1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
You can be seated. Please turn
in your copy of the scriptures to 1 Thessalonians 5. Today,
we’ll look at another set of Christian commands or ending
exhortations, verses 16, 17, and 18. These are probably familiar
commands to you. Remember, as we prepare to read
God’s word, that often it is the case that the Apostle Paul
speaks in the first half of his letters in the indicatives. This
is who you are and what you have in Jesus. And then he gives imperatives. So rejoice, pray. This is who you are. So give
thanks in everything. And so we want to keep those
things in mind as we remember why we do what Christ commands. We do what he commands because
of what he has made us or remade us into through the powerful
work of the Spirit out of the merits of Jesus Christ. So 1
Thessalonians 5, 16, 17, and 18. Rejoice always, pray without
ceasing, Give thanks in all circumstances
for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. Pray with me. Lord, may the seed
be sown and may it all fall on good soil that is watered and
nurtured and hit by the sun and may it produce a hundredfold
in every one of us who hear it with joy and receive it with
thanksgiving, who take it seriously and put it into practice in our
lives so that one day you will come and you will reap a harvest,
a harvest of righteousness. Help us, we ask. Do not let the
seed fall on the path or among the rocks or upon the thorns. Keep us free from the cares of
the world. Keep us free from unbelief and
keep us free, especially from Satan, uh, who snatches that
seed. Uh, give us your grace. Now we
pray in Jesus mighty name. Amen. Every day, every moment
and every one of your lives, it seems we are pushing buttons. Uh, today we push buttons on
touchscreens. Uh, you push buttons in your
car, you push buttons on your microwave. I forget I’m supposed
to say mash, right? We mash buttons in the South
and potatoes. But we’re always button pressing.
I can remember as a kid being very curious, what’s this button
do? What’s that button do? When you push a button, behind
it is an electric signal, I suppose. And that electric signal goes
to a circuit board and that circuit board says if this button is
pushed, then this outcome will happen, right? You push your
thermostat up and it’s going to become hotter. You push your
thermostat down, it’s going to get colder. You press this button
on your dishwasher and it will heat it dry. You press this button
on the microwave and it reduces the power. You press this button
and it starts your engine. You press that button and it
changes the radio tune. And so we’re always pushing buttons
with an if this button is pushed, then this action will happen
sort of motherboard. We push buttons all the time
and like clockwork, things happen. But I wonder about our spiritual
lives when our buttons get pushed. Our buttons get pushed every
day by emotional things, by hard things, by overwhelming things. Our buttons get pushed every
day because we hear things, we see things, we feel things, we
think things. Things happen to us day by day.
Our buttons get pushed and instead of having a logic board that
just says, okay, this happened, I’ll do that, we have hearts
and souls. And I wonder what your heart
and soul does in response to your buttons getting pushed. If this happens in your life,
then what comes out? Jesus says, out of the overflow
of the heart, the mouth speaks. And so sometimes our buttons
get pushed and we, boy, we let it rip, right? We let it fly.
Somebody in the church recently showing me their boo-boo, they
smashed their finger. And my joke was, what’d you say?
Right? What’d you say? How did it go?
Our buttons get pushed all the time and if we are short-tempered
instead of long-suffering or we are not enjoy or peace or
patience or all those fruit of the spirits Fruits of the spirit
we sometimes can respond in different ways at different times. So when
the the Lord of heaven and earth gives me these things I What
is my response? What is my motherboard, my heart
and my soul, cause me to think and feel and do? And I think
what the Apostle Paul is going to show us from this passage
is that In these Christian life commands, these ending epistle
exhortations in Thessalonians, he’s gonna show us that as people
who are in Christ and live by the power of Christ, there are
certain things that we ought to do as we walk in the Lord
through life. And so you want to think today
about your natural responses, your natural spiritual responses
or impulses when things give way. Now, I know we’re still
being sanctified. I know sometimes we just get
overwhelmed. We have so many stressors in
life that we’re redlining. You know, we just, boy, we just
blow it sometimes. And then sometimes we’re at a
place of perfect peace. So all of us are at different
places, but we want to think for a few moments about what
ought to be. By the power of Christ, as a new creation, with
the Spirit at work and us being submissive, what ought to be?
