A Life Fully Pleasing To The Lord (February 2nd, 2020) - Brian Raby

Really glad to be back here with you again.

This time uh to see some familiar faces.

Last time it was brand new, so glad to see uh many of you again and to meet some of you for the first time this morning and to open up God's word uh together.

Before we do that, would you just uh bow with me in a word of prayer?

Lord God, we are thankful uh to be here this morning to worship you and Lord to open the revelation that you have given to us that we might know you, that we might know how to live for you.

God, would you speak to us through your word this morning?

That is our hope, that is our desire.

God, as we gather together and we open this book that you have given to us, Lord, that you would speak to our hearts through the power of your Holy Spirit this morning, and that you would bring comfort where comfort's needed, that you would bring encouragement, that you would bring conviction where that is needed, Lord, that you would guide and direct our hearts, our thinking, that we might be transformed more and more into the image of our Savior whom we behold.

And we pray all of this in His name.

Amen.

Amen.

All right.

Would you go ahead and open your Bibles up to Colossians chapter one?

And if uh if you don't have a Bible this morning, I understand that there's some at the back table there, and and Usher would be glad to put one into your hand if that's you.

Just go ahead and maybe wave uh for that.

And uh, as you're doing that, as you're opening up God's word, I just want to share something from my heart with you, and that is this I long for more.

I desire more for my life, I desire more for my family, I desire more for my church family, I desire more for you.

And I trust that you expect, I'm not talking about more extravagance or more extraordinary things, more elaborate things.

That's not what I'm talking about.

What I'm talking about when I say I long for more is I long for more of what the Bible describes as what ought to be normal Christianity.

Not what sometimes passes as normal Christianity, but what the Bible truly describes for us as what to be normal and ordinary in the life of every follower of Jesus Christ.

I'm talking about a more intimate, personal walk with Him.

I'm talking about whether it's in times alone by myself or whether it's times with others, living a life that is fully pleasing to the Lord, a life that is pleasing in his sight.

This too is what we're going to see this morning that the Apostle Paul longed for in the church at Colossae.

A little bit of background to this letter, if you don't uh remember, the Apostle Paul is writing this letter from a prison cell or maybe under house arrest in Rome.

He has finished his missionary journeys, he's he's been planting churches, he's been evangelizing the Roman world, and he's been seeing many come to Christ, many put their faith in the Lord Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of their sins.

He's established churches in various places, and he's suffered greatly for it.

And now he finds himself imprisoned and writing letters to these churches and sending his ministry partners to and from various places to minister as best he can from where he is.

And something that's interesting about this particular letter is that it's one of the couple letters that Paul wrote to a church where he actually didn't establish that church himself.

He'd never been to Colossae.

He says that he learned of their faith in Jesus Christ from the brother Epaphras, who told him that they heard and embraced in faith the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ.

And so Paul and Timothy, together, they write this particular letter to a group of believers that they never met, they didn't personally know them.

And he tells them in chapter one, he says, Listen, from the day we heard about your turning to Jesus Christ, since we heard that you left your former life behind and you turn to follow Christ, since you've trusted in him for forgiveness of your sins, listen, church, we haven't stopped praying for you.

We haven't ceased praying for you, he says.

They're constantly calling out to the Lord on behalf of this body of Christ.

And maybe just for a second, if we can put ourselves in in the place of someone reading or hearing this letter for the very first time, if we weren't so familiar with holding uh God's word on our laps, and we just think of who it is that's writing this letter, the Apostle Paul, and the fact that the Holy Spirit inspired the words on these pages.

If we just think for a second that the Apostle Paul is writing this letter to this church saying, I'm praying for you since I heard of your faith in Christ, here's what we need to be thinking.

What's the prayer?

I gotta know what this prayer is.

Whenever we see a prayer report in the Bible, we should be eagerly listening because we know for sure that these prayers are in alignment with the very heart of God.

Having been inspired by the Holy Spirit, we can have no greater confidence that these prayers can inform the way that we ought to pray.

