In Everything Give Thanks — Paris Reidhead

Prayer as the Foundation of the Christian Life

Will you turn, please, to Ephesians 6, verse 18, the text that engaged us two Lord's days ago, two Sundays ago. We considered this as aspects of prayer. The text reads, Praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, and watching thereunto with all perseverance and supplication for all saints.

We have established that the all prayer can well and properly be understood with every form of prayer, continuing in prayer with every form of prayer, implying that there are different kinds of prayer.

We saw two weeks ago that we begin the Christian life by prayer. We are savingly united to Christ by prayer, the sinner's prayer. God be merciful to me, a sinner, and save me for Jesus' sake. It is faith from the heart, reaching out to embrace the Lord Jesus and receive him, that saves us, that brings us out of death and into life.

And we would call this the first kind of prayer, that which reaches out again across two thousand years to the time he died and was buried and was raised again, to receive him. This is to be but the beginning of our prayer life, not the ending at all.

We saw that it is essential for us, for our sakes, in coming to God in prayer, to have before us the prayer of affirmation, continually affirming before the Lord, not to teach him by any means, but for our own sake.

And, I might add also, we are dealing with principalities and powers and the rulers of the darkness of this age, as it is set forth in the verses just preceding. And it is exceedingly important that we should have it clearly in our minds and constantly before us that we once were the servants of sin, we once were the bond slaves of Satan, but by our renunciation of the God of this world and our receiving of the Lord Jesus Christ, we have passed from the kingdom of this world into the kingdom of God's dear Son.

Just as a soldier daily will stand before the flag and reaffirm his allegiance and reaffirm his intention to defend that flag and be available for its protection, so we ought daily to affirm again the fact that when Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners, he had us in mind that we were the sinners for whom he died and that his blood was shed for us and we have repented of our sin.

Now it isn't to repeat the work that was done, but it is to establish the platform, the foundation, upon which our whole prayer life rests. And we cannot overestimate or emphasize the value of the prayer of affirmation.

Brokenness, Confession, and Spiritual Growth

Again, we saw the prayer of brokenness and confession, a distinct kind of prayer that ought to have had, and probably will someday in the future, its own treatment in the full time allowed. Psalm 51 being that psalm which has been given by the Spirit of God to unveil to us the nature of the prayer of brokenness and the evidence of a broken heart, and how important it is that we should remember that we never outgrow our need for brokenness.

How sad it is that sometimes we as Christians along in the way feel that because of the distance we've traversed, the length of time we've been in Christ, that there's no place longer for brokenness. But I will venture this, that if at some time in the past you grieved the Spirit of God and did not deal with that, did not meet him on that issue, that you have not grown since then, that this became a roadblock in your experience, and that the years, whether they've been two, twenty, have found no spiritual progress.

There's been no further unveiling of himself. You may have been faithful. Oh yes, you may have been ever in attendance and continued responsibility. And I am confident that God is grateful for this. In one sense he appreciates that faithfulness on your part, but it's become a roadblock.

There's been no further growth. There's been no further development. It's as though one were traveling from New York to Chicago, and they got off at Erie, Pennsylvania, and the train went on. They didn't reach Chicago, and they're still in Erie.

And so it would be that if you, back in some point in the past, grieved him, some attitude, some issue, some point, and haven't dealt with that, you haven't grown since. It may have been all around you, on everyone else's hand there's been blessing, but this became an effective roadblock.

It stopped the flow in your life. This is the point of beginning. And revival for you will be that time when you see that and deal with it, and take it out, and it's before the Lord. That's why in the past we've had periods when the Spirit of God has led us to emphasize the prayer of brokenness, because it opens the channel for the flow of blessing.

We ought to keep constantly a broken spirit, not that we are introspectively simply fragilating ourselves, not that at all, but that when we grieve him we are sensitive to the fact we've grieved him. You don't need to wait for the next revival meeting.

You can know at that moment that you've grieved him. There will be an inner awareness of distress, and that lack of peace and that distress will cause you to say, Lord, what is it that's grieved thee?