Well, God gives us three things in this passage through Paul.
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks. And
notice the important attachment to give thanks in all circumstances,
all, not just the good ones. So let’s think about rejoice
always. When I was in seminary, I went
to a new campus of the school. They have seven or eight campuses
now, but mine was the third campus. And I was there when it was mostly
brand new. And so when they were seminary campus planting, they
called it, they brought in a lot of retired ministers A lot of
retired professors who had had a full career, but still had
something in them and they wanted to teach. So when I went to the
campus in Charlotte at Reform Seminary, we had a lot of older
guys and I think I really got the best education. For missions,
we had Will the Thrill Norton, at least that’s what we called
him. He was 95 years old. and for 40 some years, and he
was of that Wheaton college generation with Billy Graham and Elizabeth
Elliot and all, but Will Norton spent 40 years in the Congo.
Will Norton spent 40 years ministering. He lost his own children on the
mission field because of sickness. He went through all kinds of
physical and family and even spiritual battles because of
the work that the Lord called him to do. But old Will Norton
was an energetic man. Remember one time, 95 years old,
we went down to the JARS facility in Waxhaw. That’s the Jungle
Aviation and Radio Service. And we walked all around that
campus and he left all us young, just barely post-college kids,
he left us in the dust. Just trekking all around that
place. Well, Will Norton had this saying every time he saw
you. He had this big grin on his face. Mind you, 95 years
old, white-headed, white-bearded, the whole works. He would stick
his finger at you and say, have you got the joy? And that’s an
ancient Christian greeting. And he was carrying on that tradition.
Have you got the joy? In fact, when Jesus appears to
his disciples, his greeting to them, a lot of times it says
peace or something like that in our Bibles, it’s really joy. Hey, disciples, joy. And especially now, because here
I am, your risen savior. We just say, hey. or do the nod. What’s up? How you doing? Nice
to see you. But Christians used to greet one another with the
word joy. And so old Dr. Norton would say, have you got
the joy? And this oozed out of him. He
was a lifelong Christian, a lifelong servant. Yes, he had been through
some tough circumstances, but that was his saying, because
it was a lifelong cultivation. love for God, seeking first the
kingdom, and getting through what life gave him, and his natural
response was always, have you got the joy? Have you got the
joy? The Apostle Paul is going to
say a lot about joy in his life and ministry, and his joy is
often out of the context of suffering, out of the context of jail and
shipwreck and beatings and being run out of town and rejected
by his own nation. And so when you prize the Lord
Jesus Christ, when you live out of the blessings that we have
in him, all that he has bought, all that his spirit gives, all
that he’s provided through the church and the scripture, all
the fruit of the spirit in us, Our calling is to rejoice always. Be rejoicing always. We got joy because we’re saved. We get joy because we’re Christians,
and we need to get more joy. This is a command. If you aren’t
joyful, guess what you ought to do? Get joyful. If you don’t have much joy, what
should you do? You should get more. If you are in hard circumstances,
and perhaps you’re in Eeyore mode, You’re in complaint department
mode. God calls us to rejoice always. You know, what do we say? Life
gives you lemons, make lemonade. Life can give us some pretty
sour lemons. And yes, while the world says
make lemonade, I think what God calls us to do is to reflect
on Him. That’s what David does. In many
of the Psalms he writes, David’s in a really hard spot. Saul is
chasing him. Spears are flying at him. Other
nations want him dead. He has uprisings within his own
family with Absalom and half the nation follows Absalom because
he gives better judgments out of the gate of the palace and
on and on. And you fill in the blank for
yourself and your life. And what does David do? What
do other people in the scriptures do like Paul? or Joseph in prison. They think on God, they reflect
