Word of Salvation – Vol.35 No.06 – February 1990
Giving Thanks In Everything
Sermon by Rev. J. Haverland on 1Thess.5:16-18
Readings: Psalm 147 (OT); Philippians 4:4-13 (Law); 1Thess 5:12-28
I wonder how your week has been. How did things go at work?
Or at home?
What was it like at school?
Maybe things were a bit tough.
At home one of your children got you up again and again one night.
Perhaps you had an argument with your wife. Or you couldn’t finish an assignment for English.
However your week went, all of us get quite a jolt when we read these words of our text! They seem so unrealistic!
Who can rejoice always!? Is it possible to pray without ceasing? Are we expected to give thanks in everything?!
Sure we can rejoice when we have good health and a happy family. We can pray when we feel close to God in church. We can give thanks when we get good marks at school, and when the dinner works out well.
But how can you rejoice when your family is tearing apart? And are we expected to pray even when we don’t feel like it? And who can give thanks after just failing a test, or when you’ve just burnt your roast dinner and you hear your guests coming up the drive!?
What is God expecting us to do here?
One of our great problems in looking at the Bible is that we tend to read it focusing on ourselves and our own experience.
I can rejoice when things go well for me. I can pray when I feel like praying. It is easy to give thanks when God blesses me.
Our attention is on ourselves and on how we are doing. It is a self-centred focus.
This is partly a result of our own sin. But it is also partly a result of our culture. We live in a world of secular humanism. The entire concentration of our NZ/Aust. culture is on man himself. You do what you want to do. You do what you think is best. You look after yourself, please yourself, help yourself. You seek your own satisfaction. You aim for self- fulfilment.
But when we come to the Bible we find that the focus is on someone else. The focus is on God and our neighbour.
You see that in these verses. As Paul winds up this letter to the Thessalonians he turns their attention to their neighbour in vs 12-15. And then he focuses their attention on God in vs.6-19.
What Paul is really saying is: Rejoice in God. Pray to God. Give thanks to God.
He mentions these three things because they are basic to our relationship with the Lord.
Be joyful, be prayerful, be thankful…!
- Be Joyful
The difficulty with this command is that we do not always feel very joyful. Instead of being on top of the world we feel irritable and angry. We are often weighed down by problems and worries.
The Christians Paul was writing to knew all about this. There were some tensions and strains in the church. There was also persecution from the outside; from the Jews who were jealous of the church.
It wasn’t easy for them to feel joyful.
But Paul is not commanding a feeling of joy. He is referring to an attitude of joy.
Christian joy doesn’t mean that we are always smiling, or always feeling happy. It is rather a peace of mind, a spirit of calm, a tranquillity of heart, even in the midst of troubles.
If our joy was based on how we feel it would come and go. It would go up and down like a roller coaster.
But spiritual joy isn’t based on what we feel but on what we know. On what we know about God. “Rejoice in the Lord”, Paul says to the Philippians.
Rejoice in God. In who He is. In what He has done for us. In how Jesus has saved us. In the relationship we have with Him. We need to get away from a self-centred focus and look at God.
This is what makes it possible to rejoice always. Our joy isn’t dependent on ourselves and our situation and our circumstances. It is dependent on who we are in Christ Jesus, and that doesn’t change. No matter what I am going through, Jesus is still there.
This is a joy that gives us a firm footing in difficult times. It gives us an anchor hold when our marriage or family is going through troubles. This is our refuge and our strength when we are depressed and lonely.
It helps us to focus away from ourselves and our ego and towards God and His will.
If we keep this is mind we may be “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing”.
But maybe you still think this is expecting too much. Perhaps deep down you still wonder whether this is really possible. How do we do this?
The answer comes in the next little clause – these three belong together.
- Pray without ceasing
The way to joy is through prayer.
Joy comes from focusing on God. Prayer is important because it is looking to God.
Prayer gets our attention away from ourselves and centres it on God. Prayer breaks us out of our introspection and makes us look up to Jesus sitting on the right hand of the Father.