And so as we come to our passage this morning, we want to be asking and finding answers to questions like, how is the Apostle Paul praying for these followers of Christ?

What is it that he's asking God for for them?

Why is he asking what he's asking?

And how will they know if the prayer is being answered?

And as we seek answers to these kinds of questions, what we're gonna see are three revelations from Paul's prayer report that will help us to pray biblically.

All right, we're gonna see three revelations from Paul's prayer report that ought to shape our desires and therefore inform the way that we pray.

Look with me, beginning in verse 9, the Apostle Paul says, And so from the day we heard, we've not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work, and increasing in the knowledge of God.

May you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.

First, we see in this prayer report, beginning in verse 9, what we so desperately need.

We see what we so desperately need.

Contained in this prayer report from Paul, there's actually just one request being made of the Lord.

Did you catch that?

This is important because we're gonna follow the logic here of God's word as we go through.

Paul is asking God to give the church in Colossae a fuller grasp of his will, a fuller grasp of his truth.

In just a moment, he's gonna go on to tell them why he's asking this, but first he says, let me tell you what I've been asking God to give you constantly.

And it's knowledge.

Knowledge, knowledge of his will.

He wants them to know what God wants.

He wants them to know what God desires, what's in the very heart of God he wants them to comprehend.

He wants them to be filled with this knowledge so as to be abounding in it.

He says he wants them to have the kind of knowledge that is characterized by spiritual wisdom and understanding.

He wants them to be able to discern the good from the bad and not only just what is good, but but even looking at what is good and being able to discern what is best.

And he's praying for them toward this end.

He's asking God to fill them in this way.

To be able to perceive what is pure and righteous and glorious when it comes to the mind of God.

Spiritual wisdom and understanding is what we so desperately need too, isn't it?

Are you praying for it?

Are you praying for it?

I mean, is this on your prayer list?

When you're praying for yourself, when you're praying for others, are you praying for knowledge of God's will, for spiritual wisdom and understanding?

So often we don't know what to pray, we don't know what we should pray for for others.

Let me just encourage you from this passage this morning, even just from verse 9, this informs how we ought to pray and what we ought to ask God for.

We can come before the Lord and we can say, here's what I'm thinking, Lord, here's what my wants and my desires are, but but Lord, ultimately, here's the cup of my heart.

Fill it with your desires, fill it with your wants.

Pour what's in your mind into my mind.

You know, we can pray for a lot of things, right?

We can have a long prayer list.

We can pray about spiritual things, we can pray about circumstantial things, but let me encourage you to put this on your prayer list if it isn't already.

This is our desperate need.

And as I said, we want to pay careful attention to the flow of thought.

It's really important.

We see that that this is the request, but it's not the ultimate goal.

It's absolutely necessary that we would have the knowledge of God's will, because we can't get to the target without it, but it is a means to a greater end.

And so, Paul, after telling the church what he's praying for, he goes on then to tell them why.

In the first half of verse 10, he says, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him.

We've seen what we need.

Now, second, we see why we so desperately need it.

Why we so desperately need it.

The reason why Paul wants the Colossians and why the Lord wants you and me to be filled with the knowledge of his will is so that ultimately we could live a life that is pleasing to him.

Knowledge isn't the end goal, pleasing the Lord with our lives is.

Everything we've read in verses 9 all the way down revolves around the central focus of pleasing God with our lives.

Paul's heard that this group of people have believed in Christ.

They've been told the good news, they've embraced the life of discipleship.

It even says that they're loving one another, they have an eternal hope now that they didn't have before.

Their faith is growing and multiplying, and the overarching longing of the apostles' heart for them as he thinks about them and prays for them is that their lives would be characteristic of one who walks in a way that pleases the Lord.

I so desperately want the pattern of your life to reflect what Christ has done for you, he says.

I want the course of your walk to be consistent with someone who's been redeemed by the blood of Christ.

Someone who's been set free from the bondage of sin, who's been given a new heart and a new spirit within.