on his goodness, they remember his promises, and they say to
themselves, like Paul does in Romans 8, it’s gonna be all right. They can kill me, but they can’t
eat me, right? Paul says, what can separate
us from the love of God in Christ? And he lists all those things,
all those dark, deadly, dastardly things. Nothing can separate
us from the love of God in Christ. And so it doesn’t matter if the
world is falling apart. We can be joyful because God,
we can be joyful because Christ, we can be joyful because we are
in Jesus and have all those great blessings. Joy is often in the
scripture in the context of hardship. You know, we get a new car and
we think, oh great, got a new car. Joy, joy, joy. Then it gets
scratched. Oh, it was me, right? We do some retail therapy on
a Saturday and then we outgrow the clothes. Right? We buy something, you know, Apple
product, and we lose it, or we drop it and the screen breaks,
joy gone. But what God gives us is not retail therapy. What
God gives us is not momentary joy, it’s everlasting joy. And Paul has that. Think of him
and Silas in the Philippian jail. Think of the context of Thessalonians. Remember, Paul leaves on the
second missionary journey, has a little fuss with John Mark
and Barnabas, so they go off on their thing. So Paul and Silas,
they go off and swing through the Galatian churches. Great.
They want to swing through Asia. God says, no, they want to go
through Bithynia. And Paul has the dream, the vision,
don’t, don’t stay here, come to Macedonia. So he ministers
at Philippi. And then when he gets run off
from there, he goes to Berea, he goes to Athens and he goes
to Corinth. Oh yeah. And he swings through Thessalonica.
So now he’s writing back to the Thessalonians. But before he
went to the Thessalonian church, remember he went to Philippi
and that’s where God opened the hearts of many. And boy, what
joy that brought. Think of Jesus who says there’s
much joy in heaven when one comes to faith in Christ. And so Paul
has all this joy, but all of a sudden in Philippi, the Jewish
people get mad and say, we don’t like what you’re saying about
Messiah. And then they stir up the rabble in the city. And before
you know it, there’s a riot and Paul and Silas are thrown in
jail where they are beaten. And they’re spending the night
in jail, and guess what they’re doing? They’re singing and praising
God. And the Philippian jailer hears
this, takes note of it. And so when the jail is opened
and Paul and everybody there is still accounted for, he says,
what must I do to have what you have? Believe on the Lord Jesus
and you will have joy. See, joy is synonymous with Christianity. To be a Christian is to be joyful.
To be joyful is to be a Christian. You can’t have joy if you’re
not a Christian. And if you are a Christian without joy, something
is wrong. And yes, sometimes something is wrong. We get sad,
we get sick, we get depressed, we get cast down, and we need
to remember the Lord and all that he has given. So rejoice
always as you see the world through God. God-shaped lenses, God-shaped
glasses, rejoice always. And you say, what about my circumstances? You know, Paul was in jail, that
was Paul, he was the apostle. Well, if you flip back to Habakkuk,
we read chapter two, but if you flip over in Habakkuk chapter
three, at the end of Habakkuk three in verse 17, here’s what
Habakkuk says about having joy. He says, though the fig tree
should not blossom. Okay, that’s bad. Though there
be no fruit on the vines. Boy, that’s terrible, no wine.
Though the produce of the olive fail, there’s no life without
olive oil. And though the fields yield no food, or the flock be
cut off from the fold, and there be no herd in the stalls. I mean,
that’s the grocery store raided and emptied, right? He says,
yet I will rejoice in the Lord, and I will take joy in the God
of my salvation. You may have nothing in this
world, but you have God. and you can have joy. And he
says, God, the Lord is my strength, and he makes my feet like the
deer’s. He makes me tread on my high
places. That’s our God, and he can give
you joy. Well, the second Christian command
is to pray without ceasing. Now, this is the funny one. You
know, I can’t drive down the road with my eyes closed. No,
you shouldn’t, because other people should be praying without
ceasing, because you’re reading the Bible too literally, right?
