Prayer: Gratitude to God
Philippians 1:2–4
Philippians Lesson #005
May 19, 2022
Dr. Robert L. Dean, Jr.
www.deanbibleministries.org
Opening Prayer
“Our Father, we thank You so much for the way You work in our lives, orchestrating so many circumstances and so many situations to teach us, to give us opportunities to stretch our faith, to apply that which we have learned.
“To be able to focus on You instead of the details of life, instead of our own emotions and our own circumstances, that we might learn to walk more closely with You. That we might come to understand that our lives are all about glorifying You and not spending time on ourselves. That we are to be God-centered and not me-centered.
“Father, we pray that as we study tonight that we may understand these principles as well, as we begin to talk about prayer and the significance of prayer. And we pray these things now in Christ’s name. Amen.”
Slide 2
Open your Bibles to Philippians 1. We are now in our fifth lesson in Philippians, getting out of the salutation this evening and into the first part of the introduction.
We will get into Philippians 1:3 to some degree, starting to talk about prayer. A key part of prayer is gratitude. There are four elements to prayer. I have an acronym for remembering this: CATS.
C is for confession,
A is for adoration,
T is for thanksgiving,
S is for supplication. That has two parts: intercession for others and petition for oneself.
We will be looking and focusing on thanksgiving as we go through this section from Philippians 1:3–11.
Slide 3
Just to give you an overview of the outline at this opening part, the introduction covers Philippians 1:1–8. The greeting is in Philippians 1:1–2. Then Paul expresses his concern and his prayer for the Philippians in Philippians 1:3–8. A third part of that will be the second part of the prayer in Philippians 1:9–11.
Then we will get into Paul’s joy for the expansion of the gospel, which takes us through Philippians 1:12–26.
Then there is a shift to unity. That is a major element of this whole Epistle, is how to have unity and really have a life of joy that is not characterized by discord and disagreement and disunity.
There are hints of that in the opening salutation, if we think about it long enough. There are some things that are going on there that foreshadow what is coming. This second section goes from Philippians 1:27 through the end of Philippians 2. That gives us a little bit of the overview.
Slide 4
We have looked at Philippians 1:1 already, and we have gone through what Paul is emphasizing here. These opening two verses are typical of how a letter or an Epistle would have been written at that time in history.
I don’t know how things have changed since I don’t write formal letters, but I know that from the time I was in high school to the time I was in graduate school, the format changed a little bit. The format has probably changed two or three times since then, but these things do that. So you can actually date things by their format.
If you look at a real estate contract today compared to a real estate contract from 50 years ago, you will see a number of things that are different. And you can date that. That is basically what is done when you look at ancient manuscripts. You are able to categorize and classify on the basis of their format, just because things like that will change over the course of time.
This is a typical way in which you would address a letter. The sender gives you his name at the beginning, and then addresses those to whom he is sending the letter, and then might say something that is a quick summary that comes at the very beginning of the letter.
We saw at the very beginning of our study that the Apostle Paul is writing, and he included Timothy. I think he included Timothy for several reasons, one of which is that Timothy was with him when he established the church, founded the church in Philippi. Timothy was also with him on some other times when they revisited Philippi, and then Timothy is with him in Rome.
Paul is in Rome under house arrest. Timothy was with him there and will be taking this letter to the church in Philippi. By including Timothy, Paul is basically including him in full agreement with everything that he says. So this is very important.
The next phrase, which I spent some time on last time: “slaves of Christ.” It is interesting that when Paul writes these salutations, usually there is no one else with him. On a few occasions there is someone else, but he will not include them with this appositional type of phrase.
He might say he is a prisoner of the Lord, he might say something else, but he does not include them. But he includes Timothy with him. He and Timothy are both identified as slaves of Jesus Christ.
So we have to ask this question: why is he including Timothy in this designation? And what is the significance of the identification of being a slave of Jesus Christ?
I think that this word, slave of Jesus Christ, is something that applies to two different approaches. By saying it this way, he is indicating something about Paul and Timothy, and that this “slave of Jesus Christ” applies to both of them. But he is also reminding the readers that they, like Paul and Timothy, are also positionally slaves of Jesus Christ.
