Giving Thanks to God in Everything

Sermon Transcript by Rev. Ernest O’Neill

Please turn to Ephesians 1:16. It’s one of those verses that I think we can do injustice to because
of our attitude to the English language and our familiarity with phrases. You can see how the verse
runs, “I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.” We know those phrases
so well that we could just whip them right off. Martyn Lloyd-Jones says that it’s really important
to know that God does not use words carelessly, and that we live by every word that proceeds out of
the mouth of God. So even though all of you can’t read the Greek, it’s maybe good to look at it as
slowly as you do when you do look at the Greek. Looking at the word “not” it can mean “I never”
“pavo” in Greek is “I cease”. And then the next word is a word that we know the sound of and it’s
the word “eucharistia” and that literally means in the Greek “I do not cease”. And then this the
present participial, “giving thanks”, huper” is the word that’s used for, and “humon” is the word
that’s used for you, “humon”.

So I do not cease giving thanks for you. And then the next word mnemonic is something that you
learn to help you remember things, and that is the Greek word remembrance. And the next word is
the word that actually does a duty for a lot of things in our language because its poíi?si? and it’s
the word that becomes poetry and it really means making, so making memory in my prayers. And “epi”
is the word that’s used for “in” and tone is the article for “the” and then prayers is “proseuche”.
So it is, “I don’t cease giving thanks for you, making remembrance of you in my prayers,” and so
that’s how it comes to mean, “I do not cease giving thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers.”
And sometimes in some of the translations they say “making mention of you in my prayers.”

But that’s a poor translation because of our readiness to trivialize the whole sentence as if to say
“Oh yes I give thanks and make mention of you in my prayers” we think of it as a fast way of saying,
“I’m praying for you brother, I’m praying for you sister, and certainly thank God for you, you
know.” And the whole emphasis tends to be on, “I thank God for you, for your good life, for the
things you’ve done, and I’m remembering you in my prayers,” and of course then it’s very easy for it
to influence our own prayer time so that our prayer times become utterly earth bound and completely
concerned with this person and that person. We are so prone in our prayer times to sink down into a
preoccupation with each other, a giving thanks for what God has done in each of us, and then
remembering each other in our prayers; preoccupied with how this person is feeling and all that kind
of thing and actually the whole thrust of this verse is entirely different.

It’s absolutely and completely different, because the whole stress is on this remarkable word here,
it’s the “eucharistia”, or what we call in the Catholic church the mass, but what often is referred
to as the “Eucharist” in all churches and it is the word for thanksgiving. And it’s interesting
that it is the very center of the worship in all the churches the “eucharistia” or the mass, or the
communion, or the Lords supper, or the last supper. And yet it is the word that means thanksgiving
or thanks. And all through the scripture you’ll see it and you know some of the places yourself. 1
Thessalonians if you’d like to glance at it. “Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will
of God in Christ Jesus for you.” And there the stress is give thanks all the time, all the time.

Give thanks in all circumstances; on Calvary, in sickness, at the moment of death, when you lose all
your money and all your possessions, when you are very rich, when you have just met a new friend and
you are so happy.

In all circumstances give thanks. I have a list, that I won’t attempt to read you all of, but here
is part; give thanks for the goodness and mercy of God, for the gift of Christ, for Christ’s power
and reign, for the reception and effectual working of the word of God in others, for the deliverance
from indwelling sin through Christ, for victory over death and the grave, for the triumph of the
gospel. These are all Bible references and they are only a few of all the emphasis in the Bible on
giving thanks to God. The reason is because everything we have here has come from him. And one of
the things you realize quickly as the years pass as you look at your features — you can’t make them
unwrinkled. You realize these hands are once only gifts that no one else can give us. We’ve only
to look at people who have lost a limb in a war or an accident to realize that our substitute as
human beings for this remarkable body is very clumsy and ugly and a very poor substitute. So we
realize that everything we have has been given us by God, he has made everything that we have. And
then you realize that he didn’t only make everything we have but he foresaw what we would be like.
He could just as easily have made us little Yorkshire terriers or he could just as easily have made
us little insects that could not cause him any trouble or problem at all. He could have made us a
sun that shines every day. He could have made us a planet that goes round the same orbits year
after year, century after century, with no will of its own.