Pray without ceasing. Well, what is prayer? Prayer
is the offering up of God, the desires of our heart, for things
agreeable to his will, with thanksgiving and in the name of the Lord Jesus.
And so sometimes our prayers are private. Sometimes they are
with and for others. Sometimes they’re within the
church, led publicly, but we join our hearts and minds. And
then we live a life of prayer. You know, every moment of every
day, we have things that take our breath away. We have things
that make us sad, things that make us hurt. We have things
that cause us concern and we should always be of the mind
to pray when necessary. We drive down the road and we
see, you know, the proverbial homeless person and we think,
how do I avert my eyes and not have to give them a handout?
We should pray for their souls. We should pray that their daily
needs would be met. We see a wreck or hear an ambulance or Ride
past the hospital, Lord, help those who serve and help those
who are being served. And on and on, you hear the news,
you should pray for Israel, you hear the news, you should pray
for the things going on, and we should pray without ceasing.
Yes, there’s times to get on our knees. Yes, there’s times
to be in church. Yes, there’s times to pray with
and for others. But our mindset, our heart set,
should be a life of prayer as you go. Easier said than done,
right? We’ve rotted our brains with
noise. We have to have noise. We have to have our phones. We
have to have info and noise coming at us. And so our minds never
really rest to think and ponder. And it’s something, pray without
ceasing, that we should cultivate. Think of Exodus 17 where Israel
is out in the wilderness. They’ve left Egypt, they’ve left
Pharaoh, the sea has swallowed up Pharaoh and his army, the
dead are at the bottom of the sea. And Israel is in the wilderness
preparing the tabernacle, preparing the law and preparing their hearts
and their tribes to go into the promised land and then conquest
that land and take it as their promised possession that was
promised to Abraham back in Genesis 12. And in Exodus 17, we get
an account of the Israelites fighting against the Amalekites.
And the Amalekites are a nasty people. Israel shouldn’t be able
to beat them. But how does Israel beat everybody?
How do they take care of all the nasty ites? God fights with
them and for them. So up on the mountain above the
battle, there’s Moses and Moses is praying. And it’s told to
us in that story that his hands are up. And as long as his hands
are up in prayer, the Israelites prevail over the Amalekites.
He’s praying without ceasing, but when his hands fall, the
Amalekites began to prevail over Israel. And so as he’s watching
this scene unfold below him, he realizes hands up in prayer
means success, hands down, because of weariness, failure. And so Aaron gets on one side
and Ur gets on the other. They sit Moses on a rock and
they hold up his hands with him and Israel prevails. And that’s
what Sunday evening prayer is like. That’s what when you’re
with somebody and they say, oh, my heart is overwhelmed, I have
no joy, you pray with and for them. And you make your own prayers. We pray in church, we pray without
ceasing. Our hands are up and we’re prevailing
in the battle. And some say, well, prayer, you
know, God’s sovereign. He knows it beforehand, why should
I pray? We pray because he says to. We also pray because He’s
sovereign, and God in His sovereignty uses our prayers. Our prayers
do not cajole God. And our prayers, though as persuasive
as they may be, do not change His decree or will. But his decree
is firm and it is fixed in his final. And guess how he executes
it or works it out. He works it out through creation
and in natural processes. He works it out through his providence,
his wisdom and giving what is needed. But he also works out
his will through your prayers. And the Puritans have this wonderful
old saying that when God wants to get to work among his people,
he sets them praying. And so when we are a little prayer
people, I don’t think we can say we limit God because God
is a debtor to no man. But perhaps we need to get with
the program and seek his face and he will stir in our hearts
to pray for a revival or elections or health or whatever and our
hands will go up and we will prevail because God uses the
prayers of his people to get his work done. A couple things
about prayer. Acts, A-C-T-S, adoration, confession,
thanksgiving, and supplication. Those four things are good things
to pray as you read your Bible. How can I adore God? As you read
your Bible, what sin can I confess? As you adore God, what thanksgiving
can you offer? As you pray and read your Bible,
what supplications can I get? And you can get a little piece
of paper and four squares, and you can write all these things
out as you read your Bible, and you can read it and pray intelligently
and effectively. You know, remember our brains
are so messed up because of screens and noise. And so sometimes we
just need a Bible, a pen and a piece of paper to be effective. And so as you read and as you
pray, that’s a suggestion. Or how about the Lord’s prayer,
our father who art in heaven and all the rest we prayed. Well,
you can add to those, not add to the scripture, but you can
pray our father in heaven. I thank you that you revealed
yourself to me. I thank you that though you’re up there, you’ve
come down low in your son and revealed yourself to me. Hallowed
be your name. Lord, I’ve not worshiped you
or ascribed glory. There’s Psalm 29 from this morning.
