This Sunday at Church: Praise God for the Gospel

This Sunday at Church I want to encourage you to do the following: Praise God for the Gospel.

 

Last week I preached from Ephesians 1:3.  This week on Sunday I will be preaching on Ephesians 1:4-6.  Ephesians 1:3-6 states “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we would be holy and blameless before Him. In love 5 He predestined us to adoption as sons through Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the kind intention of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, which He freely bestowed on us in the Beloved.”  I thought it was interesting that verse 3 said “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  Here blessed means more to praise God.  Then in verse 6 it said “to the praise of the glory of His grace.”  What I got from this is the importance of praising God.  And the content and focus in on the Gospel of what God the Father has done to bring about our salvation with election in verse 4, predestination in verse 5 and the end result is praise of God for His grace in verse 6.

It is going to take us several weeks to go through Ephesians 1 since the chapter is so rich with the details of what the Triune God has done to save us.  The saving work of the Father is stated in verses 4-6, the sacrifice of the Son in verses 7-12 and the saving work Spirit in verses 13 through 14.  Notice how each section ends with the phrase “to the praise of His glory” in verse 6, 12 and 14.  Did you catch that?  “To the praise of His glory!”

If you go to a biblically sound church it would preach Christ and be Gospel centered as a church.  Sometimes people can think sound Bible teaching is dull but it isn’t!  The more biblical and deep the doctrine it draws from the Gospel and the Bible, the more it should make us praise Him!  Just as we see in Ephesian 1.

Say it aloud: “To the praise of His glory!”

Go to church to hear the Gospel of what the Father, Son and Spirit has done to save us from our sins during the preaching.  Say “Amen!” audibly or silently when various aspects of the work of the Triune God is mentioned in the preaching.  Praise God for the glorious Gospel.  If your church is one that allows people to say Amen aloud, say it to fire up the preacher to preach the Gospel strongly, for God’s glory!

Go to church to hear the Gospel of what the Father, Son and Spirit has done to save us from our sins during the songs of worship.  Lyrics matter.  And He is worthy of us praising Him aloud when the lyrics praises God for the work of the Gospel through the Father, Son and Holy Spirit!

Go to church to hear the Gospel of what the Father, Son and Spirit has done to save us from our sins during prayer.  Don’t think of prayer as a time to close your eyes and take a break from one church event to another.  Hear for the Gospel during the prayers throughout the service.  Say “Amen!” audibly to the Gospel when it is mentioned!  Again, He is worthy of our praise!

Never stop praising God for the Gospel.  In fact that’s one sign you are spiritually growing.  Also if you are not praising God for the Gospel that’s a sign that you are losing focus on God and Christ.  So praise God for the Gospel that you will hear from church today!

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