Giving Thanks for You

Let Information Prompt You to Give Thanks:

"For this reason, ever since I heard about your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love for all God’s people, I have not stopped giving thanks for you." — Ephesians 1:15-16

Paul did not have a computer. He did not have the internet. He did not have a television or a radio. He did not get a daily newspaper. 

• The information Paul received about the believers in Ephesus was by word of mouth or their letters to him.
• He asked for his books and his parchments when he was getting old. These were important to him because they were his media, his form of communication. 

We live in the “information age.” Information, they say, is power, and I believe that it is. 

While I was away last week, I experienced a tooth problem. I thought that a tooth the dentist was working on had cracked. So I opened my mouth and had Janet take a picture of that tooth and sent it to the dentist. He looked and it and assured me that it was all right. I saw him when I got back, and he commented on the sharpness of that picture taken with my phone. I suspect that we will soon be sending pictures and scans to our physicians and dentists as a routine exercise. These self-portraits for medical purposes will likely be the first level for diagnosis and treatment.

• The Apostle Paul had no such capacity. He did not have a phone. He did not have a dentist. He did have a physician, Luke, but Luke could not communicate with Paul any more efficiently than these people in Ephesus.

You may be experiencing “information overload.” You are getting too much of it. I think that happens to a lot of us, particularly to those who are confined to their homes and watching television all the time or always on their phones or computers. Information is pouring into your eyes and ears.

• This avalanche of information has to be managed somehow. You must learn when to turn it off. I took two weeks of vacation and practically went incognito.

You respond to information you receive. People have always done so.

• Paul is responding to personal conversations and letters by writing this letter to Ephesus. Here he tells us that he is giving thanks as a response to information.
• Respond with thanksgiving. Look for ways to give thanks when you receive information—even if tragic. 
• Tragic information is 90% of the news. Wrecks, famine, fires, war—these are the staples of the news enterprise. Some of you are responding to this information with despair, fear, and anger.
• Change Your Response! Start looking for opportunities to give thanks. If one policeman is reported shot, thank God that his partner is unharmed. If one person has drowned, thank God that the other was spared. If war breaks out in some distant part of the world, thank God that you are living in a time and place of peace.

Let Confinement Prompt You to Intercession:

"I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better." — Ephesians 1:17

Some people feel very restricted, confined. They feel they are trapped in difficult and unproductive circumstances. Persons worshipping today through our live broadcast simply cannot get out and go to church. We welcome you. I want to talk to you for a moment, and to all of us who are now or may be soon restricted in our physical movements.

• By the way, I am giving thanks for you who worship on line. I want to know you better. I hope that you will communicate your prayer needs with Nathan during the broadcast today.

The Apostle Paul was trapped in such a way. We have noted that there are not many personal references in this letter. In this way it differs from other letters by the hand of Paul. But there is one significant personal note that surfaces throughout Ephesians—Paul is in prison for the gospel.

The great apostle was confined much of the time by chains around his hands or feet. He was confined to a house where he was under house arrest. He could not go freely anywhere he chose.

• Paul wrote the “prison epistles” while he was confined in this way. They proved to be a lasting legacy that actually changed the world and continue to do so.
• Paul also practiced faithful prayer in confinement. He would look at those chains and think, “What can I do?” And then he would remember that the chains could not confine his prayers or his God.
• If anyone had powerful prayers, it was this faithful Apostle. His work in prayer may have been his greatest gift to the churches that he loved and served.

Your prayers and your God are not confined by any chains or circumstances that you may face. This is true about your physical condition. If you are ill or weak or injured, those injuries or illnesses do not confine you prayers.

Let your confinements, your restrictions, and your illnesses unleash your prayer life.

• Think of your restrictions in a new way. Think of your limitations as opportunities for prayer and for letter-writing.
• Follow the practice of the Apostle. Devote yourself to prayer and to letters or emails to those you love.

Physical confinement is often a prompting to pray. If you were trapped in a tunnel that collapsed, you would likely be praying. If you were caught in a wildfire you would pray. If you were locked up somehow and separated from you loved ones, you would fervently pray.

We are living in a day when physical limitations are not nearly so confining as they were in previous generations. Through email and social media you have an opportunity for a wide-ranging ministry of prayer and encouragement even if you are confined to a bed or wheelchair. 

Let Intercession Be a Rehearsal for Heaven:

"I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in his holy people, and his incomparably great power for us who believe." — Ephesians 1:18-19.

We feel that we don’t know how to pray for others. We receive the information. We are prompted to intercede, but what should we ask God to do for them?

The Apostle Paul gives us his prayer for the believers in Ephesus, and it is a rehearsal for heaven. In other words, he prays that these fellow believers in Jesus will be moved upward and forward in their circumstances. 

He prays that they will know God better (v17). You can pray that prayer for every single person on your prayer list. Pray that their current situation will help them see God more clearly and follow him more closely.

He prays that they will see their circumstances differently, that the “eyes of your heart will be enlightened.” We need to see our circumstances, whatever they may be, as the context for our faith and praise.

He prays for a rebirth of hope.

• They may be experiencing extreme poverty. Many followers of Jesus were deprived of their livelihoods.
• We seem so hopeless somehow, like we have lost our way and don’t know how to find it. 

Corrie Ten Boom, locked away with the fleas in the concentration camp, can experience more hope and joy than those who live in the lap of luxury. Our circumstances are not the source of hope or joy or faith. They are the context in which we live out these great virtues of our faith in Christ.

We have some repenting to do. We have been ungrateful in the face of great blessing. We have been self-absorbed, prayerless, when those around us needed our prayers. We have been too busy seeking earthly things to realize all the heavenly things that are ours.