What is it that's touched thy heart? What attitude have I had? What action have I taken? What word have I said? And as we wait before him with the word, the Spirit of God will point out whatever it is in us that grieved him.

That's the point of dealing. How pathetic it is to allow that which could have been dealt with at the moment to become like a little sliver that gets in under the fingernail and it begins to fester and become infected and inflamed until finally major surgery is necessary.

And how easy it is, really, in the light of however hard it may be at the moment, how much easier it is to take the place of brokenness in confession at the point of need. This is the kind of prayer, and when you come to the Lord in prayer, there ought to be the prayer of affirmation.

There ought to be the prayer of brokenness. But I see today that the Spirit of God is pressing me to share with you another kind of prayer, and it is not new. But you can be sure of this, that if there is anything very new that comes over this pulpit, that it will not be very true.

And so I make no apology for carrying you over ground that you have seen in the past, because I am not at all certain that you have done that which may, however, emphatically been presented in the past.

The Prayer of Thanksgiving and the Spirit-Filled Life

I am certain also that the verse that shall be to us the text for the time is one of the most difficult verses in the Word of God for me to obey, and I must be continually brought back to it. And being woven on the same loom, whether or not the wolf is the same, be sure the warp is the same, the problem in my heart is to some degree the problem in yours.

And so I think as you see for Ephesians 5 .20, you will agree with me that this has been no little source of difficulty, and one that must be clearly set before you. I have reference to the prayer of thanksgiving, the prayer of thanksgiving.

Notice how it's linked here to the spirit-filled life. So lest anyone should think that this is that which only characterized those who may not be able to in their own hearts rest in the fact that they know the fullness of the Spirit, I would say that you need not feel for a moment that after you have come to such a relationship it will be in some respects any easier, because it is following that that he gives us.

You notice in verse 18 he says, Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing, making melody in your heart to the Lord. The overflow of the Spirit's presence.

I would like to think that it would become automatic in your life that when you knew the fullness of the Holy Ghost, that you would thus, without further thought on your part, give thanks for all things.

I would like to think that. But experience and observation and study has made me convinced that it is not so. This is a commandment. This is to be viewed as commandment of the Holy Ghost. How easy it is for some minds, mine is not one of them, to say the Lord Jesus kept the law for me so I don't need to keep it.

I find that he said, If you love me, keep my commandments. And this is not a lawless life, for these are commandments of the Holy Ghost which he will enable us to keep. They flow not out of our own resources, but out of his presence.

And I will further proceed to say that walking in the fullness of the Spirit of God is going to make the keeping of this far, far easier than it would have been otherwise. And so it is true that we are commanded to be filled with the Spirit.

And this is the normal Christian life. And the ministry to which God has called all of us demands that we be filled with the Spirit. But you cannot say, Well, it doesn't apply to me because I do not testify to walking in the fullness of the Spirit.

For this text is not alone. In 1 Thessalonians 5 .18 it has its collateral text which enforces it even more strongly perhaps than the one that I felt led to present as the text. For there it is in this setting.

Giving Thanks in Every Circumstance

In everything give thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. And to disobey the Lord here is to bring upon our heads all the grief that disobedience ever brings. It is an extremely difficult text to obey because it cuts right across the grain of our natural temperament.

Our whole cultural climate is one where if we suffer wrong or loss, we are charged by the insistence of our neighbors to see to it that the wrong is rectified. And so the whole spirit and atmosphere and climate of the land in which we live, and every land is similar, is against this.

When our Lord said such things as when someone would take away your coat, give him your cloak. When he would take away your overcoat, give him your suit coat also, essentially. Of course the design was a little different, you'll understand, but the meaning was there.

When somebody compels you to go with him a mile, don't just go reluctantly a mile. As in the case of the soldiers of Rome that would seize upon someone and say, carry my load for a mile, don't just go the mile.

Go two miles with him. When someone smites you on one cheek, don't just wait, count ten hurriedly, and then come after him. Turn the other cheek. Give him an opportunity. Well, this is the ethics of the Christian life in this sense, that the Lord is trying to imply to us that the important thing is not our possessions or our time or our persons, that we're not primarily charged with the protection of these as the end of our being, as is the world.