Slide 5
This idea of being a slave—I ran across this reference today looking at another commentary that talks about how to translate the word DOULOS for slave. It is in the plural here.
“The word DOULOI often translated ‘servants,’ literally on its sociological background means ‘slaves.’ ” That is not a word that Americans are comfortable with because of the background of slavery in the U.S. and everything that is made out of it. But that is the idea.
The author of the commentary is really quoting from a couple of different sources in this. He says this is “a word that carries the normally negative ideas of abasement, subservience, and total submissiveness. Slavery was a commonplace feature in the Roman world of the first century, and a fact of life seldom questioned or challenged …
“There was no autonomy for the slave. His own will was totally subject to the will of another, so that he was a person with ‘no right of personal choice.’ The service he provided was not voluntary but forced. He was totally in bondage to the claims of his master. He had no rights and no freedoms.”
This reminds us of what Paul says in two different places in 1 Corinthians, that we have been bought with a price, and therefore we are not our own. We have been bought from the slave market of sin, so that the reality is, as believers, we never really had true autonomy. We think we do. We think that we are acting independently and on our own.
Slide 6
But as Romans 6 points out, we are slaves of unrighteousness, slaves of our sin natures to begin with. Then when we are saved, we get a new owner. We are bought with a price. We are bought out of the slave market of sin. And now our master is the Lord Jesus Christ.
But we act in a rebellious fashion, and we want to go back and enslave ourselves again to the sin nature, much as the Jews in the Exodus generation griped and complained as they had freedom, and they wanted to go back to the leeks and garlics of Egypt.
Slide 7
Another idea that is present in the term “slavery” takes us back to what Jesus said to the disciples in Mark 10:43–45, where He states, “Yet it shall not be so among you.” He is contrasting the leadership style of a Christian and of a disciple with the leadership style of the Gentiles, which was from a position of arrogance and abuse.
He says, “Yet it shall not be so among you; but whoever desires to become great among you shall be your servant.” That is the softer word DIAKONOS, where we get our word “deacon.”
But then Jesus says in Mark 10:44, “And whoever of you desires to be first shall be slave of all.” He shifts back to DOULOS at that point.
Then He says, “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many.” That is the ultimate picture of what it means to be a servant: the picture of Christ coming and humbling Himself to the point of death. That is Philippians 2:5–11, the picture of what humility is.
When Paul used this term, the subtext here is a reminder that as slaves of Christ, we are to be submissive to His authority. We are not to be living our lives for us, we are to be living our lives for Christ. If we are living for ourselves, the result is going to be divisiveness and arguing and grumbling and complaining, all of these ideas that are brought up in the Epistle.
We are instead to be unified and to be serving one another. By using this phrase at the very beginning, he is foreshadowing one of the major themes in this Epistle.
Slide 8
The two verses in 1 Corinthians I mentioned were 1 Corinthians 3:23 and 1 Corinthians 7:23. “And you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.”
“You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men.” In Romans 6, it was “slaves of the sin nature.”
Slide 9
The second part of the introduction or the address is that it is “to all the saints,” a word often misunderstood. One of the trends I saw in the commentaries is to try to get around the “holiness language” that you get with the word “saint,” that this is some sort of super-class of Christians. They usually talk about the Old Testament, qadosh, and to emphasize, “A good way to translate it is ‘God’s people.’ ” So it is to all of God’s people.
The problem with that is, “God’s people” is often used today to refer to both Church Age—and the word saint is as well—and to anyone who is a believer. You are God’s people. That is open, just as “saint” is, to ambiguity.
A lot of people have trouble when they read passages in Daniel about the saints. They read passages in Matthew 24, which is about the Tribulation, and it mentions saints. And they think of these as all the same group, one people of God.
But there are Old Testament saints, there are Church Age saints, there are Tribulation saints, and there are Millennial saints. Just because you have the one word “saint,” it does not mean that there is only one people of God. So that “people of God” language, I think, can be improved upon, and it is better to just identify it as “set apart ones in Christ Jesus.”