I haven’t given you the glory to your name, and so forgive
me for that, but I do want to honor you and hallow your name. You can hang on Lord’s Prayer,
additional biblical, godly, heartfelt request. And so you can get to
praying a little easier than you think. There’s good books
on prayer. There’s Matthew Henry’s A Way
to Pray. He’s got prayers for the sick, prayers for our government,
prayers for New Christians, I mean, on through, you can get Matthew
Henry’s A Way to Pray, and he prays the Bible, and you have
that at your disposal. You can get wonderful things
like the Puritan devotional book, or one of the great ones is Keddie’s
Prayers of the Bible. It’s a series of Wednesday night
messages before a prayer meeting. It’s really about all the prayers
of the Bible. It’s really thick and wonderful. and our folks
from the Reformed Presbyterian background, I think know well
of that. So pray without ceasing. Make it your life habit to pray.
Yes, in church, yes, with and for others, yes, in private,
but also as you go about life. And then the third thing, give
thanks in all circumstances. We sing the song from time to
time. Thanksgiving is coming. Count your blessings, name them
one by one, and you will see what the Lord It is that simple,
isn’t it? Give thanks in all circumstances.
The A, adoration, confession. What’s the T? Thanksgiving. It’s
good to read and to write and to have some quiet. And those
thanksgivings will flow. Why is it that when we’re just
kind of quiet, passive, and grumpy, the ingratitude flows? It just
does, doesn’t it? It’s like the rot of our heart
pusses out. Like a sore and so we have to
work at being thankful giving thanks in all circumstances now
about that all circumstances It doesn’t say the happy ones.
It doesn’t say the Friday afternoons at fives It doesn’t say on the
beach with your feet in the sand. It doesn’t say give thanks when
things are going great Give thanks in all circumstances like Paul
in the Philippian jail or like Joseph after his brother sold
him to Potiphar and he was 10 years in prison, forgotten by
the cupbearer, but the Lord used him. And in a Romans 8.28 way,
what did Joseph figure at the end of his life that was full
of hard providences? He figured what his brothers
meant for evil, God meant for good. And so we can give thanks
in all circumstances because we know God, we love God, he’s
revealed himself to us, and we can interpret this world when
our buttons get pushed. What does our logic board, what
does our heart and our soul say when our buttons get pushed?
I know God, I know his ways. I know this world is fallen and
broken and full of injustices and sicknesses and heartaches
and all the rest. But as I interpret it, I know that God will make
all things new and that he will use my present hardships for
his everlasting glory and my eternal good. So we give thanks
in all circumstances. How do you do that? Lord, I thank
you that my brother sold me to the Midianite traders. That’s
a doozy. Lord, I thank you that I’m now
working in Potiphar’s house where his wife is chasing me. Lord,
I thank you that I’m in jail now and the drip over my head
at least isn’t hitting my pillow. Lord, I thank you that, I mean,
that sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it? But what do we know about
God? What do we know about our circumstances? What do we know
about creation and fall and redemption? And all of a sudden your mindset
shifts. And so when our buttons get pushed,
our theological synapses begin to fire, don’t they? And the
more we know God, the more we know scripture, the more we know
our little bits and shards of theology, our response gets better
and better. And we can say with the great
hymn writer, whatever my God ordains is right. whatever comes my way. And our
passage ends with this wonderful phrase, for this is the will
of God in Christ Jesus for you. Aren’t we always looking for
the will of God? Everybody says, oh, I’m just seeking God’s will.