We've abandoned our persons to the Lord, we've given our possessions to the Lord, we've surrendered our time to the Lord, and we're the Lord's. Therefore, the implication is you should not make your primary object the protection of your own rights.

Remember that God is interested in you and he will take care of that which is yours. And so the ethic of the Lord here, as he has presented it, would establish for us the very foundation upon which we can obey this text.

Christ's Lordship Over Possessions and Relationships

Now, if you still hold that your possessions are essentially yours and not his, if you have not understood or heard him say that if any man does not forsake all that he hath, he cannot be my disciple, putting his root right on that first, that third objection to coming into his feast, which was, I'm sorry, I can't come to your feast, remember the excuse, because I bought a piece of ground as an investment and I have to go and measure my ground and see that I got enough ground and the protection of my ground is going to keep me from your will.

Now, our Lord said back in Luke 14, if any man does not forsake all that he hath, in other words, my lordship must transcend all personal possessions. And again, if anyone does not hate his father and his mother and his brother and his sister and his own life, he can't be my disciple.

And our Lord said my lordship must transcend all human relationships. And finally he said, or in between he said rather, if any man does not take up his cross and come follow me, he can't be my disciple.

And the cross, one's occupancy of a cross, of course eliminates all choice of time and activity and career. It's all over the moment that one has been nailed to a cross. And so our Lord has established these as the premises upon which the Christian life is based.

This is the foundation upon which it rests, that he is Lord of all. Now I say if you had any question here, you're going to have some problems with the text. If you have not abandoned to him the sovereignty of your time, you're going to resent it terribly when anyone says, do this, will you?

You're going to withdraw from it because that is my time. And I don't want anybody intruding on my time. But if it's his time, it's quite different. Again, someone says this, you're going to resent it greatly, those are my possessions.

But if they're his possessions it's different. Again, don't insult me, don't hurt me, because this is my person. But if it's his person it's different. Then you'll see when you've abandoned to him the right to time, and the right to possession, and the right to your person, and the right to all your relationships, and you believe that he is worthy of such an abandonment.

Now if he isn't worthy then there's no use talking. The only one who is worthy of abandoning to him in a glad outpouring of love of our time, and our possessions, and our person, and right to relationships is God.

And Jesus Christ is God. Therefore he said to all who came to him, being God I demand this of you. Being God I ask this of you. Being God I'm worthy of this. So if you meet him as God, then you believe that as God he's going to be interested in what's his.

And his word says that he has put his sovereignty, his omnipotence, all that he is, to the end of seeing that since you are his, everything that touches you shall be to the end of making you like Christ.

Therefore when someone comes and touches your time, it isn't your time, it's his. And touches your person, it isn't your person, it's his. And he touches your relationships, it isn't your relationship, it's his.

He touches your possessions, they aren't your possessions, they're his. And it couldn't touch you, which are his, unless he, which is yours, allowed it. And that's why he can come to you and enforce this text saying, giving thanks always for all things.

The Struggle Against Resentment and Self-Protection

But I say it's very difficult. Why? Because you see I live so close to my person, and I live in such close proximity to these relationships, and I am so involved with these things called possessions, that it is extremely difficult for me to constantly live in the light of the fact that they're not mine but they're his.

This is where the problem comes. Because it is one thing for me in the moment of commitment to say Lord of my time, Lord of my body, Lord of my relationships, Lord of my talent, Lord of my money. Yes, that's why.

And that has to be. But you know it's a very difficult thing three weeks from then when somebody comes and puts their finger on that which had been yours for such a long time, and three weeks ago was committed to him.

It's just so very difficult, for me at least, to remember that it isn't mine at all, that it's his. And that after all, if he allowed it to be touched, it's his, why should I interfere with what's his?

Why can't I have confidence enough that he's God worthy to have received it, he's God big enough to protect it? And if he wants it touched, why should I interfere? You see, this is where the difficulty arises.