Slide 10
I pointed out last week in this chart that at the instant of salvation we are set apart to God because we are identified with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection, which is called the baptism by the Holy Spirit. At that instant of faith alone in Christ alone, we are immediately identified with Christ in His death, burial, and resurrection. That is the significance of the word “baptism”—is identification. And that is our new position, our legal position before God.
We are justified, redeemed, propitiated, all of these other things. But what we are focusing on right now is just this word “saint.” So what Paul is saying in this address to the saints is that it is to all of them as well. There is no classification or distinction between clergy and laity as an official kind of division. It is addressed to all believers.
Slide 11
And then we saw that he also included, for specificity’s sake, “with the overseers and deacons.”
Slide 12
We looked at the terminology here, that the word translated as “overseer” is the second word in this list, and that is EPISKOPOS. Old King James translated it as “bishop.” That was the term.
What happened in early church history was the period known as the Apostolic Fathers. They are not the Apostles. They are the ones who were taught by the Apostles, the next generation. In that early period from about AD 110 to about 160 or 170, you had a change in the way this was applied within the local church.
Prior to this, an elder, a pastor, an overseer was all the same person. But then they split it out, and the pastor or the elder were the leaders in local churches. And then in a metropolitan area, there would be one who would be elevated as the primus inter pares, the first among equals. He would be called the monarchical bishop.
He becomes the one who has an authority over the other pastors, and that is how you develop what became known as an Episcopal form of government. You have this hierarchy, but that is not what the Bible authorizes at all.
You have elders. Elders is a term that emphasizes maturity: spiritual maturity among the individual, probably in association with human maturity, with emotional maturity, physical maturity, because there are some things you just have to be around awhile to learn, and it takes time to grow.
In my church in Dallas, they had an elder government, and there was not a man in the church over 40. I do not think a single one of those elders was qualified to be an elder, a pastor. They were not able to teach, [nor did they have] other qualifications that are there. So that becomes a problem.
There is always the issue with whether a church should have multiple elders, a plurality of elders. One of the practical issues is, in a church of under a hundred, you are not going to have that many, unless they have all been around studying the Word, and you have a mature congregation, much as we have, where you have a lot of men who have been in the Word for 30 or 40 years.
But back then in Dallas, when they were starting a new Bible church about every three months, nobody in those churches was over 35 or 40, and you did not have anybody who was really trained or mature enough yet in terms of leadership.
You have the elder, and in Acts 20 he is expected to shepherd the sheep. This is seen in Acts 20:28 and 1 Peter 5:1. The verb for “pastor” is used in those passages, which shows that these three terms refer to the leader of the church from a different vantage point.
Slide 13
I pointed out last time that in the qualifications for an overseer in 1 Timothy 3:1, EPISKOPOS is in the singular. But when he gives the qualifications for a deacon, the noun for deacon is in the plural. That is often frequently overlooked. One elder, singular, multiple deacons.
Slide 14
Paul goes on now in Philippians 1:2. He gives his greeting, his salutation, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” What is interesting is, this phrase is used in an identical sense in every Epistle except for 1st and 2nd Timothy and Titus. The pastoral Epistles do not include this.
Slide 15
However, in 1 Timothy and Titus there is a variation. 2 Timothy does not have anything like it. 1 Timothy 1:2, it is “Grace, mercy, and peace from God our Father and Jesus Christ our Lord.” And in Titus 1:4, it is “Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ our Savior.”
But in every other Epistle that Paul wrote, it is the same identical phrase, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” What is interesting is how the Holy Spirit, through inspiration, has Paul redefine the typical greeting.
You have a letter that is written in its format like the format of any typical letter of its time. But Paul is going to modify it just a little bit under the inspiration of Scripture.
Slide 16
He uses the Greek word CHARIS. The typical greeting in the Greco-Roman Empire at this time was the form of the word, CHAIREIN. That is how you would greet someone and have a greeting at the beginning of a letter. It was CHAIREIN. But this is CHARIS.
CHARIS emphasizes grace. It emphasizes unmerited favor, undeserved kindness. That is what is emphasized here, that grace is to the reader, and it comes from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. It has a distinctive source.
But it was not ever said like that in any normal letter. It would just be CHAIREIN, and then you would just move on. Like you would write a letter and say, “Hi,” or “Greetings,” and then go on with the letter. But here, Paul adds to that. This was a standard opening at that particular time.