Like it’s some mystery that floats down on the clouds and lands
in front of us on a soft angelic pillow and we say, oh, there
it is. Do you know the will of God is actually pretty long clear
most of the time? You know, no other gods. I mean,
you have to think on that one. No graven images, no taking God’s
name in vain, don’t remember the Sabbath, honor parents, don’t
murder, adultery, steal, lie, covet. I mean, you start going,
oh, rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks. You begin
to see the will of God is pretty doggone clear. It’s the wisdom
issues that we get a little fuzzy on. Should I take this job or
that job? You know, should I brush my hair from the right or the
left? I mean, that’s sort of a joke, but it’s the wisdom issues
that get us a little out of whack. But God is pretty clear. And,
you know, while we’re waiting for the wheel to float down on
clouds, it’s right here in the scriptures. And so three things
you can do this week, and they’ll keep you doggone busy, right?
Rejoice, pray, and give thanks. That’ll keep you pretty busy.
Next week, come back for some more commands and add them up,
and you’ll be living by God’s grace, God’s spirit, the Christian
life. This is the will of God in Christ
for you. We sometimes think the will of
God has to be all sparkly and big, you know, go on a mission
trip. You know, go save the whatever people of the unknown tribe.
Well, what about just loading the dishwasher? Right? What about reading your Bible,
praying and giving thanks? Oh, we want something more fantastic
than that. Well, start with the un-fantastic stuff that’s actually
right, wonderful. Remember what Jesus says to the
Pharisees. He says, you know, you tithe and you bring your
mint and your dill and your cumin and all the rest and you make
your tithe of that, yet you forget the weightier matters of the
law. And sometimes, well, a lot of
times we minor on the majors and we major on the minors and
God calls us to be biblically balanced. And so we should order
our lives and order the biblical commands in such a way that we
do the basics. We respond the right way. Well, some of you might get in
your car today. This is how you’ll have to be thankful in all circumstances.
And you’ll press the button. And guess what? It’s gotten cold. It’s time for a new battery.
And you’re stuck out in Sherp Street because your battery’s
dead. Oh, Lord, what have I done to deserve this? Give thanks
in all circumstances. You’ll probably meet a AAA person that
needed your smile. Or perhaps a diagnosis sends
you to a clinic you don’t ordinarily go, Lord, why did you do this
to me? Maybe that the nurse comes to faith because of your faith. and the words God gives you to
say to them. You never know what God is up to. So give thanks
in all circumstances, but you’ll push the button in your car and
something behind the dash will not do its job. And so you’ll
take it in, they’ll hook their computer up to it and they’ll
tell you what it’s gonna be. And then you’ll be giving thanks
again in all circumstances, right? Because they tell you what the
bill is gonna be. But what about in your life? You’re gonna have
some buttons pushed this week. It’s just the way, isn’t it?
And it’s my prayer that this has reprogrammed you. so that
you will respond in a godly way, giving thanks, rejoicing, and
praying without ceasing. Let’s ask that God would make
it so. Lord, we affirm who you are,
what you’ve done, and what we are, and what’s been done for
us in Christ. We know we are not finished. We are new creations, and we
got so much that needs to be done in our lives. So we ask
for your help. We ask for your grace. We ask
for your blessings. Do program us now. according
to your holy will, by the power of the spirit, so that we live
and we pray and we praise and we respond in all the right ways
for your glory, for the witness of Christ, and for our own good. Help us, we ask in Jesus’ mighty
name, amen.