“Therefore I also, after I heard of your faith in the
Lord Jesus and your love for all the saints, do not cease to give thanks for
you, making mention of you in my prayers” – Ephesians
1:15-16 (NKJV)
Summarize in a Word: Thank
you, Lord!
Principle: Every
Christian grows.
Application: Thank
God for one another.
Main point of the Passage: One of
the privileges of Christian is to rejoice in the growth of one another in
Christ.
Illustration: Interactions in VBS makes us love one another
more than before.
Exhortation: Find out through a conversation about how you can
rejoice for others in the Lord.
On the
last day of our VBS 2018, my friend made a remarkable statement to a group of
students, “Today, I love you all more than I do on the first day!” What a
privilege to rejoice in seeing God deepened our faith in the Lord and love for one
another, as we know each other in Christ!
One of
the marks of Christian is rejoicing. We tend to rejoice only when good things
happen to us. However, in Ephesians 1:15-16, Paul was rejoicing for the good
things happened to Ephesians as he did for Colossians (cf. Col.1:4). We can
rejoice like Paul for others because every Christian grows in the faith and
love for others. Because of this, Paul would not cease thanking God, mentioning
their names in his prayer.
Paul
could know about them and thank God because there are relationship and
communication between them. We must ask and listen to one another how we have
been growing in the Lord. What do you talk about when you meet fellow believers
in the church? Do you talk about mundane things of this world or about the
faithfulness and sufficiency of Scripture in our daily life?
Moreover,
Paul could find reasons to thank God for them. Do you take time to thank God –
thanking not for the blessing you received but for the blessings, other
received? Or, are you doing the very opposite by being sad and envious? Find
out through conversation about how you can rejoice for them in the Lord. In fact,
when we thank God for others, we develop a love for one another exponentially. Would
your prayer always include “Thank You, Lord?”