Paul transforms it into a doctrinal concept. He is teaching something: a reminder at the beginning of every letter that grace comes from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. They are coupled together as equally the source of grace and peace.
Slide 17
The Greek word for peace is EIRĒNĒ. And EIRĒNĒ has as its connotations in the New Testament peace or calm. It can refer to health or wholeness, well-being, salvation, or tranquility. Where do you think it picked up all those different ideas, health or wholeness? That comes from the Hebrew word shalom.
Shalom covers all of those different terms, and the writers of Scripture who are Jewish-background believers and knowledgeable of Hebrew would translate that over to EIRĒNĒ. But they were using EIRĒNĒ the same way the Old Testament uses shalom. You see this various times in the Old Testament.
Slide 18
For example, in Genesis 43:23, the greeting there from Jacob is, “Peace be with you.”
Both of these Ezra quotes are later after the exile, or as they are getting ready to return from the exile. We see that this language goes all the way through, and it is typical of the secular world as well as the religious world in Israel.
In Ezra 4:17, when the king answers Ezra and a request to deal with what is going on in Samaria and the opposition, it began with “Peace and so forth,” that typical greeting. It was shalom.
Daniel 4:11, “Nebuchadnezzar the king, To all peoples, nations, and languages that dwell in all the earth:—and it begins—Peace be multiplied to you.” Just as CHAIREIN was the standard greeting in the Greek world, a shalom or its variant—because Nebuchadnezzar probably originally said that in either Aramaic or maybe some form of Akkadian or Babylonian—“peace” was the greeting.
Same in Ezra 7:12, “Perfect peace, and so forth,” as Artaxerxes writes to Ezra the priest.
Slide 19
The greeting, “Grace to you and peace,” is one that is taken out of the common language of the culture. On the one hand, the Gentile Greco-Roman culture. On the other hand, the Jewish culture. Paul pulls those together and then emphasizes that these come from God, our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ.
I have been in a lot of Bible studies with a lot of different people over the years, and I was always appalled when I would hear and read this in commentaries: “All Paul is doing is slightly modifying. We can’t make a big deal about this.”
I think that we have to assume that God the Holy Spirit selects every word and modifies words for a purpose, unless we can see that there is no apparent reason for doing so. And I think this becomes very clear that Paul is always reminding up front that grace and peace come from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
It is not just some perfunctory greeting. With that we finish the salutation.
Slide 20
We come to the next part in the introduction, which is Philippians 1:3–8, Paul’s concern and his prayer for the Philippians. As we get into this next section, I want to do a little overview of Philippians 1:3–11 and understand what is going on here.
We are going to see the main elements of prayer that are in this section. They are not all in every section. When I teach that there are these components to prayer, that does not mean that you have to use every one of them every time you pray. You will rarely ever want to pray because it will take you too long.
There are prayers that are only confession. There are prayers that are only adoration or praise. There are prayers that are only thanksgiving. There are prayers that are only supplications or petitions for oneself.
Sadly, in our superficial Christianity in America, probably 99% of prayers are petitions for oneself because we are so self-centered that all we can think about is what is going on in our lives. We think of God and prayer as going to sit on Santa Claus’ lap at Christmas, and going to give Him our little wish list of what we want God to do. And that is sad.
But we have a lot of people in the church now. We have people who are listening online who probably have never heard me when I have taught through prayer. So we are going to take a little time to do that and develop it out from the text.
What we see here is that in this beginning of Philippians 1:3–7, or Philippians 1:3–8 … It depends on where I want to break that section—that is like part 1. And then Philippians 1:9–11 is another sentence, and that is part 2.
Here Paul joyfully gives thanks because of the Philippians’ partnership in the gospel ministry and what Paul has been doing. And that has manifested itself substantially as they have contributed. As Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 8:2, out of their poverty they gave. And they have provided much aid for Paul while he is in prison in Rome.
The application from this is that God wants believers to increase their effectiveness as partners in the gospel. That word “partner” is a word that I am using in relation to fellowships, KOINŌNIA or SUNKOINŌNIA, and we will get to that as we get there.
