Well, good morning again. I had a great morning this morning so far. I got up and I thought, I know there's no ink in the printer for printing off my notes this morning, so I'll just do it on my tablet. And so I'm in my office doing a little bit of work and thinking and editing. So I thought, I wonder where my tablet is. And then it dawned on me where it was. It was in the Keysborough office across the thing. So I jumped up and got everything ready to go and bolted across and looked, driving on the highway, no gas, no petrol, no petrol, sorry. And so I pulled over and got in that pumping the petrol thought wallet. Oh, no, so I finished it and I got in the car and I'm talking to my car and I realized Oh, yeah, I put my wallet in the console. So I got that got the gas Petro got paid for boot down to keys, bro. I got a face where I was doing what I was doing And I went to print print No, really print And so, in the computer and printer, we're not syncing up, so I had to restart everything, and meanwhile, I'm thinking that the, and you ever notice how when you're late, that the clock moves much faster when you're late, and you really have to get somewhere? Andrew Day summarized it well, he said, your computer and printer has an anxiety sensor, and when you're anxious about something, it slows everything down, so it goes much slower. But, here we are. Well, this week's been a really interesting, Good week for me. rediscovered something and have been really enjoying some ministry on the book of 2 Timothy, particularly 2 Timothy 2 and 3. And yesterday afternoon I was finished study and I was just sitting in a big chair thinking and kind of meditating a little bit and thinking about Jesus' words when he talked to the devil in his temptation. He said, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And it kind of struck me afresh what the weight of those words really mean. It means that while we think we need food all the time and we're quick to fill our faces, and some of us quicker than others, and we're always doing that, what Jesus said was absolutely true. What we need to live in this world is not the bread that comes into our body. What we need to live is by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God. Why am I telling you that? I'm telling you that because I want to restate my commitment to you and this church and for as long as God gives me breath to preach the word of God as faithfully and as carefully as I can because I realize afresh that man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. There is an attraction for us amongst different people. Different people draw people to themselves for different reasons. And two of the most influential people that I can think of in my life One in particular was Uncle Jack, and you've all heard me mention Uncle Jack probably a number of times before. He was the, I'll say elderly because he probably won't listen to this, but he was the elderly gent in our church in Canada who took me aside and taught me how to study and helped me to know and learn the Word of God. And what was so attractive to him was a godly character. And we've looked for some time at this topic and the subject of prayer. We've called it, Lord, teach us to pray. And the reality is that you cannot be godly in any sense without developing a lifestyle of unceasing prayer. Paul said this way in 1 Thessalonians 5, he said, rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. There is a necessity for all of us, if we are going to be godly men and women, to develop the lifestyle of unceasing prayer. And we've looked for quite a bit of time at Matthew 6 and Jesus' words teaching his disciples how we are to pray. Now I want to take some time and go over to some of Paul's prayers and look at them and learn from this great godly man of God how he prayed and the way the Bible teaches us, the way God teaches us through his word how we are to pray through the pen and the lips of this man named Paul. So take your Bibles, flip over to Ephesians chapter one, And we're going to read from verse 1 all the way to verse 23. Paul is writing the letter from prison, probably 80, 60 to 62. He's within anywhere from five to seven years from his martyrdom. His life, his ministry is coming to a close. He's writing apparently without any desire to correct any major heresies or errors in the church. He writes to a group of believers that are living in a city greatly given over to the pursuing magic and the occult. And Paul writes to emphasize the power of God over all the heavenly authorities, to describe God as the head over all things in creation, the spiritual realm and the physical realm. And this God, who is superior to all, is the God to whom we pray, to whom Paul prays. Now chapter one, verse one, all the way to three in verse 12, could kind of be described as one long interrupted prayer, the prayer at the beginning of the book, Verses 1 to 23, and the prayer at the end of 3, 14 through 16, there are two rich bookends, and some of the beautifulest, beautifulest? Some of the nicest prayers of Paul are those two prayers that he prays. And we want to take some time to look at both of those, but those beautiful bookends of this man of God as he's writing this letter, you can almost sense it as he writes, he's got some things he wants to say, but he just kind of keeps breaking back into a restatement of his prayers for them. So the title of our message this morning is this, Lord, teach us to pray in unceasing praise and thanksgiving to God. And we've got three basic points. Lord, teach us to pray in three ways, in unceasing praise and adoration, number one. Number two, with our eyes and our ears wide open. Teach us to pray with our eyes open. It's a little of an odd one, right? We always close our eyes when we pray, but I want us to learn to pray with our eyes open. Number two, in unceasing thanksgiving. Let's read, and our text this morning is really only verses 15 and 16, but the context of the passage really goes all the way from one in verse three, all the way to one in verse 23, so we're gonna read the whole section, and what we're gonna do this morning