I want your life to look like someone who's been transformed from a rebel into a worshiper.

I desperately want your walk to be consistent with one who has had great things done for him from the Lord our God.

I want you to live out who you are in Christ.

For this is pleasing to the Lord.

This is Paul's heart for all the churches.

This is God's heart for your church and my church, for each and every one of us, that we would walk in a manner that is worthy of him and of what he has done for us.

In 1 Thessalonians chapter 4, the Apostle Paul says, Finally then, brothers, we ask and urge you in the Lord Jesus that as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God, just as you are doing, that you do so more and more.

1 Thessalonians 4 · chapter mention

Another letter, 2 Corinthians in chapter 5.

Paul tells the church that while they're waiting to be in their heavenly dwelling with the Lord, that his and their aim in life ought to be to please the Lord.

This is what we want to be praying for more of.

That we would know the very will of God, that we would have wisdom from above that would take over our own wisdom and the worldly wisdom that's trying to influence us every single day.

And that we'd have the wisdom of God so that we could then walk in it and please him.

But we know, right, church, this is not automatic.

This doesn't just happen automatically.

We can't possibly do this without his help.

We wouldn't even know how to do it without his help, and so we must pray.

Like Paul.

We must adopt this prayer report and make it our own and pray these kinds of prayers.

Asking God to fill us in these ways so that we could walk in his ways.

We need to pray a prayer like, Lord, I want to please you today.

Please give me the insight that I need in order to know what this should look like.

I mean, do you do you realize that simply just stopping and asking, Lord, how can I please you today, or how can I please you in in this next hour?

If we were to ask and pray these kinds of prayers, our lives would be completely transformed.

But often we go throughout life neglecting to ask.

And yet we would all hopefully say that we desire to please the Lord in the way that we live.

So let's be reminded this morning to ask the Lord, to give us knowledge of his will, spiritual wisdom and understanding so that we can walk in a way that pleases him.

We must pray this kind of prayer.

Now, the third revelation that we see in this prayer report, Paul tells us, is what we will look like when we get it.

What will our lives look like when God answers this prayer?

First he tells us what we so desperately need, then he tells us why we so desperately need it, and then he tells us what we will look like when we get it.

At the end of verse 10, he says, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God.

May you be strengthened, he says, with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints and light.

Here we see four manifestations or four expressions of a life that is pleasing the Lord.

First, we can we can say this: I am living a life that is pleasing the Lord when I'm serving his people.

I can know that God is answering these kinds of prayers in my life.

He's answering this request, and he's helping me to walk in a way that is pleasing him first when I am serving his people.

That's what we see in in verse 10 when he says, bearing fruit, bearing fruit in every good work.

Paul begins with one of the clearest ways that we can discern if our lives are pleasing the Lord.

Am I bearing fruit?

Am I walking and living in good works?

Does this characterize my life?

Is this normal for me?

This is certainly included in God's will for us.

This is indisputable.

God desires his people to be living lives that are filled with good works.

We see in Ephesians 2, 10 that God has prepared good works for us to do.

We see in Titus chapter 2 and verse 7 that we are to show ourselves as believers in Jesus Christ in all respects to be a model of good works.

Titus 2 · chapter mention

Hebrews 10, I was thinking about this on the drive up this morning.

Hebrews 10, 24 tells us to consider how we might stir each other up to love and good works.

It's God's will that we bear the fruit of good works.

This is, when we do this, this is pleasing in his sight.

And now I want to make sure we keep this message distinctly Christian this morning.

It's likely in a room uh with this many people in it.

Uh, there's maybe some, one or two or more perhaps, uh, who are you're hearing me talk about pleasing the Lord.

You're you're hearing me talk even now about good works.

And we need to remember that the Christian message, the message of Jesus Christ is not do more good works, do enough good works, please God enough, and you shall inherit eternal life.

That is not the message of Christianity.

We could never do enough good works to earn a righteous standing before the Lord.

That's not what we're saying, that's not what I'm saying or what Paul's saying.

We need a Savior.

