Title: Giving Thanks
Text: Ephesians 5: 20
Date: November 22, 2011
Place: SGBC, New Jersey
We are meeting tonight so that you can spend time with your families on Thanksgiving Day. Our subject is: Giving Thanks.
Proposition: I want to show you three things to remember every time you give thanks to God.
Ephesians 5:20: Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
I. BELIEVERS GIVE THANKS UNTO GOD AND OUR FATHER ALWAYS FOR ALL THINGS.
We have nothing of ourselves. We have no reason at any time to thank ourselves for anything. Adam disobeyed God and died so death passed upon all men for all have sinned and come short of the glory of God.
The only thing that has ever came from a dead sinner is trespasses and sins which are an abomination to God. And the only thing that has ever come from a sinner made new by the grace of God is by God only, to his praise and glory and not the believers.
So no sinner and no sinner saved by the grace of God have any reason to pat ourselves on the back for anything.
Believers give thanks “always for all things” unto God who our Father” because the gifts of God include all things.
John 3: 27: John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it be given him from heaven.
1 Corinthians 3: 21: Therefore let no man glory in men. For all things are yours; 22: Whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours; 23: And ye are Christ’s; and Christ is God’s.
· The truth is sent to us by God
· The world is the gift of God
· Life is the gift of God
· Death—trial, sorrow, sickness—thankful!
· Things present, things to come—all are the gift of God
Chiefly, the believer gives thanks for God’s unspeakable gift--God the Father has made us meet in his Son Christ Jesus.
Colossians 1:12: Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:
What is it to be made “meet”—fit. It means everything required of the believer, God has accomplished for us in his Son so that there remains nothing else for us to do to enter into God’s presence.
1. We have been delivered and translated--Colossians 1: 13: Who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son:
2. We have redemption and forgiveness--Colossians 1: 14: In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins:
3. We have peace and reconciliation---Colossians 1: 20 And, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. 21 And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled 22: In the body of his flesh through death,..
Illustration: Reconcile—bring into harmony—Sara tuning her guitar
4. We have been and shall be presented perfect to God by Christ who washed us--Colossians 1: 22: In the body of his flesh through death, to present you holy and unblameable and unreproveable in his sight:
5. We have been made meet—means this—Colossians 2: 8: Beware lest any man spoil you through philosophy and vain deceit, after the tradition of men, after the rudiments of the world, and not after Christ. 9: For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily. 10: And ye are complete in him, which is the head of all principality and power:---“complete” is the same word as “fullness”--“think not that I am come to destroy the law and the prophets, I am not come to destroy but to fulfill.” As Christ is the fullness of the Godhead bodily, we are complete, fullness in him. We are accepted in the Beloved.
6. Therefore---Colossians 2: 6: As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him: 7: Rooted and built up in him, and stablished in the faith, as ye have been taught, abounding therein with thanksgiving.
All things God the Father has given us are for the purpose of setting forth the good news that eternal life is the gift of God and this life is in his Son.
Colossians 3:17: And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.
II. BELIEVERS GIVE THANKS UNTO GOD AND THE FATHER ‘IN THE NAME OF THE LORD JESUS CHRIST.’
Ephesians 5:20: Giving thanks always for all things unto God and the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ;
It means we come and have access to God only in the name of his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Illustration: Jacob came in the name of another
The Lord Jesus is the Door, the Way to God the Father for God’s elect. “We have boldness to enter the holiest by the blood of Jesus.” “For through him we both have access by one Spirit unto the Father” (Eph 2: 18.)
Lord
When we own Jesus to be our Lord we are confessing to God that we are in agreement with God the Father—we have bowed, surrendered, and are cheerfully in submission under the rule and dominion of Jesus Christ.
Philippians 2: 9: Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him, and given him a name which is above every name: 10: That at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of things in heaven, and things in earth, and things under the earth;
Someone might say that is why I pray in the name of Jesus, but the word does not end in there
Philippians 2: 11: And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Illustration: We do not call the president by his first name—we call him Mr. President owning our government to be in his hands. Believers glorify God the Father confessing that Jesus Christ is Lord: my King, my Governor, my Head—my government is in his hands.
I remind you that this is more than just something we say as we give thanks—many say the name Lord who call him accursed by presenting him as the helpless jesus who while they say he died for all men are saying he really justified none. No, truly coming to God in the name of the Lord is to come in the heart made new.
1 Corinthians 12: 3: Wherefore I give you to understand, that no man speaking by the Spirit of God calleth Jesus accursed: and that no man can say that Jesus is the Lord, but by the Holy Ghost.
Jesus
Giving thanks unto the Father in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Christ is to confess to and thank the Father that we believe that the Man of Nazareth who died on the cross is our Savior who successfully put away our sin by his one offering.
Matthew 1: 21:…thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins.
Acts 4: 10: Be it known unto you all, and to all the people of Israel, that by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom ye crucified, whom God raised from the dead, even by him doth this man stand here before you whole. 11: This is the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the head of the corner. 12: Neither is there salvation in any other: for there is none other name under heaven given among men, whereby we must be saved.
Christ
Giving thanks to the Father in the name of Christ our Lord Jesus is to thank the Father, that we believe that Jesus is the Son of God whom the Father himself chose and anointed--our Messiah. The Pharisee’s kept saying that Christ to come was the Son of David. But Peter answered the Lord,
John 6: 69: And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ, the Son of the living God.
So we give thanks unto the Father always for all things in “the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.”
Hebrews 7: 25: Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.
III. AS WE GIVE THANKS TO THE FATHER ALWAYS FOR ALL THINGS IN CHRIST’S NAME, “WE ARE GIVING THANKS TO THE NAME OF GOD
Hebrews 13:15: By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name.
It is to praise and thank God himself. Everything God gives and everything the sinner praises and gives thanks for are declared by his name. So when we praise him and give him thanks we are really giving thanks to his name.
1. JEHOVHAH Jireh--I AM the Lord will provide (Gen 22: 14).
2. JEHOVAH Rapha--I AM the Lord that healeth thee (Ex 15: 25-26)
3. JEHOVHAH Nissi--I AM the Lord your banner (Ex 7: 15)--the rallying point to which believer gather, the name under whom we are enlisted into this warfare.
4. JEHOVAH Tzidkenu--I AM the Lord your Righteousness (Jer 23: 6; 33: 16)
5. JEHOVAH Shalom--I AM the Lord your peace (Judg 6: 24)
6. JEHOVAH Shammah--I AM the Lord is there (Eze 48: 35)--in his church—with his people--the Lord is there.
7. JEHOVAH Ra-ah--I AM the LORD your Shepherd (Ps 23).
THESE NAME MEET IN ONE NAME: Is 43: 3: For I am the LORD thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Saviour: Christ is “I Am Jehovah thy God, the Holy One of Israel, thy Jesus”
We give thanks “always for all things unto God and the Father”. We give thanks “in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.” We give thanks “to his name.” I hope this helps put in perspective what it is to truly give thanks and how much we truly have to be thankful for.
1 Chronicles 29: 11: Thine, O LORD, is the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is thine; thine is the kingdom, O LORD, and thou art exalted as head above all. 12: Both riches and honour come of thee, and thou reignest over all; and in thine hand is power and might; and in thine hand it is to make great, and to give strength unto all. 13: Now therefore, our God, we thank thee, and praise thy glorious name.
Amen!