Ten Reasons to Give God Praise, Part 1

When were feeling the pinch of limited resources. It's a lot easier to grumble and complain about the things we don't have 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 will 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 10 reasons to give God 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 three through 14 of this first chapter follow along carefully. This this is not easy reading. Nor is it. Is it an entertaining kind of message but it's an important one. Ephesians 1 verse three 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 fullness 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 position to the praise of his glory are to relieve you don't have to preach on that today that somebody else's responsibility, but you do have an important task, and that's to listen and ultimately to respond to what the Lord is said, let's pray together, Lord, we come from all different walks of life we live in different kind of places we we have different backgrounds.

We we have gone through different scarring and difficult experiences. Some come with a 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 in 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 God like this deserves our praise as we have song 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 and submission gratitude and the strong name of Christ, who is doing his work in us, we pray while 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 it 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 that lived a life of dignity and humility and was a wonderful mix of courage, faithfulness, dogged determination, but quiet trust even worship Robert E Lee. If you are a lover biography and if you enjoy the lives of great women and men in your extracurricular reading. I could recommend a 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. Just about five years following the end of the war which has lingered on and on.

During this time in the scars or deepen in 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 AM.

The Rev. Pendleton Dr. William S. Flight Stonewall Jackson's pastor and Dr. William Jones, former chaplain in the Confederate Army all delivered eulogies Dr. Pelton preach from the text of Psalm 37 after the service. Lee's body was removed from the president's house to the chapel. The referring to the college of Washington changed at the death of Lita Washington and Lee College. Lee's body was removed from the president's house to the chapel worriedly in state until the next day on the morning of October 15 a long procession of older 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 there places were taken by the plain privates who had come down from the mountain's and coves of Virginia. Fittingly it was it was the man 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 year. 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 Rev. Pendleton the gathered congregation began to sing how firm a foundation, the famous hymn. Gen. 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 man who had song so many times with their general is not great. The man who had song 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 were 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 Gen. Lee and the 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 the of Ephesians 3 and had found an interesting observation that the word blessing, which is sometimes rendered praises and the word eulogy or from the same Greek term eulogy are you like get oh, which means a good word you look at all to say a good word. In fact, Webster's says that the term means to speak well of someone that's what 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 are blessed to show you something. Look at chapter 1 of Ephesians in verse three and you will find not one, not two, but three times. This word eulogy or eulogy appears and to emphasize it. I'll use it sounds 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 that is the right away.

It sounds strange to read that word in your but that is the original the original term and what 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 in all my study. No one mentioned it, but it occurred to me that this is a this is a great statement of of declaration of blessing that comes to us because we are believers in Christ and therefore these things are ours to claimant to enjoy and in fact when you read this. This section of three through 14. It is, it is like reading a grand benediction.

In fact, three times. It is interspersed in the benediction or are words that are very similar look at verse six to the praise of the glory of his grace the end of verse 12, to the praise of his glory, the universe 14 to the praise of his glory. I sometime like marking my Bible to not mark that with a little yellow colored pen.

I just marked the praise of his glory, glory in Greek is dockside 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 sometimes miss the reading of the creeds in the eventual evangelical churches like ours, you miss the statements that that declare and have declared through the centuries 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 three through six were 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 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 work plan. They were initiated by the father. They were implemented by the sun and they were empowered by the spirit. The father in eternity past is emphasized in verses three through six, the son who is implementing the plan is emphasized in verses seven through 12 and then were introduced to the spirit who empowers the plan in 13 and 14 exciting nobody looks excited, but it's exciting to me when I see that the father initiates the son implements spirit empowers say those three words. The father initiates the son implements the spirit empowers us 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 coequal coal eternal coexistent all the same attributes but three distinct persons three distinct personalities who have definite functions that are involved in the father and I realize it's an oversimplification in any illustration you use those 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 sun was dispatched from heaven to earth to become the sacrifice for sin, the Lamb of God, Mary's little lamb who would take away the sins of the world by his blood, he implemented the plan. The father initiated in 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 in the spirit empowering what I find in this grand doxology and what I call this is 10 reasons to give God praise. They are all right here for us. We looked at them quickly in our last study and were back to them a little more in depth today and some of you think old man were going deeper than last time, we are and I have to tell you it it 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 I going down the never seen anyone go.

Oh this is fascinating means less school – 08. Nobody does that you're weird if you do that sort of thing, but if you're going to have a great deal. You gotta go back to the lid and they're all right here for 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 but God is the initiator he blesses me.

I don't bless him.

He blesses us. He pours out his eulogy is a good word on our behalf.

He does that constantly and noticed the blessings are in Christ in the heavenly they are spiritual blessings.

Colossians 210 says in him you have been made complete that magnificent. I've been made complete. I don't have the labor to somehow get his attention and when his favor and hope for his understanding and plea for his acceptance now know it's all there chewers. All the spiritual blessings and observe they are spiritual blessings which means many of them are unseen worn weirs rewrites the Christian really operates in two spheres, the human and the divine. The visible and the invisible physically and he is on the earth in a human body but spiritually he is seated with Christ in the heavenly place 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 heaven's with Jesus Christ and this is the basis of his life.

How positionally our heavenly father sees his children as in the sun and therefore he all the blessings he set aside for the son because we are seated in Christ hours to claim and live in the power thousand Chuck Swindoll titled his presentation. 10 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 learn more about this ministry.

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