We need one who died in our place so that we could have forgiveness of sins.

We need one who has been raised from the dead so that we could have hope of eternal life.

Because although we could never please the Lord on our own, we could look to the one who lived a righteous life for us and who died and was raised again in our place so that we might have forgiveness of sins.

That is the Christian message, and that is distinct and different from every other religion or philosophy or ideology or any other thinking about eternal life or life after death.

But listen, God's word is crystal clear.

That those whom he has redeemed, those who he has saved, he calls to then live a life that is pleasing to him, a life that is filled with good works.

A life that in Philippians it says shines like stars against the backdrop of a dark universe.

Jesus tells his followers, go and live your life before others, doing good works, so that they'll see these good works and they'll glorify your Father who is in heaven.

So we are to be a people who are zealous for good works, not in order to earn God's favor, but as an act of worship before him because of what he's done for us.

The grace of God poured out into our lives.

To bring forth fruit from our lives.

And Jesus talks about this in John chapter 15, where he says, I am the vine and you are the branches.

John 15 · chapter mention

Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that what bears much fruit.

Actually, turn there.

Turn in your Bibles to John chapter 15, because what I want to do is I want to show you why I'm suggesting that an appropriate way we could say that we are pleasing the Lord with our lives by bearing fruit in every good work can be stated as serving his people.

John 15 · chapter mention

In John chapter 15, the Lord Jesus Christ is telling his disciples about what it means to bear fruit for God.

John 15 · chapter mention

He says in verse 4, Abide in me and I in you.

As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me.

I am the vine, you are the branches.

Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me, you can do nothing.

And he goes on, and he's talking about the branches, and he's talking about fruit-bearing and abiding in him and his commandments and our joy in all of this.

But I just want you to look down.

At verse 17, he says, All of these things, remember, in the context of bearing fruit, all of these things I command you so that you will love one another.

Loving one another.

And this is coming just a couple chapters after he washed the disciples' feet and he told them, Go and do the same, do likewise.

Love one another, church.

Serve one another.

This is good work, this is fruit-bearing that pleases the Lord.

Paul didn't just go around telling the churches to do this.

He did this himself.

I mean, he's telling this church that he prays for them constantly.

He's ministering to them even from afar.

His heart was always for others.

And so we can ask ourselves, you can ask yourself this morning, what am I doing to serve others in my church?

What am I doing to love and to serve one another?

How am I bearing fruit on Sunday mornings and throughout the week in ways that are pleasing to the Lord?

I mean, the globe is spinning faster and faster, it seems, doesn't it?

Year after year goes by.

It's 2020 already.

Can you believe that?

I've kind of reflected on that.

Not just that like 2019 went by like that, but it's 2020.

I I remember being a kid in the 80s.

2020 sound like like really that's never gonna happen.

And here we are in 2020.

And as we look at our lives and as we look at each calendar day and week and month and year, as it just keeps passing us by, here's what we need to be concentrating on.

Here's what we need to be praying for.

Lord, fill me with the knowledge of your will so I can live a life while I'm here on this earth, no matter how fast it goes, that's pleasing to you.

And a big part of this is bearing fruit.

Bearing fruit.

I want to be a fruit bearer.

I want you to be a fruit bearer.

I trust this is your heart this morning.

To be one who is doing good work, engaged daily in good works, serving and loving others, particularly others in your church, so that God can look down and watch your life and be pleased with you, his child.

And we see that living our lives is underwritten by the way that we think, right?

Having a knowledge and an understanding, having wisdom and discernment.

So, what gets in the way of this?

What kind of wrong thinking might get in the way of these expressions of life that are worthy to the Lord?

Here in this case, as we're looking at bearing fruit, we might say that selfishness, selfishness gets in the way, right?

Here's what we're prone to wander back towards, my way, right?

My will, my comfort, my entertainment, my glory, me, me, me.

I'd like to be the one being served, not necessarily be the one serving.

And it's the propensity toward this wrong thinking that just necessitates, again, our needing to pray to the Lord according to this end.

