GPS that suddenly lost signal. Have you ever experienced that brothers and sisters? And there was a very funny story and in every year there was a scaling numerically. One time there was a very uh funny story. There was somebody driving in a car and that person relies so much in what the GPS is actually saying, right? Suddenly it lost control. It lost signal. It actually just tried to imagine itself based on the the recorded speed and all those. And the GPS said, “Now turn right. Now turn right.” And the person didn't really look at the road and just merely listened to what the Tom was saying. He turned right and he go and hit somebody else's fence. Why? Because the navigation was not in connection with the source of information. So the same as we forgot to calibrate ourselves to God. We thought that it is time to turn and we forgot to consult God and we forgot to check with God and we forgot to give thanks to God. And this is the things that might happen. So we got to trust him in the process. And you know sometimes brothers and sisters you don't feel good inside. You know when you are about to say something or to do something you don't feel good inside right it's like the sixth sense people say God feeling what people say the God feeling. There are actually research body of research talking about there there is something in our gut in our stomach that actually create some sort of an enzyme that gives information to our brain that it doesn't feel good here you know and brothers and sisters we have the Holy Spirit even if it doesn't feel good there if it is good here right and usually it's synchronized and so therefore trust him in this process and be able to connect and calibrate all the time with him. In Ecclesiastes 3:11, he has made everything beautiful in his time. And there is a time component in for you from where you are to where your dreams going to be. And in Romans 8:25, he said, “But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently.” Now, so brothers and sisters, not waiting for it crazily or waiting for it in such a way that you even getting more worried, why don’t we give thanks to God while waiting? Amen. And so, brothers and sisters, it is good to give thanks to God. One of the ways that we would like to encourage each and every one of you, you know, it's it's nice to give thanks corporately together with others. Sometimes you find it difficult to say to give thanks on something inside of you. Well, somebody is saying I give thanks for what God has done in my work. And suddenly you remember, oh actually God is also doing things the same like that in me. and you can tell the story and the ripple comes and therefore brothers and it's always good to commune and come together and that's why we encourage people to come together to church right so and that's also the reason why because then you can connect as human right there are by the way uh now online church that is actually regulated by AI I no one is actually speaking but records of uh preaching or songs and all other things and there are many people joining. They all are spiritually connected but we are physically connected and holy spiritually connected.
And one of the ways brothers and sisters is for us a communion like this and also we have another instrument that we do weekly is our prayer time. Now we try to compromise this because we are all living far from each other, right? So we have our online prayer. Sister Phoebe is uh is coordinating that. If you would like to join us, we have the we have the zoom link for you. Everybody everybody are open to come and join us. We give thanks to God for what God has done in our life and we are also praying together there right spiritually at that time. But at least it gives us a connect between every Sundays. Yeah. And if you would like to have um uh physical once a month we have physical uh praying together in Utre and hopefully but but at the right time we will be doing as well for Skidam. Brothers and sisters it's good to give thanks to God even before you see your dream come to pass. Now I would like to close with this. I would like you to take this home with you. Brothers and sisters, it's always good to give thanks to God before and after you see what you’re praying for come to pass. And if you are in a situation right now that you don't know what to do, where else to go and who to call, who to ask help for and whatever you are blank or you hit walls. And I want you to remember that there is one more thing you can do is for you to look up to him, our Lord and our Savior. He is the source of everything we need. And I will close by reading to you Psalm 121 verse 1 to 4. And this will be what we will be asking God for. I lift my eyes to the mountains. Where does my where does my help come from? And this is the answer. My help comes from the Lord, the maker of heaven and earth. He will not let your foot sleep. He who watches over you will not slumber. Indeed, he who watches over Israel, who watches over you, who watches each and every one of us, will neither slumber nor sleep. He is the source of our health. Amen. So brothers and sisters, we thank God for what God has done in our church. And we will continue to give thanks to God of what he is going to do in our church. Same thing what we will be doing today. And we will be I will be leading a prayer right now.
Brothers and sisters, I want to challenge you on the things that God impressed in your heart while I'm speaking. Maybe some of you have reminded of the dead dreams that God has put in you or you are facing challenges that you would like God to do something on or anything that you see that you could not see ways out or if you are blessed by God and so many great things that he's doing in your life. Let's give thanks because this is the power of the thanksgiving that we have in our heart that God is going to strengthen us. Let's trust him in the process. Amen. Hallelujah. Thank you Jesus. Hallelujah. Let's bow down our head and pray. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Thank you, Lord Jesus. Thank you, Father, for speaking to us. Thank you for reminding us the power of thanksgiving even before we receive what we are praying for because we know that you heard us. And we know that you know it all, oh Lord Jesus. Father, I pray right now, oh Lord, for the prayer of your people. That might be impossible as of now, but it will be possible in your hands. And Father, we look up to you. We are orienting our eyes on you, Lord. We are asking for your grace and your mercy. May you help us. May you open ways. May you give us wisdom. May you send help. May you open Lord the floodgates of heaven with great ideas. And Lord, may