is look at the context before and 15 and 16, and next we will look at the context of 15 and 16, and what comes after, and then all ties together. If you like, one through 15, one through 14 is like one side of a hinge, you know what a hinge looks like, right? It's two flaps with a barrel thing in the middle, and they pivot. So one side's like one part of the hinge, and the barrel in the middle, the pivot point, is like versus 15, 16, 17, 18, and then the other side of it is versus 19 through 23, so that's how the whole thing kind of fits together. Well, let's read. Beginning in verse 1, he says this, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ, by the will of God, to the saints who are in Ephesus and faithful in Christ Jesus, grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, just as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before him in love. having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace by which He made us accepted in the Beloved. In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins according to the riches of His grace, which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence, having made known to us the mystery of His will according to His good pleasure, which He purposed in Himself. that in the dispensation of the fullness of the times, he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth in him. In him also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, that we who first trusted in Christ should be to the praise of his glory. in him you also trusted after you heard the word of truth the gospel of your salvation in whom also having believed you were sealed with the holy spirit of promise who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession to the praise of his glory verse 15 Therefore, I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him. the eyes of your understanding being enlightened, that you may know what is the hope of his calling, what are the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his mighty power, which he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places. far above all principality and power and might and dominion, and every name that is named, not only in this age, but also in that which is to come. And he put all things under his feet and gave him to be the head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. I'm going to keep reading. And you He made alive who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lust of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as others. but God, who is rich in mercy because of his great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ, by grace you have been saved, and raised us up together and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come he might show the exceeding riches of his grace and his kindness toward us in Christ Jesus, for by grace you have been saved. Through faith and that not of yourselves. It's a gift of God not of works as anyone should boast for We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. That is such a rich passage. And I realized as I was reading it that Paul doesn't really finish his train of thought in verse 23. He just kind of barrels right on through into chapter two. And I just love the way he just keeps writing. And it's like you're watching a fountain, you know, and it just keeps bubbling up and bubbling up. And there's just more and more and more he wants to say about what we have in Christ. But really what verses 1 through 23, and just diving into 2 as well, is like a prayer he's praying. He begins, like he does almost every other letter, by commending them to the grace of God. He states a prayer, but you can almost see as he begins to state his prayer, he just can't stop himself. He wants to say so much more, and he dives off into it, and he almost delays his prayer, his real prayer, down to verse 15. Now, those first verses there, 1 through 14, in the Greek, it's one long, unbroken sentence, and it's so complex to try and figure out all of what he's saying and what he means. But what I want to do is I want to pick up and I want to look at verse 15 and 16, and then we'll see why we're going to dive back to verse 3. He says, first of all, in verse 15, therefore. And as I was studying this, I was working through those two verses and what they had to teach us about prayer, and I keep tripping over the word therefore. I'm thinking, why does Paul keep saying that? And is it really important? Do we have to do anything with that word? And the more I look at it, I realize, you know what? It is so important. The therefore, like the old English teacher would always tell you, if you see a therefore, you gotta look and see what it's there for, right? Everybody hates that, but that's okay. And you look at it and go, why is that? And the idea there is because of everything I have just said, after I've heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for the saints, I do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers. In other words, what's driving What's driving Paul's praying and Paul's thanksgiving is not only the faith and love that he's heard of, but everything he has just said about the spiritual blessings that we have in Christ. Now then, our point is to learn how to pray. And what Paul is doing here, if you go back to verse number three, the word there, blessed, is the word eulogetos, and it's actually an adjective. And I thought for sure it would be a verb, an imperative verb, a command. So we're supposed to bless God, and this is the reasons why. But it's actually not. What he's actually doing is he's actually putting an adjective there describing God. Who is God? God is to be praised. That's actually what it means. Bless or praise. And then he gives a whole bunch of reasons why God is blessed and why God is praised. In the old Hebrew, they used to do something called a Baraka. And what a Baraka is, is a declarative statement of praise for God. And so they would say, you know, blessed be the Lord God who has given us all these things. And they would just say it. And it was a statement or an announcement of praise that