Ten Reasons to Give God Praise, Part 1

When we're feeling the pinch of limited resources, it's a lot easier to grumble and complain about the things we don't have than be grateful for the many things we do. It takes a deliberate decision, a choice, to maintain a grateful heart. Today on Insight for Living, Chuck Swindoll continues our study in the book of Ephesians. As we venture into the first chapter of Paul's letter, we'll see that he's given us ample evidence that God's children are the recipients of lavish blessings.

For that reason, Chuck titled today's message, Ten Reasons to Give God Praise. With your Bible open to Ephesians chapter 1, and if you're following along our suggestion of reading it through each week, it probably begins to fall open by itself these days. I want to read what is in the original text one uninterrupted sentence, verses 3 through 14 of this first chapter.

Follow along carefully. This is not easy reading, nor is it an entertaining kind of message, but it's an important one. Ephesians 1 verse 3, 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 would be holy and blameless before Him. In love, He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved. In Him, we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace, which He lavished on us. In all wisdom and insight, He made known to us the mystery of His will, according to His kind intention, which He purposed in Him, with a view to an administration suitable to the fulness of the times. That is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth. In Him, also, we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to His purpose, who works all things after the counsel of His will, to the end that we who were the first to hope in Christ would be to the praise of His glory. In Him, you also, after listening to the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation, having also believed, you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance with a view to the redemption of God's own possession, to the praise of His glory. Aren't you relieved you don't have to preach on that today? That's somebody else's responsibility. But you do have an important task, and that's to listen and ultimately to respond to what the Lord has said.

Let's pray together. Lord, we come from all different walks of life. We live in different kind of places. We have different backgrounds. We have gone through different scarring and difficult experiences. Some come with wounded and broken hearts. Others are here virtually on the mountaintop of joy and delight.

Some come with one kind of need and others with another. But the ground is all level at the foot of the cross, and that's where we are as we sing of you, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of Peter and Paul and John and James, and the God of our lives. We worship You, Lord. We thank You for not leaving us where we were, but for bringing us to where You would have us be. Thank You for having begun a good work in us.

You will complete it, and it will all work together for good. A God like this deserves our praise, as we have sung to you, and deserves our best gifts to the extremes of generosity. And that is why we now pause to give to you. We do it because you are completing a good work that you have begun, and we do it out of obedience, submission, and gratitude in the strong name of Christ, who's doing His work in us, we pray.

Amen. Well, I'm reading a wonderful book called Call of Duty. I'm fascinated by it because it is a category of book that I love, biography. It takes place in an era that I find fascinating, which is the war between the states and one of the great personalities who played a major role in that conflict. And because it is about a person who led with such integrity, lived a life of dignity and humility, and was a wonderful mix of courage, faithfulness, a dogged determination, but quiet trust, even worship. Robert E. Lee.

If you are a lover of biography, and if you enjoy the lives of great women and men in your extracurricular reading, I could recommend Stephen Wilkins' book, Call of Duty. I was especially moved when I came to the death of Lee, which happened during the horrors of the Reconstruction period, just about five years following the end of the war, which has lingered on and on during this time. And the scars are deep, and the anguish that is felt is is profound. The man who had won the hearts of the people now broke their hearts with his death, and northerners and southerners alike grieve his passing. Wilkins writes, the funeral was set for October 14 at 9 a.m. The Reverend Pendleton, Dr. William S. White, Stonewall Jackson's pastor, and Dr. William Jones, former chaplain in the Confederate Army, all delivered eulogies.

Dr. Pendleton preached from the text of Psalm 37. After the service, Lee's body was removed from the president's house to the chapel. They're referring to the College of Washington, changed at the death of Lee to Washington and Lee College. Lee's body was removed from the president's house to the chapel where it lay in state until the next day. On the morning of October 15, a long procession of old soldiers, students, VMI cadets, townspeople, and visiting dignitaries formed in front of the president's house and proceeded in grim parade through the principal streets of Lexington. The veterans wore black ribbons on the lapels of their coats.

The military institute flew the flags of all the southern states at half-mast. Many of Lee's famous officers were kept away from the ceremonies by a flood in the region. Their places were taken by the plain privates who had come down from the mountains and coves of Virginia. Fittingly, it was the men whom Lee thought the most honorable of all who came to pay their respects to the one they had followed and loved for four memorable years. These were men of few words but solid convictions.

