Praise Ye the Lord!

Praise Ye the Lord By Rev. Res Spears Good morning. I want to tell you all how happy Annette and I are to be back with you this morning. But I also want you to know how happy we were to get away for a while. You don't need me to tell you that 2020 has been a hard year. So it was wonderfully refreshing for my wife and I to head to the mountains of West Virginia last week, where we could just relax and enjoy each other's company. I want to thank Deacon Cain for bringing his wonderful and timely message last week about love conquering fear. I want to thank Deacon Kovalik for leading the music, and I want to thank Deacon Harris for taking care of the technical aspects of the service. We are very blessed to have men with such servants' hearts sitting on the deacon board at Liberty Spring Christian Church, and I was especially blessed to know that they and the other deacons were ready and willing to stand in for me while I was visiting "Almost Heaven" with my dear wife. Now, some of you probably know that we celebrated two big days while we were gone: Annette celebrated one more of many, many, many birthdays. And we both celebrated what may be our last anniversary after that last crack! Seriously, though, we marked 19 years of marriage on Tuesday, and I cannot begin to tell you what a blessing she has been in my life. I am so thankful that God brought us together, and I am so thankful that He has held us together, even when it seemed that there was no hope for us. And as I think about how thankful I am, I find myself wondering how atheists deal with thankfulness and thanksgiving. You see, in order to be thankful FOR something, we must have an object of our thanksgiving. I can be thankful FOR my beautiful and gracious wife. I can be thankful FOR good health. I can be thankful FOR a safe drive home, despite a brief encounter with a suicidal deer. But what does it really mean for me to say that I'm thankful for those things? For those who deny that God is the giver of all good gifts, thankfulness must simply be a sort of gladness. The truth of the matter is that even we who worship the Giver of all good gifts often approach thankfulness this way, too. How easy is it for us to bow our heads in prayer over dinner and rush through the blessing as a sort of ritual that must be completed, rather than a true acknowledgment that everything on the table before us is a gift of God's grace, rather than the meal we deserve because we worked so hard? How much more honest it would be sometimes if we simply looked at one another across the table and said, "Boy, am I glad we have food today. Let's eat." That's what thankfulness looks like for the atheist. Gosh, I'm glad my wife turned out to be a good cook and not a heartless nag! I am so pleased my kids turned out to be healthy and smart; it could have gone the other way completely - I'm glad it didn't. True thankfulness, though, requires an object of thanksgiving. If you were to wake up one morning and find that someone had slipped an envelope stuffed with hundred-dollar bills under you door, you might feel like posting a message to Facebook: "So thankful for this money." But that just tells people you're glad you've got the money, and it leaves out an important part of the story, doesn't it? In fact, it might even lead people to give YOU praise for doing whatever you must have done to get that money. There's a bit of misrepresentation involved, isn't there? But if you found that envelope that had been pushed under your door, and you wanted to show you were truly thankful, maybe you'd post something like this: "So thankful for this money that someone anonymously left under my door." Or, if the giver had signed the envelope, something like this: "I am so thankful to So-and-So for leaving me this money." The second set of Facebook posts glorifies the giver, while the first - the one that omitted any mention of the fact that the money was a gift - glorifies the recipient. So when I hear atheists tell me they're "so thankful" for another good year, or for a wonderful husband, or for good kids, I always cringe a little, because while they might say they're "so thankful," what I hear is, "I'm so glad I have these good things by chance of fate, because it makes me happy to have good things." True thanksgiving isn't supposed to make the one who is giving thanks the center of attention. True thanksgiving is supposed to make the giver the center of attention and honor. I am thankful FOR a wonderful wife. I am thankful FOR good health. I am thankful FOR a safe drive home from West Virginia. But my thankfulness goes deeper than simply being glad I have those things. My thankfulness requires an acknowledgment that each of them is a gift of God's grace, because HE is the rightful object of my praise. And so, today, we will transition from our long study of the grace of God into a few messages about thanksgiving. And, by way of the transition, we will focus