Our Thankfulness Prioritized

The speaker begins by expressing gratitude and praying for salvation. They emphasize the importance of prayer and seeking God's will. They then discuss the significance of God's plan and the role of Jesus Christ in salvation. They highlight the transformation that occurs when one accepts Jesus as their Savior, moving from a state of sin and separation from God to being a child of God. The speaker emphasizes the love and grace of God in providing salvation as a gift through faith. Overall, the speaker encourages gratitude and appreciation for what God has done in our lives. Father, we should be truly thankful. And Father, we just pray that if there be anyone here that is lost that does not know You as their personal Savior, that they will be saved today before it's eternally too late, and that they can begin to experience all of the blessings and the wonderful things that You have done for us. And we thank You and we love You in Your Son's most precious name we pray. Amen. So back to where we're at. We talked last week about praying for each other. And God answers prayer. And I am praying for you. And I hope and pray that you are praying for me. And we find out in Luke 11 and verse 9 that He says, Ask and it shall be given you. Seek and you shall find. Knock and it shall be opened. And so now believe in prayer. I believe prayer works. And I believe we ought to be praying for one another. And I think a lot of times, God's not doing what God wants to do because we're simply not seeking God. We're not praying. We don't desire the same things that God desires. He says in Colossians 1.12, Giving thanks unto the Father which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in life. You know, I could spend all day long talking about what God is doing in our lives right now. And I could talk about what God is going to do in your life. But without even looking at the present or the future, today, Paul is going to focus in on what God has done in the past. And when we look at what Jesus Christ has done in the past, folks, we have plenty enough there to keep us busy of being thankful for what God has already done in our life. What God has done started with the Father, but has performed through His Son. And this is actually fixing to start a dissertation on Jesus Christ and a doctrinal study on Jesus Christ. But first, he realizes that he goes to the Father. The Father is the reason for everything. It says there in Colossians 1.4, according to the will of God, our Father, Jesus Christ, was following God's plan. In 1 Peter 1.20, what was that plan? He was ordained before the foundation of the world. Before God ever spoke this world into existence. Before God created in Adam and Eve, He already had a plan that His Son would come and die for our sins. And folks, you are not here by accident. If God already planned that out for His Son to come and die so that you and I could be saved, then God planned for you to be here this morning. Ephesians 1.4 says, He has chosen us and healed before the foundation of the world. Not only did He choose Jesus Christ before the foundation, but guess what? You were chosen before the foundation of this world. You go back to our verse this morning. He says, giving thanks unto our Father who hath made us neat. Now when we see that word neat, neat literally means He made us able. He qualified us. He made us complete. In other words, He brought us to perfection. And so we give thanks to the Father. Why? Because He has qualified us. What in the world has He qualified us for? He has qualified us for salvation. He has qualified us for a relationship with Him. And so what Paul is speaking about here is our salvation. He's speaking about being reborn and that second birth. And you know, when we talk about that, He saved you as a child of God. In other words, you have been neat. You are qualified by God to participate in His inheritance and those saints who have already been promoted to glory. Now that ought to get some amens. That ought to get some excitement that God not only saved you, but He qualified you. I mean, we ought to be as Christians, we ought to be shouting. We ought to be giving applause maybe to God for what He has done for us. Some of us need to go back and realize what we were before Jesus Christ saved us. Because we ought to be excited. We ought to be thankful what He's done. And so, let's take just a moment with me and I want you to notice some things. First of all, when you go back and you look at your life before Jesus Christ, you were dead. You were dead in your sins. In Ephesians 2.1, it says that you were dead in trespasses and sin. You were a dead man or woman walking. You were separated from God because of your sins. Because you had sins in your life, there was no relationship with God. You were away from God. Isaiah 59, 2. Your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid His face from you that He will not hear. There's no relationship with God before your salvation. You're dead. You can't have any communication with God. And then look at what He said. You were a child of the devil. John 8.44, you are of your father the devil. Who is what? A liar? A murderer? And then number four, you were doomed to hell. 2 Thessalonians says, in flaming fire, taking vengeance on them that know not God and that obey not the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. How do you obey the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Through acceptance. Through belief. Through faith. He also tells us in 2 Thessalonians 1.8-9, who shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power. The wicked shall be turned into hell and all the nations that forgot God. Folks, that is a sad state of affairs. That's a bad position to be in, but if we were all people, find ourselves by virtue of our natural birth, every one of us is here. We are dead in our sins, separated from God, a child of