They had been silent as they passed by his body. They had been reserved in the display of their emotions as they participated in the ceremonies of the day, but no one felt more deeply than they the realities of life and death. When the final committal had been read by Reverend Pendleton, the gathered congregation began to sing, how firm a foundation the famous hymn General Lee had loved so much in his lifetime. Once again, the familiar sound of the singing of the Army of Northern Virginia rang across the valley. The men who had sung so many times with their general, isn't that a great thought? The men who had sung so many times with their general gave him his last tribute by singing at the top of their voices the praises of God and of his great salvation.

The old hymn echoed off the buildings of the town and the surrounding mountains themselves rang with the beautiful melody. It was perhaps the most fitting epitaph of all. Interestingly, as I read that I had just finished my my work in Ephesians 1, the passage we're looking at today, and my eye caught two words that I would not have connected because they are so different in English. I read to you that those who officiated at the funeral read their eulogies in honor of General Lee. And then a little later I read of the singing of those who had gathered for that last committal service as they sang their praises to God. Eulogies and praises. I had just done the work in the text of Ephesians 3 and had found an interesting observation that the word blessing, which is sometimes rendered praises, is and the word eulogy are from the same Greek term eulogia or eulageo, which means a good word.

Eulageo, to say a good word. In fact, Webster says that the term means to speak well of someone. That's what a eulogy is. I have written eulogies in my ministry, which I have read and which have been read by others, and they are always words of blessing or praise for the life of someone who has now passed on. And it was my desire that people understood, as I had met and known this person, some of these good things about the individual who is now deceased. Eulogies, praises, or blessing.

Let me show you something. Look at chapter 1 of Ephesians and verse 3 and you will find not one, not two, but three times this word eulogia or eulogy appears. And to emphasize it, I'll use it and it'll sound strange because it doesn't carry in our minds in English what it carries in the original. Eulogies be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has eulogized us with every spiritual eulogy in the heavenly places in Christ.

Now you see right away it sounds strange to read that word in here, but that is the original term. And what it is is a statement of praise or a statement of blessing to us, if you will. This is God's eulogy for us. I've never read that anywhere else and in all my study no one mentioned it, but it occurred to me that this is a great statement of a declaration of blessing that comes to us because we are believers in Christ and therefore these things are ours to claim and to enjoy. In fact, when you read this section of 3 through 14, it is like reading a grand benediction.

In fact, three times it interspersed in the benediction are words that are very similar. Look at verse 6, to the praise of the glory of his grace. The end of verse 12, to the praise of his glory. The end of verse 14, to the praise of his glory.

I sometimes like marking my Bibles and I've marked that with a little yellow colored pen. I've just marked the praise of his glory. Glory in Greek is doxa. We get our word doxology from it. To the praise of God's doxology.

This is like a doxology. If you come from a high church background, you sometime miss the reading of the creeds in evangelical churches like ours. You miss the statements that declare and have declared through the centuries the greatness of God. Creeds often revolve around the trinity. The Father, the Son, the Spirit.

This doxology, this benediction, this creed does the same. In verses 3 through 6, we're moved to eternity past before there was ever matter, light, darkness, time, earth, living things, the planets, the world that we call familiar. All of that was not there then, and in the eternal ages where there was only the Godhead, Father, Son, and Spirit.

Stay with me. Father, Son, and Spirit. There was the arrangement of things as they would run their course on this earth when time began. And in fact, the arrangement of events in eternity past were planned, they were initiated by the Father, they were implemented by the Son, and they were empowered by the Spirit. The Father in eternity past is emphasized in verses 3 through 6. The Son who is implementing the plan is emphasized in verses 7 through 12. And then we're introduced to the Spirit who empowers the plan in 13 and 14. Isn't that exciting?

Nobody looks excited, but it's exciting to me when I see that. The Father initiates, the Son implements, the Spirit empowers. Say those three words. The Father initiates, the Son implements, the Spirit empowers.

Let's do it again. The Father initiates, the Son implements, the Spirit empowers. You see, what we have in the Godhead is three persons in one. Co-equal, co-eternal, co-existent.

All the same attributes, but three distinct persons, three distinct personalities who have definite functions that they're involved in. The Father, I realize it's an oversimplification and any illustration you use does that, however it helps. In the Father's mind is the initiating of the events of life as they will unfold, especially regarding spiritual things. The Son was dispatched from heaven to earth to become the sacrifice for sin. The Lamb of God marries little lamb who would take away the sins of the world by his blood. He implemented the plan the Father initiated and the Spirit of God empowers this work as it moves right on through time unto the ultimate fulfillment in glory when we will stand before him face to face. Ephesians 1 is about all of that.

