Unceasing Thanks – Ephesians 1:15–16a
Paul moves from praising God for every spiritual blessing in Christ to giving thanks when he sees those blessings bearing fruit in the lives of believers. In Ephesians 1:15–16a, he thanks God because he has heard of the Ephesians’ faith in the Lord Jesus and their love toward all the saints. This shows us that God’s grace is not merely a doctrine to admire, but a reality that becomes visible in his people. When sinners believe in the Lord Jesus, it is because God has been at work. Faith is not vague optimism, self-confidence, or general religious feeling; saving faith rests specifically in the Lord Jesus Christ, the eternal Son of God who lived the perfect life, died for sinners, rose from the dead, and reigns as Lord. So when Paul hears of their faith, he does not merely congratulate them. He gives thanks to God, because true faith in Christ is evidence of God’s saving grace.
Paul also gives thanks for their love toward all the saints. Faith in Christ produces love for the people of Christ, and these two cannot be separated. A person cannot truly love Jesus while having no love for his church, because the church is his bride, his body, his family, and the people he purchased with his own blood. This love is not limited to the easy saints, the familiar saints, or the ones most like us, but extends toward all the saints—the real people God has placed in the local church, including those who stretch our patience and expose our selfishness. Paul’s thanksgiving was not occasional or superficial; he says, “I do not cease to give thanks for you.” His prayer life was full of people, not merely problems. The church should learn from this and give thanks when God’s grace is visible in others, turning complaints into prayers and recognizing that every evidence of faith, love, growth, perseverance, and service is reason to praise God.
FULL TEXT SERMON:
And this morning, we’re going to look at the next verses in our study through Ephesians, looking particularly at the idea, the topic of unceasing thanks.
So if you will, go ahead and turn in your copy of God’s Word to the letter of Paul to the Ephesians.
You know, there are some things that ought to make a Christian stop and give thanks. Not just the obvious things, you know, food on the table, bills are paid, praying and thanking God for safe travel, a good doctor’s report. All these are good things, and they’re worthy of taking the time to stop and give thanks. These are good gifts, and we ought to thank God for those.
But Paul shows us something even deeper here this morning. Paul, in this next verse that we’re coming to, gives thanks when he hears that the grace of God is bearing fruit in the lives of believers.
I think this is one of the lacking areas of our thanksgiving. We like to thank God for the things he’s doing for us. We tend to forget or ignore or just don’t see what he’s doing in the lives of others.
And that’s what Paul is doing here in verses 15 and 16.
Paul just finished—we just finished one sentence, by the way, over the last three months in the New Testament. That was fun. And I’m ready to go round two, but we’ve got to keep going.
Paul just finished this opening sentence of his letter, this doxology, this praise to God for the wonderful blessings that we have received in salvation.
God, as we see in that previous sentence, had chosen his people before the foundation of the earth. He predestined us for adoption. He redeemed us through the blood of Christ. He forgave us of our trespasses according to his grace. He has sealed us with his promised Holy Spirit and all the other things that we looked at over the previous weeks.
Paul has been looking at salvation from the highest possible place. He has taken us back before the foundation of the world. He’s taken us to the cross. He has taken us to the sealing work of the Spirit. And he has taken us even to the future of when our redemption is fulfilled.
But then he comes, following that sentence, following that praise to God, to this next verse where he says, “For this reason.”
And so this next section we are coming into, and we’ll spend through the rest of chapter one, is Paul’s response to this wonderful doxology of God’s salvation. He’s just finished praising God for his great salvation, and now he is responding to that.
So if you will stand with me for the reading of God’s Word, Ephesians chapter one. We’re going to be looking at verses 15 and 16a this morning.
Paul says this:
“For this reason, because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love towards all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you.”
Father, this morning as we come to this next section of this letter of Paul to the Ephesians, Lord, we know that it was written by Paul, but Lord, we know most of all, more importantly, it has been inspired by you. Every word in Scripture comes from your mouth as if you spoke it directly to us.
And so this morning, as we see Paul’s response to your great salvation, as we see Paul’s response to seeing your salvation, not just in himself, but in others as well, Lord, help us to understand that this should be the same attitude. This should be the same heart that we have as well.