But he decided that he would make us with all the advantages that he himself and his dear son have.
Then he foresaw what we would do with that, and he realized that he could not just try it out and
then do it again, and then try it out and then do it again. That way he would never have a
relationship with us and we would know that he was just playing with us and manipulating us, and
there would never be a real love relationship between us and him at all. He knew he had to give us
the freedom to do whatever we wanted, and that’s what he did. He foresaw what we would do, and for
that reason – you think of this, what if your father came to someone else and said, “Why don’t you
have a baby through my wife? We’ll cut her open and put your baby in?” We would say the thought is
so grotesque, don’t even go on with it, and that’s certainly not what God did. But what was it but
that? He had his own perfect son, and even the Bible uses the term – that he grafted the wild olive
branch into the olive tree. And grafting, even though I don’t know much about gardening, its
cutting. And of course you would say “But he didn’t have to cut his son open.”

So you begin to realize that this dear Father of ours in order to give us the chance of having all
that he had, actually cut his own son open and placed us in his son, and created us in his son so
that when that moment came that we would go our own way and want to destroy him, instead of us being
destroyed, he would be destroyed and he would let us destroy him, and he himself would destroy us in
his son. And then because of his son’s own obedience and faith he would raise him up and he would
lift us up with his son, and he has done that. And then on top of that, he has foreseen Marty and
Joe’s first week of sales. He has foreseen the lady that they will meet in a store. He has
foreseen the fellow that will pump gas for them on their first day. He has foreseen the motel
they’ll stay in, and he has taken all those things and has put those together with the whole
miserable world that we created, and he has put those in his son, and he has made those crooked
things straight, and raised them up so that there is a path that is smooth and prepared for both of
you men in the first week in September. A path that even though it seems to have rough spots in it,
it’s already smoothed out by him and it’s already been worked out, and the whole world has been
reconciled to his will.

That’s why the only thing that we can do is this; never cease to give thanks. It’s the only way to
live our life as a constant “eucharistia” to him that he has made everything right so that all we
have to do is walk in joy. That’s all we have to do. We don’t have to worry about what is going to

happen next month, we don’t have to think about whether we’re going to get into heaven or not, he
has made it alright, he has prepared it all, it is all in line. It’s hard to believe anyone would
do that. It’s hard to believe anybody who would give you freedom to hack them to bits, and then
would allow you to hack them to bits, would foresee all of that and would arrange for your life to
go on after that. And not only to go on, but to be back in the old relationship that he originally
gave you in his son. And yet that’s what God has done. Everything is in place, everything has been
done.

I think we fall into deception, but I think also because of our own willfulness we keep feeling,
“There’s a lot that we have to get done here. There’s a lot that we have to overcome, there are a
lot of battles that we have to fight, and there are a lot of problems that we have to solve.” Not
one. Not one. He has foreseen them all and he has reconciled them all in his son Jesus. That’s
what “we are crucified to the world and the world is crucified to us” means, so that we have a plain
and straight path right the whole way to heaven which is why our life can be lived only as one
thing, as a constant “eucharistia”, as a constant thanking. So you can see the spirit then behind
Paul’s statement, “I don’t stop for a moment; I never cease giving thanks to God for you,
remembering you in my prayers.” So the prayer is obviously lifted in thanksgiving. It’s almost,
“I’ll remember you, but I thank God for all that he has done in Jesus, he has put you in his son, he
has raised you up in his son, he has made you what you are as part of his son, I give thanks
constantly to God for that.” And it’s that whole uplift and joyful delight that fills his prayers.
So different from our prayers, “Lord will you help so and so,” and all that kind of attitude. His
attitude is one of triumph.