The Father initiating, the Son implementing, and the Spirit empowering. What I find in this grand doxology and what I've called this is ten reasons to give God praise. They're all right here for us. We looked at them quickly in our last study and we're back to them a little more in depth today and some of you think, oh man, we're going deeper than last time.

We are. And I have to tell you it isn't entertaining. Neither is a grocery list, but it sure helps if you're going to have a great meal. I've never seen anyone along the aisles and I do the shopping in our family and I'm going down the, I've never seen anyone go, oh this is fascinating, beans, lettuce, squash, oh spaghetti. Nobody does that.

You're weird if you do that sort of thing, but if you're going to have a great meal you got to go back to the list and they're all right here for you. The first is in verse three. We looked at it earlier. Look at the first in God's eulogy because he has blessed us with every spiritual blessing. That's why I praise him. Every spiritual bless.

God is the initiator. He blesses me. I don't bless him. He blesses us. He pours out his eulogia, his good word on our behalf. He does that constantly and notice the blessings are in Christ in the heavenlies. They are spiritual blessings. Colossians 2 10 says in him you have been made complete. Isn't that magnificent? I've been made complete. I don't have to labor to somehow get his attention and win his favor and hope for his understanding and plead for his acceptance. No, no, it's all there.

It's yours. All the spiritual blessings and observe they are spiritual blessings which means many of them are unseen. Warren Wiersbe writes, the Christian really operates in two spheres, the human and the divine, the visible and the invisible. Physically he is on the earth in a human body but spiritually he is seated with Christ in the heavenly places and it is this heavenly sphere that provides the power and direction for the earthly walk. The president of the United States is not always seated at his desk in the White House but that executive chair represents the sphere of his life and power. No matter where he is, he is the president because only he has the privilege of sitting at that desk. Likewise with the Christian, no matter where he may be on this earth, he is seated in the heavenlies with Jesus Christ and this is the basis of his life and power.

Isn't that great? Positionally our heavenly father sees his children as in the Son and therefore all the blessings he set aside for the Son, because we are seated in Christ, are ours to claim and live in the power of. In a message originally delivered in the year 2000, Chuck Swindoll titled his presentation, Ten Reasons to Give God Praise.

And obviously we have a long way to go so we urge you to stay with us through this helpful series. You're listening to Insight for Living and to learn more about this ministry visit us online at insightworld.org. To help you dig deeper on your own I'll remind you that Chuck has written a commentary on Paul's letter to the Ephesians. In fact this particular book is paired with Galatians as well. The format is user-friendly, providing cultural context and some of the history behind Paul's letter. In addition to helping you discover the rich meaning of Paul's writing, Chuck provides ample opportunity for you to apply what you've learned along the way as well. To purchase Swindoll's Living Insights commentary on Galatians and Ephesians, call us.

If you're listening in the United States dial 1-800-772-8888 or go online to insight.org slash store. And then before we close today I'd like to pass along an encouraging comment from one of your fellow listeners and in doing so express our thanks for your financial support of Insight for Living. Recently a listener left a comment that said, thank you for your ministry Pastor Swindoll. Years ago your voice became a welcome encouragement in my life as a middle schooler and high schooler as my mom would listen to you on the radio in our home. I'm a pastor now and appreciate your faithfulness so much. Well you know this pastor's gratitude belongs to our monthly companions and anyone who gives a donation to Insight for Living. You're the channel Guide uses to provide this daily Bible teaching even to unsuspecting teenagers who grow up to become pastors.

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In fact it's quite possible that God has used our daily program to extend his grace to you. Well these daily visits with Chuck are made possible in part by monthly companions and we're inviting you to join this influential team of monthly supporters. Sign up today by calling us. If you're listening in the United States dial 1-800-772-8888. Please jot down our contact information and follow the Lord's prompting. When you do that you'll become an elegant bouquet, a sweet fragrance of God's grace here at home and all around the world. Become a monthly companion by calling us. If you're listening in the United States call 1-800-772-8888 or go online to insight.org monthly companion. Join us again tomorrow when Chuck Swindoll continues to describe 10 Reasons to Give God Praise right here on Insight for Living. The preceding message 10 Reasons to Give God Praise was copyrighted in 2000, 2001, 2008, and 2009 and the sound recording was copyrighted in 2009 by Charles R. Swindoll, Inc. All rights are reserved worldwide. Duplication of copyrighted material for commercial use is strictly prohibited.