those around them would hear. It wasn't really directed to the listener, but it was just stated for their benefit. And that's exactly what Paul's doing here. He's making a statement of reasons why we need to praise God. So it's a commendation for us to praise God. Notice also the extent of the blessings he has given us in verse number three, every spiritual blessing. God has not been stingy with us. God hasn't been withholding anything. Like the devil's whispered ideas into Eve's mind, God's withholding from you. He knows if you eat that fruit that you'll be like him, able to understand and able to know good and evil. And he suggested that God was holding back. And Paul's saying, listen, people of God, God isn't holding back at all. He has blessed you with every single spiritual blessing. You want a reason to praise God in your prayers? Here's a whole bunch of them. Notice also the context of the blessings in verse three. Again, he says, in the heavenly places. Heaven to a Jewish believer speaks of the age which is to come. It's a future glorious age where the king of kings will rule and reign of which we'll all be a part. Okay, so they think of that in an age to come. But what Paul is saying is, listen, when in Christ, The age that is and the age to come has kind of been linked together. And all of us who are in Christ look forward to with great longing and appreciation for that age to come. But these blessings that we have that are connected with the future kingdom age are for us to enjoy here and now. And that's what drives, when he says, therefore, in verse 15, after he heard these things and the faith and love, He begins to pray and as we're gonna see next week, the driving focus of his prayer is that we would live in light of these heavenly spiritual blessings that we have in Christ. It's also a great way to drive our prayers, to learn how to pray in prayers, in praise to God. There he goes. Well, let's take the paragraph, let's break it down and kind of categorize a little bit. And this is a very old, well-used outline. It's kind of a Trinitarian one. I heard it when I was a little kid, and it goes like this. First of all, there are the blessings of the Father who selected us in verses four through six. And then in verses seven through 11, there are the blessings of the salvation we have in God the Son. And then verses 12 to 14, the blessings of being sealed with the Spirit. Now, we've gone through this part about a year and a half ago. We went through this passage over two Sundays. So I'm not going to dive really deep in it. I just want to skim across the top and kind of give you a flavor of it and get you to understand and just appreciate some of the great blessings that you have and some of the great ways in which you can pray and give thanks and give praise to God in your prayers, okay? So first of all, the blessings of being selected by the Father. God the Father has blessed us by choosing us. In verse four he said there, just as he chose us, he and him before the foundation of the world. God chose Abraham and Sarah to bless him and bring God's blessing to all the nations. In the Old Testament, God chose Israel to be his treasured possession among all peoples and he was due only to God's grace. Now, what that means for us is simply this. We have been chosen by God. We've been saved by God in part of his sovereign election. And one of the roles, one of the things that we are to be is a blessing to all the nations, to take the gospel of the living God, to preach the word of God to the people outside that they might also come to know God. That was Abraham's role was to have that blessing and through him to be a blessing to all the nations. As a people of God in Israel, they were the Old Testament treasured possession of the living God. Do you know something? That we as the people of God are the New Testament treasured possession of the living God. We're His people. And He has chosen us to be a special people. I love the old King James says, He chose us to be a peculiar people for Himself. And some of us are pretty peculiar, you gotta admit, right? But He chose us to be that special people for Himself. Secondly, look at this. In verse five, God the Father has blessed us by predestining us to adoption as sons and daughters, as children, we. In verse three and four to the two tells us that we were sons of disobedience. We were destined children of wrath. We were destined to face the wrath of God against sin. But God instead has predestined us to be adopted to himself as his sons and daughters. We call each other brother and sister. It's not as common over here in the States and Canada. It's a little more common. But that's a general term of familiarity. We are brothers and sisters in Christ. Brothers by the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. And we have been adopted into that family of God. What an amazing blessing God has given to us. What reason to stop and open up our hearts and give thanks to God and praise God for what God has done in our life. Notice next, in verse 6, God the Father has blessed us by making us accepted in the Beloved. It's what my new King James says. If you have another Bible, it's probably more like bestowing grace on us in the Beloved. That's what it literally means in the Greek. Christ is the supreme object of the Father's love. You ever watch, I was watching yesterday, we were moving Dev and Tiff's house, and Dev's sister-in-law showed up with a little baby, and all of a sudden you just see grandma and grandpa who had disappeared in the back corners of the house, and grandpa's out there painting somewhere, and those guys are carrying all the furniture, and grandma was kind of directing traffic, and as soon as the little baby came out, Out came Raph and his wife, and they were looking to see their little grandchild. There was a love there. There was a special love there. There was a connection there. And what Paul is saying, listen, he has made us accepted in the Beloved. He has bestowed grace on us in the Beloved. Christ is the Beloved Son of the Father. You remember his baptism? The heavens are open and Jesus