the devil, and we are doomed to a devil's hell. Hell was not created for man. It was created for the devil. But when we follow the devil and we're a child of the devil, guess what? We're going to wind up where the devil is. But thanks be to God. But thanks be to God our Father. When You were born again, everything that was wrong with You was made right by our Lord. As a matter of fact, He changed everything. Now, if you are a child of God, God has given you His life. You are no longer dead. Now you have the life of God. What is the life of God? He is eternal. He is immortal, right? And we know that one of these days, we will be and live with Him forever. It says, even when you were dead in sins, He had quickened us together with Christ Jesus. By grace, you were saved. He also tells us in John 10.28 that Jesus Christ said, I give unto them eternal life, and they shall never perish. Neither shall any man pluck them out of My hand. And so man, God gave us His life. And then you look at the next thing and God reconciled you to Himself. In Romans 5, verses 6-10, it says for when you were without strength, because you were dead, you were a sinner in due time, Christ died for the undead. He died for you. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, yet peradventure for a good man, some would even dare to die. But, God commended His love toward us in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for you. And He died for me. Much more then, being now justified by His blood, we shall be saved from the wrath through Him. For if, when we were enemies, because remember, we're children of the devil. We're dead. We're full of sin. We were reconciled to God by the death of His Son. Much more being reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. So man, God gave you His life. He reconciled you to Himself. But He didn't stop there. He adopted you into His family. See, you were the child of Satan, but what happened? He made you His child. He made you a joint heir with Jesus Christ. In John 1 and verse 12, He says, "...as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believed on His name." God's also set you on the road to heaven. He gave you an eternity. He built you a home. In John 17 and verse 24, He says, "...Father, I will that they also whom Thou hast given Me, be with Me where I am. And they may behold My glory, which Thou hast given Me, for Thou lovest Me before the foundation of the world." He told His disciples in John 14, one of my favorite verses, "...let not your heart be troubled." You believe in God? I believe also in Me. In my Father's house are many mansions. If it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go, and He did, amen, I go to prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto Myself that where I am, there you may be also. Every bit of this happened when you as a sinner believe in Jesus Christ for salvation. And at that very instant, all of a sudden, you are a law sinner. You have faith and believe and trust in Jesus Christ for your soul salvation, and immediately, you go from being a sinner to a saint. Immediately, you are changed. God is awesome, folks. He did that for us. It's soul saving. Sin-killing power. He instantly, eternally prepares you as the child of God. It makes you worthy. It makes you meet. He qualifies you to enter into His presence, His family, and His home. We call this wonderful gift, a big fancy name in the Baptist circles is justification. Justification. In other words, justification is God's gracious gift to every repenting, believing sinner. Romans 5-1 talks about this. That is what God meant when He said that He has qualified us. He has made us meet. When God took me, this sinner that was dead, He made me just as if I had never sinned and gave me a relationship with Him. Are you ready to amen, shout, clap, get excited yet? Because, folks, man, this is great stuff. Here's the bottom line. God loved you. Jesus Christ died for you. The Holy Spirit drew you to the Father through the Son, and God saved you by His grace. You didn't deserve it, but He did it anyway. And then He tells us, for by grace are you saved through faith that not of yourselves. It is what? It is a gift of God. You can't work for it because He doesn't want you to brag for it. See, I can't brag on my salvation. All I can do is be thankful to our Father who art in Heaven. Hallowed be His name. He is the One that has delivered us from the power of darkness and has translated us into the Kingdom of His dear Son. And so notice the three things that Paul mentions that Jesus Christ did. Number one, He delivered us. He delivered us. And then number two, we're going to look, He translated us. And then number three, that you have redemption. He places you, the conclusion of because you have been delivered and translated, now you have redemption. And that's what Paul is going to talk about this morning. Who hath delivered us? You have been delivered. That word delivered means rescued. You know, the sad thing is there's a lot of people in the world that don't even realize that they're dying. There's a lot of people in this world that doesn't realize that they are lost and that they're perishing. So what are we going to be rescued from? That word power has the idea of authority or jurisdiction. As a lost person, you do what you do because you are what you are. Being dead, being a sinner by nature, having Satan as your father, guess what? You are going to sin. We shouldn't be surprised and shocked when somebody sins or does something crazy or unradical when they are not a Christian, when they have not trusted in Jesus Christ. What should shock us is when believers sin and do things that shock us. But the world, it shouldn't shock us. And he uses that word deliver there. See, when we were saved by His mighty grace, He broke the bonds that held us and held us back and forever set you free. Deliver tells a tale. It literally means