As we start off in this overview of Philippians 1:3–11, we see how Paul expresses his love and joy for the Philippian believers and how he encourages them by his continued prayerfulness on their behalf.
Slide 21
What we need to recognize is how quickly, when Paul begins, he starts off, “I thank …” Whom does he thank? He thanks “my God.” He only uses the phrase “my God” two other times. It is a very personal statement about God.
He says, “I thank my God upon every remembrance of you.” He shifts to making this God-focused and God-centered and not me-focused or focusing on the personal problems or desires of the Philippians.
I think this is really important to recognize in the way in which we pray. I have said this for years. I hope I am improving a little bit. But it is really typical for a prayer meeting and other times of public prayer that we focus on people who have health problems. We focus on people who have some other particular issues in their life.
As we go through these different prayers in Scripture, we ought to pay attention to how they are structured and what the emphasis is. And we do not see a lot of that. What we see is, things that are much more focused on who God is and what God is doing than on personal problems that God needs to fix. So just keep that in mind.
We will start off by looking at Philippians 1:3–7. I want to say some things about the structure of this. So let me read it through, and then we will go to the next slide and start thinking our way through what is being said.
This is actually the way it is punctuated in most English Bibles. It is close to the way it is punctuated by the editors of Greek text. It is one long sentence. But if you notice at the end of Philippians 1:6, there is a semicolon. A semicolon is a pause. It is not quite as significant as a period, but it is much more than a comma.
So it is possible you could end it there, and then start with Philippians 1:7 as a distinctive sentence. But as it is, it is another one of those long sentences by Paul, and that means it all focuses on one idea with multiple facets to it.
He says, “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—or partnership—in the gospel from the first day until now …”
Then I would translate this with a causal participle, “[because I am] confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ; just as it is right for me to think this of you all, because I have you in my heart, inasmuch as both in my chains and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel, you all are [partners]—See, it is fellowship again, KOINŌNIA—you all are [partners] with me of grace.”
Slide 22
Getting into grammar, the main clause tells you what the sentence is, what the next paragraph is all about. The main clause starts with a subject and a verb, “I thank.” Whom does Paul thank? He thanks “my God.” When? “Upon every remembrance of you.”
That is the main clause. Everything else relates to what he says there. That is helpful to understand because we can get lost in the way Paul piles phrase upon phrase and clause upon clause. We have seen that a lot in Ephesians.
Slide 23
As we look at this, I color-coded it for you so you could see what goes where. The main clause and the central subject and verb is, “I thank my God.” I have that in black.
Then Philippians 1:4–5 are in blue. Philippians 1:6 and Philippians 1:7 are in different shades of brown. The reason for that is, that the main clause is Philippians 1:3. Philippians 1:4–5 develop that phrase, “I thank my God.” Then the third clause in Philippians 1:6–7 is composed of two distinct ideas.
That is why I am repeating [I am confident] in Philippians 1:7 because you have two different thoughts related to his confidence. That sets it up as to how it is organized.
So when you get down to Philippians 1:7, it is, [I thank my God because I am confident…] Philippians 1:6 is, [I thank my God because I am confident …] So you have two different statements here that fit together.
Slide 24
He starts off saying, “I thank my God,” and the New King James says, “upon every remembrance of you.”
Slide 25
The preposition there in the Greek is EPI. It is used with a dative. One of its nuances is “at the time of something” or “whenever.” I think in updated modern English, we would say, “I thank my God every time,” or “at every remembrance of you,” or whenever I remember you.”
We all know that as we go through the day, we are busy. We do this and we do that, and all of a sudden, we think about someone or some situation, and then we just have a bullet prayer.
I got an interesting question from someone not long ago: “How do I do a bullet prayer when I have to confess and go through confession, adoration, thanksgiving, supplication?” That is why you keep short accounts to God, so you do not have to confess so many sins every five minutes.
You just hit a situation, and you remember something, and you say, “Lord, I forgot to pray for so-and-so today. They are having a test, or they are having a difficult situation. Strengthen them at that time.” Just these quick little bullet prayers all through the day.