This prayer report is really instructive because it reminds us that we need to pray and ask God to continually reveal his will to us and to give us the understanding that we need so that we can bear fruit for Christ.

An example might be something like this: Lord, help me to see where your plan and your purpose of serving others fits into my life.

Show me how this ought to be paramount in my walk.

Forgive me, Lord, for being selfish and preferring me.

Lord, I want to please you by bearing fruit in every good work.

Help me to see who, help me to see how, help me to see when and where I can be growing in this area of my life.

Well, that's the first expression of a life that's pleasing to the Lord.

Next, we could say this: I'm living a life that is pleasing the Lord if I am studying his perfections.

Studying his perfections.

Verse 10 concludes in this way, it says, and increasing in the knowledge of God.

A second manifestation or evidence of a life that's pleasing the Lord here in this report from Paul is that we would be increasing in the knowledge of God.

This is God's will, that we would be growing in our awareness and in our understanding of who He is.

When this is happening in our lives, when our walk is characterized by growth in knowing and understanding God in a deep personal way, this is pleasing to him.

Right?

Just think about that.

The Lord is pleased when our hearts are being filled up more and more with an accurate understanding of what he's like, of what he's done, of how he's carrying out his will in this world and in all of eternity.

His perfections, or we could call it his attributes, are God's essential characteristics.

The essential characteristics of his nature, who he is, what he's like.

Paul, in another of his letters in Philippians chapter 4, verse 3, he cries out, he says, that I may know him, that I may know him, oh, that we may know him.

Philippians 4:3

Is this your heart's cry?

Is it your heart's cry that you may know the Lord?

And I'm not saying just once for all, I'm saying growing, increasing.

That's what the word of God says, right?

Increasing in the knowledge of God.

This is always to be happening.

This isn't something we just acquire when we got saved, or maybe earlier on when we were just learning things about the Christian walk.

No, this is something for each and every day of our lives.

Increasing in the knowledge of God.

Jeremiah chapter 9 comes to mind.

Jeremiah 9 · chapter mention

Maybe you know this passage.

The prophet says, Thus says the Lord, let not the wise man boast in his wisdom, let not the mighty man boast in his might, let not the rich man boast in his riches, but let him who boast boast in this, that he understands and knows me.

That I am the Lord, who practices steadfast love, justice, and righteousness in the earth.

For in these things, look, I delight, declares the Lord.

The Lord is pleased.

The Lord is pleased when we're growing in an understanding and a knowledge of Him.

And it's God who causes the growth in this area, no doubt.

But we take an active role in it, right?

We put ourselves into positions to either grow in the knowledge of God or not.

This comes by the choices that we make each and every day.

And this goal, one writer said, this goal can be achieved only through a humble study of God's self-revelation through the scriptures.

This is how we will increase in the knowledge of God through time spent in his word.

Getting to know him more and more, seeing his attributes page after page.

Are you growing in the knowledge of the Son of God?

Are you growing in the knowledge of the Holy Spirit?

Are you growing in the knowledge of God the Father?

It pleases God, and listen, it is good for your soul when this is happening in your walk.

But just as we said, selfishness gets in the way of serving others.

What is it in our thinking that gets in the way of growing in the knowledge of God?

I would say one of the biggest things that gets in the way is busyness.

Busyness and busyness, make no mistake about it, busyness is our thinking.

It's not just in how we spend our time, where we go, what we do.

Busyness begins in our thoughts.

We need to cry out to God, asking him to help us, right, discern with spiritual wisdom and understanding.

See here we're going back to the request.

Asking him, what is it that we need to say no to in order to say yes to something better?

And these things that we say no to, they they're not necessarily always bad things.

They could be good things.

But there's a better thing, and that's growing in the knowledge of God.

And sometimes we have to say no to the things that are calling for our attention.

Some of the other things in life so that we can say yes to spending time with the Lord so that we can get to know Him better.

Again, knowledge isn't the end goal here.

There's a greater end, and that's worship.