to draw to oneself, to rescue, to deliver. And this is exactly what the Lord Jesus Christ did on Calvary. He saved us by His grace. He reached into your lost situation. He reached into your dead wife and drew you to Himself. He rescued you by His power. And He delivered you from your darkness, your bondage, your sinnets, and your sin. And He set you free. And so when God rescued you from darkness, several great things took place. Let me share a couple of them with you today. Number one, we are delivered instantly. We are delivered instantly. That word delivered is in the Aorist tense, which means there was a focus of a point in time that it happened, but with continuing results. What Jesus did for us was not a gradual thing. One moment, a certain moment in time, and a time and a place. You were hellbound. You were a sinner going to hell. But then all of a sudden, the very next moment, you were a child of God. And you had been given life and an eternity in heaven. Man, salvation is not a process. It's an instantaneous event. You are delivered instantly. Instantly. Right there at that moment, when I was nine years old in Central Baptist Church in Bastrop, Louisiana, right here on this side of the pulpit, down at the altar, I looked at Jesus Christ and I said, I am a sinner. I am on my way to hell, but I want to accept Your Son's sacrifice on my behalf, so that way I can be Your child. And immediately, right then, it didn't take a day. It didn't take a week. It didn't take a month. It's still not working. Immediately, right then, I went from being dead in hell to being alive in Jesus Christ. It was instantaneous. But notice, not only was it instantly, but it was also powerful. It was powerful. Jesus, talking with Nicodemus in John 3, described it as a new birth. Now, there's nothing more powerful than being reborn, right? And Nicodemus, it confused him, because why? How can a grown man return back into his mother's womb? And Jesus said, wait a minute, Nicodemus, you don't need to be reborn again physically. You're already a big sinner. You're already dead enough. You don't need to be reborn in that situation again, but what you need to do is be reborn spiritually. And so all of a sudden, the power of salvation delivers us that's there. In 2 Corinthians 5.17, Paul says that we become new creations. All of the old things passed away. And behold, all things become new. The power of the enemy is forever broken. And you're set free. You are delivered instantly. You are delivered powerfully. But I want you to get this this morning. You're delivered eternally. You're delivered eternally. What do you mean by that? What Jesus does for His people is not temporary. He doesn't save you one day. He doesn't make you instantly His child to one day remove you from being His child. That's not the way God works. That's not the way Jesus Christ... It is against their character. It is against their nature. And their nature is that they cannot lie. The Bible is clear about this matter. The Bible is clear when you look at Scripture that Jesus Christ saves you and it is good forever. It is eternal. John 3.16, For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in Him should not perish, but have what? Everlasting life. It is eternal. It is forever. There is nothing you can do to mess up what there was nothing that you could do to get. Jesus gave it to you because all you did was ask and you're not going to be removed. And so now that we've been delivered, look at what Paul says now. It just gets better. He translated us. He translated us. Now this is a cool thing here. Look at what he said. He said in v. 13, Who had delivered us from the power of darkness, from the control of Satan, from the control of the wickedness of this world, and He hath translated us into the kingdom of His dear Son. This also is an aorist tense, which means it happened in the past and it is continuing into the future. And notice, Jesus did not just bring us out of the devil's kingdom, but He brought us into His own kingdom. You know, when you look at this word, it's the same word that was used about Enoch. Do you remember Enoch? He was not for God what? He took them. See, I think some of us as Christians do not realize that when God delivered us, He's already translated us. This world is not my home. Peter says, I am just a pilgrim passing through. My home is now with Jesus Christ. I am now, my spirit is seated with Christ at the right hand of the Father. And I am living in the flesh, walking in the flesh, living for God in this wicked world. But this world is not my home. We have been translated. I've been translated. I am where Christ is at. When He saves you, He translates you into that kingdom of light. You're in a new kingdom. You're now subject to new laws. You're not subject to the laws of this land. Do you remember the apostle said when looking at the court there, he said, we must obey God rather than man. God's laws are the ones that are the most important. We are always praying for the Lord to deliver us from the power of sin. From the power of the devil. But He's already done that. When we pray for deliverance, folks, we're praying for something that God has already given us. In other words, we need to learn to live in that freedom. We need to learn to live where we already are. A few weeks ago last month when me and Lisa went on a cruise, and every time I go down to Mexico, the one good thing that I always have when I leave this country, and there's no way that I would want to go to another country and not be a citizen of the United States of America. Because you feel that security. What? That guess what? I'm an American citizen. And so you've got that safety belt. But folks, if you're a Christian, forget about the safety net of being an American citizen. You are a citizen of heaven. You are a child of Jesus Christ. And you talk about a safety net. There is nothing I can do, nowhere that I can