That is why Paul can say in 1 Thessalonians 5:17 that we are to “pray without ceasing.” That does not mean that we have our heads bowed and our eyes closed, or we will quickly get into some kind of a fatal accident. It means that we, in our minds, are always prepared so that when something comes up, we can, just in a phrase or just a few words, pray.
It is an ongoing conversation with God. That is what prayer is. So often what you have heard—we heard this when we were growing up—you would hear the pastor talk. It was like a different language when he prayed. He would often pray “in King James.”
I specifically remember a time, I was probably 11 or 12. Pastor Thieme said, “We are going to cut all the ‘Thees’ and ‘Thys’ out of my Sunday morning prayers. We are going to pray like we talk.”
But up to that point, you did not have all these different modern translations like you do today that are in more of the modern everyday language. So, whenever you thought about talking with God, you had to go with that “God language” in the King James. And that was not the case, so we do not need to do that.
We thank God, and we just have these conversations, just these short, quick prayers as we go through the day, about different people, different situations. And thinking about that, that does not mean that is all you do. But it is what we should do, keeping that close communication with the Lord.
Slide 26
What Paul is saying here is, “I thank my God whenever I remember you are at every remembrance of you.” The word he uses for “thank” is the common word in the Greek. It is EUCHARISTEŌ, which means “to give thanks.” It is a verb. EUCHARISTEŌ means “I give thanks.”
It is a customary present here, which means Paul is talking about something he customarily does. He thanks God whenever he remembers them.
How do we thank God, and what should we normally thank God for in our lives? I don’t want any testimonies here, “I always thank God for my dogs, and I thank God for the fact that this happened or that happened,” whatever it may be. How do we find out how we should give thanks to God? Where do we go to find out?
Let us see how Paul gave thanks to God. We have looked a lot of times over the last several years at how David gives thanks to God. We have looked at thanksgiving psalms. We have talked about all of that. Let us move that up into the New Testament.
Slide 27
We are going to say, “What does the Bible teach about thankfulness to God and gratitude?” We are going to cover this on a couple of points. The second point has about 12 or 13 sub points.
Slide 28
First of all, when Paul thinks about them, when something reminds him of them, he thanks God for them. He does not just have his little prayer list laid out, but he thinks about them.
You can do all kinds of interesting things with prayer lists. I have not done this in years, but I learned this when I was in seminary, and I carried this with me everywhere I went. I would take an 8.5×11 sheet of paper, and I would fold it lengthways in half, and then I would fold it over a couple more times, where you have eight sections.
You have one section for all the things you pray for every day. Then you take your mammoth prayer list, and you title each of the other seven sections Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. Then you put down the things that you would pray for on each of those days.
I used to carry that in my pocket, and that was a handy way to keep up with your prayer list. Since then, I have tried to do this with I don’t know how many different computer programs, but nothing was quite as effective as that.
Paul constantly has something that he can use and remember. Having been trained as a rabbi, he had some mnemonic devices for memory that were beyond our capacity, because you have to start with that when you are very young. So he just remembered all kinds of things.
He says that whenever he thinks about them, he thanks God for them. But he does not just say, “Lord, I just thank You for those Philippian believers.” He is thanking God for something God is doing in those believers and in that congregation.
You have a similar statement given in Ephesians 1:16, where Paul said, “I do not cease to give thanks for you, making mention of you in my prayers.” He does not mean he never prays for anybody else or never stops praying for the Ephesians. This is like prayer without ceasing. It is just something that is consistent and regular, more like a hacking cough than it is 24/7 for 60 seconds out of every minute.
Slide 29
Let us look at some of these other verses. The second point is foundational verses. The foundational verses are 1 Thessalonians 5:18 where Paul says, “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” Let us look at that a second.
When he says, “in everything,” he is using the preposition EN in the Greek, and that probably has more of what is called a locative or location sense—in whatever situation you are in—idea.
That reminds me of what we are going to see at the end of Philippians, where Paul talks about, “I have had abundance and I have had nothing. But I can do all things or handle any situation.” “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” This is the idea, in whatever circumstance you are in, whether it is good, whether it is bad, whether it is prosperity, whether it is adversity, in every situation, give thanks to God for that situation.