is standing there in the water and the water's all running off of him. And the Bible says the Holy Spirit came down in the form of a dove and the heavens opened and God spoke from heaven. His voice spoke out so anybody could hear, this is my beloved son. And what Paul is saying to us here is, listen, he has blessed us by including us in his grace, including us in that beloved state. And we are His beloved children. We're not like illegitimate children with our Father in heaven. He loves us as His sons and daughters. You want a reason, you need reason to give thanks and praise to God this morning. Listen here, we are adopted with His children. Sorry, we're part of His family. We have been receiving grace as part of being included in the beloved, in Christ. What a blessing, what an amazing blessing that we have from God. The blessing also of salvation in the psalm verses seven to 11. God has blessed us by redeeming us with the shed blood of Christ. The idea of redemption is to set somebody free. We who were born as slaves to sin, we who were destined to die as slaves to death, cut off from God, we have been set free. You ever stop and think about what that means? Watching the movie freedom. It's on you can get on the Big Telstra thing big pawn box what it was called. It's the story of John Newton how he gave It was given a Bible. I think by Getting the story all wrong like I always do But the story is really neat because it shows slavery as the African people are put in slavery in the bottom of the ships. And the story takes place in two time zones. One time zone is in the 1840s, 1850s. And Cuba Gooding Jr. plays this fellow who escapes with his family, and they escape slavery all the way up to the northern states and finally into Canada. And as they're escaping, his older mother tells him the story of his great-grandfather who was given a Bible by Isaac Newton, John Newton, sorry, and he got to know the Lord for that. And these black people, and they're all, as they're in the fields, and something terrible happened, you hear them start singing the hymns, the old hymns of the faith. You're thinking, what an amazing and interesting story, in the sense that the whole story told of this slave being set free, and when they finally cross the line into Canada, and they're standing on the Canadian side of the river there, and the slave chaser's on the other side, and they realize that one's free and one's not. And it reminded me so powerfully of the fact that we have been set free. All of us used to carry chains. We were chained up to our sin, we were chained to death, and none of us could escape that. But Christ, because of what he has done in washing us with his blood, he has set us free. And the problem for us is that we don't appreciate what we have in our God. We don't appreciate the blessings that we have, and our prayer life ought to be soaked in understanding and restating and giving thanks to God and praise to God for these great spiritual blessings that we have been set free in Christ. There's a little bit of an interlude there in verses 8, 9, and 10, talks about the wisdom and the will of God. and what's coming, the dispensation of fullness of times, verse 10, that he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are on earth in him. He talks about God's one will and plan for all of the peoples of all the earth. Everything that God is doing is working towards the accomplishment of that one plan. And it begins for us when we trust Christ and we're included in his plan. and the blessings of salvation. And then in verse 11, God has blessed us by giving us an inheritance in Christ. Paul is saying that God has claimed for himself a people for his own possession. Peter speaks of the church like this. Listen, this is a great language. It's right out of the Old Testament. 1 Peter 2, 9 and 10, but you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his own special people that you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, who once were not a people but are now the people of God. who had not obtained mercy but now have obtained mercy. We are joint heirs with Christ. You ever get a letter in the mail saying that your great auntie who had lots and lots of money died and she's left you an inheritance? I never have, I wish I had one day, maybe, but I haven't. I can't imagine that feeling of all of a sudden getting a letter in the mail going, hey, there's inheritance, there's some money coming, and you start thinking about all the things you can do with the money, you know, your mindset's going, wow, what am I gonna do? And in some cases, you've never even heard of the great aunt, you decide to leave you all this money. And you don't realize something, that we as believers in Jesus Christ, we are joint heirs with Christ. and all the inheritance that this world could throw at you, dump all of its money out and said, here you go, Henry, it's all yours, take it. It's nothing compared to what it means to be joint heirs with Christ, to know that one day that we're gonna be blessed to inherit the kingdom of God alongside of Jesus. We will have an inheritance with him. We will reign with Christ. We will rule over the rest of the nations with Jesus Christ. We're gonna judge the angels one day. I don't know who it was, but a couple was talking just recently about that one fact, that one day we're gonna sit in judgment of the angels. That's the inheritance that God has given to us. We will be glorified with Christ. That's the promise of the gospel. What incredible hope, what a reason to give praise to God. We who deserve nothing more than God's wrath and God's judgment have been made joint heirs with Christ. How'd he do it? By his grace. Because nobody in this room deserved that, not one of us. But God in his grace gave that to us as a blessing. What fuel for the fires of our prayers that we should be, we should offer praise to God for some of these things. You know, I find myself when I get in a bit of a struggle, I dive into God's presence and I'm just running almost like with a shopping list. I need this and I need that. I need the other thing. Please do