today on a passage of Scripture that was central to our study of grace. You'll find it in Ephesians, chapter 1. As you turn there, let me begin by saying that it was not unusual for Paul to begin his letters to the churches by giving thanks. What makes this letter to the churches in and around Ephesus different is that the occasion of his writing this letter was not to thank the church for some specific thing it had done to bless him, and it was not to address some particular set of circumstances in a particular church. Ephesians was a letter in which Paul set out to share a revelation he had received from God regarding the universal church. And so, his thanksgiving, as we shall see, is for that which all members of the body of Christ share - salvation itself. We will see that Paul writes of the work of all three Persons of the Trinity - Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. And we will see that he discusses the work of salvation in three aspects - past, present, and future. And we have covered much of this before during our study on grace. But there are two specific things I want you to notice today. First, Paul expresses His thanks and praise TO God, who accomplishes His saving work through Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. And second, Paul understands that the purpose of our salvation is that we might bring glory to God through our praises, through our public thanksgiving. Now, before we read this passage, verses 3-14, let me say right off the top that this is a bit of a hard slog. In his fervor and excitement over the topic at hand, Paul nearly loses himself among a series of clauses stacked on top of one another almost willy nilly, like firewood tossed onto a heap. In fact, in the original Greek, these 12 verses are one long sentence, the longest in the entire Bible. Your translation likely breaks that long sentence into several shorter ones in an effort to stack the firewood so that it's more accessible. But even with the translators' help here, it's easy to get lost in the pronouns and the subordinate clauses. Bear with me, though, and by the time we're done here today, I hope you'll begin to see the individual pieces of firewood in all their glory, as well as the great and glorious mound. READ Eph 1:3-14 Now, there is a ton of theology packed into these 12 verses, but I want you to focus for a moment on verse 3. Do you think Paul feels blessed? Three times, he uses the word "blessed" or "blessing" in this one verse. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! The Greek word here is eulogetos, and it is only used in Scripture of God or of Jesus. You'll recognize that we get our English word, "eulogy" from this Greek word. And what's a eulogy? To deliver a eulogy is to speak well of someone, usually at their funeral. When eulogetos is used in Scripture, it means to speak well of God, to boast about Him, to praise Him. So when Paul says, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ," he is saying "Praise God," "Give thanks to God." And the rest of this passage lays out the things that Paul says we should praise God and thank God for in regards to our salvation in Christ. He has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, Paul writes. In these cases, eulogetos takes on one of its secondary meanings: to cause to prosper or to make happy. This is the same way Jesus used the word in the Beatitudes during His Sermon on the Mount. God has given those who have followed Jesus Christ in faith reason to be happy. He has given us blessings in the heavenly places that we already have access to, because as followers of Christ, we already have a place in heaven. In fact, because we are IN Christ, there is a sense in which we are already positionally within the heavenly realms, even as we walk in our mortal bodies here on earth. Paul lays out the specific ways God has blessed us throughout this passage: election, predestination, adoption, grace, redemption, forgiveness, knowledge, sealing and inheritance. But the weight of the repetition of eulogetos in this verse and the fervor of Paul's language throughout this passage should remind us that all of the blessings that God could possibly give us are wrapped up in the sacrificial death and supernatural resurrection of Jesus Christ. Paul is overwhelmed by God's grace here, and it shows in the words he chose, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, to describe the blessing of salvation. But all of these blessings come to us as believers because we are "in Christ." Look at all the times that expression shows up in this passage. Verse 3, verse 4, verse 6, verse 7, verse 9, verse 10, verse 12, and twice in verse 13. I think that might be important. Do you want to be truly blessed in this world and in eternity? The only way to be so blessed is to be united with Christ. What an amazing concept this is, to be united with the very Son of God, to be part of the body of Christ, the very Word