Last week Chris shared with us that the antidote to sin is confession!  Confessing our sins to God gives us freedom that most of us never thought possible!  When we tell (affirm with) Jesus about the things that we do that are not of Him, He sets us free and forgives us by his amazing grace, through his blood, so that we can focus on Him and reflect who He is to those around us.  Jesus has done an amazing thing for us in forgiving our sins and we need to turn to Him and be thankful—ALWAYS!

            In the past two weeks we have studied two very key components of prayer (communicating with God).  Today’s message would not be important unless we understand that God is awesome and he has forgiven our sins!  That gives us more than reason to be thankful all the time.  Today’s message is based on a very important passage in God’s word that gives us specific instructions on how to live our lives always in thanks to God.  Let’s stand and read Ephesians 5:18-20 together. 18 Don’t be drunk with wine, because that will ruin your life. Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit, 19 singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs among yourselves, and making music to the Lord in your hearts. 20 And give thanks for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.  This passage is pow-er-ful!  Man!  Do you think God understand us??? You bet he does.  Look at the first part of the passage: Don’t be drunk with wine…why?  Because it will ruin your life! Wow!  God knows that left to our own devices we would most likely choose to indulge ourselves in something that pleases US and at the same time kills us.  Paul, who wrote this letter to a very important church in the Roman Empire, knew that God wanted to convey a message through him to the Jesus followers in not only in Ephesus but throughout history!  Paul encouraged the church at Ephesus that they needed to continue to live their lives not influenced by the world, but by God!  This letter to the Ephesian church is important to us because it is not focusing on any one problem but encouraging the church to grow deeper in their relationship with God, which in turn, encourages us to grow deeper as well!

            Verse 18 is a key verse for us to understand because it describes how we are to live.  We can see the blatant contrast between being drunk and being focused on God but more than that it is all about influence.  Who do we let influence our lives, the world or God?  “Don’t be drunk with wine…Instead, be filled with the Holy Spirit.” This is so crucial for us today because it is really easy for us to get lost in the culture of media driven hedonistic (focused on pleasure as the highest good) ideas.   Instead, we need to be fully focused and going deeper with God by being filled with the Holy Spirit.  In the Greek, the word “be filled” is used in the present tense to indicate that the fullness of the Spirit is to be the on-going experience of those who believe and follow Jesus.  That means that if you believe in Jesus and have a relationship with God, then you need to be constantly filled by His Spirit through talking to God, learning about God, and serving God with a heart of thanksgiving.  God’s spirit will never lead us away from God.  It will only draw us closer to Him and show us how we need to change our lives to reflect the image of God here on this earth!

            Verse 19, as some of you may have guessed, is one of my favorite verses. When we are under the influence of the Holy Spirit we can then praise Him and be thankful to Him for all He has done!  We can speak to one another in psalms, hymns and spiritual songs and be filled with thankfulness to God for everything he has created and for the forgiveness he offers us through His Son Jesus Christ!  For example: When we are under the influence of God we experience things way differently than we do if we are under the influence of the world.  We can make music to God declaring His glory and majesty for all he has made! (God of Wonders)  We can sing a song that is focused on God’s heart and mission. (The Heart of Worship)  We can sing about his amazing love. (Amazing Love)  We can sing about his forgiveness, grace, and redemption that only Jesus offers! Now I want to share a song with you that God laid on my heart to write just this week specifically about the Jesus as our forgiveness.  The song is entitled “Made Clean”.  It is a song that speaks not only of Jesus as our forgiveness but also as our life and describes how He cleans us up from the mess that we are without him.