this and hurry up and do that. And why can't this happen over here? And my prayers become so much about me. And what I love about this is Paul sets really the priority and the standard. He stops and says, look at all that God has done. Look at all the blessings that we have. Let's stop and give thanks and give praise to God for the rich blessings that we have as members of the body of Christ. But wait, there's more. In verses 12 to 14, you know what else he says? He says, we have the blessings of being sealed with the spirit. The idea is of a branding, like a branding iron. I was watching in that same movie. And as the slaves are being taken on the African ship to go over to England, they walked him in front of this blazing hot coals and these irons stick it out. I thought, oh, please don't do that. and they picked up the iron and they pulled the slave up and they put the branding mark on the back of the slave and there was a letter or a number or something on the back of the slave that they would carry for the rest of their life to remind them that they belonged to somebody else. You know what the beautiful truth is for us? We have been branded, we have been sealed, we have been marked by the presence of the Spirit of God in us that shows everybody around us we belong to somebody else. He's given us a spirit of God to show us how to live and how to walk. He's given us a spirit of God to lead us into all truth, to empower us to live life for God. He's given us a spirit to guide us through his own word, the word of God that he has given to us. I hear some people sometimes praying, Lord, speak to me, Lord, speak to me, Lord, speak to me. I'm thinking, God has given you his word, he's spoken. It's sitting right in front of you. And the tragedy for some of the charismatic groups, I'll say it carefully, is they've almost shut the Bible and said, we want something new and fresh. And God said, I've given you everything you need to know. It's sitting right there. And the spirit of God uses the word of God to teach us and lead us and guide us. We've been filled and sealed and marked and branded with the spirit of God. What a blessing. What an immense blessing that we have from God. All those things, and I could go for hours and unpack all the things. I skipped over a whole bunch of those things. It's in there as well. The blessing that we have in Christ, it ought to cause our hearts to respond, to lift up in praise and worship for the living God. And yet, tragically, we're so caught up with the affairs and bits and pieces of this world, and I'm no different. I look back over my week and how much time I've spent my week thinking about the things that got to happen here and now and all around me and instead of stopping and taking time to appreciate what God has given me, the rich blessings that he has given me in Christ. What's the point of all this and asking, Lord, teach us to pray? We looked at Matthew 6, we said the first request that Jesus taught us to pray were the things that are closest to the Father's heart. Three things, hallowed be your name, your kingdom come, your will be done. Hallowed be your name, that's the first one. Remember Isaiah 6, the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord lofty and exalted and the train of his robe fills the temple and the seraphim are standing one bank on one side and one bank on the other side. And they never stop shouting back and forth, declaring to one another, announcing to another in the hearing of God Almighty, holy, holy, holy. is the Lord of hosts, the whole earth is full of His glory. For us, the glory of God is not just in the wonders of His creation, it certainly is. It certainly is the wonders of His creation. The vast reaches of space that shout the glories and wonders of God, the microscopic and subatomic particles that dance in joyful worship of our Creator. Creation is full of the glory of God, and we should take time to stop and appreciate that. But for us, There's something more. The glory of God is also seen and appreciated in our being chosen and being saved and being sealed, the realization and the appreciation of the riches of our salvation, the blessing with which we have been blessed in the heavenly places. When we pray, beloved, let us never, ever fail to take time to relate and reflect to God, to declare in His hearing some of these great truths. Father in heaven, we love you for choosing us. We adore you for predestining us to adoption as sons and daughters. You don't have to do it as formally as that. But Father, thank you for choosing me. Thank you, oh God, for filling me with your Spirit. Fill me even more. Father, thank you for washing me clean and setting me free. We lost sight of that. Talk about the candy machine prayer habit. We just stick in our prayer and punch the button for what we want and wait for God to provide. God is a person. And we relate to God through the Spirit because of what Christ has done and we relate to Him and we enjoy and we ought to reflect back to Him thanks and appreciation and unceasing praise to God for what He has done. One of the other persons I mentioned, I mentioned earlier about people who have influenced me, One of the persons I met recently, and I've talked about him before, who just a little bit, I don't know him hardly at all, but what really affected me and attracted me to him wasn't his preaching, because it wasn't, it was good, but what really attracted me was his quiet, gentle spirit. And I kept wondering why he walked around with his head down all the time, and when he'd be sitting in a group of guys talking, he'd often have his head down, and he wasn't really looking at anybody. And finally I said to Austin, I said, hey, why does Paul Washington do that? And he said, you don't realize it, he said, but when he's not talking, he's praying constantly. He's praying, he's sitting in a, we had like a question answer period, now at the front, they're all talking and stuff. And he just sat there with his head down like this, almost looking directly at the floor. And I realized that he was praying that God would give him wisdom to answer the