And so Lord, through your inspired Word, teach us, reprove us, correct us, train us in righteousness so that we may be complete, equipped for every good work. Do this by your Holy Spirit, his illuminating and his empowering. Grant us wisdom and understanding. And do this all for the glory of Jesus Christ, in whose name we pray. Amen.
You may be seated.
So following this wonderful doxology of salvation, Paul’s next words are, “For this reason.”
We broke this down into four sections. First, notice Paul gives thanks because God’s grace that he has just finished explaining and expressing is visible. It’s not just some thing to think about and wonder about. It’s visible.
Paul is giving thanks to God because his grace is visible.
“For this reason,” of course, connects us to that previous section that we just came out of. It points us backwards. His thanksgiving is tied to everything that we just looked at in verses 3 through 14, that one long sentence.
So Paul is not saying here, when he comes to address the people directly, “I hear you’re really nice people.” That would be a nice thing to say, wouldn’t it?
He’s not saying, “I hear that you are a bunch of respectable folks over there in Ephesus.” He doesn’t say, “For this reason, since you’re the sort of people who keep the grass cut and pay their taxes and don’t cause trouble.”
Now, those things may be good things, and they may make for decent neighbors, but they’re not what Paul is talking about here.
Paul is giving thanks because God’s saving grace has actually shown up in their lives.
If God has chosen his people, then faith in Jesus isn’t just an accident. It’s on purpose.
If God has redeemed his people through the blood of Jesus, as we just looked at in that sentence, then love for the people of Jesus is not just good manners.
If God has sealed his people with the Holy Spirit, as we saw there at the end of the previous sentence, then spiritual fruit, as we talked about last week, is evidence that the Spirit is actually at work. And that is the reason that Paul is giving thanks to God here.
And listen, this matters to us. Because if this love and faith that we’re talking about here in this verse was something that we achieved on our own, then Paul could have written this letter differently. He could’ve said, “Well done. Good job, Ephesians. Impressive. Keep up the good work.”
But that’s not how Paul thinks. That’s not what he’s saying. He knows better. We’re going to get into it real deep here in a little while when we get to chapter 2, but Paul knows better.
He knows that dead sinners cannot raise themselves. He knows that those who were blind to the spiritual truths, sinners against a holy God, don’t give themselves sight. And whether you think you have a soft heart or not, your hard heart isn’t softened by yourself.
So when Paul hears about true faith and real godly love, he knows there’s only one person to give thanks to: God.
Where those things are present, there’s only one reason. It’s God. It’s not the Ephesians. It’s not Paul. It’s not anyone. It is God himself.
Listen, do we think like this? I mean, we should. That’s the point. But do we?
When we see someone growing in grace, or do we even notice when somebody’s growing in grace? Do we even know what that means? Do we even know what that looks like? Are we even looking?
But even when you do see something like that, when you see the grace of God at work, somebody growing in that grace, do you stop and thank God?
When you see a new believer memorizing that first Scripture and it’s starting to make a difference in their heart and life, does that make you stop and thank God? Praise God?
Or does it go, “Oh, good job, Billy.” We don’t have any Billys, right? Okay. I was trying to pick a name we didn’t have.
When we see somebody who is enduring suffering, who is trusting Christ in deep sorrow or pain, do we think, “Oh, look at their faith,” or do we give thanks to God?
Paul didn’t say, “Hey, good job enduring suffering. Way to go for handling that trial. I’m so proud of you for growing.”
No. Not that those are bad things to do, but who gets the glory for those things? God. So who deserves the thanks? God.
I know this sounds simple, but how many of you actually do that daily? Not thank God for my life, thank God for what I have, thank God for today, thank God for breath. Thank God for them.
Thank God for what I’m seeing in that person, in this person, for that young person across the way in the church, for that old codger. I pointed that way on purpose, Steve.
To see what is the grace of God in that person’s life, and to thank God for it.
Or instead of taking the time to stop and see the grace of God at work in his people, do we just move on to the next thing that bothers us?
