Thankful to God that Others Are Blessed (Colossians 1:3).

Class Outline:

Sunday July 5, 2026

 

Open:

 

To be blessed by God is not to be superior to others. Grace excludes superiority. But grace does not remove individuality. Your blessings from God are yours. You share them, but you do not lose them.

 

All blessings from God are meant to be shared. This is an amazing concept, and one that is a part of today’s lesson. Everything that comes from God was meant to be given to others or shared with others.

 

It turns out that every commandment you follow, like being thankful and loving others, leads you right to a deeper understanding of Christ.

 

Main theme: We are thankful to God when others are supremely blessed by Him since they enjoy God as we do, and they become a blessing to us and to the world. 

 

Text: 

 

COL 1:3-8

We give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, 4 since we heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and the love which you have for all the saints; 5 because of the hope laid up for you in heaven, of which you previously heard in the word of truth, the gospel 6 which has come to you, just as in all the world also it is constantly bearing fruit and increasing, even as it has been doing in you also since the day you heard of it and understood the grace of God in truth; 7 just as you learned it from Epaphras, our beloved fellow bond-servant, who is a faithful servant of Christ on our behalf, 8 and he also informed us of your love in the Spirit.

 

Intro:

 

This begins the thanksgiving part of the letter, the longest such of all.

 

Paul, after exerting his authority as an apostle, does not want to begin with arguments against errors, warnings, and rebukes. The first thing in his heart is all the good in them. He gives thanksgiving to God for them and wants them to know it.

 

1. Define thanksgiving: Eucharisteo - to give thanks.

 

What is thanksgiving: a thought response, often emotional, to being blessed by another. 

 

Almost always used towards God, in this case to God the Father for others’ blessings from Him. 

 

This is something to remember when you’re encouraging someone. Keep God in the picture as the source of all blessings.  

 

“How all that might be harmful in direct praise is strained out of it, when it becomes gratitude towards God!” [Maclaren]

 

When Paul employs eucharisteo the notion of gratitude is clearly present, but so also is the notion of praise. The Jewish word for thanksgiving (yada) is interchangeable between praise (confession) and thanksgiving.

 

Thanksgiving offering in Lev 7. Provision and redemption and was to be shared with family, friends, priests. It was a banquet.

 

Do you thank God for the blessings He gives to others?

 

This is a foolproof test of whether you are truly thankful.

 

2. What is Paul thankful to God for in others? 

 

ROM 1:8-10 Your faith

 

1CO 1:4-9 The grace of God given to you in Christ Jesus, enriched in everything, not lacking any gift. 

 

EPH 1:15-16  Faith and love. 

 

PHI 1:3-6 Participation in the gospel, all partakers of grace.

 

COL 1:3-8 Faith, love, and hope in the gospel. 

 

Th 1:2-3 The work of faith, labor of love, steadfastness of hope. 

 

2TH 1:3 Faith greatly enlarged and love that grows for one another. 

 

Philemon 4-6 Your love and faith. 

 

All eternal, unchangeable, and a part of the fulfillment accomplished by the Messiah. 

 

3. Thankfulness is purest when it is to God for grace blessings to others. 

 

Thankful for self is the greatest deception: LUK 18:11.

 

LUK 18:10-14

"Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector.  11 "The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: 'God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.  12 'I fast twice a week; I pay tithes of all that I get.'  13 "But the tax collector, standing some distance away, was even unwilling to lift up his eyes to heaven, but was beating his breast, saying, 'God, be merciful to me, the sinner!'  14 "I tell you, this man went to his house justified rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but he who humbles himself will be exalted."

 

Thanksgiving is an ability in everyone: Cicero said that thanksgiving was “not only the greatest of virtues, but the parent of all the others.”; Aristotle said that gratitude helps hold society together.

 

The modern view is no different. Desiring happiness but without Christ, the self-improvement part of our world knows the value of thanksgiving. 

 

The gifts of God are not for making us better than others: anthropocentric thinking. 

 

Christocentric: become like children, the greatest of you is your servant - the gifts of God are the life of Christ and so they all make us like Him. 

 

Thankfulness to God in Colossians (to God and for others): COL 1:12; COL 2:7; COL 3:15-17; COL 4:2. 

 

Paul knows that faith, love, hope, ministering are the greatest of blessings. 

 

He wants to share them. They are designed to be shared - as life.

 

Gratitude to God removes jealousy and competition because it removes self. 

 

All these blessings exalt the Giver and Christ the instrument (2CO 8:9 - through His poverty, you might become rich). 

 

4. Christ fulfilled all that the OT saints were to be thankful for. 

 

“Thankfulness” is almost always used towards God in the OT. 

 

Thank offering - celebrated provision and redemption / shared with others. 

 

Thankfulness for fulfilled covenants: Only Christ fulfills them.

 

ISA 51:1

Indeed, the Lord will comfort Zion;

He will comfort all her waste places.

And her wilderness He will make like Eden,

And her desert like the garden of the Lord;

Joy and gladness will be found in her,

Thanksgiving and sound of a melody.

 

Psa 100

A Psalm for Thanksgiving.

 

Shout joyfully to the Lord, all the earth.

2 Serve the Lord with gladness;

Come before Him with joyful singing.

3 Know that the Lord Himself is God;

It is He who has made us, and not we ourselves;

We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.

 

4 Enter His gates with thanksgiving

And His courts with praise.

Give thanks to Him, bless His name.

5 For the Lord is good;

His lovingkindness is everlasting

And His faithfulness to all generations.

 

2CO 9:15

Thanks be to God for His indescribable gift!

 

Conclusion:

 

If secular earthly based thanks releases serotonin and dopamine, how much more does faith in the blessings of Christ? 

 

What God has beneficently given you through Christ is life, faith, salvation, justification, reconciliation, wisdom, hope, love, election, adoption, and a family (the church) in which to share it all. By sharing I mean sharing the joy of it all. It is one thing to receive an amazing gift, but if alone, the joy only goes so far. When you can share your joy with another, the joy goes farther. When you can share your joy with another who has received the same amazing gift and they share their joy with you, joy goes the farthest.