I'm living so close to it that my near-sightedness, you know some people can see things quite good if it's right close to them, and other things are more easily seen if they're further away. Some folks say my eyes are all right, but my arms just aren't long enough.

I can't reach far enough. Nothing's happened to my eyes, though. So it is that sometimes we discover that we can't see far enough. We can't see past the moment to realize that after all this time, this body, these possessions, these talents, aren't things that are intrinsically mine anymore.

They're his. When does someone become resentful? When do you become resentful? Isn't it when they touch something that belongs to you? Then there's a reaction to this, you shouldn't touch mine. Perhaps it's your reputation, you've earned it, and somebody comes and assaults you.

They reflect upon it, they become critical, and you resent that. You shouldn't touch my reputation, you shouldn't touch my name, you shouldn't touch my honor. But doesn't this reaction of resentment, this reaction of attempt to vindicate and prove, doesn't this represent that we've lost sight of the fact that we're not our own, that we're bought with a price?

Doesn't this represent the fact that we've gotten too nearsighted, we've forgotten that back there at that point of crisis we said, Lord, my reputation's in your hands. Lord, my possessions are in your hands.

Lord, my body's in your hands. Lord, my life is in your hands. Everything is yours. Now someone comes and touches it, and we defend it as though it were ours. We've quit claimed deed. I sold a house before I came to Florida, down in Orlando, came from Florida here.

I don't know what they've done to it, but I'm frank to tell you, I couldn't be less concerned, because I don't own it anymore. I remember when for a few months before it was sold, someone was renting it.

There were times when I said, oh, I wonder what they're doing to that house. But when that deed was signed, I lost all sense of emotional concern. Oh, that we could come to the place where the deed to the Lord is so completely signed and transferred that emotional concern over the I, me, my, and mine has been relieved.

Thanksgiving as Spiritual Therapy

Now let's apply this in prayer. How is this going to become a spiritual therapy to protect you? I believe that if in the affirmation that you have in your prayer life you can affirm over and over again, Lord, I do not own my time.

I've given it to you. I do not own my talent. I've given it to you. I do not own my body. I've given it to you. I do not own these relationships. I've given them to you. I do not own these possessions.

They're yours. If in that affirmation of our recognition of the extent of his Lordship we are honest, we are going to continually insulate ourselves against the emotional effect of some intrusion upon our former rights.

That's one way. Oh, that this should be constantly before you and affirmed by you. He is Lord of all. He's Lord of my body. He's Lord of my relationships. He's Lord of my time and talent. He's Lord of my possessions.

This ought to be the affirmation of our hearts constantly before us. Then, in order that our heart should be further insulated in prayer, there ought to be the prayer of thanksgiving, which means that whenever there comes to our mind something that we might have been at one time in our own private ownership of ourselves and things, the occasion for resentment, that now we are going to reinforce what we've affirmed by thanking the Lord.

Thank you, Father, for this. Thank you for that. If you want to leave this house with a balm of Gilead in your heart that will protect you and insulate you in all the days of the week to come, then even while I speak in these few closing moments, you let your mind go to the source of the last bitterness and the last grief and the last heartache and the last strife and the last uncertainty and say, thank you, Father.

And even while I speak, if you'll reach back into that little infected crypt in your memory and take out that thing that's been the source of such irritation and grief, say, thank you, Father, thanking for letting this happen.

Thank you, Father, for letting that happen. Thank you for this. Thank you for that. They've all crowded me to you. Thank you, Father. If you'll do that, you're going to leave this house so inwardly released that it's going to be as though your system, filled with poison breaking out with boils, has just been sweetly and completely drained of all infection, and the relief that comes from fever subsiding and health returning will return to your spirit, and you're insulated, you're protected, giving thanks always for all things.

This is a prayer. It's done in prayer. It's done by taking the things to which you're most sensitive. You know, God knows the place to which we're most sensitive, and so he allows us to have more irritation there so as that we'll be constantly pressed to him to overcome the sensitivity.

Did you know that? And if you have some particular thing to which you're most frequently, by which you're most frequently irritated, I know. Missionaries tell me this, it's just one thing that I hope I don't have when I get to the mission field.