Some of us have PhDs at noticing what is wrong. We could walk into a room like this, full of all the evidences that God is working in his people’s lives, with the grace of God at work among us, and still somehow find that one thing that’s out of place.
The singing was too slow. The singing was too fast. The singing was too loud. The singing was too soft. It’s too cold. It’s too hot. The carpet is too green. Someone said something to me that offended me. There was a typo in the bulletin. That was all Donna.
There’s always something, isn’t there?
But Paul here is not naive. He knows churches have problems. He’s not overlooking them as if we just need to ignore issues or ignore sin or anything like that.
Just read his letters. You don’t have to go far. He wasn’t afraid to correct sin where there was actual sin, not just green carpet or too cold, too hot, those kinds of things. When there’s real sin involved, he calls it out, doesn’t he?
But even in some of the worst churches that we read about in the New Testament, Paul always saw the grace of God at work in their lives.
I mean, go—the Corinthians were the worst, right? He even had to write two of the longest letters of the New Testament to this church, and he still expresses and explains how he sees God at work in their life, as small as it may be.
God is always at work in his church. His grace is always at work among his people, and so Paul gives thanks because he sees God’s grace at work in their life.
Paul gives thanks because God’s grace is visible.
Second, Paul gives thanks for their faith in the Lord Jesus.
He says, “Because I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus.”
This is the first thing he mentions. This is the most important thing. This is the first thing he calls out that he sees. If there is nothing else that you can see in the church that is good, if there are believers in that church, God’s grace is at work, and you can praise God and thank God for his salvation in the lives of those people, as messy as they may be.
As messy as your life is, Paul was thankful for this church because God was at work. He had heard of their faith.
Now, we do need to be clear about this. Some people just think, “Well, you gotta have faith.” Thanks, George Michael, I don’t want your faith.
Not all faith is the same, okay? Let’s be clear. Yeah, I just said George Michael in a sermon. You’re welcome.
We need to be clear about what kind of faith this is. Paul is not just talking about a general sense of optimism. That’s not faith.
He’s not also talking about believing that everything will just work out. That’s what most people think of when they think of faith in the culture.
And he’s definitely not talking about faith in yourself, and “you just gotta believe in yourself.”
No. Don’t do that.
That kind of faith sounds really nice in our culture. It makes for a really good coffee mug: Believe in yourself.
But that kind of faith, obviously, is not saving faith. It won’t save anyone. Believing in yourself will not save you.
He says specifically that their faith is in the Lord Jesus. That is very specific. That’s not faith in Christianity. That’s more broad.
Our faith is very specific. It’s in Jesus. The Lord Jesus.
That marks us out from all other faiths of this world, other religions, other philosophies, other mantras and lifestyles.
There is one kind of faith that is saving faith, and that is faith in the Lord Jesus Christ.
Our Christianity is not faith in faith. I believe I heard David Miller say that about a thousand times in all the sermons I’ve listened to so far. It is faith in one person, the Lord Jesus Christ.
Notice how Paul says it: the Lord Jesus.
He is Jesus. And what do we know about Jesus? Remember back at Christmas time when we were talking about how he would be named Jesus? Why would he be named Jesus? For he would save his people from their sin.
This Jesus is the one who came into the world to save sinners. He is the one who lived the perfect life that we have not lived. He’s the one who died the death that sinners deserve, and he is the one who rose from the dead. And he has ascended now and is reigning on high.
Jesus Christ, the Lord Jesus, is the one who saves all who come to him by faith.
But it also says Lord Jesus. He is Lord.
This word kurios points not just to master, which is what the word stands for, but in the Old Testament, when the Greek translated the Old Testament Hebrew into their common speech of Greek, they translated the name Yahweh, which is the name of the one true God, with the word kurios.
Which means when we’re talking about the Lord Jesus in the New Testament, we’re not talking about just some really good guy, some master Jesus. We’re talking about the God of creation Jesus.
He’s not just Lord. He’s Lord of lords. He’s not just king. He’s King of kings. He’s sovereign over all.
He’s not something then, as some people think, that you just add to your life.