It’s very interesting this dear German fellow [Karl Barth] so often puts it better than anybody
else. He’s says, “Our service to God, this service and therefore the blessedness of the elect,” he
calls us the elect, the people who are chosen in Jesus, “consists in gratitude for the self offering
of God. God chooses him,” chooses us, “in order that there may be gratitude in his life, and
therefore life in and by grace,” because he ties up gratitude and grace. He says, “God gives you
grace, he graciously shows his generosity to you and he just wants from you gratitude for that.”
That’s all, that’s all you can give. “God chooses him in order that his existence may become simply
gratitude; that it may achieve this gratitude and be this gratitude in his whole person is the
determination of the elect.” That’s what we’re here to do, just to be filled with gratitude.

“It is for this that God gives himself to him in the election of Jesus Christ. He may be grateful,
that is the secret of the gracious election of the individual. But what is meant by gratitude, and
therefore blessedness, and therefore being loved by God? Clearly, participation in the life of God
in a human existence and action in which there is a representation and illustration of the glory of
God himself and his work.” So I’ll read it again, “What is meant by gratitude, and therefore
blessedness, and therefore being loved by God, what is meant by these things? Participation in the
life of God in a human existence and action in which there is a representation and illustration of
the glory of God himself and its work. There can be no question of anything more. Gratitude is the
response to a kindness which cannot itself be repeated or returned, which therefore can only be
recognized and confirmed as such by an answer that corresponds to it and reflects it. Gratitude is
the establishment of this correspondence.”

Living our life joyfully, going joyfully around the stores, joyfully thanking God and expressing
that thanksgiving and that gratitude in our entire attitude; in our faces, in the way we think, in
the way we feel, that’s what he’s saying. That’s the only thing we can do. We can’t do anything
for God. There are no problems that we have to solve for God. We’re not here to subdue the world

for God. You remember we say, carefully, in the editorial that it’s Jesus who brings the world into
submission under God through us. So we have nothing to do but to live in joyful gratitude. And the
whole heart of that came through to me when I first read this piece by Barth sometime last year or
the year before, but then of course it becomes very clear to you the more you read scripture. At
first I often feel with Barth, “Oh listen this is an understatement you’re making — the whole
meaning of life is gratitude.” I think, “Oh, that’s all liberal stuff; gratitude is far more than
that.”

But that’s it. That’s it; gratitude is the only thing that can be offered by people for whom
everything has already been done, and gratitude flows from such people. People who are not sure
that everything has been done for them have a mixture of their own industry, and their own
initiative, and their own sense of responsibility, and their own feeling of righteousness, and
ability and worth. But people for whom everything has been done can offer nothing but gratitude.
“The gratitude of the elect from the grace of God cannot be anything more than the establishment of
this correspondence. But it can and must be this; the elect man is chosen in order to respond to the
gracious God to be his creaturely image, his imitator. Not that of a self devised picture of God in
man, but that of a gracious electing God himself, and as such the elect under obligation to him. He
owes himself to him; God has chosen him for himself before he came into being.”

And so all we can do and be is what God himself has done and been; a person who has poured himself
out for others, who has forgotten about himself and is utterly taken up with the sheer delight of
giving to others what they need, and doing for others what they need. And what he’s saying is, “The
only form gratitude can take is that kind of a life.” So when we go around it’s not really so much
dependent on whether we mention this person in prayer, or did we pray for that person, or did we
remember to give this person, the World Invisible business card and did we say something about God
to them? That’s not where it’s at, at all. Where it’s at is here in this glorious wonderful life
of gratitude that God has made us for. That’s really what makes sense. If you have a generous God
who gives himself completely to you, the only obvious response to him is thanks and gratitude and
the life that is lived in that delight. So it is a glorious life that God has given us.

Let us pray.