of God, King of Kings and Lord of Lords - the image of the invisible God, who came to earth and lived as a man, born of a young virgin, so that He could make Himself a sacrifice to pay the penalty for the sins of mankind. By God's grace, He who knew no sin became sin and died on the cross so that we sinners would not have to suffer the penalty of eternal separation from the God who created us to be in fellowship with Him. By God's grace, the innocent died for the guilty. And this was no accident. This wasn't God's Plan B. This was God's only plan from before the beginning, from before Adam and Eve plunged the world into sin in the Garden of Eden. This was God's will. We see Paul use that phrase - "His will" - three different times in this passage, in verses 5, 9, and 11. The point is that God is sovereign. He alone is responsible for all the blessings of this passage of Scripture. We can take these verses and divide them into three areas of divine action. Verses 4-6 describe God's work of choosing those who would be saved. He chose us from before the foundation of the world, and He did so in love so that we would be holy and blameless before Him, so that we would be made into the image of His holy and blameless Son, who now sits at the right hand of the Father in heaven. These verses describe the Father's saving work on our behalf in the past. Then, in verses 7-12, Paul describes the redemptive work of Jesus Christ, the present blessing we receive through salvation in Christ. Jesus died so that you could be forgiven for your sins and so that you could obtain an inheritance in heaven with Him as adopted sons and daughters of His Father. And now, looking to that future inheritance, we see the work of the Holy Spirit in verses 13 and 14. The Spirit is given to us as a seal and a pledge. We who have followed Jesus Christ in faith received the Spirit within us as a seal or mark that we belong to the Father in Christ. We received the Spirit as a pledge or downpayment on the heavenly inheritance we have been promised. These are all wonderful blessings, and it's no wonder that Paul got carried away with words in his excitement about these blessings. If you are a Christian, YOU should get carried away when you think about how richly God has lavished His grace upon you. It is almost too marvelous for us to understand. And it's easy to think that our salvation is the end of the matter, that we were saved simply because God wanted to do something gracious and wonderful for us. Now don't get me wrong: God loves you, and He desires to have fellowship with you in Christ, and if you have never put your faith in Jesus as the only way for your sins to be covered and your debt to be paid, then there is no better time than right now for you to put your faith in Him. Angels will rejoice in heaven when you do so. But none of us is saved simply for the sake of salvation. Look at verses 5 and 6: Ephesians 1:5-6 NASB95 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. Your salvation - your adoption as sons and daughters to God - is for the praise of the glory of God's grace. Paul says this two more times in this passage. Look at verse 12: Ephesians 1:12 NASB95 to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. Now look at verse 14: Ephesians 1:14 NASB95 [The Spirit] is given as a pledge of our inheritance, with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory. God offers sinners salvation through Jesus Christ so that we will recognize and praise His grace, revealing His glory in a way that never could have been seen otherwise. Too many of us have an "I'm glad I'm saved" sort of thankfulness when it comes to salvation. If you have been saved, then you SHOULD be glad about it. It is the best thing that could ever happen to a person. But Paul tells us here that our thankfulness for salvation should go much deeper. Our thankfulness should manifest itself in public praise for the God whose grace reconciled us to Himself. There was a time in my life when I was a nominal Christian. I claimed the title, but I had never claimed the Savior. And during that time, I took some pride in being the kind of Christian that people would never know was a Christian. In other words, I was not a Christian at all - I knew the facts about Jesus, but I had not put my trust in Him as my Savior. But when I finally answered His call - when I gave myself to Him, mind, body, and soul - I found that it was impossible to walk with Him in secrecy. I MUST praise Him, and I MUST praise His Father for His marvelous grace. Are you truly thankful for your salvation? Then praise God! Praise Him in the sanctuary. Praise Him in the workplace. Praise Him at the dinner table. Praise Him when everything is going your way. Praise Him when it's all falling apart around you. Praise ye the Lord! Eulogetos the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ. Praise the Lord. Page . Exported from Logos Bible Software, 12:52 AM November 8, 2020.