go that God cannot deliver me instantly from the situation. The devil wants every one of us to live our lives in darkness. He wants every person on this earth to eventually go to hell. And listen, Satan could care less about your peace. We've been talking a lot as we went through Colossians and now our Philippians, and now that we're going through Colossians, we've been talking a lot about joy and peace. And let me let you in on a little secret. Satan could care less about your joy and peace. Satan is not interested whether you have peace or not. He's not interested in your salvation. But, when you come to Jesus Christ, you are saved by grace. And you enter into God's Kingdom. And when you did, you came under the dominion of One. You came under the control of One Who loves you more than life itself. He gave His life up in order that you and I might come into that Kingdom. He gives you everything that old master, the devil, would not give, could not give, did not want to give. He gives you eternal life. Hope. Salvation. Peace. Joy. Folks, you need to understand today, Jesus loves you. Jesus cares about you. He is ever with you. He carries you in His heart. You are there with Him. We need to prioritize our thankfulness because God has delivered us. And God has translated us. And notice the third thing. Because He delivered us, because He translated us, you have redemption. You have redemption. Now, this is what's so awesome about this whole entire verse. Delivering is an heiress' test. It happened in the past and it's good for all eternity. Translated. It happened in the past and it's good for all eternity. One of these days, my body's going to meet up with my spirit that's already in the presence of God. But redemption is a noun. It's not the end of a verb. And so a verb is acting in movement. A noun is hung there and it's the fact of what, because we have been delivered, because we have been translated, you have redemption. What does He mean by redemption? Look at what He says in verse 14. In whom we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins. Paul tells us that Jesus Christ, as a member of His kingdom, you have and enjoy redemption because of His blood. Through His blood. It is the death of Jesus Christ that redeems you from your sins. It is the death and blood of Jesus Christ that delivers you and translates you from the power of Satan and sin in your life. See, you have been redeemed. Redemption has taken place. It cost God something. See, redemption is not free. Redemption doesn't just happen. It cost God His Son. But He willingly did that. And so therefore, you have been purchased. You have been bought by the precious blood of Jesus Christ. You are now into His family by grace through His flesh and His blood. And He says not only have you been redeemed through the blood, but God has forgiven all of your sins. Every evil thing that you ever did. Every mark that stood against you has been forever removed and washed away. Amen? Now that ought to get us excited. You are as clean and pure and holy in the eyes of God as if you have never sinned or done anything. I'll give you a couple of Scriptures. In Psalms 103, verse 12, it says, as far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgression from us. How far as the east is to the west? You can't get to both of them at the same time, can you? Because as long as you're walking west, what happens? You're getting as far and farther away from the east as you can. And so keep going west, keep going west, and what? You're getting farther away. And so God said, it don't matter if you want to go east, ok, then guess what? You're getting as far as your sins is from the west. You can't ever catch back up with them. I mean, as far as the east is from the west, there's no way. Even standing still, guess what? There's still out there a distance away from you that you will never be returned again. Isaiah 38, verse 17, I love this one. Behold, for peace I had great bitterness, but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption, for thou hast cast all my sins behind my back. Now, let me ask you a question. This is kind of a theological thing here. I think you all can handle it this morning. But where is God? He's everywhere, isn't He? Then how do you get to the back of God? If God is everywhere, and God is always present, and God is always watching, the only time that I ever heard of God turning His back was on Jesus Christ at the day of Calvary. Otherwise, you cannot get to His back. You cannot see His back. Right? And He said, man, I took your sins and I cast them backwards. Because God's not going backwards. God's going forward. He's got a plan. He's got a purpose. He's got a reason for what's going on. And so man, He says, not only is your sins as far as the east is from the west here on earth, physically, you can't get to them. But guess what? Spiritually, in heaven, you can't get to them either because God's put them behind His back. Try to get there. But then look at another verse. In Isaiah 43, verse 25, He says, even I am He that... Even if you could get to the back of God, notice what He says. He says, I have blotted out thy transgressions. Not only have I separated them from the east to the west, not only have I thrown them behind My back, but I have taken and erased them. I have blotted them out. They are gone. But, if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another. But, the blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin. See, I've got to be walking in Jesus Christ. I've got to be walking in the light. But remember, God has delivered us from darkness. He has translated us out of this kingdom of darkness into the kingdom of light. So as long as I stay on God's side, as long as I stay with God, guess what? My sins ain't coming up no more. They're blotted out. They're done. But you know, it does say in the New Testament you step out of that light and into that