“Well, I’ve got Jesus with me. He’s on my shoulder. I carry him around with me. I’ve got the little Jesus thing. I keep him in my pocket.”
No, that’s not Jesus.
Jesus is Lord. He is God. He deserves more respect and honor than making a little plastic thing out of him. He deserves more time and space and attention in your life than just keeping him on your shoulder.
He is Master, Lord, God, Commander of your life. If he’s not, then he is not your Savior. He is Lord. He reigns. He commands. He owns his people.
So saving faith then is the kind of faith that receives Christ as he actually is, not as you want him to be. It trusts in Christ as Savior and submits to him as Lord.
You see, I’m not saved up here because I am impressive, though I am clearly. You can laugh. It’s funny because it’s wrong.
You are not saved because your faith is impressive to God. It is mercy. It is his mercy that saves, because there’s days when, boy, if he came on that day and he based my salvation on that day, I’m in trouble.
We are not saved by our impressive faith. We’re saved because Christ is mighty to save. Our faith is not something that we grab hold of God with. It’s an empty hand that receives him.
He came into our life. He opened our eyes. He gave us the gospel. And we say, amen. Thank you. I believe.
Faith does not pay for sin. Christ paid for sin. Faith does not reconcile us to God. Jesus does.
But here in this context, where there is true faith in the Lord Jesus, there is evidence that God has been at work, because faith itself is a gift of God that was brought to us in regeneration.
If there is faith in the Lord Jesus, God is at work in that person’s life. Because the only way that person has faith in Jesus is if the Holy Spirit has regenerated them. If the God of the universe is at work in their heart, the Holy Spirit, if you have true faith in Jesus, the Holy Spirit has quickened you and has gifted you repentance and faith to believe and to be saved.
We just saw in Ephesians chapter 1 verse 13:
“In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit.”
The Spirit came. Paul is saying to these Ephesians, you heard the gospel and believed in Christ.
And brothers and sisters, that is still how sinners are saved today. Without the preaching of the Word, no one comes to the knowledge of the truth about who Jesus is.
But when someone hears the truth about Christ and they believe in him, even still today, God saves them. Not just that they know the facts about Jesus and that they know what he did, but they put their whole life, they rest all their faith, they believe completely on Jesus as Savior.
All their hope, all our hope, is in Jesus.
So let me just ask you plainly this morning, is your faith in the Lord Jesus? This Jesus that we’ve described, that he describes himself as—is your faith in that Lord Jesus?
Or is your faith in your church background?
“Well, I grew up in church. My dad was a pastor. Grandma is a believer, so I guess we’re all Christians.”
That’s not how it works.
Do you believe you’re saved because you got dunked in that water back there? I could go jump in there right now where there’s no water in it. If it was full, I could go jump in there cannonball right now. And guess what? Not one of my sins would be cleared. It’s just water.
Are you trusting in your own ability to do good? You think, “Well, my good is outweighing my bad. I’m not as bad as I could be.”
Well, first of all, you’re worse than you think you are. But that won’t get you there.
And it definitely is not based on the fact that you know all the right answers in Sunday school, or I would have aced that one growing up. It doesn’t get you there.
And it for sure is not based on the fact that you’re better than somebody else.
And unfortunately, I think that’s usually the comparison that most people make. You won’t say it out loud. You won’t even say it to a closest friend or to your spouse. But we usually compare ourselves to somebody we think is less holy than we are or whose life is more messed up.
And that person claims to be a believer. So my life’s not as bad as theirs, so I must be good.
I think I read that somewhere in the Bible. There was a tax collector and a Pharisee that showed up to pray. And the Pharisee just prayed and thanked the Lord, “God, thank you I am not like that man over there, a sinner.”
All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.
So again, is your faith in Jesus, the Lord Jesus Christ? Have you truly come to the end of yourself, your own trying, your own self-vindication? Are you resting fully in the blood of Jesus? Are you resting in the righteousness of Christ and his death, burial, and resurrection? Are you trusting fully in his grace?
If that’s true, then Paul’s thanking God for you too.
Because he’s heard of their faith in the Lord Jesus, Paul gives thanks to God.