I hope I don't have a missionary that does. I don't say anything anymore, but I know what they're going to have when they get to the mission field. I know. I know the Lord loves them too much to let them get by with this, you see.

And so they write back and say, you remember what I said when I got to the mission field? I hoped I wouldn't have. Well, I have. Pray for me. The Lord loves them. Oh, yes. The same is true with you here.

Someone says, you know, one thing I'll never do, I'll never... I'm not the sum of all wisdom yet, but I'll tell you this, I know what's going to happen. I know what's going to happen. I'm the little fellow you know that went around saying, well, one thing I'll never do, I'll never go back into the past.

And if I ever should go back into the past, one place I'll never go, that's to a big city like New York. I said that ten years ago. Oh, I'm so glad that God loves you and me so much that he isn't going to let us get by with anything.

And just about the time you think you know the thing that you can't stand, be prepared to expect God to deal with it. That's the point he's going to put the pressure. Now you know what I think we should do?

We should just anticipate the Lord. Since I know that now, I don't have to go through the process anymore, to the same degree. When I discover in my heart something that has become to that point that I could even think of it in that way, that's the place.

Thank you, Father, for having... I want to anticipate the Lord. There's a process, you know, but you can bypass certain steps in it if you're wise. If you insist, the Lord will take you the whole course.

But I don't advise it. Why can't we be wise and recognize that God's purpose is to make us like Christ? And therefore, in the things which are most irritating and most distressing, meet him on these issues, as soon as we discover it, and begin to say, why, Lord, this very part of me that would think and feel this way is the part that was taken with the Lord Jesus to the cross.

In this I'm taking your victory now. Thank you for having shown this. Then when something comes, you know you get along quite well, there seems to be no problems. Then someone bumps you. If five minutes before they had said, do you know you're sensitive about this, you'd have denied it.

But as you go home nursing that wounded spot, all of a sudden you've discovered you are far more sensitive than you thought you were. Why can't you, instead of resenting the person that put the finger on the sore spot, why can't you say, thank you, Father, for showing me the place of need, showing me my heart, giving thanks always for all things.

Don't you see? God loves you. God loves you. And he loves you too much to let you or me go on the way we are. He's going to deal with us. Now this is a gracious thing on his part. And so, he says, giving thanks always for all things.

Practicing Gratitude in Ordinary Trials

We've made sure that nothing is our own, all is his. We've made absolutely sure that the one desire of our hearts is to be like Christ, and we've also recognized that everything that touches us is to the end of making us like Christ.

So the constant attitude of our hearts is, giving thanks always for all things. That's a flat tire on the way home this morning. Yes, it is. That's the lights going off in the house. That's someone calling up at the time the dinner was to be served, saying we're awfully sorry, but we can't come.

It's all of these things compounded. It's this word of God trying to bring to your life in the totality of the rule of Christ. Do you come to the place that it isn't your time, and it isn't your car really, and it isn't your house, and it isn't your...

All is his, and you're his, and his word is, giving thanks always for all things. Oh, keep this up. Keep this level of your prayer life full, will you? It'll protect you so much. And can you say today, thank you, Lord Jesus, for saving my soul.

Thank you, Lord Jesus, for making me whole. Thank you, Lord, for giving to me thy great salvation, so full and free. If you can, then you can thank him for everything else. Shall we bow our hearts together in prayer?

Closing Prayer of Surrender and Obedience

Now, Father, we are asking thee to teach us what it is to pray with all prayer, with every sort and kind of prayer. And we are asking now that this people, being hearers of the word and doers, will go, having even in these last moments brought awe, to say thank you.

So it takes bitterness away. It takes fear and dread away. It takes the uncertainty of tomorrow away. It releases us into a joyous walk with thee. Oh, Father, let thy dear people before thee now to obey the word, the word of the Spirit of God to our hearts this morning, recognizing we're not our own.

All is thine, and thou can do with thine own as seems good in thy sight. Seal thy word to our hearts. For Jesus' sake, amen.