I was reminded today of something, how God uses some difficulties in our lives. I have a friend who has just been diagnosed with cancer, and he has had this tumor apparently for a while, and during the day yesterday he had some pains. Nothing severe, nothing debilitating. But it was like, “that’s not right.”
So he went to the doctor. God used that pain to catch his attention, and they caught the cancer. I don’t know how early it is or anything yet, but they got him under treatment. So that pain is something that God used to catch his attention that there was something wrong.
So we may get in a difficult circumstance or situation, whether it is financial or whether it has to do with our house or family, whatever it is. We ought to give thanks for it because God is using that to get our attention.
Sometimes He is using that to test us to apply the Word so that we can grow. There is a lot of different reasons. So we ought to give thanks instead of griping or complaining. That is what Paul brings up later in Philippians 2:14, “Do all things without grumbling or complaining.” “In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus ...”
In our study of Gideon on Tuesday night, we are going to start talking more about the will of God because that is what Gideon is really trying to avoid. A lot of people have taught through Gideon putting out the fleece, that this is a way to find out God’s will. But the way to find out God’s will, we will see that the Scriptures tell us God’s will.
We are like Gideon most of the time. We really do not want to do that. I just want to know who I ought to marry, or what college I ought to go to, or whether or not I ought to buy this car or that car.
“In everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” Then Ephesians 5:20 changes the preposition and he says, “giving thanks always for …” which is the Greek preposition HUPER, meaning “on behalf of.” It is the same preposition used, that Christ died for us. It is HUPER, “on behalf of.”
So we always give thanks on behalf of all things. Notice it says “everything” in 1 Thessalonians 5:18, and “all things in Ephesians 5:20. Is there anything left out of those phrases “all things” and “everything?” No, nothing left out. It is all inclusive. “Giving thanks always on behalf of all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.”
Now that does not mean that we are always to say, “In the name of Jesus, Amen.” We do that out of habit. We come to the Lord on the basis of who Jesus is as believers. That is what that means. We are coming on the basis of who Jesus is, and our position in Christ.
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Let us take this a little further and see what Paul does. What does Paul thank God for? In Romans 1:8 he says, “First, I thank my God through Jesus Christ for you all, that your faith is spoken of throughout the whole world.”
Something we should be thinking about is, giving thanks that we have a good testimony and a good reputation. A lot of people may not have that yet. Maybe they are not very strong, they are young believers.
But that is what Paul is thanking God for: people’s spiritual growth, the growth of their faith. That is, the strengthening of their faith as they trust God using the faith rest drill, and they grow spiritually.
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The second thing that Paul mentions that we are to be thankful for is our food. Jesus referred to it as our daily bread when He was teaching the disciples how to pray in what is usually wrongly identified as the Lord’s Prayer. It is not His prayer, it is the disciples’ prayer.
In Romans 14:6, Paul says, “He who observes the day, observes it to the Lord; and he who does not observe the day, to the Lord he does not observe it. He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks.” When we pray before a meal, part of that is to thank God for the food that He has provided.
In Timothy, Paul talks about sanctifying the food. We are asking God to set that apart for our physical benefit. “He who eats, eats to the Lord.”
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A third thing that Paul thanked God for is those who risked their lives to protect Paul. In Romans 16:4, he describes those who “risked their own necks for my life, to whom not only I give thanks, but also all the churches of the Gentiles.” He is thankful to those who provided protection for him.
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Fourth, he says he thanks God for the grace that God gave to the Corinthians. The Corinthians were not a nice bunch of people. They were arrogant and divisive. They caused all kinds of problems. They lived in many ways not any differently from the way they lived before they were saved. They were carnal, and they were arrogant.
Paul nevertheless says, “I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you by Christ Jesus.” That is talking about the gospel, saving grace. “I thank my God always concerning you for the grace of God which was given to you.” Do we thank God for His grace to us in saving us?
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Fifth, Paul thanked God for the gift of languages. You might have forgotten that. Paul thanked when he is writing to the Corinthians to correct their abuse on the gift of languages. He said, “I thank my God that I speak with languages more than all of you.” Because God had so blessed him, and this is really sort of a backhanded slap to them.
