A great reason to praise God aloud is the privilege of being chosen in love. Why did God choose us? Because he loved us. Paul describes God’s loving election of us in terms of giving God great praise. Ephesians 1: 3-5… even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him. In love he predestined us for adoption through Jesus Christ, .., to the praise of his glorious grace, …

In the dark night of September 7, 1860, on Lake Michigan, the steamship Lady Elgin began to sink in the gale-force winds. The desperate captain ordered cattle and cargo to be thrown overboard but the Lady Elgin broke apart and rapidly sank. Over 300 people would perish that night. The survivors were rescued by brave volunteers who risked their lives by entering the lake during the storm.

One such person was a young seminary student by the name of Edward Spencer. Spencer noticed a woman clinging to some wreckage far out in the waters. He took off his coat and swam out through the heavy waves, saving her life. Though exhausted after the effort, he returned to the lake to rescue another, after which he returned yet again. A total of seventeen times he swam into the raging waters, each time saving a life. The heroic effort that day took a permanent toll on his health, preventing him from going into the ministry.

Decades later, when the renowned preacher, RA Torrey, was relating those events in a sermon, someone called out that Edward Spencer himself was in the congregation. Torrey invited Spencer up to the platform to interview him. The white-haired man walked slowly toward the pulpit, to spirited applause. Torrey asked him if anything in particular stood out in his memory of that fateful day. His answer was disturbing…

“Only this, sir,” Spencer replied, “of the seventeen people I saved, not one of them ever thanked me.”

Let me ask you: do you think those seventeen people were grateful that their lives were saved? Of course they were. Yet none of them bothered to express that sentiment to the one who saved them. We should never make that mistake.

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