            Sharing our songs together is a great way to show praise and thanksgiving to God!  When we think about music some of us think about music theory and discuss why moving from a V chord sounds better going to a I chord  than a Neapolitan vii chord does.  My guess, though, is that most of us think of something positive when we think of music.  Like a concert, or a place we have fun.  Maybe even church!  I love the second half of verse 19 because it tells us to make music in our hearts to God!  What a cool thing.  God causes our hearts to move in rhythm to His own heart.  We sing new songs to God because He has given us a new song to sing!  Maybe you think you can’t sing worth a hoot.  It doesn’t matter because Psalm 66:1 (form the King James Version) tells us to “Make a joyful noise to the Lord!”  That means it doesn’t have to be in tune.  I just went to a David Crowder concert a week ago Thursday and he always does this one thing that I love… he says make a “loud” noise.  Not in tune or “pretty” just loud!  How true is that?!  God has given us a reason to shout his name all over the world!  That is why we are here!  We are his reflection and he is a gracious God and praising his name and being thankful are keys to reflecting who He really is!

Verse 20 tells us that we need to always be giving thanks to God the father for everything, in the name of Jesus Christ!  This isn’t always easy.  When we go through situations in our life that are less than desirable it is really hard to turn to God and see the things He has made as being good and knowing that he forgives our sin, but the key is to say thank you to God and allow His Spirit to influence you even though the times are hard.  We all struggle with this.  There are some of us who are going through situations right now where it is hard to be thankful to God but when we let down our guard and say thank you God opens up his blessing and showers it upon us so that we can receive from Him his peace and security.  More than that I Thessalonians 5:18 says “18 Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.”  We are told to be thankful in every situation we are in!  When we do this we are in the very center of God’s will!  There is no better place to be than to be right where God wants us to be!!! Romans 5:3-5 tells us how being thankful leads to growth!  “3 We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 4 And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. 5 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.”  The very purpose of Paul’s writing to the Ephesian church comes to realization when we read this passage from Romans.  When we rejoice and praise God, singing songs to Him and each other about his grace, sovereignty, love, wonder, awesomeness, power, care, and purpose giving characteristics it draws us to let go of ourselves and thank God for who He is and what He can do!  We are going to see a drama now that shows a situation where it is very hard to be thankful to God and to serve Him but when we do it produces amazing growth and God pours out his blessing.

            This drama is one that is very hard to listen to.  But when we turn our hearts to being joyful and thankful we can see the amazing result that God pours out on us through is Spirit!  God will fill our hearts with his love, which brings peace, contentment, awe, joy, praise, and so many more aspects of who God is than we can even imagine!  God knows us.  He commands us to be thankful in every situation even when the situation stinks.  It produces growth.  It produces character and God fills our hearts with love.

            If you’ve been around Pastor Chris very much you’ve probably heard him say this phrase at least twice: “Healthy things grow!”  I really appreciate it whenever I hear him say that because it is an encouragement to me that I need to be healthy so that I can grow deeper in my relationship with God and as a result see God work through my life!  Being thankful is a very important part of being healthy.  When we can say thank you to God in a situation that has made us grow and trust Him more deeply then we have truly grown and are continuing to grow! 

            How can we show God our thankfulness?  By telling Him and showing others through our lifestyle of thanksgiving!  The passage we read earlier form I Thessalonians has two very important verse right before it, one of which I actually used a couple weeks ago.  16 Always be joyful. 17 Never stop praying. 18 Be thankful in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you who belong to Christ Jesus.  Always be joyful.  Never stop praying.  Be thankful ALWAYS!  Tell God how thankful you are to Him for all He has done.  Even when you don’t want to—as the Nike commercial says: just do it!  God wants you to tell him!  From I Thessalonians 5:18 we see that It is His will for you be thankful to Him!  Being thankful to God and having an attitude of Thanksgiving is foundational to our life communion with God.  When we are thankful we lay ourselves and the world aside and we allow God’s Spirit to be our influence. We can make music in our hearts to God for things he has done and be thankful in every situation!

            THIS WEEK’S CHALLENGE:  I will put myself and the world aside and allow the Holy Spirit to be my influence.  I will be thankful to God—ALWAYS— in every situation so that I may continue to grow deeper with Him becoming healthier and as a result better reflect his image to the WHOLE WORLD!

Would you stand and say this with me…

I will put myself and the world aside and allow the Holy Spirit to be my influence.  I will be thankful to God—ALWAYS— in every situation so that I may continue to grow deeper with Him becoming healthier and as a result better reflect his image to the WHOLE WORLD!