Third, Paul gives thanks for their love towards all the saints.
Paul didn’t just hear about their faith. That was the most important. That was clearly where everything else comes out of. But second, a very close second and a connected second, is their love towards all the saints. Their love for other people.
Beloved, faith in Christ produces love for the people of Christ. Faith in Christ produces love for the people of Christ.
If you don’t have a love for the people of Christ, fill in the blank. Examine yourself.
Listen, these things cannot be divided. You can’t take faith and love and separate them. You can’t say, “Well, I have faith,” and others say, “I have love.”
You either have both or you have none. You either have both or you have neither.
You can’t honestly say, “I love Jesus, but I have no use for his people. I love Jesus, but I don’t like the church.”
And that sounds spiritual to some people nowadays. They say that proudly.
That’s nonsense.
What does Jesus call his church? His bride. Don’t tell me you love me, but you don’t like Sarah. I’ll smack you.
You don’t really love Jesus if you don’t love his church. The New Testament doesn’t let us say anything like that. That whole idea is nonsense.
If Christ has saved us, then that means he has brought us into his people to be a part of his church. If you don’t like the church, you don’t like you. So guess what? You hate yourself. Good job.
But again, it’s nonsense. It doesn’t make any sense.
The church is not something that a bunch of individual Christians thought down the road one day, “You know what? It would be a good idea if we all came together. We all love Jesus, don’t we? Well, let’s just all come together. Let’s decide. Let’s gather on a certain day. You know what would be a good idea? Maybe we should read the Bible.”
No. It’s not man-made. We didn’t put it together. This wasn’t our idea. This was Jesus’ idea. He’s the one that put us together. He has made us a family. He has made us a body. He has made us his bride. We are the people that Christ purchased with his own blood.
And Paul says to this church, these early Ephesians here, that he thanks God for their love towards all the saints, their love for one another as the church.
And I would stop there and keep going, but we’ve got to call out this word “all”: towards all the saints.
Listen, some of y’all, I don’t know about some of y’all. Do I really have to love all y’all?
The word “all” is where it starts to get a little uncomfortable, isn’t it?
It’s not hard to love some saints. It’s not hard to love some people. Some saints are easy to love. Some encourage us. They understand us. We share interests. We make each other laugh. Some don’t require as much patience.
And wonderful. It’s good that you have some of that. Thank the Lord for them. Thank the Lord for those who you are closer with. It’s not a bad thing to be closer to some than others.
But he says that they had love for all the saints. It didn’t just stop with their group. They loved everyone. They cared for one another.
That includes all the believers that aren’t like you. People who are harder for you to understand.
Classic example, the older generation and the younger generation. I don’t understand half the things these kids over here say anymore, and I’m only 40. I felt like I was young and feeling good, and then you listen to some of these little elementary school kids and you’re going, “You’re not speaking English.”
Those that are hard to understand. Those that require more patience. Those that don’t fit naturally into the preferred circle that you typically run with.
Again, that doesn’t mean you won’t have some closeness with some that you don’t have with others. This also doesn’t mean you have to go and have an intimate friendship with every single individual. That’s not possible. We don’t have the time for that. You’re not infinite. As much as we want to be, we are not.
Consider Jesus. He had 12. That was already marked out. Twelve. There were all the rest of them that followed, and there were many others around. And there were other friends that he had, like Martha and Mary and Lazarus, but they weren’t part of the 12.
But even among the 12, Peter, James, and John, kind of that core group. But even among them, it was John. That was his best friend.
It’s okay that that happens. But his love for John didn’t go, “Well, I don’t care about Peter and James. Forget all the other nine guys. Who cares about the crowd out here?”
No, none of that.
You won’t have the same closeness with everyone, but it means you cannot become so narrow and cliquish that you ignore everybody else.
Listen, we love the saints. Why? Because they belong to Jesus. They are precious in his sight, so they should be precious in ours.
We should care about the bride of Jesus.
In this letter, we’ll talk about that quite a bit, but especially as we come to the section where Paul brings up the Jew and the Gentile.
