Giving Thanks

Ephesians 5:20

Thanks for Jan 19

Rigby & Sure; Matt & Grace (Advance)

Peet & Jen / Ken & Christine

we hope to be “worthy of the calling” as paul says in Ephesians 4

Peet & Ephesians

Inadequacy & Prayer

Ephesians 5:15–21 “Therefore, consider carefully how you live, not as unwise but as wise, making the most of the time because the days are evil. Because of this do not become foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not be drunk with wine (in which is dissipation), but be filled by the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and singing praise in your heart to the Lord, giving thanks always for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to the God and Father, being subject to one another out of reverence for Christ”

Conflicting terms: unwise / wise; foolish / understand the will of God; drunk on wine / Filled with the Holy Spirit

Filled with the Holy Spirit - 5 participles (words the describe the verb “filled”)

Speaking, singing, making music, thanking, submitting

signs of someone who is filled with the spirit:

First 3: Joyful

Then Thanking

Then Submitting - I won’t spoil anything for Peet next time

important because these - in this case - arent directives, they are descriptors: what someone who is filled with the spirit looks like.

I will be spending today on 5:20 - i like it in NKJV, because i think it is easiest to break up the verse

Ephesians 5:20 - “Giving Thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”

we’ll look at this, by breaking it up - always remembering that this is a SIGN of someone who is filled with the spirit

Giving Thanks

we have so much to be thankful for...

beautiful country, skiing & ski holidays!, fancy jobs, great schools, awesome church, friends, home of chocolate...

we have so much more to be thankful for:

We were in the depths!

Ephesians 2:1 “And you, although you were dead in your trespasses and sins,”

Ephesians 2:12 “that you were at that time apart from Christ, alienated from the citizenship of Israel, and strangers to the covenants of promise, not having hope, and without God in the world.”

But then...

Ephesians 1:3 he has “blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places”

Ephesians 1:4 “he chose us in him before the foundation of the world”

Ephesians 1:5 “predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ”

Ephesians 2:5 he “made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in trangsressions”

Ephesians 3:19 “the love of Christ surpasses knowledge”

Ephesians 3:20–21 God “is able to do immeasurably more than all that we ask or imagine”

Ephesians 5:2 “and live in love, just as also Christ loved us, and gave himself for us an offering and sacrifice to God”

We were in the depths and God comes from the heights and rescues us and brings us up to him!

Sometimes i think that it is only my inability to comprehend… that keeps me for praising him every moment all the time...

Saint Augustine - Deo Gratias - Thanks be to God

often despite meeting and sharing news of persecution, arrests, and deaths

Turn to the person sitting next to you...

Deo Gratias

Always

Read it again in a bunch of versions

NIV: “always giving thanks to God the Father for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”

LEB: “giving thanks always for all things in the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ to the God and Father”

NASB: “always giving thanks for all things in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ to our God and Father”

Amp: “always giving thanks to God the Father for all things, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ”

give thanks sometimes for the good things...

Always means even when there is no snow, when the ski trip goes bad, jobs are lost or not what we imagined, schools are troublesome, we have to move, always

and not just in all circumstances, always means at all times

it means we should be thanking now. and later. and later still. and all the times in between.

our lives should reflect an innate, an outflowing, of thankfulness to God. and it should permeate our life ALWAYS

For all things

is super tough - I have been praying about it and meditating on it all week. and i feel inadequate to preach on it

Because here Paul does NOT say “in all things”

1 Thessalonians 5:18 “give thanks in everything; for this is the will of God for you in Christ Jesus.”

he says to give thanks FOR all things

and i really have no intention to diminish the sadness and sorrow many of you and many in the world face and have faced.

Paul obviously doesnt mean that we should celebrate calamity

1 Corinthians says we can be sorrowful AND rejoicing

Jesus wept for Lazarus when he died. even though he would and could bring him back to life!

A bible story: Joseph - story is known, but any who dont. he had a bunch of brothers who didnt like him.

and they plan to kill him and throw him into a pit. Is he to thank God for that?

sell him into slavery. is he to thank God for that?

grows in his bondage and then is lied about and thrown into prison. is he to thank God for that?

But then he interprets a dream and put 2nd in command for Egypt. because he was in that place… and through him many lives are saved, including his brothers’ and his father’s.

he then says a very famous line: Genesis 50:20 “As for you, you planned evil against me, but God planned it for good,”

Is he then to be thankful for all that had happened before?

Giving Thanks always for all things… Paul definitely says “Giving Thanks always for all things”

I want to tell a quick story: Arya (2022)

Am i suppose to thank God FOR Ary’s Diabetes. is the struggle i have faced all week…

Are we to thank God For the terrible things? let’s keep reading on. I think Paul helps us out...

To God the Father

Paul starts, i think, to answer the question I just posed here.

What does God mean?

Powerful.

Gen 1 describes God creating everything with his word;

Ephesians 1:19–20 “and what is the surpassing greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his mighty strength which he has worked in Christ, raising him from the dead and seating him at his right hand in the heavenly places,”

What does Father mean?

he loves me: Ephesians 3:17–20 “And i pray that you, being rooted and established in love, mave have power together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge...”

He has a good plan for me!

Ephesians 1:4 “just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him in love,”

Ephesians 1:11 “in whom also we were chosen, having been predestined according to the purpose of the One who works all things according to the counsel of his will,”

If he has a good plan, if he loves me, if he is powerful enough to enact it… implications on how I respond to events. if i believe it, MUST i trust that all things will be worked for good?

In the name of Our Lord Jesus Christ

the reason we can give thanks! because the creator sent his son to come and die and rise again on the third day!

Charles Spurgeon said: “no man can give thanks always to God, through Jesus Christ, till he has a new heart. The old heart is an ungrateful one, and even if a man should try with an unrenewed nature to give thanks to God, it would be like the impossible supposition of the dead struggling to make themselves alive, which cannot be.”

Via Jesus death and resurrection, we can have a new heart; and because of Jesus death on the cross and his rising 3 days later, we are gifted the holy spirit to live in us - and then we can give overflowing grattitude to our father.

so it IS in Jesus that we give thanks.

Is interesting here. coming back to the discussion about FOR ALL THINGS...

do we thank God for Jesus death on the cross? the torture and murder of an innocent man?

the disciples in the moment didn’t...

but i think we do, yeah? because God did something remarkable in this event...

Ephesians 1:7–10 “in whom we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, according to the riches of his grace, that he caused to abound to us in all wisdom and insight, making known to us the mystery of his will...”

1 Corinthians 15:57 “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!”

So, maybe we can thank God for all things - especially when we know the outcome - we know HOW God will work them.? ...but we CAN know now that God WILL work.

I’d challenge us, at least i would challenge myself…

Romans 8:28 “And we know that all things work together for good for those who love God, for those who are called according to his purpose,”

All things. if we know that God works all things… then we can also thank God for all things. not because of the bad, but because of the good that we know God will work.

Giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ

so you know, in the case of Arya… i said i have been praying all week. it was quite difficult. but i think i can now thank God for her diabetes - not because of them… but because i am really confident that God will work this in his plan - for good.

but keep praying for me… because this is a hard one for me.

and i would challenge all of us - everyone here. that if we are not always saying Deo Gratias - Thanks be to God, then we should go back to God and ask him to fill us “more please” with the holy spirit.

so, maybe, when you go to get your coffee after this - start your conversation - or end it with a “Deo Gratias” or Thanks be to God!