darkness. And him that knoweth to do good and doeth it not, to him it is sin. And God's going to deal with it. God's going to take care of it. But guess what? It's not going to mess up my position or where I'm going or what I'm going to get there, but it is going to mess up my testimony and my walk here on earth. And so He says if we confess your sins, He's faithful and just in forgiving your sins. And He says, I will take it another step forward. When you're willing to confess, I'm going to cleanse you of everything. I'm going to take care of everything. The question that I want to ask you this morning, it says, has Jesus Christ made this change in your life? Have you made this change? Has this happened in your life? Folks, we ought to be the most excited people around. I guarantee you if you walked into a hospital with somebody that is looking at death tomorrow and gave them a cure that they could get up and walk out of a hospital, that moment, I guarantee you they would be happy. Right? I love watching on Facebook different friends and talking to different ones. I love the thing where when they get through with their cancer treatments, they get to ring that bell. That was fun ringing the bell, wasn't it, Brother Rick? He was smiling so big when he rang that bell. Some others have rung that bell. And man, you get excited. And then we come to church and what? God hasn't just delivered you from cancer or physical things, but listen, God has translated you into heaven. He has delivered you. He has qualified you to be His child. There is nothing that can mess us up. So if Jesus has made this change in your life, have you trusted Him for your soul's salvation? Have you experienced the deliverance, the translation, and the redemption? Some of us need to go back to that time and that place where we cried out to Jesus Christ and He changed us. And I can remember, I mean, this was 40-something years ago. 42 years ago. And I remember it like it was yesterday. I wanted to tell everyone. My mom had gallbladder surgery. She wasn't at church that night. And my dad, being a preacher, he made me, you know, we had the people that all came around and shake hands and hugged me. And then after you did that, you had to stand at the back door so they could do it again and all that. And my mom's just right over there at the parsonage. And I know my mom loved me. I know my mom had been praying for me. And all this time, all I could do was what? I want to go tell mom, right? All these people know something. It's like, let me give a time out. Let me go tell mom and I'll come back. But I had to wait. And I can remember my buddies at school the next morning. Man, I was saved last night. You were saved from what? What were you doing? Well, guess what? I was dying and going to hell. And now Jesus Christ has delivered me. He's qualified me for heaven. And so now I'm one of His children. You see that? You remember that excitement? You remember that joy? Folks, we need that back in our services today. We need to come walking in here like we were dead. But now we have been made alive. And the third question is, has Jesus made a difference in your life? See, if He did all of that in the past, we can't stop there. Start noticing what everything Jesus does in the present. And man, Jesus has brought me here. Jesus has put people in my life. Jesus has allowed me to go places, to see things, to do things because of the Gospel that I could have never imagined when I was nine years old. This is what you've got out in for my life. I had my life planned, and I thought, man, it's going to be a great life. But nothing can compare to what Jesus Christ has done in my life. He has translated me. He has delivered me. He has sent me redeemed. I'm redeemed! I have redemption! I'm not going to get it. It's not going to happen when I see Him. I am already redeemed. I'm a child. If you haven't accepted Jesus Christ as your personal Savior today, right now is the day of salvation. Right now is the time to call upon Jesus Christ. Because guess what? You are here this morning, and Jesus Christ tells us in Revelation, the last book of the Bible, He said, Behold, I stand at the door and knock. When someone knocks on your door, what do you do? You go see who's there, right? All Jesus Christ is wanting you to do is go and open the door and say, come on in. Come on in. And you know what He's going to do? God Himself in the flesh is going to walk into your life and He is going to hug you around your neck. He is going to sit down at your table. And He is going to dine with you. He is going to fellowship with you. He is going to walk through this life with you. He is going to be eternally bound to you and wherever you go, Jesus is going to go. But what you've got to do is open the door. You've got to take that step of faith believing that you are a sinner and that through Jesus' blood, He paid the debt. And you've got to say, Lord, I want what You've got to give. I want what You've got to give. And immediately, right then and there, you'll be delivered. You'll be translated. And you'll be redeemed. And then we're going to get into next week looking at what Jesus Christ, out of all of that, what He continues to do for us. And it's just going to get better and better. I hope you don't miss. I hope you start inviting people. Because folks, this is exciting. The world today, the people out there today need to know that they have been delivered and translated and have redemption. Nothing more. They think the next president's going to deliver them from all of their problems. They think the next market deal is going to translate their life into a better society and more wealth. It's not going to happen, folks. It's a false hope from Satan himself. But God, thankful that He's my Father. And we start with all of the praise and all of the glory to Him. To Him. He's the One that delivered us. As we stand, have the verse of invitation.