For a long time, the reality of the culture was Jews and Gentiles, we don’t mix. We’re not together. You stay over there. We’ll do business with you, but you do your thing, we’ll do ours.
But now God has broken down that dividing wall, the thing that culture built between. He says, “Now, because you are one, you have been made one in Christ. That dividing wall has been torn down in Christ Jesus. There is no more you, them, and us. We are all one body in Christ.”
The gospel reconciles us not only to God, but to one another.
So love for all the saints is not a minor issue. You can’t say, “I’m good with loving Jesus, but I don’t worry about the church.”
Your love for the saints is evidence that the gospel has done its work in your heart.
The church is not a social club for people who picked each other by some earthly means. Sometimes we talk as though we have chosen one another, but God builds his church, not around those natural preferences. He builds his church. He puts together his people in Christ, and then what? Teaches us how to love one another.
He didn’t just find a bunch of people who already loved each other and said, “Hey, gather up.” He took a bunch of people who probably have no business being together in the world’s eyes and says, “Learn to love each other.”
You ever heard the old expression, “Don’t pray for patience”? Why? Because then he’s going to give you opportunities to grow in patience.
Well, that’s a dumb phrase. Pray for patience, because you should be patient, okay?
But in the same way, we kind of go, “I don’t want to pray to ask God to help me love everybody, because then I would have to do it.”
Listen, if you have trusted in the Lord Jesus and he has gathered you into his church, he has done so that you will grow in your love.
If you love only those who love you, what good is that? Scripture says the Gentiles do that. The unbelievers, the unregenerate do that.
“I’m going to teach you how to love each other, the kind of people you would never love on your own.”
And in that way, our love grows. We become more and more like Christ, loving people, loving him the way he wants us to. He grows our love by putting us together in these groups.
That means that the local church then is one of the places where God exposes our selfishness.
And what a blessing that is, isn’t it?
I say that tongue in cheek, because everybody loves having their selfishness exposed. But it’s so good for us. That’s sanctifying. That grows us in Christlikeness and holiness. We need that.
And so the church gives us real people to love, to practice on. Not imaginary people, real people. People who have problems, people with burdens, people with weaknesses, people with personalities, people with opinions, people with sorrows, and people with needs.
So love is not just a warm feeling like the world says.
What is love? Love is an act of the will that’s not led by nor void of emotion that leads to action on behalf of its object.
Love seeks the godly good of another. It serves, forgives, bears burdens, speaks truth, prays, shows up, and keeps on loving even when it costs something.
So the question for us is, do we love the saints? Not just the idea of the church, the actual saints, the actual people.
I know this happens—I always share too much—I know this happens among pastors sometimes. In seminary and Bible college, people who would have pastored, or when you gather together, loving people is hard.
A lot of pastors who are very passionate about doing the work of pastoring, of preaching, of teaching, of getting people to know the Bible, have a hard time with the loving the saints part. They love the church. They love the idea of the church. But when you actually put them in front of a group of real people, those are hard people to love.
You can’t just preach to, “Okay, there’s a general church out there.” No, there are individual lives. There are real people.
You can’t say, “I love the church,” and ignore that person in the church that you don’t like. You can’t say, “I love church,” but you don’t serve anybody else except yourself.
You’re a liar. You’re deceiving yourself.
A love for all the saints means the individual saints that God has placed in front of you right here and right now.
So Paul hears of their love for all the saints, and he thanks God for it.
And finally, Paul gives thanks without ceasing.
He says, “I do not cease to give thanks for you.”
He doesn’t mean that—sometimes we think of “pray without ceasing,” because that’s also in Thessalonians, right? Pray without ceasing. He says, “I do not cease to give thanks for you” here.
Sometimes we have this idea that, “Oh, do I have to keep praying constantly all the time or I’m not doing it right?”
No, that’s not what he means.
But what he’s talking about is in the regular parts of his life where he is praying, where he is having his time of prayer for devotion and things like that, they are constantly, every time he prays, he gives thanks for them. He makes it a pattern in his prayer life.
Whenever Paul prayed, he remembered them. He remembered their faith and their love for one another, and he thanked God for it.
