Learn to Count

Edwin Estevez
Pastoral Resident, Fourth Presbyterian Church

Psalm 148
Isaiah 63:7–9

If the only prayer you ever say in your entire life is thank you, it will be enough.

Meister Eckhart

Without a doubt, some sermons are inspired because people not only need to hear them, but because the preacher needs to hear it as well. This was not an easy sermon for me to prepare. I often have rejected sermons with simplistic interpretations, catchy sermon titles, or easy-to-remember takeaway points that rhyme, because in the face of life’s complexity, of tragedy, of human suffering, they seem to dishonor the human experience and God’s concern for each one of us.

Yet in the face of life’s complexity, some things are really straightforward and simple.

Today’s sermon is inspired by the Baptist sermonic tradition, which out of many of its characteristics is known for leaving the hearer with a play with words that is easily recalled, a sermon for you to carry in your tool box at a moment’s notice.

Here are three things what I want you to take away from it:

The sermon is titled “Learn to Count” because I want you to

1. Learn to count your blessings
2. Learn to count on God, and
3. Learn that you count

Over the course of Advent, in preparation for Christmas, I facilitated a discussion about one of Advent’s themes, joy, with our young adults who meet here at Fourth Church every Sunday at 12:30 for an hour. We discussed happiness and joy, whether they are the same and how they might be different. Of course, thankfully, no one agreed on everything—that’s called vitality in the congregation!

But something that kept coming up in that discussion was that happiness seemed circumstantial, something that could change quickly given a set of situations, and that happiness and unhappiness are a natural, and even healthy, expression of the human experience. Along with experiencing anger, sadness, and other feelings, it is good to sometimes also experience happiness and unhappiness, depending on the circumstances.

But joy was described as something distinct; joy was seen as enabled by God, a practice, a lifestyle choice made in spite of the circumstances to believe that things don’t end when employment ends or when life ends, but that joy helps us live a life of hope, faith, courage, resilience.

This distinction is supported by outside literature; it is a distinction the early Greek philosophers made, and it is something that current psychologists and spiritual leaders often make.

You see happiness, we learn from science, is predetermined, to a degree, by genetic inheritance: some of us our born and grow up with an optimistic outlook, while others have a more skeptical view. Neither is wrong; they actually contribute to human resilience, because the optimists need to learn of the skeptics’ grasp of reality, and the skeptics need the optimists to encourage them through good times.

We also learn, from science, that our brains are actually wired to remember pain and negative experiences, while it’s harder for us to remember happy moments. This too is important. It probably helped us survive, to know what not to repeat so as to avoid pain or negative consequences. From this, we have come to know that happiness is affected by circumstances outside of your control and that you must learn to cultivate positivity, because it’s not natural for us to do so.

The key, in all the literature I searched and also in our scripture, is that we practice joy by practicing gratitude. In other words, to cultivate joy, to choose, in spite of the circumstances, to cultivate positivity is to be thankful. It is to learn to count your blessings.

This is what our scripture is telling us today. Recount—which is to recall, to remember, but also to count again—the deeds God has done and to give thanks.

If you remember, Isaiah is a prophet speaking to vision that has not come to pass. The people still suffer, there is still war, the promise of the Messiah has not arrived, and yet Isaiah says, Count your blessings.
After the Christmas hustle and bustle, the anticipation we experience in Advent, after all the food has been devoured, the gifts unwrapped, Christmas can seem disappointing because the world still seems the same. We celebrate the coming of the Christ, but our family relationships seem stuck in the same old rut; the world still experiences violence; there is still hunger and suffering. Like Isaiah, we were proclaiming the coming of the Messiah, and yet nothing seems to have come to pass.

But Isaiah says, in the face of suffering, in the face of tragedy, of complex realities, learn to count your blessings. Remember. Give thanks. It’s simple, straightforward, but essential and transformative. It’s as simple as when a young man who came to meet with me said that on his way to the church, his taxi driver, when asked, “How are you,” responded, “Man, I’m great and grateful. I’m alive.” The young man paused thinking there was more to it, to “I’m alive.” It struck him so much he shared it with me, and our meeting was cut short because he realized something on his own: his life was in dire need of giving thanks.

When you confront a difficult situation, take some time to note the things you’re thankful for, to count your blessings, and in this way cultivate a joyful life.

There was once a young pastor who titled his sermon “The Greatest Sermon I Ever Heard,” and in wanting to become a better preacher, I watched it on video. But instead of hearing the greatest sermon or even references from it, this young pastor tells the ordinary story of his father—a good father, a good husband, a good leader in the community, a good worker, a good citizen, a good Christian.

Then he tells of the greatest sermon he ever heard. He was crying at the bedside of his father, who was dying of cancer. Angry with God and confused, he asked his father, “Why is this happening? Where is God?” A man of few words, the father turned to the son, looked up at him from his hospital bed, and said, “Son, God has been so good to me. I’ve had such an incredible life.” That, says the young pastor, was the best sermon he’s ever heard: giving thanks to God, counting one’s blessings, counting on God’s steadfast love. God has been so good to me . . .

And why should we give thanks? This preacher’s father tells us: God has been so good. And Isaiah tells us: God’s steadfast love endures forever.

If you are to cultivate joy in your life as you reflect on this past year and look to the new year, you must cultivate gratitude. And to do that, you must learn to count your blessings and to count on God, to count on God’s steadfast love.

Count on God. Let this be the year that you place your trust in God. Take it from me—it’s difficult. It’s even risky, because you’ll help those you never thought you’d help and you’ll confront your fears and be led to offer grace, forgiveness, and love to others, even when you really don’t want to.

Scriptures tell us, through the prophets, priests, through the Word that became flesh, through the witness of the church, by the power of the Spirit, that God is with us always. We are not alone. God’s love surrounds us. We are alive. We have breath. We have family, whether by blood or through friendship, through the church; we are loved, by others and by God.

What is keeping you from trusting in God, from counting on God’s grace? A book coauthored by John Boyle, a former Associate Pastor here at Fourth Church, and Jeanne Bishop, a current member, has a striking title: Forgiving God. Do we perhaps need to forgive God? We might have expectations we feel weren’t met. We might feel like we’ve been failed, like God is to blame for the world as it is or for our life’s experiences, but perhaps this is the year you let go of your image of God, forgive God, and allow God to surprise you. This can be the year to you learn to count on God—to trust God’s love, grace, and forgiveness for you.

Learn to count your blessings, to count on God, and learn that you count. You matter to God. God is concerned for us, for this community, for you. And you and me. You are valued. You have value. Wonderful theologian H. Reinhold Neibuhr once wrote, “The meaning of revelation is the moment when you find yourself valued rather than valuing. . . . When a price is put upon our heads, which is not our price, when the unfairness of all the fair prices we have placed on things is shown up; when the great riches of God reduce our wealth to poverty, that is revelation” (H. Reinhold Niebuhr, The Meaning of Revelation).

God loves you, for love came down to us on Christmas to dwell with us and within us, that we might share that love with others.

The good news is that this is a resolution you don’t have to wait for. This isn’t something to begin on January 1 or to hope or passively wait for, but instead, right now, you can begin to cultivate a joyful life by learning to count your blessings, to count on God, and to learn that you count.

For as another brother in the faith, Meister Eckhart, wrote “If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is ‘Thank you,’ it will be enough.”

Take a moment now to think of all of the people who have been so meaningful in your life, all the moments for which you’re thankful, all of the blessings you’ve received, and in this Spirit, let us pray . . .