Prayer and Thanksgiving

David Logsdon

Pandemic Thankfulness • Sermon • Submitted 4 years ago

Colossians 4:2

Prayer

General Thanksgiving

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Prayer is an intragal part of thanksgiving

Notes

Transcript

Handout

INTRODUCTION:

Occupy yourself…

What takes up your time?

Where do you spend most of your time?

Is it work?

Is it home projects?

Is it with family?

Is it on fitness?

This morning is not about so much as what you do, but about how you're doing it.

We can do better at spending time on the best things rather than just good things, but this morning i think we need to recognize HOW we are spending that time!

For example:

Do you spend time praying?

Do you spend time being thankful?

There is a time and place for designated prayer. That is not what I am talking about this morning.

I am talking about Paul’s plea to disciples to pray unceasingly or continually.

So when we spend our time doing things, we can and should spend them in prayer and with grateful hearts.

This month we have looked at trying to start a Pandemic Thankfulness and along the way we talked through…

- Don’t be takers, but take it all in… (The Thankful Leper)

- Overflowing Thankfulness bubbles up from what is within you.

- When you are at peace, your heart is thankful, when you give thanks your heart is at peace!

In almost every letter that the Apostle Paul wrote that we have in the New Testament, he placed a ‘Prayer and Thanksgiving” section in each letter he wrote.

Romans, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, 1 & 2 Timothy and Titus do not have a prayer and thanksgiving, but all the rest do. I don’t think Paul was trying to make it fit into each letter, but I think Paul was inadvertently revealing something about who he was in Christ - Paul was a praying man! Paul was a thankful man. And I want to be like that too! Do you?

In fact, if we want to create a Pandemic of Thankfulness, we will have to turn things right side up!

We have spent the last two weeks in Colossians (2-3) and this morning we will again. This morning we will focus on one verse.

BIBLE:

Text: Colossians 4:2 “Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful.”

Devote yourselves…

DEVOTE YOURSELVES

David Garland, professor at George W. Truett Seminary, Baylor University says...

“Devote yourselves to prayer” is an imperative!

Devote yourselves in prayer is modified by a participle (“Be watchful”) and a prepositional phrase (“in thanksgiving”)

Devotion to prayer recalls the disciples’ early days after the resurrection…

Acts 1:14 “They all joined together constantly in prayer, along with the women and Mary the mother of Jesus and with HIS brothers.”

Acts 2:42 “The devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and to the fellowship to the breaking of bread and to prayer.”

Acts 2:46 “Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts.”

Acts 6:4 “and we will give our attention to prayer and the ministry of the word.”

“These scriptures imply unrelenting persistence”

“occupy oneself diligently with, pay persistent attention to” (W. Grundmann, TDNT 3.618–19)

Dunn, J. D. G. (1996). The Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon: a commentary on the Greek text (p. 262). Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle: William B. Eerdmans Publishing; Paternoster Press.

That’s what Paul is commanding the Colossians to do (and for us to do as well!)

*Occupy yourself in a way that shows you care and are willing in and with prayer

Devote yourselves to prayer,...

TO PRAYER

What did Paul mean when he told the Colossians to devote themselves to prayer?

Did Paul want them to be repetitive?

ILL. For me, it is very easy to pray on cruise control! Praying the same thing over and over - every time. Just a few weeks ago, i mentioned this to my children before our bedtime prayer. We take turns praying - one a night! And sometimes there is a theme of ‘great day’. For example: “Thank you God for the great day and help us to have a great day tomorrow” So I had to remind them (and myself) that we are praying to the Creator, the One who spoke and everything came into existence. The God who came and died on a cross to give us access to HIM 24/7/365/infinity and beyond! And if i came to them everyday and just said, “great day, great day” i wouldn’t be a very good dad and we would have a very shallow relationship. So maybe, just maybe there is something more for us to pray about and pray for.

Also, in life there are people who are going through some terrible times: death of a loved one. Separation from family. Loneliness, depression, bitterness because of all of the above mentioned and much more and God has placed us in their lives to not just pray for a great day, but to pray for them - to plead with God on their behalf.

Also praying for those in leadership all over the world.

Praying for marriages

Praying for parents

Praying for teachers

Praying for School administrators

Praying for students who have lost so much during Covid!

We have plenty to pray about…

AND WE WILL PRAY TOGETHER HERE IN JUST A MOMENT, BUT FIRST

Let’s talk through what all we should make sure we are praying on and about...

so...

Let’s finish up this verse and find all the Paul was teaching…

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful…

BEING WATCHFUL

For the Christian, this phrase might draw our attention back to Jesus and the Garden of Gethsemane…

The evening of Jesus’ arrest!

Mark 14:32-38 “They went to a place called Gethsemane, and Jesus said to his disciples, “Sit here while I pray.” 33 He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. 34 ‘My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,’ he said to them. ‘Stay here and keep watch.’ 35 Going a little further, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. 36 ‘Abba, Father,’ he said, ‘everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not as I will, but what you will.’ 37 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? 38 Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”

We want to be watchful for the purpose of not missing what God is doing around us, for us and even in us…

So that we don’t have to feel like the two disciples felt like on the road to Emmaus after Jesus appeared and then left!

Luke 24:32 “They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”

But we also want to be watchful for the sake of being aware of the enemy’s attacks.

There is an enemy who wants to stop you, destroy you, ruin you, hinder you, hold you back, keep you occupied with the wrong things and many other things…

And the enemy never takes a day off!

Trouble never stops coming

Jesus said in

John 16:33 “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful

AND THANKFUL

We have spent this month talking about a Pandemic of Thankfulness…

So what are you thankful for?

We have a dry erase board in our home that we have been encouraged to write down things that we are thankful for…

The list consists of lots of many different things…

Maybe you need to make a list in your home

When we aren’t thankful, we look at the negative, enemy type things…

I don’t have this,

I don’t have that

I do have this

I do have that (negatively so)

GRACE GRACE, GOD’S GRACE!

Paul said,

1 Corinthians 15:10a “But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect...”

Does God’s grace to you come without effect?

Because if it did come with effect then you have plenty to be thankful about!

Paul said to the church at Thessalonica

1 Thessalonians 5:17-18 “pray continually; 18 give thanks in all circumstances for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.”

ALL CIRCUMSTANCES!!1

Devote yourselves to prayer, being watchful and thankful

CHALLENGE:

NO MATTER WHAT OCCUPY YOURSELF WITH THANKFUL PRAYERS

IN FACT - LET’S PAUSE RIGHT NOW TO PRAY AS A CHURCH FAMILY

I want to guide you through prayer this morning…

I will ask you to pray about something and give you a few moments to pray about that and then give you another topic to pray on and so on and so forth!

These will come on the screen (one at a time)

Thank God for who HE is… be specific…

Thank God for HIS grace!

Thank God for your family

Thank God for your shelter

Thank God for being your shelter

Pray for your family, spouse, children, parents

Pray for your church family

Pray for the hurting, the lonely, the depressed and broken

Pray for Cleveland’s churches - our messages, our mission, our methods

Pray for Cleveland’s Christians

Pray for our schools

Pray for our businesses

Pray for the community of Cleveland...to know Jesus

Pray for the county of Pawnee...

GROW:

Devote yourselves to prayer being watchful and thankful

Men