When we are increasing in the knowledge of God, we grow deeper and deeper as worshipers of God.

In love and adoration and praise, multiplies in our hearts, and our walk looks differently, and the Lord is pleased.

How could we turn something like this into a prayer that is in line with what we're seeing in God's word?

Maybe we could pray something like this: Lord, give me eyes to see more of who you are and what you're like.

Show me where my walk is not matching up to your glorious revelation that you've given to me of yourself.

Help me, God, to be a diligent student of your perfections so that I may please you by becoming a more and more passionate worshiper.

These are some weighty ideas, some weighty things that we're talking about this morning.

I mean, pleasing God, understanding his will, living according to how God would have us live.

This is not easy.

This is not easy to do, is it?

And this leads to the third manifestation or expression that we see in this particular prayer report of a life that's pleasing to the Lord.

Next we see I'm living a life that is pleasing the Lord if I am seeking his power.

Seeking his power.

Look with me at verse 11.

Paul says, may you be strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy.

See, when we are joyfully persevering in the Christian life, it's by the power that he works within us.

And God is pleased with this because it's his will that this be the case.

See, God has set forth in his word many commandments, many instructions for how we ought to live.

He's told us what he desires.

And yet it's not easy, and in fact, we can't even do it, can we?

Not apart from him.

That's what Jesus said.

Apart from me, you can do nothing.

Another writer said, God never asked his children to do anything without first supplying them with the power to do it.

But we need to ask.

We need to pray.

We need to call out to the Lord.

Because even embracing and fulfilling God's will sometimes feels, doesn't it feel like you're trying to push a thousand-pound weight sometimes just to do what you know God would have you do in your life?

Sometimes it's like pushing it up a hill in a snowstorm.

It's hard.

It's hard, but but God says, ask of me.

Ask of me, and I will show you that my strength can be perfected in your weakness.

I will show you how to endure through the difficult pressures of life.

Depend on me, he says.

This is pleasing to me.

When you, as my child, come to me for help.

He says, and when you do, I'll teach you patience.

I will help you with those difficult people and those hard situations that seem so impossible in your life.

God promises, I will be your strength.

I will help you to do what's so hard to do, and I'll even help you to do it with joy.

With joy.

I just want to be so done with giving up on this and making excuses and or having good intentions that just lack follow-through.

I know I don't have the power.

But I want to be one who looks to God, to be strengthened with his power, and to be able to do this with joy.

What could we say might get in the way of our being strengthened with his power?

And I think, even as this is the theme of the entire message, I think right here we need to say it's prayerlessness.

It's prayerlessness.

We sometimes find that Christian life is so hard, living out our lives in a way that pleases him is difficult, and we don't know how we're gonna do it, and maybe we're spinning our wheels sometimes, not making any progress.

And maybe it's because we're not stopping and praying and asking the Lord.

Maybe we could pray a prayer like this: Lord, I need you every moment of every day.

God, would you give me spiritual wisdom?

Would you give me understanding so that I could be reminded that you have purposes in my trials?

When I'm confused, when I'm uncertain in life, when my knees are weak and wobbly, God, give me understanding so that I can persevere with joy through these hardships.

I want to please you, Lord, but I'm weak.

Please strengthen me by your power to live a life that is worthy of your name and pleasing in your sight.

I'm living a life that is pleasing the Lord when I am serving his people, when I am studying his perfections, when I am seeking his power.

And now we come to the final expression of a life that is pleasing to the Lord that we see in this particular prayer report.

And it's this I'm living a life that is pleasing the Lord if I am celebrating his provision.

Celebrating his provision.

Look at the beginning of verse 12, giving thanks to the Father.

This is how Paul describes the fruit or the outflow of one whose life is marked as pleasing the Lord, as walking in a way that is worthy of the Lord.

Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving is so pleasing to the Lord, and it ought to be a distinguishing mark of each and every one of our lives.

It's his will that we would be a thankful people.

We're reminded of this in 1 Thessalonians chapter 5.