questions that came to him. That's what's attractive about him, because his life is just an unceasing prayer. One of the beautiful benefits of contemplating and working through all these things and just focus on, if you're ever struggling with doubts. Depressions, it probably doesn't happen to you often, maybe it happens to me more than other people, but I find I struggle with some of those things. It's sitting down, opening up this passage, just working my way through. And in my little prayer book, I wrote down, thanks to God, I listed all these things off. Thank you, Father, that you have blessed me with every spiritual blessing. Thank you, Father, that you have chosen me in Christ before the foundation of the world. Thank you, Father, that you have chosen me that one day I'm gonna be holy and without blame before you. And I sometimes read through those prayers and just give thanks to God for all those incredible blessings. And one of the major benefits of that, one of the huge side benefits for that for us is it turns our eyes heavenward. It radically changes the perspective we have towards everything we face when we stop and give thanks for all the spiritual blessings that we have in the heavenly places in Christ. How do we get through those great, difficult times of testing we talked about last week? We get through them by focusing on the Lord Jesus Christ, by stopping and giving thanks and offering up prayer and appreciation to God for those blessings that we have in Christ. Second point is this, and I want you to notice what he says in verses 15 and 16. Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints. And I read through that, and you know how sometimes you read Paul's opening part of his letter, and you kind of just blast through it, you're looking for the meatier stuff a little further down. And I stopped and started thinking about that. You know what he's saying there? He's saying, listen, I've heard about your faith and I've heard about your love. Where's Paul? He's in prison in Rome, hundreds, if not thousands, I don't know what the distance is, hundreds of miles away for sure. And he's heard all that great distance away about their faith in Christ and their love for the saints. And what the beautiful thing about that is, their faith in Christ is their total dependence on God for salvation and for life. It's trusting that Christ's faithfulness, it's out here as well, trusting in Christ's faithfulness is also what that phrase means. Trusting that Christ's faithful obedience is sufficient for me. Trusting that Christ's faithfulness is sufficient for my sanctification and my salvation. It's depending fully on Christ, on His faithfulness for my whole life. We rest on the fact that Christ will never, ever, ever let us down. He is faithful, and faith also has a dimension of trusting God to keep promises, and God has made promises to us in Christ Jesus, and we trust in God's faithfulness to keep those promises to us. We live by faith, we're saved by faith, and faith is to occupy everything in which we do. It's always to be an exercise of faith. I go to work in the faith that God will provide the income to feed my family. I pray in the faith that God will answer prayers. Let me ask you a question. What are you trusting God for outside of salvation? Kind of an interesting thought, isn't it? Something to think to yourself, wait a minute, I trust the Lord for my salvation. I trust the Lord to finish the work He started in me. You mean there's more than that? Yeah, Paul says we live by faith. It isn't just life, it isn't spiritual life and whatever happens, this world is my own working out. We live every single day of our lives in faith that God will supply, in faith that God will finish the work, in faith that God has got everything under control. Our whole lives are to be an exercise, an outflow of faith in God. He's also heard of their love, their love for all the saints. What's the proof of the work of God in us? It isn't our ability to spout off doctrine and theology, by the way, because the Pharisees knew more doctrine and theology than you ever will. And they certainly didn't know God. The demons know more theology than you ever will. They don't know God. They're not saved. It's our love for the saints. Don't misunderstand. I'm not saying you don't go worry about theology and doctrine, because you absolutely do. But that's not the mark of what sets us apart as Christians. It's the love for all the saints. It's a love that's poured out and expressed to each other. It's our love for His people, the members of the family of God. That's how the world sees that we are His disciples. That's what Paul heard of when he started to pray for them. That's what made him respond in prayer. He heard of their love and their faith in Christ. We need to learn to pray, brothers and sisters, with our eyes open. Meaning what? Meaning that we're looking around the room to see what's going on in people's lives. I don't mean to be nosy. I mean to be looking around to see where God is at work and see where growth is happening and give thanks to God and pray for those that we see are growing. And you know what? There are people in this room, many of us, who are making leaps and bounds in growth, in grace. I can honestly tell you, two years ago, I was not the same person as I am now. Let me ask you a question. If you look back two years ago, are you the same person that you are now? There's got to be growth. And one of the reasons why we need to be praying for each other and praying and giving thanks to God for each other is looking around and seeing the growth, seeing the faith that we see in each other, and looking in to see the love that's being expressed one for the other, looking to see that growth in the wisdom and the knowledge and the grace of God. And Paul says, after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, in light of everything I said, I do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers. The third point, the last point is this, that Paul prays in unceasing thanksgiving for the believer. We are to pray in unceasing thanksgiving for each