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Sixth, Paul said, for the financial support and prayer from the Corinthians. In 2 Corinthians 1:11, “you also helping together in prayer for us, that thanks may be given by many persons on our behalf for the gift granted to us through many.”
“The gift granted to us” was the collection of financial aid from different congregations. He is thankful for that gift that the Corinthians sent to him.
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Seventh, for the faith in Christ and love for all the saints, because of the hope the Colossians had in Christ. Notice you have faith, hope, and love, all three mentioned in this verse. Colossians 1:3 is parallel to the beginning of Ephesians 1:3 and Philippians 1:3. “We give thanks to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith …”
What is he thankful for? Thankful for their faith, their trust in the Lord, and their growth in faith. Then he ties that to love. “… we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and of your love for all the saints.”
They are demonstrating their Christianity as Jesus said in John 13:34–35, that they are to love one another as He has loved them. “By this all men will know that you are My disciples.”
Then in Colossians 1:5, “because of the hope …” Their faith and their love, and now he gives thanks “because of the hope—that confident expectation—which is laid up for you in heaven, of which you heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel.”
Then the ultimate reason he is giving thanks is that they may walk worthy, that they are getting all these steps in place so that they can walk worthy in their spiritual life.
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Eighth, we have prayer for the Holy Spirit to give wisdom and insight into the knowledge of Christ. In Ephesians 1:15, he says, that he has given thanks “after I heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and your love for all the saints.” So parallel to Colossians, he is giving thanks to the Ephesians for their faith in the Lord and love for all the saints.
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Next, we have thanking God Who is the One Who qualified us to partake of our inheritance in the light. Colossians 1:12, “giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light.”
Now, I don’t know that I have ever prayed that. “Thank you, Lord, for qualifying me to partake in the inheritance of the saints in the light.” How did He do that? He qualified us when He gave us His righteousness. That qualifies us. Because now we have imputed righteousness. We do not have to earn it. It is something that was freely given.
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Next, in 1 Thessalonians 1:2–4, Paul expresses thanks for the Thessalonians’ work of faith, their labor of love, and their patience of hope. “We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith, labor of love, and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of our God and Father.” He is giving thanks for spiritual growth, for the manifestation of their spiritual maturity.
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Next, in 1 Thessalonians 2:13–14, he gives thanks for the way they received the Word of God when they first brought it to them, and the impact that it has had on their lives as they are now living lives that are imitating Christ.
He says, “For this reason we also thank God without ceasing, because when you received 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. For you, brethren, became imitators of the churches of God which are in Judea in Christ Jesus.” Other passages make it clear that they’re imitating Christ.
This is important. Are we praying, “Thank you, Lord, that I have the opportunity to imitate Christ in my life. Thank you, Lord, that I’m having some spiritual growth”?
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Next, he gives thanks for growing faith, love for one another, patience, faith in their tests and persecutions. 2 Thessalonians 1:4, “so that we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your patience and faith in all your persecutions and tribulations that you endure.”
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Last, for growing faith, love for one another, patience and faith in their tests and persecutions. 1 Thessalonians 2:13–14, which we looked at a minute ago.
So that gives us an understanding of what Paul prays for when he gives thanks. That is not all there is in the Scripture; that is just Paul. We can look at passages—I will bring a few next time—where we look at what Peter gave thanks for, James, and other writers of Scripture. What are they thankful for?
What we see is, they are thankful for spiritual growth, thankful for the Word of God bearing fruit in their lives, thankful for the way in which God is working to give them knowledge and understanding and discernment.
We do not see a whole lot of thanking God that I got a new camel, thanking God that my sandals that I have are better than the sandals that I had before, thankful for my new house. We do not see a lot of that.
It is all focused on spiritual qualities and spiritual growth. We will come back next time and continue more, learning more about prayer and how to pray.
Closing Prayer
“Father, thank You for this opportunity to look at these things. We are thankful for the way in which Your Word has been productive in our own lives, for the way that we are growing in our understanding of the truth of Your Word.
“And Father, we pray that we might be faithful witnesses of Your grace in our lives and faithful testimony to those around us. And we pray this in Christ’s name, Amen.”