1 Thessalonians 5 · chapter mention

The apostle writes, rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.

Even just a quick glance at the writing ministry of the Apostle Paul shows us that he, again, didn't just say, tell others to do this.

He did this himself.

Look up, even in this chapter at verse 3, Paul says, this is how he begins.

After his greeting, he says, we always thank God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, when we pray for you.

Paul says that one of the greatest evidences that our lives are pleasing to the Lord is that when we are thankful toward our Heavenly Father for what He's done for us in our lives.

And he goes on here to elaborate on the eternal blessings that he has provided for us that we ought to be thankful for.

Who has qualified you, he says, to share in the inheritance of the saints in light.

We read these verses and we just say, Thanks be to God.

Thanks be to God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

What gifts he has given to us, what undeserved favor, what grace and mercy he has poured out upon us if you are in Christ Jesus this morning.

Apart from him, our only inheritance would be eternal wrath.

We would still be lost in darkness.

We would be citizens of the kingdom of wickedness.

As we sung this morning, we would be breathing, yes, but we would not be alive.

But at just the right time, he sent his son to pay the debt that we owe, to take our place, to experience the just penalty for the sins that we've committed.

And in Christ, God the Father has qualified us.

He's qualified us to share in the inheritance.

We're not qualified in and of ourselves.

If you're here this morning and you don't know the Lord Jesus Christ, you're not qualified to share in the inheritance of the heavenly glory.

None of us were.

None of us are.

We have to be qualified by another.

And so through Jesus Christ, we are authorized to have a share in this inheritance.

We are made holy.

We are separated unto him through his blood.

We're delivered, it says.

Do you guys ever watch those those shows, or maybe even in the news, the special forces, they go in on a rescue mission, they go behind enemy lines, and they and they rescue and they bring out of the darkness, out of captivity to freedom.

Deliverance.

That's what we've been given in Christ Jesus.

And not just delivered out of our sin and unrighteousness.

But transferred, right?

Transferred somewhere, the word of God says, into the kingdom of Christ Jesus.

Setting us free from the penalty of sin, setting us free from the power of sin, and giving us the promise of the hope that one day we will be altogether free from the presence of sin.

How could we not be a thankful people?

And when we express our thanksgiving back to God for all that he's done for us in these ways, this is pleasing to him.

This is pleasing in his sight.

I would say that an obstacle that so often gets in the way of our being a thankful, continuously thankful people is short-sightedness.

Short-sightedness.

We get wrapped up in our earthly circumstances.

Some of them, for sure, very difficult.

I'm not trying to say that they're not difficult.

But they become paramount.

Or we get wrapped up in not having what we want to have right now.

And we neglect to be thankful for that which far outweighs everything else we could ever see with our eyes on this earth.

We ought to be a thankful people when we're thinking the way God is thinking.

And when our thinking leads us to live out our life in a way that is pleasing to Him, that is worthy of Him and everything that He's done for us.

We might pray a prayer like this: Lord, I want to please you by having a heart of gratitude.

I know it's your will for me to be thankful.

I know I ought to be thankful, and I'm often not, so please, God, help me.

Give me spiritual wisdom and understanding in how to remain thankful, even when in my flesh I'm tempted to think otherwise.

Help me not to lose sight of the eternal blessings you've provided for me in Christ Jesus my Lord, and lack gratitude towards so worthy a redeemer.

May the Lord give us what we so desperately need.

May we ask him for it.

May he continue to fill us with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding so that we could walk in a manner that is worthy of him, fully pleasing in his sight.

I hope your hearts are stirred this morning to want more of this.

To want more of what the Apostle Paul writes to just one church in a place, I just think it's so significant that he's never been to this church, because we can see in this prayer report, any of us can pray this kind of prayer.

This is for all people of God, everywhere of all time.

May your hearts long for more.

May you pattern your prayers after the apostles' prayers, knowing that this kind of prayer is honoring to the Lord and will lead you down the right path and will help you to walk in a way that is pleasing to Him.