other. The reason I believe why Paul immediately moves into prayer, a more informal prayer after the first visit, his having finished that rich, beautiful Baraka of praise, his concern is that the believers are being blessed with these things, but they're not living in light of them. And so he responds out of that in prayer and praise. It's kind of like the old lady I heard about. I live on the edge of town, a little shack out there. Everybody thought she was kind of the weird old lady, and she walked around in disheveled clothing, and she had old fitting things, and her body was just kind of skin and bone, and one day she died. and her home, and they went to clean out her home, and they walked through this lady's home, and it was just, everything was worn out and broken, the house was broken down, hadn't seen a drop of paint in 20 years, and they walked through the house, they began to clean out all of her belongings, and they opened up pots, and inside pots, and chests, and boxes, there was stuff, hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash. Yeah, where's the house, right? That's the first thing I thought of. All this money. And she had lived her entire life living on cat food and horrible things just to eke out a meager existence. And for whatever reason, she was unable to live in light of all the riches that she had stuffed away in her mattress and in boxes and pots and pans and wherever she could hide the money. And she could not bring herself to live in light of those riches. And the reality for us is, most of us are just the same spiritually. We understand the spiritual blessings, we sort of hear what Paul's saying to us, but we're not living in light of those things. And that's why I think Paul drives him to say, hey, listen, I heard about that, and in light of everything I've just told you, listen, I'm gonna pray for you, and here's what I'm praying. But first of all, the first thing he says in verse 16 is, I do not cease to give thanks for you. It's an unceasing thanks. The word there is the word paomai, and it literally means it's an ongoing, unceasing thing. And the Greek language, I don't know if you know this, but the way the sentences work isn't noun, verb, subject, or object, like Rick sits in the chair. Rick is the subject, sitting is the verb, and in the chair is the location of where he's sitting. That's how English works typically. In Greek it's totally different. They can put the words anywhere they want because the form of the word tells you what it means and where it fits in the logic of the process. So what they do is they put the words they want to emphasize at the very beginning. So in this phrase here, this part of Paul's prayer, verses 15 and 16 there, do not cease lands at the very beginning. And so he's making great emphasis. He's saying, listen, Ephesians, unceasingly I give thanks and pray for you. In other words, Paul's saying, listen, wherever I'm going, whatever I'm doing, that attractive thing that drew me to Paul Washer and Uncle Jack was they would never stop praying. They're always living that practice of prayer. but he gives thanks for them. And I thought, well, it doesn't say much in this passage about what Paul gives thanks for. I'm gonna take just a few minutes, we're almost done, to look at some of the other spots that Paul gives thanks for believers in the New Testament and just work our way through them and appreciate some of those thanksgivings he does. Paul gives thanks for fellow believers. in 1 Corinthians 1, he thanks them always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus. You and I as brothers and sisters in Christ can give thanks to God for each other that we have received the grace of God in our life. Secondly, he gives thanks in context of all those spiritual blessings. Thirdly, he gives thanks for fellow believers who have received God's word. First, I thought, I'll try it again. 1 Thessalonians 2 says this, for this reason, we also thank God without ceasing because when you receive the word of God, which you heard from us, you welcomed it, not as the word of men, but as it is in truth, the word of God, which also effectively works in you who believe. Brothers and sisters, give thanks for each other that we have received the word of God. Open the word of God and share it with a brother and sister and then give thanks that they hear it and receive it. Give thanks for each other, brothers and sisters, because God has given us his word and the believers have received it. Give thanks also that we obeyed it. Romans 6, 17, but God be thanked that though you were slaves of sin, yet you obeyed from the heart that form of doctrine to which you were delivered, they obeyed. the Word of God. Give thanks. When you look around, you see brothers and sisters living their lives in obedience to the Word of God. It's easy just to look around and see all the problems and see all the issues and all the struggles and miss the fact that there are brothers and sisters in this room that are living their lives in obedience to the Word of God. And give thanks when you see that. Give thanks also for fellow believers' spiritual growth. 2 Thessalonians 2.13 says this, we are bound to give thanks to God always for you. Brethren, be loved by the Lord because God from the beginning chose you for salvation through sanctification by the spirit and belief in the truth. There's growth there and he gives thanks for it. We need to look around and say, listen, what's going on in this church? And see different ones are growing and give thanks to God. The reason why we grow isn't just striving and effort on our part. The reason we grow is because God is at work in each of us, causing us to grow in our faith and our knowledge of Him. Paul gave thanks to God for God's work in the fellow believers, that God will finish. It's a longer verse that goes like this, Philippians 1, three through six. I thank my God upon every remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine, making requests for you all with joy for your fellowship in the gospel from the first day until now. And here's how he prays, being confident of this very thing that he who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ. He is doing a work and he's going to finish it. And we give thanks for that. The way that those statements are made in the Greek, it gives the idea that the completion is so certain, it's almost like past tense. It's finished already. In fact, that's how the Father sees you. He sees you as the work of God in you, already complete and already finished. So you think to yourself, you know what, I'm struggling so much, I feel like I'm hardly growing anywhere at all, and we can look in the mirror of God's word and say that God who began the work is going to finish it, and God is doing a work in you. Give thanks, brothers and sisters, for the work that God is doing, and give thanks that he's going to finish it. Last one. Paul gave thanks for the joy he had in fellow believers. 