Paul had a prayer life that was full of people. A lot of us have a prayer life that is full of problems.
“God, help me with this. God, help me with this. God, help me with that. God, help me with this.”
Not that you shouldn’t do that, not that you shouldn’t cast your anxieties, not that you shouldn’t ask for what you need. Scripture’s clear.
But if your prayer life is empty of praise and thanks, it’s not full. It’s lacking.
Philippians 4:6 says:
“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God.”
Prayer is not meant to be detached from thanksgiving.
Paul thanked God for people.
Look at the opening of some of his other letters. We see here in Ephesians. Romans chapter one, he says, “I thank my God through Jesus Christ for all of you because your faith is proclaimed in all the world.”
Colossians chapter one says, “We always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you.”
Because Paul had heard of their faith in Jesus and their love for the saints, he constantly brought them before the Lord and praised God and thanked God for them.
This was a normal pattern for Paul. This should be the normal pattern for our prayer life, church.
Some people think of Paul as this staunch theologian, and he was. Go read Romans. You get tripped up real fast. He believed in deep doctrine.
But deep doctrine should not make you love less. Deep doctrine makes you love more. Knowing the sovereignty of God shouldn’t make you go, “Well, there’s no reason for my prayer.” It should make you pray more.
And it made him thankful because he knows that God is the one who is working all these things in the life of his people. He’s the one who’s giving grace. He’s the one who’s helping. He is the one to be thanked when you see these things in others.
Do you thank God for your church? Again, not just in general, but in specifics. Do you thank God for people by name? Do you even know all the people in your church?
Listen, I don’t know how many times, and this is not a slight at anybody, okay? But listen, we have sent out the church directory a dozen times. And there are still people that say, “Hey, do you have such and such person’s number?”
How do you not have it?
You should be constantly praying. You should have that directory out. You should be looking at the names. You should know everybody by name. And guess what? Next to their name is their phone number.
And I’m happy—again, that’s not a slight at anyone. I will gladly send anybody a number. But I say that in order to point out the fact we have a directory. You should know who are part of your church. You should be praying for one another by name specifically.
Not just when you know there’s something wrong, but always. And especially when you see something that God is working in their life and their faith is growing, and they’re working through something, or they’re growing in maturity in their faith, or they’re serving where they weren’t serving before.
Thank God for it.
Listen, and I love it when you share it with me, but you don’t have to tell me. I didn’t do it. I love it when you share what you see in other people, but God needs praise for that. Go to him first. Praise God first for what you see.
Do you thank God for the old saints who are walking with Christ and persevering to the end? Do you thank God for those younger believers who are just getting started growing in their faith? Do you thank God for the people who encourage you? Do you thank God for the people who stretch your patience and give you opportunities to become more like Jesus?
That last one might take a little more spiritual maturity.
But listen, church, one of the godliest things you can do is turn your complaints about the church into prayers for the church.
Don’t complain about somebody you’re not praying about. And I don’t mean praying against. Praying for.
Again, this doesn’t mean we pretend that problems don’t exist. Clearly, we have our own sin issues, and there are things that happen that need to be dealt with and need to be taken seriously.
But it does mean that we have to refuse to be the kind of person that only sees what is wrong.
And I struggle with this. I’m going to be honest, because I’m always looking for what’s wrong so we can try to fix it. But we’ve got to be better at that. We’ve got to be more like Paul.
I refuse to focus on what’s not happening the right way. Let’s focus on what the Lord is actually doing and praise him for it.
That’s the kind of gratitude that he wants to see. A thankful church should see these things. And our only explanation for it should be that God did that.
Paul says:
“For this reason, because I’ve heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love towards all the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you.”
This is godly gratitude.
Paul praised God for every spiritual blessing in Christ, and then he looks at all the believers and sees that those blessings are actually bearing fruit. They believe in the Lord Jesus, they love the saints, and Paul is giving thanks to God for it.
So thank God when you see his grace at work in your life. When you see faith, thank God. When you see love, thank God. When the gospel bears fruit and people are being saved, give unceasing thanks to God.
Amen.