Prayer brings us into contact with God. It keeps us in touch with Him. It is our line of communication with Him.
We are often inclined to look at ourselves and our problems. But this stifles and smothers our Christian joy.
The way to be joyful is to be prayerful.
And the way to rejoice always is to pray without ceasing!
There are always things that will disturb our joy. There is always something there to rattle us. The words people say. The events that take place. The things our children do. All of these disrupt our calm and our peace.
So if we are going to retain our joy, we need to pray without ceasing. This obviously doesn’t mean “non-stop prayer”. There are times when we have to give our mind to other things. We have to concentrate on that book, or read that letter, add up those figures, listen to that person, or work on that programme.
What Paul means here is that the lines of communication with God should always be open. That God should never be far from our thoughts. One writer comments that “spontaneous prayer ought to punctuate our daily schedule.” Prayer ought to be a constantly recurring activity.
We all have a lot to learn here. God is often far from our minds. We go for long periods of time without even thinking about him. Our minds idle away the hours without even considering prayer.
We need to learn to pray. To use the moments of the day to turn our hearts to God.
We don’t have to say much. A word of praise, a sense of closeness, an acknowledgement of his presence. We can do this while driving to work, when we are shopping, washing the dishes, or vacuuming the house, having lunch, mowing the lawns, or making a cup of coffee.
Jesus has given us an open door into the presence of God. We can come boldly and confidently to the throne of grace. Let us be prayerful.
- Let us be thankful
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, in everything give thanks.
Paul has gone from joy to prayer. It is interesting that he now moves from prayer to thanksgiving. This is because one of the most important aspects of prayer is the giving of thanks.
The authors of the Catechism have captured this when they tell us that “prayer is the most important part of the thankfulness God requires of us”.
Most of us can thank God when things are going well. True, we often forget, but when we are reminded we are glad to do it.
But can we thank God at other times as well? Can we give thanks in everything!? In all circumstances!?
And again we might wonder if this is realistic. Do we have to thank God when our car breaks down, when our wife dies, when children are abused and beaten about at home, when we fail our exams or lose our job?
Does God really want us to give thanks even at these times?
But notice that Paul says “in” everything, not “for” everything.
Some Christians believe we should thank God “for” everything. But that can’t be right.
That would mean that we would be thanking God for evil. We would be expressing gratitude for the terrible and horrible things that go on.
It would also mean that we would be denying our own emotions. We would be faking thanksgiving. When we see suffering we will feel sad. When we experience injustice and oppression we feel angry. When a loved one dies we will want to cry, and so we should.
What does he mean then when he says: In everything give thanks?
Paul is referring to the wider perspective of faith. In that specific situation our reaction will be one of fear or anger or tears.
But as we stand back from that, we can be thankful. As we look at the wider picture we can see that God is in control. As we adopt the viewpoint of faith we can see that “all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purpose. (Rom.8:28). We can see that “God is at work in us both to will and to work for His good pleasure.” (Philip.2:13).
You see this going on in the life of Jesus. When Jesus stood before the tomb of his friend Lazarus, he wept. But then he also thanked God because He knew that God had a greater purpose in this death.
This can be true of us too. As we see this broader picture we can be thankful. We are able to give thanks in all circumstances because we are looking to God in faith.
And this is what we ought to be doing, for this is God’s will for us in Christ Jesus. (vs.18).
This is what God wants us to do. This is how He wants us to live. Joy and prayer and thanksgiving are to be the marks of our life with God. These are to be characteristics of the Christian.
Now this isn’t something that we can put on. This isn’t something that is only skin deep.
These characteristics go to the heart of our relationship with God. They touch the core of our life with him. They deal with the deepest motives of our hearts.
These things are only possible for the person who is “in Christ Jesus”. The only person who can live like this is the Christian, the person who knows Jesus. Who knows him, deeply and personally. Who is being transformed by His Spirit.
These are the marks of a person who loves the Lord Jesus and who lives in Him.
May these be the marks of your life and mine. May God help us to: Rejoice – always. To pray without ceasing. And to give thanks – in everything.
AMEN