1 Thessalonians 3, 6 through 10 says this, but now that Timothy has come to us from you and brought us good news of your faith and love, and that you always have good remembrance of us, greatly desiring to see us as we also to see you. Therefore, brethren, in all our affliction and distress, We were comforted concerning you by your faith, for now we live. If you stand fast in the Lord, for what thanks can we render to God for you? For all the joy with which we rejoice for your sake before our God. I'll read that again. For what thanks can we render to God for you? For all the joy with which we rejoice for your sake before our God, night and day. And what's he saying? You have given us such great joy. Your life, your faith, your witness, your work for God has given us such great joy that we can't even begin to give enough thanks to God for the joy that we have as a result of you. Look around the room and see brothers and sisters that are growing in the Lord and it just fills your heart with joy and you stop and give thanks and we rejoice before our God that changes are happening, that growth is going on. So what's the message for us today? Let your prayers be filled with praise to God for the spiritual blessings that he has blessed us with. Let your prayers be made eyes wide open to see the grace of God at work in each other. Let your prayers be filled with thanksgiving for each other. I say as a point of shame how quickly and how, sorry, how slow I am. to give thanks, how quick I am to forget to give thanks. Just diving into God's presence with my list of requests and demands. And Paul shows us in the way he approaches prayer, the roots of his prayer, the the basis of his prayer, if you like, all those spiritual blessings, he was first quick to give thanks to God and to pray for them on that basis. Lord, teach us to pray. Teach us to pray first for the things that are uppermost in your heart, the holiness of your name, the coming of your kingdom, the accomplishment of his will, your will. Teach us to pray for each other. Lord, give us this morning a hunger to be fed with our daily bread from heaven. Lord, teach us to pray for the forgiveness of our sins. Lord, teach us to pray to not be led into the realms where we will be exposed to temptation beyond what we are able to bear, but deliver us from evil. Lord, teach us to pray in unceasing worship and adoration, declaring the greatness of the blessings of our salvation. Lord, teach us to pray in unceasing thanksgiving for the blessing that we have received and we are all enjoying from your hand. Lord, teach us to pray, to really pray. We want to be men and women of God. We talked last week a little bit about what's necessary for ministry, whether it's evangelism, whether it's ministry in a church. wherever, whatever God has given you and placed you, what is necessary for ministry are these three things. I'll say them again. Number one, it's a steadfastness in prayer. Number two, it's a faithfulness to the word of God, to preach it, to teach it, to share it, to witness with it, to live by it. It's a faithfulness to the word of God. And number three, it's a life of godliness. And what makes us godly is a desire to be like God, a desire to be in His presence, to listen to Him speak to us, to respond back in prayer and thanksgiving for one another and for the things that we need as well. We'll look next week at how Paul prays for them that they might live in light of all those spiritual blessings that they had given to them. Would you stand with me? I'm gonna close in prayer. Father in heaven, we give you thanks for this day. We thank you, oh God, for our Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ. And Father, we thank you. We thank you so much for the grace that you have poured out on us. Father, we think of those words of Paul in Ephesians 2, but God being rich in mercy for the great love with which he loved us has made us alive. And Father, as we stand here this morning, a group of people who have been made alive by your love and by your grace, by your regenerating power, Father, that we have received the lavish grace poured out on us. Father, we thank you and we praise you for those things. And Father, we would affirm with Paul, blessed be God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. Thank you, oh God, for those blessings. And Father, as we look around this room at each other, Father, I wanna give you thanks this morning for those in this room that are growing, that are striving to walk closer to you, striving to be more godly. Father, striving to know you more, to know you deeper and richer. Father, we give you thanks for them, and we pray that you would encourage us all to be men and women like that, whose single, solitary, driving desire in life is to be like the Lord Jesus Christ, to know him like Paul knew him. to know him like Moses knew him, to speak as a man speaks with his friend face to face. Father, it's our desire not just to learn how to pray, but to learn how to pray that we might live godly lives, that we might glorify you in everything we do, that we might see this world reached for the gospel, reached for the Lord Jesus Christ. And Father, we ask you these things and we give you thanks now in Jesus' name, amen. I think we're done.